Loremaster Read online

  She changed into Connie Cobblestone.

  We were too late. As fast as Gruffy was, he wasn’t going to reach her in time—

  But Darthorn had figured it out. He shoved Connie up above the lava in that split second before he started to sink.

  Gruffy swooped low and plucked Connie from Darthorn’s arms. He flew us to the edge of the bubbling lava lake. Thankfully, the volcano had stopped shooting at the ground. The spout was only dripping, and the lava lake wasn’t growing anymore.

  Gruffy laid Connie down on the warm ground. I hopped off his back, helped André dismount, then went to Connie’s side. “Connie?”

  She shook her head, blinked up at me, confused. “I had a vision,” she whispered. “I saw a girl on fire.”

  “What was she like?”

  “She understands fire, and she would never let it hurt anyone.” Her voice was tremulous, no longer a monotone.

  “She’s you,” I whispered. “That’s you.”

  “But what I did—”

  “What Agatha did wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong, and you don’t have to be her anymore. You stood up for those you love. You were braver than most adults were during that horrible time. That’s why you’re Flicker.”

  “All the time?” she asked. A flush rose up her pale cheeks and a warm orange glow lit her eyes.

  “All the time,” I said.

  The glow spread to her hair, to her shoulders, and down. In a flash, Flicker appeared where Connie had been. She jumped to her feet. Her lava hair ran fast, and her dress flared with yellow, orange and red flames. It had flame lace at the cuffs and hem, and it was deeper red than before. The Skitterspark danced happily, bouncing around her shoulders.

  “It’s a whole new world when you get a new outfit, isn’t it?” I said, smiling.

  She cocked her head, appraising me. “The mirror thing,” she said. “Your idea?”

  “I have them every now and then.”

  Flicker held out her fist and I bumped it. She splayed her fingers and said, “Blow it up.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Where I Do Math

  “So,” Jimmy said from behind us. “Was it all a trick? Or was she just crazy as a loon?”

  We spun around to see Jimmy and his entourage. They walked down a solid lava stairway he had made with the spinner. The stairway became a runway when it touched the lake, extending conveniently all the way to us from the side of the mountain.

  The ground shook, another aftershock from me abusing my power. The upside-down mountain palace dropped stones and drips of lava. Hot down here. Hot up there. Hot everywhere. What I wouldn’t give for a snow cone.

  The floating octopus that had hovered around Jimmy the first time I’d met him had returned. Jimmy’s “Octo-gone” quietly pumped inky blackness into the air. It shrouded the group of them in a drifting backdrop of black. The entire sky was boiling red, ripped open, a giant gash of a reminder for me to take things one step at a time.

  Well, I wasn’t scared now. I knew what I needed to do. But I was a little sad. I didn’t like what was coming, but there was nothing else to do. To win, I had to give Jimmy what he wanted.

  Yeah. Do the math on that one.

  I’d like to imagine that Jimmy would be surprised by how it was all going to turn out. But no, he wouldn’t. He would consider it his just due.

  “Connie told me the hourglass was behind that door,” Jimmy said. “But she lied.”

  “Picked up on that, did you?

  Flicker glanced at me. Her eyes burned. “Blow it up?”

  I put a hand on her wrist. “Not this time.”

  “Doolivanti,” Gruffy said, his haunches lowering, ready to launch.

  “No,” I said. They were all ready to fight, to save me, but they couldn’t help me this time.

  Jimmy pointed at my glowing hand, which I hadn’t thought to cover up. I closed my fist, too late.

  “You’re going to give that to me,” Jimmy said. “And I’ll let you leave the Wishing World for the last time. I’ll even let all of your cartoon characters live.”

  “In a cage?”

  “Be smart, Lorelei. If you don’t make this easy, I’m going to hang you in my throne room so everyone can see what happens when they try to stop me. Last time, all I had was my Octo-gone. And you had Vella Wren on your side. This time, you’ve got a griffon, a broken Flimflam, your dumb brother, and your crazy fire girl. I have three Doolivantis and all the power of Vella Wren’s spinner. You’re outmatched.”

  “Didn’t it used to be four Doolivantis?” I taunted him, using my most smug voice. I needed his reaction. I didn’t see Jayla, and I worried about whether she’d escaped, or if he’d done something awful to her.

  He clenched his teeth, and that was the best thing I’d seen all day. If the thought of Jayla made him angry, that meant Jayla got away. Good. All the pieces were on the board where I could see them.

  It’s your turn to get it all, Jimmy. I hope you enjoy it.

  “Get her,” he shouted.

  Lashtail jumped onto the cracked lava ground and sprinted toward me. The Octo-gone vanished into its ink, taking Licorice Man and Blue Blobby Bobby with him. They would appear behind me, I had no doubt, but not before I’d done what needed to be done.

  It was simple, really. And sad. But it was, in the end, for the best. I just wished I could think of another way. . . . But it didn’t matter what I wished anymore. It was too late for that.

  I lifted my pen and wrote on the air: Jimmy got everything he wanted.

  Thirty

  Jimmy’s Story

  “Get her,” Jimmy yelled, and his friends jumped forward. Lorelei pulled out her pen and wrote on the air. The spinner jumped off his wrist like it had been poked with a stick. His whole body tingled and the air warbled, but Jimmy reached down and grabbed the spinner immediately.

  Hah! You’ll have to do better than that, Lore-lie, he thought.

  Jimmy’s Octo-gone vanished from his side and appeared next to her in a cloud of black, two tentacles wrapping around her wrist and hauling her back. Her pen spun into one of the lava rivers and vanished in a flash of flame. She opened her mouth, shocked, then the tentacles wrapped her up tight. No pen. No hands. No big mouth. No hope. She was done.

  “Bring her to me,” Jimmy shouted. With Lorelei out of the mix, the rest of them would fall. Lashtail had beaten stupid Theron once, and he was already doing it again. Licorice Man had the griffon tied up and was already wrapping him in the constrictor net they’d made. No way the bird would get out of that, even as big as he was now.

  Blobman globbed the toucan with a perfect shot and brought the bird to the ground. Of course, Jimmy had never been afraid of the toucan. It never did anything except talk.

  Flicker threw fire at Jimmy, but he knew all her tricks. He used the spinner to make sure the fire never reached him. Blobman rose up behind her and hit her with a chunk of rock. And just like that, she was down. Lurk tied her up with chains that couldn’t be burned through.

  Done and done. Yes. This was exactly how Jimmy had pictured it.

  Except for the mouse. They couldn’t find the stupid thing. Jimmy hated that mouse. But the little rodent would come back to try to save his friends. When he did, Jimmy was going to personally step on him.

  And just like that, the fight was over. All of Lorelei’s remaining friends were bound, caged or unconscious.

  Jimmy had his Octo-gone hold Lorelei still while he plucked the hourglass from her hand. This was the last piece. Jimmy was now the official ruler of the Wishing World.

  He had his servants bring everyone to the throne room in the volcano, where he created a bridge out of cooled lava rock and, using the spinner, expanded the island in the center. He wasn’t sure exactly how the hourglass worked yet, but he’d have plenty of time to figure that out.

  He stuck Flicker in a big glass jar next to his throne like a captured firefly. At first, he wanted to kill the griffon, but instead, he put it
and the toucan in a cage next to Lorelei, just close enough so that they could all see each other. He chained Lorelei up from the ceiling and let her hang over the lava.

  Jimmy sat down in his throne. Finally! He had her contained. He’d outsmarted her, outmaneuvered her, outclassed her. She couldn’t twist his dreams anymore. She’d never take away what was his ever again.

  He wanted to feel exultant, but there was a cold spot in his belly. He wanted to ignore it, but he couldn’t. Olysseus the Hate Man had showed Jimmy how to take the spinner, how to defeat Vella Wren. His price would come due soon.

  Jimmy had already paid the Hate Man half of what he’d asked for: Vella Wren. He’d whisked her away to his realm of rage. But Jimmy didn’t really care about that. Vella had stacked the deck in Lorelei’s favor. She could rot in the Hate Man’s dungeons. But the Hate Man also wanted a piece of the Wishing World. “Just a little kingdom,” he had said, where he could go back and forth between here and his Hate Sphere. He thought Jimmy was stupid. He thought Jimmy didn’t know about building power and taking over.

  Olysseus wanted the Wishing World for himself.

  Lorelei struggled and glared at Jimmy. She didn’t say anything, didn’t shout at him to let her go. With the spinner, the hourglass, and Lorelei’s power, Jimmy could turn the Hate Man away.

  Jimmy took a deep breath. But not right now. He’d done what he had to do and he’d got what he wanted. He’d think about the Hate Man tomorrow.

  Today was for celebrating. He forced a smile at Lorelei.

  “I win,” he said.

  Thirty-One

  Sandbox Paradox

  You win, I thought, and I looked at the big snowglobe in my hand.

  Okay, so there wasn’t actually any snow. Maybe flakes of ash from the lava and fire. I watched Jimmy leaning forward and grinning like a skull at the fake Lorelei inside the globe. He had her suspended in chains over the lava of Flicker’s throne room, just like he said he would. Just like he wanted. His perfect story.

  Check.

  Look at me, rockin’ the Vella juju.

  The idea came to me when I saw Connie’s story in her mind. She had believed in her nightmare so much she’d made it real, trapped herself in her own little mental snowglobe that showed her with Agatha’s face over and over. Her terror and anger and guilt had all balled up and created Agatha. And if she could do that, surely all of Jimmy’s anger and hatred and desire could ball up and create something for him. I couldn’t actually stop him from trying to dominate the Wishing World. I’d have to tear the sky open to do it. But according to Vella, as long as I was helping someone else’s story, helping them realize their dream, it helped the Wishing World.

  If you’re going to dream, dream big. Why not create a whole new world?

  So I created Jimmy’s perfect dream world, and I stuck it inside a globe I named the Doofus Globe. I filled it with all the characters Jimmy needed to play out his fantasy. Jimmy could rage and destroy to his heart’s content, and the only things he’d ever actually destroy were his own imaginings.

  At first, I thought it was going to be hard, like Atlas-lifting-a-whole-new-planet kind of hard. But Jimmy’s imagination just ran with it, and all I had to do was encourage, shape, and stuff it in a globe. It’s amazing how easy it is to convince somebody of what they want to believe. And the Wishing World could make it—could make anything—real. Jimmy had envisioned how it would go, and he never once thought about the things that might have broken his illusion like, say, how his story connected to anyone else’s story. That would have created huge holes that might have made him question, but it never occurred to him. Score one for absolute selfishness. The Doofus Globe practically created itself. It happened in a snap.

  Now he could kill me again and again, and I’d never feel it. He could hang me in his throne room, throw rocks at me. He could play it and replay it in his own little sandbox paradox, and the rest of us wouldn’t have to put up with his deadly tantrums.

  Jimmy was all alone in his perfect world. Okay, I admit it. It made me a little sad, too. It felt like something he would do, not me. I had stuck him in a cage just like he did to my parents, except he couldn’t see the bars.

  But he’d killed Vella. So if I thought about it a little more, I felt less sad.

  I held up the little metallic spider, which I’d knocked out of his hand just before the illusion sucked him into the globe. It crawled down my finger and rested comfortably on my wrist just above the hourglass glow.

  I watched the smug, teeny-tiny Jimmy in the Doofus Globe, sitting on his throne.

  “And that’s enough of you,” I said and stuffed the globe in my satchel. I knew exactly where to put it.

  Epilogue

  When I got home, I put the Doofus Globe on my shelf, right next to where I kept my feather necklace when I wasn’t wearing it, and the mirror that we used to contact Gruffy. According to Mom and Dad, we’d only been gone for an afternoon, but they’d been worried sick. When Mom caught us sneaking in through the back door, she grounded us for another week right on the spot. She said we were in hot water, big time.

  “Could we be in cold water instead?” I asked.

  That turned our two-week grounding into three weeks, and I got a sock in the arm from Theron. Double “Ow!” with a bruise on top. I’d rather have another week of grounding than one Theron punch.

  It didn’t turn out too badly, though. Jayla was also grounded for burning up the yard. So we couldn’t see each other for a while, anyway. At least I knew she was safe. The danger to her was sitting safely on my shelf.

  We had found Jayla roaming the halls in the volcano, thankfully not in one of the tunnels that filled with lava. She’d had Jimmy on the ropes for a while, which was actually what kept him out of the Agatha fight. But once the Enterruption dropped the Jimmythugs outside the mountain, they’d turned right around rushed back in to help him again. That’s when Jayla fled the battle. She had been circling, looking for another opportunity when we’d all put a stop to Jimmy. I thought I’d have a tough time trying to convince her to come back to Earth, but she didn’t put up a fight. Jayla had had enough adventure for now.

  As for the Jimmythugs, once Jimmy vanished right in front of them, they weren’t as keen to fight. We brought them back with us, too.

  That left the tearful goodbye with André. It was way harder than I thought to leave him there. I already missed him. His stylish flair. His wild creativity. His unbreakable loyalty. Without him, Jimmy would have won. He’d withstood torture and imprisonment without giving up the hourglass. André was never coming back to Earth, I knew that now. The only thing that made that bearable was that I knew I could go back and visit him.

  It also made my other decision so easy.

  I mean, I’d fight to my last breath to keep the hourglass and the spinner from Jimmy, but that didn’t mean I wanted them. I really would make a horrible Vella, always wanting to leave the Wishing World and come home, missing my family. But you know who would make an amazing Vella? Someone who loved the Wishing World even more than I did?

  Yeah, I gave the spinner and the hourglass to André. He refused at first, because, under that flamboyant façade, he’s actually the most humble guy you ever met. He just wants to live and love, and let others do the same.

  That! That’s the reason he was going to make an awesome Vella. Also, André liked to start with something and work it and work it until it came to fruition. Laying down the primer. Laying down the base colors. Working in more colors. Adding flourishes. Going back, working in more colors. And on and on and urg.

  Better him than me. I didn’t need to be the Queen of the Wishing World. If I could just be the queen of my little room in my happy little house with my family, that was just fine.

  With, of course, a dash of adventure thrown in from time to time.

  Theron opened my bedroom door and came inside.

  “Um, knock ever?” I asked. He never did. Never. I so needed a lock for my door.

/>   “Oh, sure, and wake up the whole house,” he said.

  “Not everyone knocks like a buffalo, Barge-in Boy. You can knock softly.”

  “Are you ready or what?” he asked.

  I smiled at him. Having him by my side, with me instead of against me, this was the way it should be. “Almost,” I said.

  “Your clock never has the right time,” he said, looking at my clock. “Why don’t you fix that?”

  It said 12:05 a.m. It was actually two minutes to midnight because my clock was seven minutes fast, but I liked it that way.

  “It makes me feel like I have more time,” I replied.

  He shook his head. “You’re so weird.”

  “Look in a mirror.” He didn’t laugh. But Theron doesn’t know from funny.

  “Come on. Mom and Dad have been asleep for two hours. Let’s go.”

  I didn’t argue the point. Not because he was right, but because if we got into an argument, we actually would wake them up.

  We went outside. I brought up the hand mirror.

  “No way this works,” he said, but his eyes sparkled with excitement.

  “Yes, way. I know more than I used to,” I said, and I closed my eyes. With my other hand I gripped my pen. I could feel a vibration in the pen when I was looking into someone else’s story, and I looked deep in Theron’s and into mine. There was a yearning for adventure and fun and silliness. I wrote the words, then reached my hand into the mirror. It went right through like it was water. Yes, it did.

  I felt talons tighten against my wrist, and I pulled. A thin, ghostly leg emerged in my grip, then a flow of sparkling white mist followed like a whip. The mist gathered at our feet, growing.

  Then Gruffy stood in our yard, almost as tall as the low power line that went to our house.