Jane’s face melted into a slight frown, a look of curiosity on her mask. She took a few steps toward him. “I can tell you’re not lying. What are you talking about?”
Her response surprised Tick, and something told him that the only reason she didn’t fly off the handle was because she already suspected the truth. He played for that angle. “You have to know that things really went screwy when you tried to destroy the Fifth Reality with your dark matter Blade of Shattered Hope. Well, things are worse than you think. A lot worse. You made the Barriers unstable and ignited a whole bunch of bad stuff that’s gonna end up wiping us all away. We have only a few hours until we’ll all be dead—thanks to you.”
Jane didn’t answer for a long time, her eyes concentrating on Tick, her hand gripping the odd staff. Tick wondered if maybe it just looked like wood but was actually something else. She’d called it a Barrier Staff . . .
She finally spoke. “How could you know these things, Atticus? What kind of trick—”
“It’s not a trick!” Tick yelled. “You’re supposed to be the grown-up here! Act like it! The Haunce rescued me from you—and it told me all this stuff. Your Blade of Shattered Hope did something really bad to the Realities, and we have one chance to fix it.”
Her red mask sharpened and tightened into a fit of rage; she visibly shook.
Tick knew he had to save himself, and quickly. “I’m sorry—just please listen to me! If I’m lying, you can do whatever you want to me, I swear. I promise I won’t even touch Chi’karda. Just please listen.”
Womp.
There it was again, the first time he’d noticed the energy pulse in several minutes. Jane had been right—he was getting used to it.
“You dare stand there,” Jane said, “looking at me with that pathetic little innocent face of yours, and tell me this? That the Haunce visited you? Spoke to you? You expect me to believe such nonsense? You almost had me until you took it that far. Your capacity for evil was proven quite well back in the Fourth, but to lie like that . . . amazing. Do you even have a conscience?”
Tick sucked in a few dry breaths, frustrated into silence. He wouldn’t have guessed she’d believe him right away, but her tone and arrogance made it seem as if she wouldn’t even consider the truth. He finally snagged some words and forced them out.
“Seriously, Ja—Mistress Jane? You’re seriously going to act like that and not even hear me out? Are you so full of yourself that you’d risk the whole universe?” He threw his arms up then slapped the sides of his legs. “Unbelievable. Fine—do what you want. The Haunce’ll be coming here soon anyway. Maybe you’ll believe it.”
Jane walked toward him again, not stopping until she stood only a foot or two away. Her yellow robe glowed in the firelight; her now-stoic mask shimmered and glistened. Her scarred, metal-pocked hand gripped the Staff tightly, the bones seemingly ready to burst through the taut skin.
“Look into my eyes, boy,” she whispered, a sandy croak of sound.
“I already am,” Tick replied, standing as straight as he could and holding onto the small amount of courage he’d scrounged up from within. “All I can see are little black holes with no life in ’em.”
“You . . .” She made an odd squeak like someone holding back tears. “If it weren’t for you, things would be so different. I could’ve stopped Chu and used his technology for good. I wouldn’t be scarred and hideous from head to toe. Do you have any idea how hard it is to lead when people can’t even glance at you? Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to look like a monster? And if it weren’t for you, the Blade would’ve functioned perfectly, and we’d be on our way to a Utopian Reality. But no, you’ve ruined everything. You’ve ruined my . . .”
She stopped and shook her head slightly. “No. I won’t say that. You’ve made things difficult—no doubt about it. But you haven’t ruined everything. You haven’t ruined my life. Do you know why, Atticus? Because I won’t give up. I’ll overcome it all, and in the end, I . . . will . . . win. I promise you.”
Tick momentarily lost every bit of hatred for the woman. Every bit of frustration and angst. The only thing he felt was pity. And the familiar pang of guilt for what he’d done to her.
“Mistress Jane,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did in Chu’s building. I promise I didn’t mean to. I swear.”
“You’re sorry, you promise, you swear. Too little, too late, as they say.” She started to turn from him.
Tick reached out and grabbed a fold of her robe. She spun and knocked his hand away, glaring at him. “Don’t . . . touch . . . me!”
Tick stepped back, trying to shrink into the wall behind him. A spark of Chi’karda flared inside him, but he pushed it away. Something about that tall staff gripped in her hand terrified him. Plus, this was no time to battle her—he had to win her over.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, trying to throw as much humility into his voice as possible.
Jane touched the top edge of her staff to Tick’s head, then pulled it back. “I’m not a fool, Atticus. I’ll listen to what you have to say. But first, you will come and see the Factory. I want you to see my gift to science. I want you to see me change the world.”
And with that, she turned away and set off down the tunnel.
Chapter 45
Splitting Up
One second, Lisa had been sitting on the cold, hard floor of the magical nowhere place, Kayla gripped in her arms. The next, she felt a tingle shoot down her back, and their surroundings changed completely. From light to dark, from vast and open to close quarters. She sat on something soft. Kayla was still in her lap, Mom on her left, Dad on her right.
“We’re home,” her dad said, squirming to stand up. “We’re home!”
Lisa knew he was right before he’d said it the second time. The faintest glimmer of dawn—or twilight?—shone through the curtains of their living room windows. She saw the worn-out armchair her mom always sat in to wait for them after school, the piano, the crooked arrangement of family photos on the wall.
Dad stood in the middle of the room, slowly turning with his arms outstretched like that lady in the wildflower-strewn mountain field in The Sound of Music. Though he looked a lot more ridiculous. Lisa laughed, which sent Kayla into a fit of giggles.