He sprinted to me. Behind him the door remained open. Beast burst through it and dashed to me as fast as her little legs could carry her. A moment later Sean appeared in the doorway.

Our gazes met. I looked for reassurance and found it. We were still on the same page about trying this.

“Let’s do it,” Sean called out.

“Are you two out of your minds?” Tony demanded, braking in front of me. “If you bring a seed into the inn, both inns will die!”

“It’s not a seed. It’s a cutting.”

“What?”

“It’s a cutting,” I repeated. “There is no root.”

Tony swore. “It’s a fucking inn, not an African violet.”

The cutting of Magnolia Green slid off my neck and gently stretched toward the inn.

“Did you evacuate everyone?”

“Orro is with Marais. Everyone else went through the portal to the Dominion,” he said. “Karat, Gaston, and Wilmos are guarding Caldenia. She is…unhappy.”

“She owes me. She can wait a few minutes under the heavy guard.” As soon as this was over and if everything went well, everyone could return to the inn. “Is Wilmos conscious?”

“Yes, and pissed off as hell.”

We did save him. I should’ve been happy but right now it barely registered.

Sean waved me over. I started toward the door slowly.

“Two inns can’t occupy the same space,” Tony said. “Best case scenario, both die. Worst case, we collapse reality. If this happens, I can’t contain it.”

A long branch slipped from inside the door and waited, hovering.

“Dina, even if you bring it into the inn, you won’t be able to get it to root,” Tony said.

“I’m not trying to get it to root.”

We were almost to the door. The branch of Gertrude Hunt shivered a few feet away. Sean patted it, reassuring it.

“I’m going to graft it.”

Tony swore again.

The branch reached out to me. The sprout uncoiled itself from around my neck and stretched toward it. It was almost as if the two of them knew what they had to do.

I held my breath and reached out with my hand.

Gertrude Hunt brushed against my fingers.

Magic shot through me like an arrow from Gertrude Hunt, straight into the cutting, and back to the inn. The world vanished. A star-studded darkness blossomed in front of me with a glowing nebulous vortex unfurling at its center. An electric current of magic strummed through me, vibrating in every bone and tendon.

The darkness vanished, and I saw the branch of Gertrude Hunt slide across me back into the inn, with the sprout growing from it.

The branch slipped into the inn. A magic pulse rocked Gertrude Hunt.

Sean disappeared into the depth of inn.

I sprinted to the doorway and dove through it, Tony right behind me. The door slammed shut behind us.