Below, the real Alex sprinting along the street stumbled and fell as his mind flooded with pain. His vision bled to black. He lay groggy on the damp pavement, then pulled himself up and stumbled in the direction his grandfather had gone.

The old museum extended to a corner where another road cut across. Alex looked up, hunting the roofline, then down, scanning the ground. A border of tangled bushes and trees ran along the other side of the street. In the shadows beside it lay an odd, motionless heap, half on the road.

Alex ran over and knelt. His grandfather was out cold, facedown on the wet pavement. The painting remained strapped to his back. The fingers of one outstretched hand still curled loosely around his cane

“Grandad. Grandad!”

He shook the old man’s shoulder. Nothing. Trying to contain his panic, Alex bent to the old man’s mouth and listened. A thin breath. He tried rousing him again, to no avail. He looked back to the roof looming across the road. Nothing. Yet.

Beyond the corner, the whooping police siren abruptly fell silent.

Alex searched around, hunting for inspiration. Traffic was coming along the road at them, fast. He grabbed his grandfather’s shoulders and hauled him safely onto the verge as a truck rumbled heavily past, inches away.

With difficulty, Alex slipped the harness from the old man and propped the painting against the bush. He took the old toy robot from his pocket, thinking hard about his options.

He could try to connect, rush to find the light, work some mighty blasting wonder, end all this now. But that might end Kenzie with it. He was almost certain of that.

Even before, when Alex had used the tablet barely conscious of what he was doing or how, Kenzie had started growing quieter, weaker. Now that he had started using it consciously, calling up greater and greater forces—creating the blast at the château, raising Harry—Kenzie had fallen into a coma. Somehow what Alex was doing with the tablet was taking a toll on Kenzie.

There’s always a price to be paid. The memory of his grandfather’s words hit him again like a dead weight. Maybe Kenzie was paying the price that Alex should have been for using the tablet.

He crouched, frozen, looking at the old man lying helpless before him. Sacrifice Kenzie to save everything else. That seemed to be the choice.

“No,” Alex said to himself. Then again. “No.”

He wouldn’t do it. He refused. And he couldn’t risk having the tablet near him. He might use it by accident. Or in desperation.

He slipped the old toy into the inside pocket of his grandfather’s coat. Then he rolled the unconscious figure into the undergrowth as far as he could.