I'm not quite sure where Lana learned to drive, but we raced out of the city at lightning speed, swerving left and right. She hardly lifted her foot off the gas. Had we not been on our way out of the Underworld, I would have thought Lana was purposely trying to injure us to trap us down there longer.

I stared out the window, watching as the city vanished behind us. The feather duster trees shimmied in the no-ocean sea breeze, and the oil spill river glittered at us as we drove across the bridge. Part of me wanted to slow down and appreciate the view, while the other, more logical part of my brain, reminded me that if we didn't get out of the Underworld in time, I would be admiring this scenery for all of eternity.

Please God, get us out of here, I prayed. My family had never been very religious, and I had always considered myself agnostic: someone who couldn't rule in the presence of a god but couldn't necessarily rule one out either. Now that I had some pretty good evidence He existed, I figured a quick prayer wouldn't hurt. I wasn't sure if He could hear it, and I didn't even know if this God responded to prayer at all, but I said my piece, short and sweet, and hoped He heard it all the same.

We reached the cave within minutes, and Lana left her black convertible parked on a sunny hill. We jogged our way through the torch-lined passageways until we finally reached the river. The boatman was sitting on the dock, leaning against a post and reading an outdated magazine. He looked surprised to see visitors, and then tossed the magazine into the water when Lana stepped into the light.

"Your Majest—" he started, but Lana cut him off.

"Emergency trip to Earth," she said. "And we need to get there as soon as possible. All three of us. Now."

The boatman didn't say anything. He just snapped his finger and the small canoe oscillating behind him on the water transformed into a red speedboat. My jaw dropped.

Lana grinned. "Perfect," she said, stepping onboard.

As the boatman revved up the engine, I asked him why he didn't just leave it as a speedboat all the time.

He smirked at me, holding up a finger. "Number one, mystique. Number two..." He rolled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt and flexed a bicep. "How else am I gonna keep these muscles in check? Rowing really works the traps."

I know the boatman warned against looking over the edge while traveling between realms, but I couldn't help myself. The nausea was completely worth getting my first few glimpses of Gilman Pond: the cracked paint on the gazebo, the ducks napping in their little brown tufts, and leaves skittering along the ground in the early morning breeze like colorful bursts of confetti.

And then my eyes were drawn to the sky, the beautiful pale blue of an early autumn morning. The lavender sky in the Underworld had been lovely, but nothing could beat the shade I saw above me. Blue was the color of Earth. Of home.

The boatman steered into the shallow water, and as Lana and Billy climbed off, I thanked him.

"I hope you see your sister again," I said.

He smiled, took my hand, and helped me step over the edge of the boat and onto solid ground. "I hope so too." And then, with a tug on the engine, the boat whirred back to life and zipped away. As it reached the far end of the pond, it seemed to fade away into thin air, the hum of the boat fading along with it.

I turned to the others. Now that we were back on Earth, I realized just how strange Billy and I looked: intangible wisps of air with an unearthly glow. I could even see the rising sunlight pass through his chest. Lana, meanwhile, was solid and whole, but there was a sheen to her skin that didn't look quite right.

"Are you okay?" I asked her. "You don't look good."

"It's too soon for me to be back on Earth," she admitted, rubbing a hand across her face and into her hair. "I haven't fully recharged. But I'm not staying long," she said, looking around the shore. "Where's your body?"

"I was right here," I said, pointing at the picnic table. "James said that if something happened to me, he'd call an ambulance."

"So you're probably at the hospital," Lana said, marching quickly away from the pond. I was about to ask her where she was going when I saw that her gaze was locked on a red convertible parked across the street. She snapped her fingers and the car made an audible click.

As she yanked the door open, Billy gave her a look. "I'm assuming this isn't your car."

"Shouldn't you not be using magic?" I asked.

Lana rolled her eyes, already pulling the gearshift into drive. "We're going to need to use a little magic if we want you two to survive. And besides, I don't think the Almighty will care at this point. Now get inside."

So we listened, climbed inside the car, and sped off.

The closer we got to the hospital, the more I started to feel strange. It started as a churning in my gut paired with a touch of nausea. But as we waited at a red light, it started to feel more like there was a rope wrapped around my intestines, with someone else on the other end yanking me forward.

"I do not feel good," I said, closing my eyes.

"Me neither," Billy groaned from the back seat. "Are we dying?"

"Not on my watch!" Lana growled, snapping her fingers. The light turned green and we were back on our way.

As we pulled into the hospital parking lot, the churning in my gut intensified—only now, the pain seemed to have a directional quality.

"Billy," I said as Lana crawled through the lot, trying to find a parking space, "I think this feeling... is telling us where we need to go."

"I think you're right," he said.

Lana suddenly stopped the car. "It'll take me too long to find a parking space. Get out! Go! And hurry!"

We didn't need to be told twice. We scrambled out of the car and followed our guts dragging us through the main hospital doors. We didn't need a map; the tug was enough to guide us. And the closer we got to our bodies, the more insistent the tug, until eventually I wasn't walking—I was floating, flying, speeding as this force violently pulled me through the hospital, up stairs, past hallways, through doors. I couldn't see anything but the blur of off-white walls and metallic doors, and before I could fully understand what was going on, I felt myself slam into something hard and the world went black.

I let out a giant rasping gasp, my eyes flying open in shock at the impact.

My mother screamed. An alarm went off and my father raced out of the room, shouting for help. A second later, a nurse arrived, eyes wide and frantic.

I couldn't speak. There was a tube shoved down my throat, pumping air into my lungs. My throat stung fiercely and my whole body ached. But I was alive. Alive.

My eyes welled with tears. Thank you God, I thought.

My mother appeared at the side of the bed, stroking my arm. "It's okay, Jessa," she said through tears. "It's going to be okay."

The tube down my throat prevented me from speaking, but I squeezed her hand to let her know I was all right.

The rest of my family was there in the room as well, hanging back as the nurse checked my vitals and pressed a stethoscope to my chest. Mallory's cheeks were stained with leftover eyeliner that hadn't fully come off from last night. Evan's face, meanwhile, was a pale shade of green; he had never had a stomach for hospitals.

The nurse asked if I could lift up my right thumb. I showed it to her. She asked me to wiggle my toes and blink. When I had satisfied her, she told my family she was going to page the doctor.

He took about an hour to arrive, but I was okay with that. I was just so happy to be alive, to see my family again, even if their faces were laced with worry and my father was crying. I couldn't talk, so I tried to calm them with nods and "thumbs up" signs, but nothing really made their tears go away. Neither did mine for that matter. It actually took me a while to realize I was crying as well; it was only when the pillow beneath my head was sufficiently damp that I made that realization.

The doctor checked the ventilator settings, shone a light in my eyes, and asked me to follow a few more commands. He fiddled with some knobs on the ventilator, and when he was satisfied I could breathe on my own, the darn tube that had been shoved down my throat was removed; I coughed and gagged as he pulled it out in one fell swoop.

"Thanks," I said, though my voice was cracked and scratchy.

"You're welcome," he said, sitting on the side of the bed. I assumed he was a resident; he looked so young. "Jessa," he said, "do you mind answering a couple of questions?"

And thus the interrogation began. He asked if I had had any recent illnesses, if I'd taken any strange drugs, if I've ever been unconscious before, if I had ever thought of killing myself... It reminded me a bit of Lana, back when we had first met, which caused me to crack the tiniest of smiles. Eventually, he exhausted himself with his line of questioning and said he'd return with his attending later in the day. And just like that, he was gone, leaving me alone to finally talk with my family.

I looked at them, all gathered around my ICU bed. "Hi," was all I could muster.

My mom gave me a hug, then my dad, and even Mallory and Evan got in on it. "Are you okay?" my mother whispered in my ear. "We were so worried."

"I can see that," I said, trying to keep my voice light, but I felt my eyes tearing up with joy. "And yes. I'm fine. And... I'm sorry."

Evan's eyes furrowed. "Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything." Although there was a tilt to his head, as if he was asking, Did you?

I shook my head. "You're right," I lied. "That was a silly thing to say. I'm just... glad I'm alive." I looked at them all. "I love you guys."

There was a light tap on the door, and I turned and saw a blond boy hovering in the doorway. "James!" I said, glad that the angel hadn't abandoned me after all.

My mom got up and gave him a tight hug; James looked surprised by the gesture. "We told the nurse he was your brother so he could come in. Jessa—you are so lucky he was with you last night. He's the one who called an ambulance when you passed out."

I reached out and squeezed James' hand. His face was swathed in relief. "Thanks James. For helping me out."

He squeezed my hand back. "I'm so happy you're okay, Jessa. Everything is okay."

I could tell by the way he said "everything" that he had touched based with someone higher up, and it sent a rush of warmth through my body. We did it. We stopped the war, I thought, staring up at the ceiling and wishing I could see up further, past that brilliant blue sky and into the heavens. Thank God, everything is okay.