Magisterium

away.

Disappearing. And for the first time Glenn wasn’t frightened. She could feel every life in the world as if it was her own, all their hearts pounding together. It was glorious. Her mother clasped her hand, holding her steady, keeping her grounded.

“Alnitak. Alnilam. Mintaka,” Glenn whispered as more power

than she ever imagined coursed through her.

Glenn saw the three bright points strung together, could feel their raging fusion drive. She moved from one to another and then off to the bright green eye that was 813. Glenn repeated her prayer under her breath, holding on to her mother and father and her one single intention as if it was an anchor. She gave a single push and suddenly there was an immense flare of light and the three of them were surrounded by a brilliance that grew until it seemed to cut through everything around them — the woods, the earth, the air. They sat suspended in that blinding void, the forest around them wiped away.

Nothing is separate, Glenn thought. Everything is one thing.

She stood and raised her hand in front of her and then, just as she had once pushed at the face of Opal’s wall, she set her palm against the surface tension of the universe until, with a tremble, it parted.

The light swirled and a smudge of green grew and took shape. It slowly came into focus until Glenn saw swooping curves of rain forest trees festooned with vines. A flight of birds, pink and yellow, soared through the lush emerald jungle of 813. Glenn could feel the planet’s warmth and the clean moist air. It was impossible and yet there it was.

Another world. Not Magisterium or Colloquium. A place they could all be safe. Glenn looked to her father, who was staring wide-eyed into the portal.

“Take her,” Glenn said. Already the portal was trying to collapse, like a slow-healing wound. Keeping it open was a massive weight bearing down on her. “We’ll be safe there. Straight ahead through the forest you’ll find the base. I’ll be right behind you.”

Dad staggered to his feet and lifted Mom into his arms just as a man, a scientist in his whites, appeared in the foliage and stared, dumbfounded. He called back to someone behind him.

“Go!” Glenn called. Her father looked back at her and then he took a single step through the opening. The fabric of the air rippled and he dropped to his knees in the midst of lush green grass, breathing alien air for the first time. Mom slipped out of his arms and then slowly stood up beside him. When she turned, her eyes were clear and blue.

She tried to call to Glenn, but her voice couldn’t make the journey. She waved Glenn forward instead.

Glenn felt a surge of joy as she took a step toward the portal. But before she went through she turned and saw Aamon and Kevin standing, partially shrouded in the dark woods.

Kevin walked forward and was washed in the light of the portal.

He raised one hand to her, saying good-bye, brown eyes glimmering in the otherworldly light.

Glenn paused, inches from the portal and freedom. Beyond Kevin and Aamon she felt all the millions living in the Magisterium. The Colloquium agents had fled, but they’d be back. With the whole of Authority behind them, it wouldn’t be long before they cracked the secret of the bracelet’s technology. Once they did, they would send fleets of armed skiffs, drones and agents, and not even the Miel Pan could stand against them. They would tear the Magisterium down brick by brick.

Opal and Aamon and Kevin were all willing to give their lives to stop them. Glenn knew that without her and her Affinity, that’s exactly what they would do.

Inside the portal, her mother and father were framed in the green of the other world, lit in slowly falling amber light. Glenn saw herself standing beside them, but it was as a little girl, her hand in theirs, face upturned in awe. She wasn’t that person anymore. She never would be again.

“There is no road home.”

Glenn raised her hand to them. “Meera doe branagh,” she said.

Her father cried out and charged the portal, but before he could reach it, Glenn let it fall. There was a brilliant flash and the great light was gone. The portal was closed.

Glenn collapsed into the snowy leaves at her feet. Her head was swimming and her eyes ached from the glare of the doorway. The forest was quiet. She felt no trace of the agents. Glenn looked up at the stars, wishing her Affinities could reach her parents way out there, wishing she could feel some trace of them, knowing she never could.

“Glenn,” a voice said. “We should go.”

Kevin’s hand fell on her shoulder, and there was a snap as they reconnected and he flowed into her. Glenn raised one hand to his cheek and guided him down to her lips. She closed her eyes and for a moment the rest of the world fell away and there was just him and the memory of a swirling band of snow that locked them together. The borders between them dissipated until it seemed that together they made a world all their own. Glenn knew then that he was never more himself, and she was never more herself, than when they were together.

They parted slowly and Kevin smiled — how long had it been

since she had seen him do that?

“Come on, Morgan,” he said, offering his hand. “No time for naps. Things to do.”

Glenn’s knees wobbled as she stood, but Kevin’s hand was there, pressed into the small of her back. Once she was steady, they walked, hand in hand, through the woods. Aamon fell into place beside her, his thick fur soft at her side. The forest slipped by, a flickering show of black and gray.

Glenn turned at the trill of a whistle behind her. A small shadow flitted through the trees and lit on a branch nearby. She could just make out its black body and the fringe of silver on its long tail. Its tiny heartbeat was slow and steady, a pinprick of warmth in the cold of the forest. The callowell looked down at Glenn with blank, glossy eyes. As