Unfortunately, he’d been off in China somewhere, but Gabriel had claimed he was in the bathroom and told them to stop waking him up. Somehow, they’d listened to that, which made Fort wonder who Gabriel really was again, even as he grew more anxious about getting caught.

The last thing he’d do every night before passing out was remove his amulet and try to reach Sierra. He’d call her name for what felt like hours, but there was never any reply, and he’d lie awake for longer worrying about her. But eventually sleep would come, and the nightmares with it.

By his sixth night of practice, he could barely concentrate even an hour after Gabriel left, he’d gotten so little sleep all week. He slapped his face a few times to wake up, but that didn’t seem to be helping, which usually meant he’d gone on too long.

Fort sighed and closed down a portal to the Hollywood sign, then glanced at the book to relearn the spell and finish up for the night.

Except this time, there was no teleportation spell. The pages were blank.

Instantly awake, Fort picked up the book and quickly turned the page, his hands shaking with anticipation.

The next page wasn’t blank anymore. That meant he’d mastered Teleport and now could access the second spell! Almost afraid to see, he closed his eyes for a moment, crossed his fingers for luck, and took a look.

Restore Dimensional Portal, it said at the top of the page.

If in such a time that a previously created portal between different dimensions needs to be Restored, the careful magic user may ascertain his transdimensional travel will return to an exact previous location by re-creating, instead of creating anew, a dimensional portal. By doing so…

Fort stopped and reread those sentences again, just trying to figure out what they meant through his exhausted haze. When he first saw the name of the spell, his stomach sank, thinking he’d need still another week to learn the spell he needed. But after rereading the first paragraph a few times, his tired mind eventually realized that no, this was exactly the right magic.

After all, he had no idea what it might take to open a portal to the dimension where his father was taken, one out of potentially millions or billions that existed. But this spell would just open an old portal, and he knew exactly where one leading to the right dimension had been: below the old Oppenheimer School, the one Damian had created when possessed. It led to the same monsters as the portal that his father had been taken through, so it had to be the same place.

And if it wasn’t, well, he could always break into the dome the military had built over the hole in the National Mall if he had to.