Nicholas wished he could say he was surprised, but he had pretty much lived in worst case scenarios for the last two weeks. At least he was prepared for this one.

He lunged forward toward Malik before Ali could even state the cause for arrest. All he needed was one touch to unravel the magic-nullifying cero charm laced in the metal of the handcuffs. Apparently, his bad luck had yet to run out, because Nicholas did not get his one touch. The shurta who had been guarding the room a moment before yanked his arms behind him. A second set of shackles locked around his wrists.

Malik threw his weight. It should have been futile against the brick wall that was Ali, but Ali lurched like a young oak in a heavy wind, and Malik twisted away to face Nicholas. He threw his arms over Nicholas' shoulders and wiggled his hands beneath the scarf; at the first cool touch against Nicholas' neck, Malik transfigured the metal, and the cuffs clattered away.

Malik brought down the hanging lamp mounted above Nicholas' head, pulling Nicholas forward by the arm as the guard jumped back with a shout. Ali bouldered into their path as they ran to the door. Or, he would have, but the tile floor had folded over his feet. He overbalanced, toppling in place. It bought them enough time to make it out.

Malik touched the torch next to the door. Its glass bulb shuddered, jostling the flame within, as he said, "Morra."

As if the room inside had been plunged underwater, the shouting and footsteps went silent. The door did not open behind them.

The rest was a race against time. They unfortunately had to speed-walk it, as it was also a race against sound. They had little direction to guide them; only the awareness that they were on the castle's third floor, and a series of panels in the journal that showed Rayan on the fifth, fighting from a balcony that overshadowed the entrance hall. Malik studied those drawings intently as they hurried, only belatedly reaching back to free Nicholas' hands. He moved with the confidence of someone who had spent a lifetime relying on mental maps.

"What was that?" Nicholas asked on the stairs to the fourth floor. With every story, the halls seemed narrower and shorter, as if shrinking to a sharp peak.

"Dungeon charm." Malik was panting, face shiny with sweat. "It won't hold long. The talisman was shit." He held his hand to his face and muttered into his middle finger, "Sino. Adrian? Adrian, can you hear me?"

The Faisan ring, on the other hand, made a perfect talisman, even for a complicated bell charm that had been cast two hours before. Adrian's voice rang clear, a grave whisper of, What's wrong?

"I'm...under arrest," said Malik, so worn out he stumbled at the next staircase. Caught up in finding his way, he didn't seem to notice that he had flipped past those very words a few pages ago, where they were shown coming through the enchanted golden cuff wrapped around the shell of Adrian's ear.

Nicholas began to have a bad feeling.

"Don't do anything idioti-" Malik was saying when a crash sounded somewhere far off. Shouting followed. "You idiot!"

He moved faster. They breached stairs to the topmost floor in time to see a figure in black burst from a room down the hall, closely followed by a warning yell from a female voice.

"Wait!" Malik called to the back of a dark-cherry head. Yasmin's stance was instantly defensive when she faced them. By the time her charge had followed suit, Nicholas and Malik had dropped to one knee and bowed their heads.

"Your Majesty," Malik spoke, probably out of turn, before there was time to act. "I believe you know who I am. Despite how it may seem-" he winced as more shouting sounded from below. "I haven't come to you seeking trouble. The direct opposite, I-"

"You," repeated the king, a question without the inflection.

"We. We seek a conversation. I swear on my family name, that is all, if you'll allow it."

"Raise your head." A moment later, "Both of you."

Nicholas complied and saw eyes focused on him. Look at me, they demanded. Only a sliver could be seen of Nicholas' face, and he had been recognized by that sliver alone. They said so, clear as a reflection in stainless steel.

"The pecking viper strikes again," said Rayan, unamused. "Hello, Nico."

Then he said, "Yasmin," as he turned toward the balcony at the end of the hall.

Malik hurtled backward, bullied by an invisible force. As he went down coughing, Nicholas had the sense to throw off this coat. He felt it a second later - a buffet of air pummeling him backward, condensed and thrown by the tomite glowing indigo on Yasmin's right hand - but most of the blow dissipated the second it touched the skin of his arms, crossed over his chest.

Okay. He allowed a second to be impressed with himself as he started after Rayan. That's sick.

Yasmin came for him with a mad-dog snarl and was made to regret it when something slammed into her back. Malik wouldn't give up her attention so easily. Nicholas made his break for the balcony.

He could see everything from his vantage point. Adrian, surging up from the entrance hall in the direction Ali had led them away, skipping the stairs entirely to haul himself up on impossibly fat brambles as they wound around the banister lining the second floor. Swarming shurta, tripping as they ran after him as if the ground were shaking beneath them in tiny, concentrated earthquakes, throwing off their trajectory as they sent lance-head projectiles his way in waves. And the terrifying silhouette of the king leaning over the entrance hall, raising his hands then sweeping down.

The movement was violent and melodic. Spires of flame descended on Adrian. They narrowly missed as the prince climbed the wall like a lizard, wrapping the third-floor banister in thorns and vaulting upward.

Nicholas forced his voice over the noise. "Don't you understand?" Rayan didn't turn. He unwrapped his face, louder, louder. Across the entrance hall and a floor beneath them, Adrian heard him. "Try, please! I know you remember the book and I know you remember its strangeness, help us rewrite it- listen to me!"

He reached out. His hand landed half on Rayan's sleeve, half on his glove, and just barely glancing the skin between. The flames scattered into nothing. Nicholas thought again, sick-

"Do not touch me!"

It was vicious, so thick with disgust Nicholas thought he could hear the bile in Rayan's throat. He threw Nicholas to the floor. There was a moment in which Nicholas could hear only the pounding in his head. Then, past that, the prickly climb of branches right below them - Adrian had changed course. That was all buried by the sound of shattering glass.

Every torch in the entrance hall exploded. There was dimness for an instant, the only light coming purple-red through the windows. Rayan loomed, a phantom in his prime, arms raised like a conductor. Orange light exploded at the crescendo, so bright it took several blinks to clear his somber silhouette from Nicholas' vision. A figure took shape in the flames. Wide wings, a round head crowned with fanning, plumy wisps of fire. An arrowhead beak spread wide.

Nicholas' throat hurt from his short bout of shouting but he shouted again, some fraught plea as he pushed to his feet. An elbow locked around his neck before he could get far. At the very edges of his vision, Malik lay crumpled on the floor.

The fire roared like its own beast. Nicholas couldn't see with his chin forced upward, but knew how it looked, how easily the branches caught.

"Do you hear that?" Yasmin sneered at his throat. Somewhere, Adrian screamed. "You, next. I do not need vigalis to burn you, spy."

It was a terrible time to remember Dalisay's warning, the flames on her dais.

He put all of that honest fear onto his face, like he knew Yasmin wanted to see, as Malik opened up the floor behind her.

Malik called Adrian's name. Yasmin tossed Nicholas aside, but he grabbed her right back. His hold on her wrists only lasted a scarce couple of seconds against her strength. For those seconds, she had no magic. And in those seconds, fingerlike vines grasped at the edges of the hole in the floor.

"Saints almighty, you are on fire," Malik gasped as he hauled Adrian through.

"Put me out, then!"

They barreled through the closest door. It slammed in Yasmin's face. A yell rang through it, "Dungeo-!" then cut off as if dunked underwater.

Yasmin only wasted one failed push on the door before she grabbed Nicholas' wrist and slammed his hand to the wood. She charged in as glass sprayed across the office space and leaned over the smashed window, staring straight down five stories of castle wall and the rocky cliff above Lake Charlatan. A tall, narrow wave swelled up to wrap around Malik and Adrian's falling bodies like a glove, then pulled them under. The surface returned to stillness.

Nicholas was also leaning over the window, watching. So when Yasmin's rage shook the whole room, and the curtain rod crashed down on his upper back, he found himself following their lead. Except he didn't wear an ondate crystal to control the waves. He was not going to be gently snatched out of the air. He was going to splatter like a fly against a freeway windshield.

He understood, to an extent, how free fall worked. He was still shocked by how fast he dropped.

Though, he realized - maybe because he had the time to realize it - that he could have been falling faster. There was a feeling like punches against his back, bouncing him in the air. He imagined this was how it felt to fall through clouds in a cartoon. The pushback weakened the further he fell, and stopped altogether partway down the cliffside. But it had slowed his fall, so that when he hit the surface, he didn't paint it watercolor red.

He still touched down hard enough to feel his brain racket in his skull.

The world went silent. Plunged underwater.

His limbs wouldn't move. Must've hit his head hard. The water was too cold for swimming, anyway. He stopped trying and learned that he was weightless, and that he liked the feeling. He could move his eyelids, at least, so he looked. He was facing the sky. Salt stung his eyes. Lake Charlatan was not a lake at all, but a time-carved cove isolated from the sea. This water held so much history. Nicholas fell through time.

His vision darkened around the edges. The quiet was uncompromising. He could do anything, he could shout. Here, nobody would mind if he was loud. The water would suck up the sound; what a good listener! Nicholas opened his mouth and screamed as he lost consciousness.

♛ ♛ ♛

He woke up vomiting. He coughed water and his dinner onto grass. Slowly, and after several tries, he opened salt-encrusted eyes and found that the world had become a blur. Somehow, through all of the fuzz, he still recognized the dark, dripping figure above him.

♛ ♛ ♛

His body was cold, but making every effort to be warm. There was thin, dry clothing over his skin and a heavy blanket around his shoulders. More heat came from somewhere ahead, kissing his cheeks pink.

He extended his palms toward that warmth. That was when he felt the bindings around his wrist, and he remembered, and he understood.

"He's awake," a woman said behind him.

"I don't want to do this again," said Nicholas. "Can we not do this again?"

Footsteps circled to Nicholas' front. "You're a talented actor," said the king of Caldora.

"You're wasting your time."

"Fool me once, fool me twice." It was in his voice, too: look at me.

Nicholas didn't feel much like obeying, so he looked down at his lap. He remained like that as the questions started. It was all the same, if angrier this time around. Who, what, when, where, why are you? Nicholas didn't feel like answering, either.

Rayan's anger mounted fast. He leaned over Nicholas, demanding attention. "Speak, Viper, or-"

"Or what?" Nicholas said with his head low. "Will you hurt me, Your Majesty? Will you hit me? Aim for the head. Knock me the hell out so I don't have to do this again. Knock me so hard I forget all of it."

"Mind your tone," warned Yasmin, but Rayan's hand went up and she quieted.

"Mouthy today," he said. "Did your good sense drown in the lake? Or have you resolved to die for your stubbornness?"

"I won't die for anything," said Nicholas. "You won't kill me."

When he stood, he discovered that his ankle was bound to the chair. He wobbled off-balance. There was movement behind him, but Rayan raised his hand again.

"You've had every chance to kill me. You even had the chance today to let me die. But you saved me." When Nicholas finally looked up, Rayan's face was wide open. The fireplace at his back cast it all in brutal contrast. Fury in his eyes, fury in his lips, just as bright as Nicholas remembered. "You don't have it in you."

Rayan was searching. Looking for tells, but there was nothing to read. Nicholas had run out of feeling. As if playing catch-up, Rayan emptied his face in a hurry, racing to become expressionless.

"I've yet to hear a 'thank you,' by the way," he said.

"For what? Taking me hostage? My friends were in that water."

Something flew into Nicholas' chest, knocking him back onto the chair. His bag. It was open, so he could see his destroyed (and now waterlogged) laptop and phone inside, and all his soggy stationery. Nothing else. "Your friends took your book and left you for dead. I doubt you'd make a valuable hostage."

"You don't know as much as you think. They would've helped me."

"One wrong touch and the whole lot of you would have drowned." When Nicholas had no response for this, Rayan seemed satisfied (this was typical; to urge him to speak up, only to tire quickly of his voice). "You would do well not to overvalue yourself. You are only alive because you know something I don't. Since you have so much to say, why don't you introduce yourself? Honestly, this time."

"Hi there. I don't think we've met. You can call me...God, probably."

He was very aware that he was playing with fire. He was tired enough not to care. And anyway, Dalisay had told him to harden his skin.

"You are only alive because I dreamed you. I dreamed you and I wrote you down and now you've come off the page to make me miserable."

Rayan did not seem outraged or disbelieving or even put-off. Nicholas really must have left his good sense in the lake, because he observed this with disappointment.

"It is as Cairo speculated," Rayan murmured. Maybe he had already gone through all of the outrage and disbelief, had already doubted history and mourned his loss of agency. But his hair was still wet. He couldn't have had enough time to reckon with what it meant to be an imagination, to be two weeks old. Rayan met Yasmin's eye, nodded his head, and got back to business like that was all the comfort either of them needed. "How do we change it? That book of yours?"

"We, um," Nicholas stammered, thrown off by the quick turnaround. "You can't." On the journey from the frontier, they had tried everything. Erasing, overwriting, tearing, cutting, dousing, scratching. He told the king as much.

"So then you tried to defy it," Rayan gathered. "And that failed, too."

Nicholas couldn't be certain without the book in front of him, but when he recalled the pages in his head, it was obvious. None of the "changes" they'd planned out had been changes at all. They had added dialogue, maybe added a few steps between the panels, but when it came down to it, everything written had come to fruition. Nicholas nodded.

The fire behind Rayan flickered. It seemed anxious. He seemed anxious, though he masked it quickly.

"If you do not even know the rules yourself...who gave you the book?"

"A friend." Or so he'd thought. "A witch."

"It is decided, then. Yasmin."

With that, Rayan left the room. Yasmin crouched to free Nicholas' foot. For once, she wasn't glaring at him. Her gaze landed elsewhere. She was not so good at hiding her emotions.

There was no blindfold this time around. The message was clear: no point keeping him ignorant if they had no intention of releasing him. Nicholas looked around with little interest and didn't bother trying to learn the path.

Rayan walked several strides ahead. Yasmin shepherded Nicholas close at his back. They took him past cathedral doors into a space his wildest fantasies couldn't have conjured up. Saffron rugs and wooden columns and wall frescos, two stories of cloth-bound books on shelves that curved with the walls. At the center, a podium so high it required a set of stairs. There waited a brassy telescope beneath a skylight.

Nicholas saw his reflection in a dark window. His face was sunken and passive. He thought he looked more like himself than ever before.

In an hard-to-spot pocket between shelves, far from the room's open center, Rayan pulsed his fingers outward. The floor rippled open around them with a groan to reveal a staircase down. It was dark at the bottom until the torches sprang to life. More books, more shelves, though not nearly as loved. The room held in its circular walls a sense of shame. It was small and smelled of dust and earth.

"The only texts you will find in Caldora that so much as mention witchcraft are in this room," said Rayan. "They are strictly forbidden."

"I'm honored."

"You like to read, don't you?"

"You want me to look for a way to change the book."

"Surely you of all people understand the importance of wording. Try again."

"I...have to find a way."

"Read every last title if you must."

Nicholas glanced over the hundreds of spines.

"You can't exactly force me to read."

"I doubt I'll have to." The torches kicked up a notch, shedding enough light for reading. "Every piece you learn about your accursed journal will bring you a step closer to...wherever you're from." He waved a dismissive hand and sent a random book Nicholas' way. "And, besides. You don't have it in you, either."

Nicholas was soon alone, clutching a dusty leather volume on illegal charms and seeing the king long after the ceiling had closed up behind him. In particular, Nicholas saw him in the journal's final pages, bleeding down the stalk that impaled his chest. Rayan was going to die. And if the logic was twisted just so, into something deformed and accusatory, Nicholas was the one killing him.