Lunging forward, I hit the activation button and by some miracle the platform in front of us lit up. The computer screen started counting down from ten, and together we raced for the platform, leaping over fallen equipment and rubble that got in our way. We skidded to a stop dead center, and as though we’d planned it, we reached out at the same time to grab hands. More chunks of rock were falling from the ceiling, and I looked across the room just in time to see the door of the Glitch room open and Officer Salzburg burst through, his eyes wide as he spotted us. There was the sound of another explosion and the platform shook under our feet as everything went black.

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours I had the disturbing sensation that I was melting, and a second later, I opened my eyes at the Academy. I stared at the green lawn, the silence of the night almost deafening after the chaos of the last few seconds. I sagged in relief, my knees buckled, and I sat down hard on the dew-damp grass.

“We aren’t dead,” Regan said, sinking down to sit beside me.

“We aren’t,” I confirmed. “At least I don’t think so.”

“When everything went black, I gave us a fifty-fifty shot of being dead,” Regan said, and then she sniffed and turned to me. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“No.”

“Me either,” she said. “In hindsight, that was a really dumb question. Sorry.”

“Forgiven,” I said, looking around. We’d landed in the grass on the edge of the Academy’s large open green space in the center of campus that everyone called the Mall. It was one of my favorite parts of campus, and I’d thought I’d never see it again. I wondered if it would be too dramatic to bend down to kiss the grass like a sailor kisses the shore after surviving a shipwreck.

“What time is it?” Regan asked, pulling me from my dazed preoccupation with the beauty of the place I’d called home for most of my life. I glanced over to the end of the Mall where the Edison Building sat with its huge clock tower illuminated on top.

“It’s midnight,” I said, and then all the warm fuzzy feelings I’d been having evaporated instantaneously. “Wait a minute,” I said, vaulting to my feet, my weak knees forgotten as my mind raced ahead. “Didn’t Callaway say that the Academy was destroyed at approximately one a.m.?”

“Professor McMillan only gave us an hour?!” Regan said, her face pale in the moonlight. “There is no way we can figure this out in an hour. This place is gigantic.”