Midnight Law

by Geanna Culbertson

  Mark’s face grew serious. A pause hung in the air before he spoke carefully. “SJ, can I trust you with a secret?”

  “Of course.”

  Even though the door was closed, he self-consciously looked around. Then he pulled back the neck of his robe and the collar of his pajamas beneath it, revealing his right clavicle. His skin had a slightly glowing purple rash on it.

  “Oh my word, what is—”

  He held up a hand. “I take it by the very fact that our friends went to Dreamland that you and the others know about wormholes, other realms, and other dimensions?”

  “We found out about them last fall,” I said, still terribly concerned about what he had shown me and anxious for a more direct explanation.

  “I discovered them six years ago,” Mark said. “Our kingdom has an extremely high concentration of magic energy resulting from the magic dust in the mountains. Because of that, the metaphysical walls between Book and other worlds are weaker here. When I was twelve, I found out about the wormholes when I was playing where I wasn’t supposed to. I fell down a mountainside and would’ve gotten killed if I hadn’t tumbled through a wormhole.”

  “Where did it take you?” I asked.

  “A multi-realm connector for our dimension called the Portalscape. Are you familiar with it?”

  I huffed in amusement. “Very. Frankly, I have spent enough time in the realms that connect to the Portalscape to write a series of terrifying novels.”

  “Which I would gladly read. But I may already have enough content from my own adventures to fill a section in our castle library,” Mark said. “Long story short, I got my hands on a Hole Tracker watch that allows the wearer to know the location of upcoming wormholes. I started traveling the fourteen Wonderland realms that make up our dimension whenever I was home for the sum-mer, but after some time I became intrigued by worlds outside the Wonderlands. Other dimension wormholes appear erratically and they go to bizarre places that our fairytale society hasn’t even heard of, like Earth and Ickblat Five and the Ghost Dimension. Even the White Rabbits that regulate otherworldy travel and build Hole Trackers don’t truly understand them. Portals within our dimension have rules—places they can and cannot lead—portals to other dimensions are so much weirder and unpredictable. And, well, you know me. I love a challenge. I grew fascinated with the nature of where and why these portals opened, and I started mapping out their entrances. It became my favorite hobby.”

  I processed the information with a sullen look. “I cannot believe you never told me. I thought we told each other everything.” “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “It’s not because I don’t trust you. I nearly told you about it a hundred different times but . . . something held me back. Eventually I realized it’s because it felt good to have a secret. When you’re close to a lot of people—friends, parents, and so forth—it can be difficult to have any part of yourself that is just yours, that other people don’t know about. And as an only child and sole heir to my kingdom’s throne, I live a very public life that makes the matter even worse. I liked having something that was only mine. Can you understand that?”

  His eyes pleaded with me. I released a deep breath. “Honestly I can. I often feel like I spend so much time around people that I do not exist as an individual, merely as part of a team.”

  “And being a part of a team is great,” Mark said. “It’s just that sometimes you need a breath of life on your own so you can feel like more than a thread in a tapestry.”

  I nodded. I knew exactly what he was talking about and wanted to hug him again. Out of everyone in our original group, he and I were on the most similar brain wavelengths. I was glad to have him back, to have someone in my corner when stronger personalities argued for their stance.

  “Anyway, the rash started to develop about a year ago. It’s from prolonged exposure to other dimensions. Dimensions outside the Wonderlands reject magic foreign to them. People from alternate dimensions seem to exist fine on foreign soil at first, but prolonged exposure to dimensions that you don’t belong in builds up and has its own consequences. I showed this rash to one of the White Rabbits and he said it’s called Portal Acid. It’s making me weak and in time it will spread and cause me to disintegrate.”

  “Disintegrate like . . .”

  “Like a sandcastle pulled under by the tide. How soon this happens depends on the frequency that I use wormholes, so I may have many years, but it cannot be cured.”

  My logical brain overwhelmed with a wave of emotions—sadness, anger, disappointment, dismay. I did not know how to fully process them all at once.

  I put my fingers to my temples and sighed deeply. “Mark . . .”

  “I’m not telling my parents about the condition,” he said. “I told them about the wormhole mapping because I needed to give them a reason why the antagonists would want me dead, but the Portal Acid is a secret. I’ve already put them through enough. And if I cut down on my dimensional excursions, it could be decades before it spreads.”

  “Cut down?” I repeated. “Mark, it sounds like you should not be going to other dimensions at all.”

  Mark looked away from me for a moment. “What I’ve done is important work, SJ. Mapping and trying to understand other dimensions—no one else has this kind of expertise. That’s why the antagonists came after me. I started mapping wormholes for my own interest, but now this goes beyond that. My prophecy from the Author appeared last summer and it made it clear that my knowledge of other worlds will be a threat to antagonists who will one day try to rise to power. You know prophecies are vague, but if the antagonists are planning something it makes sense that what I’ve learned could get in their way. This knowledge has given me a powerful understanding of the greater universe. Plenty of people can rule with the power they were born into, but forging your own is rare. I imagine the antagonists see me as a threat because of that. I know more about bridging worlds and dimensions than I reckon most anyone. That’s powerful information that could certainly be used against them in some way.”

  I leaned back on the couch. Princesses were not supposed to sit with such relaxed posture in mixed company, but this new information was a lot to process. Decorum would have to go out the window for another brief interlude.

  “The antagonists are trying to rise to power, Mark. Right now. They have been busy in the last year executing steps of their plan. Our friends and I have already put out fires in multiple realms trying to stop them, so it completely makes sense that your superior knowledge of inter-dimensional workings would be a very good reason for our enemies to want to get rid of you. Who knows what additional otherworldy curveballs they have up their sleeves. You are lucky they did not try to murder you again after their first attempt failed. Sleeping curses can be fixed—death cannot be.”

  “Unless Crisa is nearby.”

  I blinked. “You know about her magic?”

  “You mean her Pure Magic? Yeah, my parents dropped that bomb after they told me about her and the others going to Dreamland. I have a lot of questions about that.”

  “Which I can try to answer,” I said. “To start with, something you may not know is that wielding Pure Magic allows you to have dreams of the future. This skill advances over time based on how much a person develops his or her Pure Magic. Recently Crisa dreamed you would be able to help us where a pivotally important girl named Natalie Poole is concerned.”

  “Who is Natalie Poole?”

  “She is an innocent on Earth who Crisa has dreamt about for years, and who the Author has even written a prophecy for. That prophecy states that Natalie will have the ability to open the Eternity Gate on her 21st birthday.”

  “I’ve heard of that gate.”

  I raised my eyebrows, genuinely surprised. “You have?”

  He nodded. “As mentioned, I’ve been to a lot of worlds, SJ, and several are versed in lore regarding the Eternity Gate. According to legend, its mystical opening is triggered when any world’s dark magic/energy outweighs its good magic/
energy. If that happens, a group of transcendent beings in a place called Eternity reevaluate that world to determine if it is worth saving, or if it should be destroyed before its dark energy can contaminate other worlds.”

  “Precisely,” I said excitedly. It was such a nice change to have someone understand the larger plot elements my friends and I were dealing with. “The antagonists want the Eternity Gate to open because, also according to legend, during an Eternity Gate opening normal magic across all worlds shuts down. This would evaporate the In and Out Spell around Alderon, allowing all our villains and monsters to escape their enchanted prison. Not only that, while our realm’s main line of defense, the Fairy Godmothers, would lose their normal magic and become powerless, the locked up villainous wielders of Pure Magic would not be.”

  “And I take it there are a lot of those?”

  “I do not exactly have census information about it, but practically every carrier of Pure Magic Disease has been corrupted by his or her condition. It is the price of such great power. Hence why I am not thrilled that one of my best friends endures this condition. Hence why I am also not thrilled that another of my best friends is currently suffering from a magical death rash caused by his hobbies. I already have one person I care about in a constant state of peril, Mark.” I gave him a look.

  He gulped, some remorse in his face. “So, uh, you were saying about Natalie Poole?”

  I folded my hands over my lap. “The antagonists intend to manipulate Natalie in timing with her 21st birthday so she will open the gate. Crisa dreamed you would be the key to helping us find Natalie so we may warn her and stop our foes. Given your expertise of other dimensions, I now understand how this is possible. So tell me, do you have any idea how we can track this girl down?”

  “I’m sorry, SJ,” Mark said. “But I don’t. Not right now anyway. But maybe figuring it out is part of what my own prophecy was referring to when it said my knowledge of other worlds would threaten the antagonists.”

  I sighed. I had been hoping for answers straight away, but I suppose that would have been too easy. “Perhaps speaking to Crisa will help,” I said. “She and the others return from Dreamland tonight and I shall send her to you. She has had quite a few dreams about Earth, so in collaboration you two may be able to narrow down Natalie’s location through different clues. You can figure things out together.”

  “I look forward to it,” he said. “I feel like I’m a late addition to an already progressed storyline.”

  “There is no reason you cannot be a part of the climax though,” I said affectionately. “Take it from a late bloomer, sometimes the best plot twists are the ones you have to wait for.”

  Mark and I spent the rest of the day sharing stories. He showed me the dimensional maps he had made, which he kept hidden in his room. They catalogued his knowledge of how wormholes to other dimensions worked, particularly Earth and the Ghost Dimension.

  I was truly impressed. His work would make any cartographer or famous explorer proud. Although Hole Trackers were useful, they did not tell us much about the realms outside of our dimension. And from our in-person conversations with the White Rabbits, I knew—as Mark proposed—that it was because they did not have a ready grasp on the subject themselves.

  When the sun began to set, I bid Mark adieu. It was hard to say goodbye, even though I knew we would talk soon via our magic compact mirrors. But Betsy and I had a prior engagement—one that had been weeks in the making.

  Only one wormhole to Dreamland would be opening in Book during the full moon tonight. Our friends would have to exit through there.

  Betsy and I left Mark to be able to arrive at eight o’ clock in the kingdom of Lernon. As we flew, I pleasantly mulled over recent transpirings. The developments of the last twenty-four hours were terribly exciting. Mauvrey and Mark were safe and awake, and both stood to aid our conflict against the antagonists tremendously.

  Before I knew it, stars became my backdrop and I felt my heart quicken as a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. My friends in Dreamland were coming home, and it would be a joyous reunion as we celebrated the fruit of their quest.

  When my loyal steed and I touched down lakeside in Lernon, my Book friends were already there. They had parked two carriages harnessed to assorted Pegasi nearby. The ripe glow of the sizeable moon reflected on the lake’s trembling surface. I gave Betsy a few more sugar cubes and a fond pat before joining Gordon, Marie, Javier, Divya, Pietro, and Daphne Darling.

  “This is a surprise,” I commented upon seeing Daphne. She and her twin brother Cereus were in their late twenties and were the eldest Darling children. Both were in line for their throne as a result, but Daphne was more of the people’s favorite. The redhead was as tall and confident as Lena Lenore, but kinder.

  “I came to welcome my little brother home,” she replied. “I realize many of my siblings have a reputation for being self-involved, but I missed him.”

  “I am sure he will appreciate that.” I looked around at the familiar faces. “I have been flying for hours; has anyone checked in with Merlin about Mauvrey? Oh, and how were the peace talks? I hope people were not too upset that I was not there. How did my proposal go over?”

  Gordon grimaced, dampening my excitement. “What happened?” I asked.

  “Mauvrey’s fine,” Javier started. “We checked in with Merlin a couple times today. No big memory reveals, but she’s feeling better.”

  “And the peace talks?”

  No one looked at me for a moment. Finally Divya gathered the nerve. “You were missed, but Merlin spoke to us and the Godmother Supreme this morning and we said you were sick.”

  “Not a fan of lying, but okay. What of my proposal?”

  Divya sighed. “It was a good try, SJ. But self-interest and self-preservation are nasty monsters. You know how politicians are. Questions get warped into concerns, suggestions are taken as assaults, and people start caring more about hearing themselves talk than actually listening.”

  “Translation—the day was a lot of arguing per usual,” Gordon said, rubbing the back of his neck. “People letting their pride get in the way, people allowing the past to get the better of them. We hardly spent any time on the actual meat of your budget breakdown. Too many feelings got involved.”

  “Feelings?” I huffed. “What place do they have in the peace talks? Why can people not just see logic? Our world could be fixed in a matter of weeks if people merely looked at things pragmatically.” I crossed my arms, feeling the weight of responsibility settle heavy on my shoulders. “It is my fault. I should have been there to defend the proposal. It was my idea, and I let everyone down.”

  “Tomorrow’s another day,” Javier said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “And anyway, you had a pretty good reason to miss it. How was your time with Mark?”

  I was about to reply when a glimmering black line appeared, floating in the air a dozen feet away from us where the lake touched the shore. The line spun counterclockwise and created a shimmering black wormhole. The portal to Dreamland.

  “I shall explain the full story later,” I told the group as we all stared at the wormhole. “When everyone is here.”

  Daphne led the way to the lake’s edge. The way her long, dark red hair fell behind her as she walked, it was like she strode with fire flowing around her shoulders.

  I glanced at my Hole Tracker. Mark was not the only one who had managed to procure this magical watch; several of my friends and I had a Hole Tracker. According to the device, this black hole was meant to stay open for five minutes. If our friends in Dreamland missed this window, they would be trapped in that dimension until Book’s full moon next month, roughly another twenty-four to twenty-six days.

  Our group waited in silence for several minutes. The whispering of the wind in the surrounding trees created the score of our scene. Eventually I held up my Hole Tracker again. “There is less than a minute left before—”

  Just as I said it, the portal quivered. Then a form tumbled ou
t of the otherworldly connector. We all surged forward, but Javier got there first.

  “Blue!” Javier exclaimed as he helped her up.

  She swiped the frazzled dark blonde hair from her face. I hurried forward and gave her a tight embrace. I was so happy to see her. Even in the night, the striking color of her blue eyes, which matched her trusty cloak and namesake, shone brightly. However, just then I noticed that there was something off about them—they held guilt mixed with sadness. Something was wrong.

  I did not have a chance to ask about it before the rest of the group started falling through—Jason then Daniel. Kai, Chance, and Girtha followed them swiftly. They all panted heavily, as if they had been running to reach the portal in time.

  My eyes stayed on the wormhole. Crisa typically pulled up the rear of our group as she always seemed to hang out in the thickest part of our conflicts, but this was cutting it close, even for her. Marie stood beside me. We exchanged a look. Where was she?

  I glanced at the friends who had emerged as they caught their breath. That is when I observed the undertones of pain and sadness in all of their eyes. A subterranean note of concern echoed in the pit of my stomach and resonated through me like the lowermost key on a piano.

  Then the portal shimmered again and relief blossomed through me. My worry had been misplaced. Why had I doubted her?

  But it was not Crisa who came through the portal—it was her older brother Alex. To say I was surprised would have been an understatement. Pietro’s shock was double that. “What are you doing here?” he asked angrily, taking several strides toward Alex.

  Alex drew back. The last time he and Pietro had seen each other was the day Alex and Tara-Mauvrey attacked their castle in Midveil. A lot of innocent people had been killed. Once heir to his family’s throne, Alex had betrayed his family and kingdom to join the antagonists in the most public way possible. Why he was here with my friends was a mystery. But there was a bigger question that still needed answering.