Hand-rungs had been carved into it, allowing the worthy candidate to climb up and around the overhang . . .

. . . if he had two good hands.

Two minutes . . .

Jack stared in dismay at his broken artificial hand, its titanium and steel fingers all bent and mangled.

And he froze.

He couldn’t scale the overhang with one hand. It was physically impossible.

He’d come all this way—through all the challenges and difficulties, deaths and heartache, victories and losses—and he was going to fail here because of his one weakness, his left hand.

‘Oh, damn,’ he said again.

And in that moment of absolute despair, of all things, Jack heard laughter.

Someone nearby was laughing.

Sphinx.

Jack spun to see his rival over on a ledge on the other side of the pinnacle, about forty feet away and a little below him, chuckling.

‘How fitting, Captain!’ Sphinx called. ‘After all your dashing heroics, you can’t overcome the final simple obstacle!’

Jack swore in outright frustration. He couldn’t believe it.

Couldn’t.

Fucking.

Believe it.

Sphinx snorted coldly. ‘I told you, Captain, but you didn’t listen! The poet Robert Browning was wrong! A man’s reach shouldn’t exceed his grasp! You should never have tried to do this! You should have remembered your place! This throne—this moment, this test—it is literally out of your reach! Your grasp isn’t long enough!’

His face bloody, his metal hand twisted and broken, Jack could have wept.

Because Sphinx was right. There was nothing Jack could do to overcome this situation. He was finally, truly, out of options.

And then Jack heard a voice.

‘Dad! Incoming!’

It was Lily’s voice, calling from below him.

Jack looked down and saw a short distance beneath him . . .

. . . Zoe and Lily, both clinging to the side of the pinnacle, and on a ledge further below them, Alby.

They’d all evidently entered this vast space, run up through the castle and then climbed the pinnacle, too.

One minute . . .

‘Alby!’ Lily called. ‘Toss it up!’

And then Jack saw Alby do something and his eyes widened in total shocked surprise.

Alby unclipped his own artificial left hand at the wrist, separating it from the forearm mount, and threw it up to Lily.

Lily then tossed the shiny silver metal hand up to Zoe who threw it up the last ten feet to Jack on his ledge.

Jack caught the hand—his own old hand, the previous version of his current model—and his eyes lit up.

Sphinx saw him catch it and instantly knew what he had to do.

No more laughing or gloating. Sphinx hauled ass up the last twenty feet of the pinnacle on his side.

Jack unclipped his bent and broken metal hand, cast it aside and slotted in Alby’s in its place. It fit perfectly and he locked it in position with a satisfying click.

And suddenly Jack was whole again.