Kaley’s insides thawed, and she thought of the spark of hope in the Dungeon of Souls. “Let him come,” she said. “But hurry up, Eliot. I plan to arrive by nightfall.”

“Whaaaaaaaaat?” Lucas rounded with wide eyes to look her right in the face.

“He’s just going to follow us anyway.” Kaley turned to head down the other side of the hill.

“Not if I whip his scotcher,” Lucas articulated through his teeth.

Eliot rolled his eyes as he walked past to join Kaley, and Lucas scrambled to catch up, wedging himself between the two. He cleared his throat. “Prepare to be serenaded the entire walk, Gray.”

Kaley and Eliot both cringed when Lucas began to sing.

And so, they set forth—Trite, Patrolman, and once-Patrolman-perhaps-maybe-a-Patrolman-again, skating toward that great barrier beyond which the kingdom of light and colours awaited. Where those who had passed on had found themselves alive again, and those who once were lost, now were found.

But as they reached the great barrier to the dwelling place of Truth himself, Lucas took Kaley’s fingers and tugged her to a halt.

“Someone’s up there,” he whispered, drawing Eliot to glance ahead also.

Two figures battled in the snow before the wall, jumping as high as the sky itself, slashing with wood and ice.

“It’s Zane!” Kaley realized, pulling forward, but Lucas tightened his grip.

“Stay back, Trite,” he instructed. Lucas slid down the hill and inched toward the pair cutting and slashing and heaving and jumping.

“That’s Jolly Cheat with him,” Eliot whispered as he followed. They were close enough to hear the pumping threats, the screaming hearts, the grunts of hits being taken.

Zane slashed his staff, drawing a spiralling worm of ice from the ground and sending it plummeting over the Court magician. Jolly hacked back, turning it to glassy dust. A patch of swollen flesh covered Jolly’s brow, and Zane’s lips dripped with red.

“They’re going to turn each other to snow,” Lucas muttered, drawing his own Patrol staff. The movement caught Jolly’s attention.

Eliot did not draw his weapon.

Suddenly Jolly threw his head back, and a crazed laugh echoed to the sky. “Come! Come, Leutenski, you young thing. Let us all have a merry brawl.”

Zane’s head snapped toward where Lucas stood, and he blinked, shaking the fog from his eyes. “You finally bloody made it,” he called at Lucas. “Cheat’s been hunting you since you left the factory! It’s been a footrace to the border!”

“A footrace I won.” The madman twirled his staff.

“You old snoot,” Lucas called back to Jolly, marching over with his weapon at the ready. “You think you stand a chance against three sputtlepuns?”

But Jolly’s nickel eyes flashed, and he leered. “The odds are more even than you think.”