Eleanor had started the school because she didn’t want other children to suffer the way she’d suffered when she returned from her own Nonsense world and ran up against the disbelief of the people who should have been most willing to believe her. Strange as it was to consider, she’d been young once, quick and bright and flexible-minded, ready to handle any challenge … except for exile. So she’d opened a school, with the goal of getting it as stable as she could before senility softened her mind and she went back through her own door. Before she went home.

Kade had always assumed there’d be someone to take over when that happened. Not Lundy, maybe, whose own journeys had left her a brilliant woman trapped in a body growing younger every year, but someone adult and capable. Someone who’d understand why it was so important, and who’d be willing to keep Kade on, keep teaching him everything he’d need to know to eventually step up as headmaster. And of course, there was college to be considered, courses in education and business and …

And he wanted to involve Eleanor in this latest potential crisis, and he didn’t want to involve her at all, because that theoretical adult had yet to appear. What if she decided this was the last thing she could handle? What if she left him, unprepared and alone, to take over running the school?

The thought made his heart beat too fast and his chest feel too tight. Panic attacks aren’t supposed to be contagious, he thought sourly. If he went too far down the metaphorical rabbit hole, he’d need to take his binder off in order to get his breath back, and he wanted that even less than he wanted to talk to his great-aunt.

Sumi followed him down the stairs from the attic to the main floor and along the hallway toward the basement, uncharacteristically quiet. When they reached the basement door, she reached out and placed a long-fingered hand on his arm, stopping him.

“There’s enough air for everyone,” she said, voice soft. “No one’s going to take it away from you.”

“Weirdly enough, that helps,” he said, because weirdly enough, it did. “Let’s see if we can’t convince Jack of the same thing.”

The scene in Christopher’s room hadn’t changed much: Jack was still huddled against Alexis, the yellow tablecloth bunched up around her bare feet and calves. Christopher was standing a reasonable distance away, with Cora halfway hiding behind him, like she expected to be ejected from the room at any moment.

“Oh, this is silly,” said Sumi. She shoved past Kade, taking back the box of gloves as she went, and hopped down the last six stairs, not pausing until she was next to Alexis. She slammed the box down on the table, creating a banging noise loud enough to make Jack flinch.