Garrick’s fingers tapped the looking glass, and he realized that he had been hoodwinked with his own magical apparatus; but the throbbing in his head grew louder than his thoughts. “Angled lights. A series of mirrors. Misdirection. But why?”

“To get you on the bed,” said a voice behind him.

Garrick turned dully, foundering in the goose down, and there, impossibly, stood Chevron Savano, hale and hardy, some form of throwing missile already flashing from her fingers, spinning in his direction.

Not so easy, thought Garrick, and he snatched the object from the air. Even when dazed, I will not be struck down by the likes of you.

The magician was irritated that he had been injured by one of his own mirrors. But what had the illusion accomplished, except to delay the inevitable? He was a little bloody, nothing more.

Garrick’s hand tingled, and he saw orange sparks buzz around the fingers that held the missile. Sparks buzzing like quantum bees around honey. Puzzlement heaped upon puzzlement.

Orange sparks? How?

Garrick opened his fingers and saw a Timekey, and for a moment he thought it another illusion, until Felix Smart’s experience assured him that it was real.

The hazmat team I tackled earlier. Of course, they had Timekeys and body armor. This is one of their keys, as was the one I smashed on the stairs. Dropped deliberately as a ruse. Riley allowed me to see him enter the house. Chevron simply donned a bulletproof vest in the minute before my arrival.

The Timekey’s digital readout was divided into four quadrants, and the top two were flashing.

Garrick waited a nanosecond for the information to come to him.

Top left activates the wormhole. Top right is the countdown, which already reads zero. The lower quadrants activate the reentry beacon. They are not active.

“That’s right,” said Chevie. “You’re going in, but you ain’t coming out.”

Garrick pawed at the Timekey controls with his fingers, but they had already become insubstantial; he was like a ghost trying to make contact with the real world. The Timekey slipped from his grasp and landed on the goose down, a vortex of light opening at its core.

“What?” said Chevie. “No last words? How about, The world hasn’t seen the last of Albert Garrick? That’s a good one.”

Riley appeared at Chevie’s side and his eyes were wet with tears. “You murdered my family. You stole me from my bed.” He shook Garrick’s own cloak at him. “So that I could be your audience.”

Garrick had bigger things on his mind than dealing with a boy’s accusations. He felt himself slipping away.

I am nothing, he realized. There may have been comfort in this thought for many, but for Albert Garrick it held only terror.

I shall be nothing for all eternity.