Dad drew himself up, sword ready. I looked at him with new respect. He must have made these doors for Thellops many years ago… and made sure they would always open for him. The crafty devil. Had he planned a career as a burglar?

“Faster!” Dad commanded. “Be quick and be silent!”

The door swung completely open, revealing darkness. From inside came a strange snuffling, snorting sound, almost like a pig rooting for food in its trough. A monster? A guard of some kind? I raised my sword, prepared to defend myself, but nothing charged from the darkness. What was it waiting for?

Without hesitation, Dad strode forward. He disappeared into the room.

The snuffling noise grew louder.

“Come on!” I said to Blaise. Then I charged after him.

Chapter 12

I found myself in warm, humid darkness, unable to see anything. From somewhere ahead, I heard a faint tap-heart pounded. My every nerve jangled in alarm. I did not like feeling blind and helpless.

“Dad!” I called. “Can you see anything?”

“Light!” Dad commanded.

Brilliant white flared all around us. We were not in a room any more—and yet neither were we outside. A strange foglike grayness surrounded us. I could see Dad and Blaise, but nothing else. It reminded me of the fog through which I had fallen after Dad created the new Pattern. Could they be related, somehow?

The snuffling grew louder, but I saw nothing that could have made such a sound. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw the door we had just entered. It made a hole in the grayness. Slowly, as I watched, it began to shut.

I leaped to hold it open—how else could we get out once we rescued Freda?—but didn't reach it in time. As the latch clicked, the inside of the door faded, leaving nothing but grayness where it had been.

Great. Now we were trapped in here.

Or were we?

Closing my eyes, I felt for the door. I already knew I couldn't trust my senses in the Courts of Chaos. Perhaps this gray fog was nothing but an illusion designed to befuddle our eyes.

My fingers encountered nothing but air. I walked right through the place the door had been. We were trapped here.

“Oberon!” Dad said.

“Me or the door?” I asked.

“Pay attention, my boy.” His voice echoed oddly. “Stop fooling around and get over here.”

I turned back to him. He walked swiftly to the right, with Blaise at his side. I jogged to catch up.

The snuffling grew louder.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Inside.”

“Inside what?”

“Freda.”

I stopped short. “What?”

“He is using her. I can feel it clearly now. He is searching the Shadows for us.”

“How?” I demanded. “Like Lord Zon did?”

Zon had drawn my brothers' blood from their bodies with magic, then used their blood to scry on the rest of us. One by one he had murdered my brothers and sisters.

“Zon is an amateur compared to Thellops.”

Still we walked for what seemed miles, though in the grayness I had no way of telling. Finally Dad halted. Slowly he inched to the left. Then he inched back to the right. Then he took a few steps forward, stopped, and went back.

Listening to the snuffling sounds, I tried to figure out what he was doing. Suddenly I realized we had reached a central place in the grayness, where the snuffling noises could be heard the loudest. Every time we moved away from this spot, the cries lessened.

Nodding to himself, Dad turned to me. “Give me a Trump. Quickly!”

“Whose? Freda's?”

“Yes.”

I pulled my Trumps out, found my sister's, and handed it to him. Holding it up, he gazed at it, concentrating.

Suddenly the card turned black. I had never seen anything like that before. As I leaned closer to see, it burst into flames. I had to leap back, slapping at my singed beard and eyebrows.

Dad dropped the Trump with a yelp. By the time it reached the ground—if ground existed beneath the grayness—nothing but ashes remained.

“Damn him!” Dad said, nursing blistered fingers. “I should have known!”

“So… you can't contact her from here?”

“No. The Logrus is preventing it.”

“Give me your charcoal,” I said suddenly. An idea had occurred to me—why not use the Pattern? No one in Chaos had a defense against it yet, so maybe a Pattern-based Trump would work here.

Dad fumbled out his pouch and passed it to me, leaving bloodstains all over it. I fished out his piece of charcoal. Then I summoned a mental image of the Pattern. It seemed to hang in the air before me—brighter than ever, lit with a bright blue glow.

Unfortunately, I had nothing to draw on. Frantically I looked around. What could I use?

“Blaise—” My gaze settled on her. “Would you mind showing your back? I need your skin for a minute.”

“You're not thinking of using me as your chalkboard—” she began, clearly horrified by the idea.

“Charcoalboard, actually. Unless you have a better idea?”

“Will this work?” she asked Dad.

“I cannot be sure,” he admitted. “In theory, it should. But if Thellops has a counter to the Pattern, you might burst into flames like her Trump just did.”

“It better work.” She sighed, turned around, and pulled up her blouse in the back, revealing smooth white skin. “Do it quickly. And if you kill me, I'll never forgive you, Oberon.”

I kept the Pattern in my mind, visualizing it as I sketched a large rectangle, then a line drawing of Freda. I was no artist—far worse than Dad—but it came out reasonably well. I recognized Freda's face, from her hair and upturned chin to the slight dimples in her cheeks.

The power of my Trump hit me in a wave. It glowed. I could see lines of blue energy radiating from it.

“It's burning!” Blaise whispered.

I gulped in panic. But she neither turned black nor burst into flames.

“Get Freda,” Dad told me urgently. “Hurry—”

I leaned forward, concentrating on the picture I had drawn. Slowly it came to life, becoming a window through Blaise's back. There, surrounded by more gray, I saw Freda huddled with her head in her hands, sobbing softly. Her cries matching the snuffling noises we still heard echoing around us.

“Freda!” I called. Was she injured? Could she hear me? “Freda! Over here!”

I reached farther into Blaise's back and chest. My wrist and elbow went through. Blaise moaned. I reached up to my bicep, then to my shoulder. Distantly, I noted Dad gripping my sister's arms, holding her upright and steady.

“Freda!”

Finally she looked up. “Oberon? Is that you?”

“Take my hand. Quickly!”

She reached for me. As our fingers touched, a spark leaped between us. Blaise gave another plaintive cry and started to sag. Despite the burning in my fingertips, I seized Freda's wrist and pulled hard.

She came out through Blaise's back smoothly, straight into my arms. I went over backward with her elbows and knees digging into my soft parts. But I didn't care—we had done it! She was free!

Then lights flared around us. I pressed my eyes shut. Another trap? Or—

My stomach knotted in sudden fear. Blaise! Had she just burned up, like the Trump?

I opened my eyes, blinking frantically at the colored spots swimming before my eyes. Slowly my vision returned to normal.

The fog had disappeared. We were in an unfurnished room—bare panel walls, plank flooring, a high beamed ceiling.

And Blaise—still there, still alive, with her blouse down over her back. The magic had ended. We were all safe.

Dad helped Blaise up; I helped Freda. She hugged me desperately, tears streaming down her cheeks, and then she hugged Dad and Blaise. She smiled at us through her tears.

“I knew you would come!” she said. She clung to my arm. Her whole body shook uncontrollably.

“Of course we came,” I said. “How could we not?”

“I never gave up hope.”