He spun, pointing. Spun again, and siphoned the gold of his own burning will into his working. Complex, layered, with limitations and stops and buffers he’d learned and mastered until he raised one arm.

In the real he said, “Fiat Lux.”

There was a flash. Thunder rolled, and Gabriel still stood in the worlds of the real, shining with unshadowed gold.

From his outstretched hand to the pylons of the gate, and beyond, the earth was clear except for a fine grey dust that lingered, and the sun lit it in brilliant shafts.

Outside the circle of his choice, millions of the worms writhed in the sunlight and could offer no hermetical response.

The gate was clear. The golden pedestal stood where he had expected it to be. Gabriel walked forward, the metal sabatons on his feet crunching against the tiny fragments of desiccated worms as he walked.

Tom Lachlan was beside him, and Sauce. The company was in chaos; intermixed, knights and men-at-arms, archers and pages spread over hundreds of paces of ground, most of them ferociously stomping, cutting, or kicking.

Lachlan looked angry.

Gabriel managed a smile.

“Don’t worry, Tom,” he said. “There’s still an army of bogglins. And the dragon.”

“Oh aye,” Bad Tom said. “Fuck.” He shuddered. “I hate worms.”

Gabriel laughed. It was a good laugh. He hadn’t ever imagined that Tom Lachlan hated anything.

He was still chuckling when he got to the pedestal, and found the key inside his breastplate. He had to drop his gauntlets to fumble it out. His hands were shaking so badly that he had to pause and breathe. His knees were weak; his heart pounded.

All for this, he thought. Please, God, let me have been right. Please. I will not brag or be smug or claim I figured it all out. Just let me be right.

It was the most complex gate yet: six stops on the plaque, and none closed.

But only one of them could be the right one. The green jewel, on the far left; the one already burning, because, of course, the will had been trying to force its way through.

He turned the key.

His shaking hand reached out to press the gem.

It would not push.

Please. Please. Damn it.

Nothing.

An exhausted Mortirmir appeared in his memory palace, standing beside Pru. And there was Tancreda and Petrarcha and the rest of the surviving choir.

“It is locked from the other side,” Mortirmir said carefully. “Miriam must have been holding it against the will all this time.”

Gabriel felt a rush of frustration almost as intense as physical pain.

He put his right hand, physical flesh, on the jewel. Hello? he called into the void.

And Desiderata replied, Gabriel!

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Gabriel felt Desiderata’s response and he almost burst into tears, so great was the relief, the sheer joy.

And the overwhelming feel of triumph.

Under his fingers, the jewel moved.