the magical breath, a kind of magical collapsing . . .
The paper crane Sloane held was made out of notebook paper, wide-ruled. In the ridge of the crane’s back, she saw a scribble of pink, like someone had tested a pen. After glancing over at Esther—now flipping through the red journal frantically in search of another glowing page—Sloane tugged the ends of the crane to unmake the origami.
The paper had been used to test all sorts of pens, she discovered. But they were in bright colors, shimmering, neon, milky. The kind Albie had used, even after the rest of them teased him for it. But Sloane hadn’t seen anything like them on Genetrix. People here used elaborate, old-fashioned instruments—feather quills, fountain pens, metal styluses retrofitted with ballpoints.
“Essy,” Sloane said.
Esther’s voice rang out: “ ‘The second of my champions is dead.’ Oh my God, Sloane.”
Sloane and Esther locked eyes across the room.
“The second,” Esther said.
“Isn’t that supposed to be us?” Sloane said, forgetting the notebook paper in her hand for a moment. “Genetrix’s Chosen One was first, and then they brought us here . . . right?”
“So the story goes,” Esther replied, a distant look in her eyes.
“Keep going,” Sloane said.
My search will continue—must continue—until a suitable candidate presents itself. I will scour the endless worlds for a lifetime if I need to . . .
“That lying sack of shit,” Sloane said.
“How many were there?” Esther stared at Sloane. “Dozens? Hundreds? If they didn’t survive, how the hell are we supposed to? We barely beat our Dark One, and that was on a world that didn’t know magic—” She choked and fell silent.
“If he’s lying about this, he could be lying about a lot of other things,” Sloane said. “How hard it is to send us home, for one thing.” She crossed the room and put her hands on Esther’s shoulders. “Don’t freak out. Not yet, anyway.”
“What’s that?” Esther was looking at the paper crumpled between Sloane’s hand and her shoulder.
“It was a paper crane,” Sloane said. “It reminded me of—”
“Oh.” Something like pity softened Esther’s eyes, and Sloane pulled away.
“We got what we came for,” Sloane said, “now let’s go, before Nero—”
“I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for that,” Nero said. He tapped the lock that held the door in place with a finger, and the door fell to the ground with a loud bang.
Sloane, acting on instinct, brandished the sheet of notebook paper in Nero’s general direction. All three of them—Nero, Esther, and Sloane—just stared at the page she was holding like a sword until she put it down.
For just a moment, as Nero stomped on the fallen door, his teeth gritted, his blond hair spilling into his eyes, Sloane saw someone to be afraid of. But then he brushed off his gray sweater with both hands, flicked his hair out of his face, and again become mildness personified.
“I am not sure what I did to provoke suspicion profound enough for you to break into my workshop,” Nero said evenly.
Sloane had a sudden, desperate desire to find whatever sensitive place she had just discovered in him and dig in as hard as she could.
“Well, there was the whole ‘kidnapping-three-people-from-a-parallel-dimension’ thing,” Sloane said. “But most recently, it was Aelia referring to the Chosen One as alternately ‘she’ and ‘he’ in the span of one conversation.”
“Ah.” Nero ran his fingers over the door handle. “I told her you noticed that. She didn’t listen.”
“We came here for proof,” Sloane said. “So unless your diaries are your first attempt at novel-writing—not great, by the way—”
“How many were there?” The question was sudden, and shrill. Esther lurched toward him, looking like she might strangle him. “How many Chosen Ones did you rip from their dimensions to fight your goddamned Dark One?”
“The only reason you weren’t told is I didn’t want to alarm you,” Nero said. “Any of you. Not when you didn’t know magic, not—”
“I take it these are really valuable books,” Sloane said, picking up one of the journals and holding it open by the spine as if preparing to rip it in half.
“In fact—”
Sloane jerked the two halves of the journal apart, tearing it down the binding.
“There’s no need to be—”
“I don’t know, I kind of feel the need,” Sloane said. “Considering you didn’t mention that we’re, what, tenth in line to fight your little death match for you?”
“You,” Nero said, suddenly quiet, “are fifth.”
“Fifth?” Esther shrieked.
“We summoned others because we did not want to summon inexperienced, barely competent magic-users to fight