My knee gave way as pain shot through my thigh. I screamed, but Sarah wouldn’t let me fall. She tugged me toward the door with all her might. Just in time. Because as she pushed me through, the wall to our side shattered.
I caught sight of the side of his sword blazing with magical flame. It was so bright, it almost burnt my retinas.
Then I saw his face. His angry gaze locked on me with all the power of a magnet. Before it could draw me toward him, Sarah put on a last burst of speed and shoved me in the small of my back, propelling me through the door. She jumped through behind me, slammed the door shut, kept her hand on the handle, and incanted something. Finally, she removed the key.
I watched her stagger backward through the field, her heels twisting to the side as she strode over the uneven ground. Her face was slick with sweat, her eyes were wide with fear, and her lips were locked in a line as she clearly waited to see if she’d locked the door quickly enough.
I stood by her side, incapable of moving as I waited with her. The seconds slowly ticked past until it became clear she’d done it.
She brought up a hand, slammed it over her chest, and collapsed down to her knees. She drew in breath after breath. “Oh my god. We barely got out of there by the skin of our teeth. He’s… I’ve never seen power like that,” she admitted as she turned her head up to me, her eyes still pressed open wide.
I didn’t answer. I stared at the spot where the door had disappeared, waiting several seconds until it became absolutely clear that Max wouldn’t be able to push through. Then finally I collapsed, my shoulders hunching in and my hands trembling by my sides as I forced my fingers to form fists. “How long until he finds us?” I whispered. “Surely, he’ll have transport keys of his own. Even if he doesn’t, I’m sure a spell like this won’t be outside of his abilities.”
“It’s a good point,” Sarah said as she pushed to her feet, locked a hand over my arm, and started to pull me backward. “But this isn’t any ordinary field.” She nodded toward a knot of trees 100m away.
It looked like a thick forest full of oaks and pines and birches. There were no forests around Bane City, so we must have transported a heck of a distance.
“This is no ordinary forest,” Sarah continued to explain. She kept her hand locked over my arm, and I was glad of it. For without it, I would have fallen. The injury to my thigh had turned nasty. When Sarah had grabbed me, my leg had twisted at the wrong angle, and now pain shot through my hip with every jolt.
I clenched my teeth together and breathed through them as I nodded. “What do you mean this is no ordinary forest?”
“Wait and see,” she said.
It took an agonizingly long time to travel the 100m to the tree line. The other witches were waiting there, and Bridgette cast me a nervous smile. “Got out of there by the skin of our teeth. That guy’s almost unstoppable,” she commented under her breath.
“Yeah,” I managed. “Sure as hell he isn’t going to give up. I don’t know how long we have,” I said. “This forest certainly looks as if it could offer a little protection, but without a door,” I began.
That’s when Sarah tugged me gently on the arm and pointed.
I saw a door or at least a doorway. It looked as if somebody had pulled a door frame from a house and stuck it next to a tree. It was one of the strangest things I’d ever seen, almost as if a building had been here but the rest of it had crumbled away.
I frowned and cast my gaze through the knotted trees, and I saw another door and another door and another door. I took a sudden breath. “What the hell is this place?”
“It’s an insurance policy,” Sarah said as she pulled me toward the closest door. Dimitri’s keys were still in her hand. She hooked them around her finger as she selected one and pressed it between two white fingers.
“What do you mean an insurance policy?”
“For a situation just like this, when we’re on the run and we need a place to hide. These doors can port anywhere as long as you have a set of keys this generous.” She let out a wry, mirthless chuckle. “Which we should thank Dimitri for later. Point is, we’ll be able to port back and forth through this forest of doors indefinitely. Or at least until the keys run out.” She jangled the keys once more.
“It’ll buy us some time,” I repeated in a hollow tone. “But how much time? I mean, sure, this will mean we can keep on the run, but we’ll have to face McCain eventually. If we don’t, who knows what he’ll do to Bane City,” I stuttered.
“He’s not going to pay attention to Bane City. Not yet, anyway,” Sarah said as she shot me a look. “He’s after you. He’s gonna concentrate all his energy on tracking you down. And as long as we can keep you on the run – like I said, it’ll buy us some time.”
I pressed my lips together and swallowed uncomfortably. “Yeah, you’re right, but eventually we’ll have to face him. We need a plan.”
She kept me locked in her steady gaze. “That’s why you have to figure it out.”
“Sorry?”
“You have to figure out why he wanted you specifically, what specific powers he was after. I know you think it’s a longshot, but it has
