Fort had fought the creature off, and it had tried to escape back into the portal, but he’d almost not let it. He’d felt so much rage toward the creature for taking his father from him that he’d almost killed the thing before finally letting it go, realizing that the Old One was the one in control, not the monster.

Time to see how true that was. If the Old One had kept his father alive, like he’d seen in his dreams, then Fort would find him. If not…

“Gen urre’otre platrexe phor,” Fort said softly, and the rock and rubble glowed from an eerie green light in his hands. He concentrated, closing his eyes, and in his mind’s eye a glowing circle appeared on the stone just in front of him. He opened his eyes, confused, and the circle disappeared. But closing them again, he could see it clearly, like he’d stared at the sun and burned its image into his eyes.

Moving his head around, he could see another circle hundreds of feet above him, this one also bright, but much smaller from a distance. That had to be the portal Damian had opened when trying to bring the other Old Ones through.

And there were more, many more, in almost every direction, some so far away they were just tiny specks of light, like stars in the dark. A whole bunch of them were grouped off in one direction, and Fort wondered if that was the NSA, where Damian had originally practiced his Summoning magic.

It didn’t matter. The only portal Fort was concerned about was directly in front of him.

He turned back to this one, and slowly unleashed the magic, feeling the itchiness of the Summoning power flow out of his hands and into the ground. The glowing circle in his mind disappeared, and he took a deep breath, then opened his eyes to find the portal now glowing in real life, lighting up the rubble all around him.

At first, it was just a circle of magical fire, but soon he could feel something opening, splitting the barriers between dimensions, creating a doorway to another world.

Another world where his father had been waiting for almost eight months now.

No. Don’t think about it. He couldn’t let the possibilities stop him. He was so close! Fort took a step closer to the edge of the chasm, his heart racing. No matter what he found below, he’d be bringing his father back.

Another step, and he stood directly over the glowing circle. The darkness around the flames was so intense that he couldn’t see much in the other dimension, but he knew this was where the creature had come from. It had to be. It was also strangely quiet, but that was probably for the best: The last thing he wanted to do was land in a nest of the creatures.