Strange Attractors - Kim Falconer [200]
All eyes turned to Nell.
‘I know where she is,’ Teg said, speaking up for the first time. His shoulder was wrapped tight, his arm in a sling. He cradled a large mug in his free hand, staring into it.
‘You do?’ An’ Lawrence asked.
Teg levelled his eyes on Nell. ‘She’s on Shaea’s heels.’
‘And where is that?’ Rosette asked.
‘The Borderlands.’
Jarrod looked up. ‘The young witch’s trying to find her way home.’
An’ Lawrence insisted they ride to the portal. The horses would be easier to control that way and he didn’t want to lose any more. There was his stallion, Diablai, and three Desertwind brood mares left behind as it was. They had taken off to higher ground in the east and short of doing a calling spell, he couldn’t get them back. There was no time. The world was breaking apart and his heart broke too, leaving them behind.
The ground shook, the groan of the land deafening. They had to evacuate. The spell Makee had laid beneath the mountains to make them boil was not undoable but Jarrod had calculated the possibilities from an infinite number of variables and had come up with an unequivocal get out! Nell and Rosette were stubborn. They grabbed Teg and did some investigations in the ether. The information they came back with didn’t look any better.
The polar caps were frozen solid, the ice spreading to the sixty-degree latitudes, north and south—not a natural state for the hothouse phase of Earth’s climatic cycle. Magma was erupting from rifts and crevasses at the fifty-degree line on to well south of the equator thanks to Makee’s thermodynamic meddling. She wanted to shut down ASSIST—stop the trackers from crossing into Gaela—and when conventional magic didn’t work, she decided to close off the doors to Earth. The portals were filling with lava, Entities fossilising. The tectonic plates were shifting again. There was no way to undo Makee’s spells in time, no foreseeable way, so they were evacuating, going back to Los Loma Gaela to await the fallout. What would become of the many-worlds was yet to be seen. Jarrod had some likely scenarios in mind. An’ Lawrence couldn’t say he was fond of any one of them.
He ground his teeth as he handed the palomino over to Jarrod. The horse went willingly, though he suspected the animal knew this wasn’t the same stableboy from Corsanon. He turned to Nell. They exchanged a single look, letting everyone pass before them towards the crevice. Together they followed the others into the portal, jumping back the moment Rosette ran her hand over the plasma stream. Scylla sprang from Drayco’s side, leaping through the portal as if it were a ring of fire. She landed in front of An’ Lawrence and leaned into him as she screamed a farewell to those in the corridor. The Three Sisters shot out as well. An’ Lawrence took Nell’s hand and they ran back into the ash, rumble and spit of a dying Earth.
‘Nell! Rowan!’ Rosette shouted. She squeezed Teg’s shoulder, making him yelp. ‘Where did they go?’
‘Nellion!’ Jarrod yelled.
‘Noooooo!’ Rosette’s cry was ear-splitting.
The palomino reared and the other horses pawed the ground. Rosette rushed to the portal edge with Jarrod and Grayson, leaving Teg and Maluka to settle the horses. Annadusa’s head came up, but she didn’t leave Clay and Shane. They were propped against the back wall, still recovering from the short ride to the portal.
Teg stroked the palomino’s neck, soothing the others with a calming spell. He didn’t look to the portal. He knew where they had gone. Nell had tried to hide her thoughts from him. He’d pretended he didn’t read them—but he did. She hadn’t given up on Earth. He guessed she never would.
Rosette spun on him. ‘You knew!’
He licked his lips. ‘They’re making one last attempt.’
Rosette wailed.
‘They can’t be!’ Jarrod said. ‘Even if it succeeds, the portals will be closed. They won’t be able to get out.’
‘Nor us in.’
Rosette looked down. Her eyes filled with tears and she wiped them with her fingertips, her hands bearing the intricate designs of her new tattoos. She was a High Priestess now, initiated the