Phillip met her eyes, and the look in them was so bleak, so utterly haunted, that Jane had to stop herself from flinching. When he spoke, the words seemed to freeze in the air, sending shivers down her spine.

"Casimir may not be entirely gone."

~*~

Phillip's words hung on the air like an impending storm.

"Casimir's still alive?" Jane said. "But—"

I saw him fall.

She bit her lip.

I saw him fall, she thought again. But the sudok had mangled his body beyond recognition. She remembered how the dead had looked that day, lined up upon the pyre, cloth draped across their faces to hide their mangled features. She hadn't seen Casimir's face after he fell. One of the Riders had told her he was among the corpses, and she'd accepted it as the truth.

Her eyes met Phillip's across the living room. He wasn't smiling. Surely if Casimir was alive, he would be smiling.

"'Alive' and 'not gone' are not quite the same thing," he said quietly.

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

Phillip sighed. "I was in the Kanachskiy cells a long time, and before that, I was a spy. During that time, I learned many things. Including several secrets closely guarded by Kanach. One of these secrets is that the sudok aren't just born. They're made."

The silence stretched again.

"The Kanachskiy have a way to make them," Phillip went on raggedly. "A secret spell—I don't know all the details. But it requires something very specific. It requires..." His voice cracked. "It requires a mage's essence. Their—for lack of a better word—their soul. I asked, and no one ever positively identified Casimir's body. What if... if he's..."

Jane hugged her arms to her chest. Unbidden, the memory of the sudok she'd controlled during her second godstest flooded her mind. She remembered the odd feeling of peace that had engulfed her just before the sudok died—a sense of relief, quite unlike the terrible wrongness she'd felt in the moments leading up to the sudok's death.

Then she thought of Dalnushka, and her heart sank.

The bodies.

Oh gods.

The bodies of the mages in Dalnushka, piled in the highest tower... surrounded by a constellation of unfamiliar runes...

What if they, too, had been turned into sudok?

What if that had been what the Kanachskiy had taken them for?

"B-but you can't go." Sandra, who had until this point remained silent, seemed unable to contain herself any longer. "You only just got back, and already leaving us again? It's like you don't care for any of us at all." Her hands shook. "We all thought you were dead. Mom and Dad and Uncle Bauer—"

"It wasn't his fault," said Jane. "He didn't pass his godstests. He had no way to come back."

Even as she spoke the words, she found herself hesitating. Nikolay's accusations floated once more through her mind.

Phillip could have passed his godstests.

He could have saved Dalnushka and come home.

If not for Casimir.

"Are we not... good enough?" Sandra's voice was shaking. "You'd rather find family in a different world, instead of here?"

"Of course not," said Phillip. "I always missed the two of you. Always. I thought of both of you so often, wondered how you were doing, if Jane was still acing her classes, if Sandra was killing it at sports. It's just, I knew that both of you are strong, that you would be fine without me. And the people in Mir need me more."

"Need you more?" Sandra's lower lip jutted. "What about our parents? Do you have any idea what Mom went through after you left? Dad just worked all the time, like whatever, same as always, but Mom—she still goes to the police, asking if there's a sign of you, still, and it's been eight years. You just vanished without a trace, no body or anything, of course she wouldn't give up, and after a year she just locked herself in her room—"

Phillip's face crumpled. He looked like he'd been punched in the chest. Jane found she was shaking.

That was almost me. I almost didn't come back. I was almost trapped forever.

"It's not Phillip's fault," Jane said. "It's complicated, Sandra."

"Are you planning on leaving again, too?" Sandra demanded. "Just going off on some marvelous adventure together, leaving the rest of the family behind?"

"Jane's not going back," said Phillip. "Just me."

"Actually, no one is going back until we've both had some sleep and you get that arm taken care of," Jane said sharply. "And we still have to figure out what to do with him in the meantime." She jerked her head at Nikolay, who was starting to wake again. "And if you're really happy to see us, Sandra, you could try being a bit nicer, seeing as how we've both been through absolute Hell, while you've been sitting here eating cheese puffs and having access to things like cell phones and actual toilet paper for the last three months!"

It was unkind of her, but she didn't care. Jane rubbed her eyes, which prickled with exhaustion. She ought to be happy. She was home. Even if Phillip managed to find some way back to Mir and left with Nikolay, it would be no different from how things had been before.

Except she would be constantly worried about Phillip with no way to contact him, wondering how he was doing, wondering about the fate of the world she had just altered—Kir and Drazan and Olesya, Alexei, General Nadja, the Riders at Dalnushka, Casimir—wherever he was now...

Sandra's face softened. "I'm sorry. It was just really rough with you guys gone, you know?"

"Trust me, Sandra. Leaving Earth was the absolute last thing I wanted."

Jane's eyes wandered to the mantel, where a calendar sat, perched half askew. It was already August. Her internship was over. She was going to have to offer up some explanation for why she hadn't gone. The semester would be starting soon, and she hadn't even picked out classes.

The weirdest part was, she hardly cared.

"How did you end up in the temple?" she asked Phillip.

"As soon as I woke up, and they told me where you were, I took a wyvern straight there. I wanted to talk to you about your Writings, and they told me Nikolay had escaped from prison. I arrived too late, of course." Phillip looked deathly serious. "I think you need to tell me your side of the story, too. What happened at Dalnushka?"

So Jane told him everything that had happened since she left the castle. The attack on Dalnushka. Her third godstest. Nikolay's betrayal. The Writings she had made in the Book of Truths: Nikolay is a god. The Gods have no powers. And her last writing, the writing that had brought her and Phillip home.

When she had finished, Phillip's face was very serious. "I wish I had talked to you before you made your Writings," he said.

"What is it?" said Jane. A cold feeling settled into the pit of her stomach. "How badly did I screw up?"

"Possibly quite badly, but it's not your fault." Phillip rubbed his forehead with his good hand, smudging the dirt further. "You shouldn't have sealed the gods."

Jane froze, staring at him with narrowed eyes. "You can't mean that," she said.

Phillip frowned.

"They're children." Jane started to pace. "They're sanctimonious, spoiled children who think their actions have no consequences. They had no right to be in charge of that world. I told you about Sidor. He tried to stop me from finishing my third godstest. He wanted to keep me on Mir to replace his dead lover! And Nikolay had just become a god, and he was no better—"

"I didn't say the gods were nice people. But there are other forces on Mir. Forces that the gods' magic once kept at bay. Now the gods are gone, leaving a void in the balance of power. There's a prison, deep in the southern mountains, where the gods kept their... enemies. They've probably escaped by now."

Jane's insides felt like ice. "Who are they? What'll they do?"

"I'm honestly not sure. They were in that prison for a reason, though." Phillip sighed. "Velos was among them, I think."

Velos. Jane stared down at the mark on her hand. It had grown fainter since arriving on Earth, blurred at the edges, as though the magic that had embedded it in her skin was struggling to function.

"Isn't Velos a god?" said Jane. "So he should also have lost his powers when I made that writing in the Book of Truths."

"Maybe."

Phillip's tone was too carefully noncommittal to be reassuring. Jane glanced up at him, then clenched her fists. "What would you have written?"

"A safer wish would have been to ask for peace between Kanach and Somita. Now, who knows when they'll stop fighting?"

"And what about Nikolay? I couldn't have let him stay a god."

Phillip was silent.

"The war was the gods' fault," said Jane. "Divna caused the war to make my godstests more interesting."

"The gods didn't start the war. They might have helped it along a little. But humans don't need prompting from gods to fight each other. They cause wars just fine on their own."

Jane frowned at the floor. Ten minutes ago, she had been certain she had done the right thing. Now, the thought of her Writings caused a sick uncertainty to bloom in her chest.

Nikolay groaned. Jane saw his eyelids flutter.

"We should make sure he doesn't escape until we have a more solid plan," said Phillip.

"Yes." Jane leapt up from the sofa, more to put distance between her and Phillip than because she wanted to deal with Nikolay.

They decided to put Nikolay in the attic until they could figure out what to do with him. Sandra and Jane, with the help of a hastily-contrived stretcher that had once been Uncle Bauer's ironing board, somehow managed to drag him up the attic steps with no small amount of discontented grumbling (Jane) and cursing (Sandra). They deposited Nikolay on Uncle Bauer's moth-eaten spare futon and set to work divesting him of his accoutrements.

There seemed no end of supplies squirreled away in Nikolay's cloak. Jane uncovered another dagger in a hidden side pocket, several scrolls of unclear purpose (she laid these down carefully), and dozens of vials of various colors. Several of these vials probably contained dragon's egg potion, judging by their color and viscosity. Jane also thought she recognized the of tainted Oathbreaker potion Zakhar had given Nikolay during her second godstest.

"Don't open anything," she warned Sandra.

"But this one is soooo pretty..."

"No!"

Sandra snickered and replaced the Oathbreaker potion. "Chill, sis. Did you really think I'd open a sketchy red vial with a skull and crossbones on the sides?"

"That wasn't funny."

"You're not funny." Sandra peered at Jane. "Are you really okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Well... that's good, I guess."

Jane took a deep breath and exhaled. "Let's just make sure he doesn't have any weapons left before we go downstairs, all right?"

She replaced the vials, the scrolls, and the dagger. Then she turned to the more daunting task of examining Nikolay himself. Quickly, she checked his legs, arms and back for more hidden daggers, uncovering two more on his arms and one on his right calf. She had prepared for a struggle, but instead, he watched her coldly, with an eerie stillness that somehow unnerved her more than if he had tried to attack them.

"It's too bad he wants you dead," Sandra remarked. "He's kinda hot, in a broody sort of way."

"He's a monster." Jane's eyes didn't leave Nikolay. "Stay away from him."

She tossed the daggers into a pocket of his cloak with more force than necessary. Then she pulled his cloak over her shoulder and strode from the room, quivering with barely-suppressed fury.

If it hadn't been for him, they wouldn't be in this predicament. If it hadn't been for him, the war would be over, she would be back to her normal life on Earth, and she wouldn't have to keep worrying if Kir and Olesya and Drazan were still alive...

She knew, deep down, that some of her anger was misplaced, but at the moment she didn't care. He had treated her terribly. He had controlled her mind.

Her hands shook.

She had always considered herself a forgiving person, but some things were beyond forgiveness, even for her. She couldn't forget how her mind had felt in Nikolay's grip: brittle, as though one wrong move might have splintered it into millions of tiny pieces. She had never felt quite as helpless.

Phillip was no longer in the living room when they trundled back down the narrow staircase to the foyer. They found him instead wandering Uncle Bauer's study, walking from box to box as though searching for something. His face was still gray, his arms still hanging limply at his side. He looked up when they entered, frowning.

"Something about this room is special," he said. "If we are going to make another portal to Mir, it will have to be here. But we'll need the right ingredients. You didn't happen to see any dragon's blood on Nikolay, did you?"

"Any what?"

"Dragon's blood. It would be a dark red color, like the color of the ink in the Book of Truths. It might give us the power we need to—"

"I didn't see any." Jane pursed her lips. "You look like death. Surely, searching for a way back can wait a few hours."

Downstairs, a door slammed.

"It's Uncle Bauer," said Sandra. She sounded relieved. "I texted him and mom earlier... I thought they'd want to know that you're alive. Mom's still in California for a meeting, but Uncle Bauer came right away."

Suddenly nervous, Jane exchanged a glance with Phillip, who looked almost as anxious as she felt. Uncle Bauer's daughter Eloise had disappeared into Mir so many years ago, never to be seen on Earth again.

How would their uncle react to the news that his daughter was dead?

"Come on," said Sandra, grabbing her arm, and Jane had no choice but to follow.

Her uncle seemed... older than she remembered, as though her disappearance had taken several years off his life—years he could ill afford to spare. At the sight of Jane and Phillip descending the narrow staircase into the foyer, he staggered and might have fallen if Sandra had not grabbed his arm.

"I told you!" Sandra said. "They're really back! Let's sit down—come on."

She helped him into the armchair closest to the mantelpiece. Jane followed, feeling useless, and settled onto one of the sofa chairs opposite.

"I'm all right," said their uncle, waving Sandra away. "I'm fine—really! It was just a shock. Oh, my dears. Come here, and let me hug you properly."

Jane swallowed against the lump in her throat and leaned in for a hug. Her uncle smelled as he always did: a safe, familiar, homey smell of cedar and old mothballs and eco-friendly shampoo. There was no comparable scent anywhere, and certainly not in Mir, where they probably hadn't even invented mothballs yet and certainly hadn't invented eco-friendly shampoo, or plastic, or chemicals that endangered the environment and poisoned the fish. She tried not to think about how frail her uncle seemed. He was older than their mother by about twenty years, and his health had been poor the whole time she had known him.

"I thought I'd never see you again," he said, releasing Jane and moving on to capture Phillip in hug. "Either of you. I thought..."

His voice trailed off.

"Well, it doesn't matter what I thought," he said at last. "Just that you're here and safe again."

"We've..." Jane wondered how to best explain to her uncle where they had been this whole time. "We were—"

"You don't have to look so worried." Uncle Bauer laughed, a bit sadly. "I know about the other world."

"You do?"

Sandra was staring at Uncle Bauer, a look of utter shock on her face. Even Phillip seemed surprised.

"Just a little bit," Uncle Bauer said. "I know there is another world, and I know a few things about it. I did a lot of research after Eloise—" He broke off. Then he said, like a man hardly daring to hope:

"While you were... in that other world... you didn't happen to see your cousin Eloise, did you? You never met her, Jane—she disappeared before you came to live with us—but she was blonde, much older than you, and she had a very nice laugh."

Jane's stomach clenched. "I'm... so sorry, Uncle Bauer." She placed a hand on his shoulder. There was no good way to say it. "Eloise is dead. She died about ten years ago."

"I see."

Uncle Bauer blinked several times, his face going blank. They watched worriedly as he heaved a shuddering breath.

"Did she have a good life at least?" he whispered at last. "Before she died?"

Jane's throat closed. She fought the urge to exchange a panicked glance with Phillip. Good was not the word she would have chosen to describe Eloise's life in Mir.

Thankfully, Phillip stepped in before she was forced to stumble over an answer. "Parts of her life were good," he said slowly. "She married a very kind man. She had a son who is now the prince of a kingdom. We never met, but I'm led to believe the last years of her life were... happy."

Phillip sucked in a breath and caught Jane's eye. Then he said, even more slowly and deliberately:

"She also had another son."

What—NO—

"And this other son, he—"

"—died in battle," Jane finished, glaring at Phillip.

There was a very pregnant pause.

"I see," Uncle Bauer said heavily.

He looked from Jane to Phillip and back again, and the lines on his face seemed to deepen.

"Are you really okay, Uncle Bauer?" said Sandra.

"Does your chest hurt?" said Jane.

"I'm all right," said their uncle, although he did not look it. His shoulders seemed somehow frailer than before, as if the weight of Eloise's death was dragging them downward. When he stood, there was a heaviness to his face that hadn't been there a few minutes ago.

He nodded at Phillip's arm. "Let me get my things from the bedroom—a spare change of clothes, some toiletries—and then I will take Phillip to the hospital." He held out his hand. "Walk with me, Jane. My old bones aren't quite what they used to be."

Jane took his arm. He leaned heavily on her as they made their way up the steps to his room, and she wondered: Had he always walked this slowly? Or had it started sometime this summer, while she had been gone?

But his mind was just as sharp as she remembered. No sooner were they out of earshot from the others, than he leaned in closer to her and whispered:

"I wanted to speak to you privately, Jane. Away from the others. You can tell them if you want to, but I think that you should be the one to hear it first."

"Uncle?"

"Did you know that before I bought it, this house was owned by a Chinese family? They came from China just before World War I and settled here, one of the few families that immigrated here around that time. They were not well-off, but they worked hard for a better life, until they fell on bad times and had to sell the house and move away."

"I had no idea."