Fire shot out of my fingertips. The bug fell off Samantha in a hail of fireworks. I aimed my hand at the bugs coming up close behind Samantha. “Lithiori.”
Again, the fire fell out of my hand. The edges of the pocket were catching on fire and I shouted again and again. “Lithiori. Lithiori. Lithiori. Lithiori.”
With every shot from my arms, the fire grew. The great eye descended on me, this time with panic in its pupil. “Stop that! You’ll burn me alive!”
“Then bring us back!” I shouted.
“Ugh. Fine.”
I grabbed onto Samantha and suddenly everything went black again. This time, instead of my stomach ascending into my throat, it fell to my knees, and when I could see again, I had crashed onto the coffee table in the living room. I pushed myself up and saw the gnome stomping on her apron trying to put out the fire.
“You’re a rotten kid, did you know that?”
I turned around to see Samantha, dazed and hurt, but she was with us again. I grabbed her arm and ran out of the house as fast as I could. The fire from the gnome’s apron leapt to the walls all around us.
“What happened?” Katie asked when we jumped in the car.
“I’ll tell you on the way,” I said.
“You talk,” Samantha said, falling over in the back seat. “I sleep.”
I smiled as I looked back at her. “Who knows the last time she slept?”
I’d done it. I’d rescued Samantha, and now it was time to save the world.
Chapter 43
“I can’t go back home,” Samantha said as I pulled up to her house.
“What do you mean you can’t go home?” Katie replied. “Everybody is worried about you.”
“If I go home, Hilda will find me and capture me again. You can’t go home either, Anna. Not until this is over.”
“I can’t just stay gone. My mother will worry.”
“If you go home, you’ll be dead, and your mother will be in danger. We have to end this now.”
“How?” Katie asked. “We don’t know how to get dragon’s fire or the enchantment to make the glue work.”
“I think I can help you with that last thing. Hilda and the gnome who imprisoned me were always talking about the library in Balboa Park.”
“We already looked that up,” I said. “There’s no public library there. A couple of research libraries, but they don’t seem big enough to keep a collection of witch books.”
“That’s because the library is enchanted to be bigger than it seems,” Samantha said. “And I know how to get in. The witch’s library is inside the Museum of Man. If we hurry, we can get there right when it opens.”
“I don’t know,” Katie said. “Going into a library full of witches, especially when one is hunting you, can’t be a good idea.”
“You’re wrong. That’s why it’s the perfect idea. They expect us to run and hide, not enter the belly of the beast.”
I bit my lip, worried. “This is a stupid idea, but it’s also the only one we have, so okay. I’m in.”
Katie sighed. “Well, I don’t have corporeal form, otherwise I would smack you. However, since you’re both on board with this dumb plan I guess there’s nothing I can do but try to help you.”
It took us nearly two hours to get to San Diego in the early morning rush hour. We arrived in Balboa Park just before the Museum of Man opened. I had been to the museum a few times before, including on a school trip in eighth grade, before Katie was diagnosed.
It was one of the last fun days we’d had together before the cancer took hold. Sure, we had our fun while she was going through chemo, but the days always had a sense of dread hanging over them.
“Do you remember coming here with Mrs. Haversock’s class?” I asked Katie as I parked the car.
“Of course I do,” she replied. “It was one of the better field trips I’d ever been on, even though the tour guide was incredibly dull.”
“Ugh. He almost made me fall asleep standing up. I didn’t even know I could do that.”
Katie giggled. “Well, we’d also stayed up all night watching old movies the night before, remember?”
“You both have quite the history,” Samantha said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about though, so can you cut it out?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I know it’s rude. It’s just that, if this goes well…we don’t have much time left together.”
“Until you die,” Samantha said. “Then you have all the time in the world.” Katie and I looked at each other, then back at Samantha. “What? Too morbid?”
“No,” Katie said. “When you die, you lose your memories and become a big pile of mush.”
Samantha frowned. “That didn’t happen to you.”
“Yeah, but that’s because I had just died. By the time Anna dies, I’ll have been in the Dark Place for decades. Who knows if I’ll even remember her?”
“That’s a huge bummer,” Samantha said. “I was hoping to see my nana in the afterlife.”
“Maybe you will,” Katie said. “I mean, it’s not like I know a lot about the afterlife. I don’t even know why people can’t see the hole to the Dark Place.”
“It must be because of Hilda,” Samantha said. “The council is keeping it hidden from everybody, so they can harness its power.”
“Do you know why?”
Samantha shook her head. “No, but it must be for something big.”
I opened the car door. “Well then, I think it’s time to ruin their plans.”
Chapter 44
The Museum of Man wasn’t large, but it was opulent. The exterior was chiseled from white marble, and long, covered walking pathways led from the parking lot to the entrance on either side.
Samantha walked into the museum first and followed the directions to the research library. The library was lightly trafficked and small, or so it looked from the outside. Samantha was sure the witch’s
