Lexy took all these objects from where she’d hidden them in a pouch under the waistband of her white cotton skirt. She put the bracelet on and felt dark alchemical power rippling through her. It was big for her, so she pushed it up her arm where it fitted perfectly as an armlet. Now all she had to do was use her healing crystal to create a cure for this poor creature, and then concoct something in the cauldron to blow away these doors so that they could both escape.

“What on earth . . . ?” said Pelham Longfellow, as Wolf slumped, unconscious, on the pew next to him.

“Wolf!” said Effie. “He said this happened the last time he tried this ring.” She eased it off his finger, then quickly put it on the makeshift necklace and placed it back around his neck. Wolf didn’t wake up immediately; he seemed to be in a very peaceful sleep.

“Where did he get it?” asked Pelham.

“It’s a long story,” said Effie. “He was a Last Reader. That’s when he found out that he’s a cleric. And this is the boon the book gave him at the end.”

“Great,” said Pelham Longfellow. “So he’s getting into the Flow by accident just because he’s got the Ring of the Enlightened Cleric, but he doesn’t know what to do with it. And you’ve been in the Flow, what, once? And you don’t know how to use it either. Leander? How are you with the Flow?”

Leander shrugged. “I don’t find it that easy to get in,” he said.

“Right,” said Pelham Longfellow, rolling up his sleeves. “We need to wake him up and then I’ve got to find a way of training both of you to reach the next level of cleric and teaching you how to use the Flow to help us.”

“What do you mean?” said Leander.

“Higher-level clerics can unbind people,” said Pelham. “It takes a lot of magic, but you and Wolf might just be one of the most useful resources we have at the moment. Unbinding takes two clerics working in a pair.”

“What can I do to help?” said Effie.

Pelham sighed. “If only you could get in the Flow properly you could help power them. But there probably isn’t time for you to learn how to do that. You’re supposed to be the most powerful of us all—potentially, at least. But you’re blinded somehow. I see you’re still not wearing your ring.”

Effie touched the Ring of the True Hero that hung around her neck. It was there in case she needed it for a serious battle but wearing it had become so complicated she didn’t even remember to put it on half the time. She didn’t even wear it for tennis anymore.

“It just drains me,” she said.