Oliver didnt waste any time. He squeezed through the opening, feeling a strange coldness pass through his whole body. Once on the other side, he looked back, searching for Esther. But, of course, she was now concealed by the invisible wall.

Goodbye, he whispered, his voice cracking.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Suddenly, Oliver heard a honk. He turned sharply. A taxi was careening toward him.

His heart pounded as he jumped back, landing on a sidewalk. He was just in time. The car whizzed past him.

But as Oliver watched it go, he noticed it wasnt a taxi at all. It was a police car, with a little sign on top and the word sheriff emblazoned across its side. It had a strange rounded black body and large shiny fenders. It was an old-fashioned wartime police car.

Oliver knew then, without a doubt, that he was back in the past. He was back in 1944.

Oliver looked about him. The streets of 1944 New Jersey were exactly as hed left them when hed followed Ralph into the School for Seers. Hed come out at the exact same point hed gone in. He even recognized the same children playing hoop and ball in the playground, the same smartly dressed men driving shiny black cars. It was as if time itself had been paused while hed been inside the school, as if a second out here had been a day in there.

It was an unsettling thought but Oliver didnt find it all that surprising, considering the fact the school existed outside of time. But it meant the amount of time he had to stop Lucas before Esther lost hold of the tear in the wall could be even less than the eight hours hed anticipated.

Oliver hurried onward, heading in the direction of Illstroms Inventions. Without Ralph to guide him, he had to navigate the streets himself, a task that amplified how very alone he felt without his friends. Theyd become his companions now and he desperately wished they could be by his side. He wondered what would happen if they all awoke before he returned, and what Esther would tell them about helping him escape. And more importantly, what Professor Amethyst would do when he discovered Oliver had left. Would he expel him? Even if Oliver survived this ordeal and made it back to the school alive, would he even be allowed back in?

He ran on, passing the housing estates and munitions factories, the workers and civilians going about their lives under the shadow of war. He could sense it in the air, that tense feeling of disaster waiting around every corner. Living during a time when the world was at war must have been terrifying, and Oliver felt supremely grateful for the safe and peaceful days hed spent at the School for Seers. Hed needed them; his next task would test him to his limits.