It was a strange sensation, both like and unlike what she felt when she used a portal-book. There was the same moment of dislocation, as though she spent an infinitesimal time in a place between the worlds, neither on one side nor the other. But the portal-books had a sense of power, tightly controlled, waiting like a coiled spring, ready to serve the Reader who glanced at them. Here the power was diffuse, ragged, a wild surge of energy that rose as she stepped through and lapped around her like a wave. When it receded, she found herself blinking in bright light.

There was a proper sun here, she was glad to see, just edging away from the horizon. It was blessedly warm on her skin after so much time in the starlit world. She stood in a meadow, tall grass rising past her thighs, and ahead of her was a tree line that wouldn’t have looked out of place back in Pennsylvania. She wondered, briefly, if the portal had somehow taken them back to Earth—somewhere in the southern hemisphere, perhaps, since it was mid-winter back at the Library.

But no. In the middle distance, a large animal raised its head. It looked a bit like a moose, but it had no legs, just a long body held in the air by hundreds and hundreds of tiny butterfly wings attached to its back. They fluttered in constant motion, each pair a different color.

“Oh!” said Erdrodr. “How wonderful!” She felt for her slate with one hand, eyes fixed on the moose-thing, which stared back warily. “Just give me a moment—”

“I think we had better get moving,” Alice said. “Or at least I should. You don’t have to stay with us, Erdrodr. You’ve done everything you said you would do.”

“And so have you,” the ice giant said. She let her slate fall back. “But I think I will travel with you a while longer. I suspect my mother would want me to.”

“We’re happy to have you along,” Alice said. “Flicker, do you have any idea which way to go?”

“I think so,” Flicker said. He looked up at the sun, not bothering to shade his eyes, and stared at it long enough that Alice began to tear up in sympathy. “It’s . . . going up. That’s rising, yes?” When Alice nodded, the fire-sprite turned and pointed in the opposite direction. “Then we go that way for a while, until we find a wide river. And we follow it toward some mountains.”

That sounded awfully vague for Alice’s liking, but she didn’t have anything else to go on. If we find anyone here, we can ask them. Everyone seems to have heard of the Palace of Glass. She let the fire-sprite lead the way, toward the trees.