A Hero at the End of the World (33 page)

Oliver gave him a long, hard stare. “Anyway,” he continued finally, looking annoyed, “I couldn’t stand the thought of being second best, so I had to be the best at everything.” He paused. “I guess your prophecy affected me more than I thought.”

“Everyone here is mad,” Archie muttered.

“I’m trying to apologize,” Oliver snapped, glowering in Archie’s general direction.

Ewan’s mouth went dry. “Really?”

“Maybe,” Oliver muttered, visibly embarrassed. He scuffed the ground with his toe. “Anyway, who cares whether or not you were a hero?”

“Um, it seems to matter loads to you,” Ewan pointed out.

“Yeah, well, fat lot of good it did—it got me fired and nearly cost me two of my best friends,” Oliver said, his face creasing in a frown.

Archie coughed pointedly.

“And you, too,” Oliver said, scowling. “Also, I blew up the universe, and I’m a little traumatized from almost being executed for treason when I was eighteen.”

Ewan didn’t know how to react. This was more than he had ever expected. Suddenly, he was a kid again: Oliver asking him out to play, Oliver helping him with his homework, Oliver asking him to join the cool table... Oliver coming to him after Slan was dead and saying that he was scared... Ewan might never entirely get over Oliver rushing into Slan’s throne room before him, but maybe he could have handled it better. He had been just as much of a twat.

He wanted to forgive Oliver.

Oliver smiled at him. “Sorry I stole your destiny or whatever. I know that doesn’t make up for it, but—”

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it,” Ewan blurted.

His hands were shaking, but now that he’d said it, he couldn’t take it back. It had bubbled up from somewhere deep down inside of him, where he had been hiding it for years.

“I’m not a hero, I only went in Duff Slan’s throne room because you were already there,” he said in a rush. “I was utterly terrified. I think I would’ve fainted the moment Slan so much as looked at me.”

“I didn’t think about what I was doing until after I’d done it,” Oliver confessed. A strange, almost relieved smile crossed his face. “It hit me about a day later that I’d nearly died. I don’t think I have much common sense, to tell you the truth.”

“No, you don’t,” Sophie interjected, putting a hand on her hip.

“Maybe if I’d thought about it some more, I wouldn’t have gone ahead on my own.” Oliver reached over and took Sophie’s hand, but he was looking at Ewan when he said, “We should’ve done it together.”

“I, for one, am glad Abrams went in first,” said Archie. At Ewan’s startled glance, he explained, “Well, we wouldn’t have met if you were dead, now would we have.”

“There’s always necromancy,” said Ewan.

“How romantic,” Archie replied dryly.

Ewan stared at the ground for a long time. Being a hero was rubbish, frankly. A ladybird crawled over his shoelace.

“Do you think there’s a universe where we stayed friends?” he asked finally, making himself look up.

“I think,” Oliver said slowly, his face utterly serious, “that since we destroyed ours, a universe like that would be good enough for me.”

“Me too,” Ewan replied around the lump in his throat.

“Um, not for me,” Archie interrupted. “I want to go home.
My
home, not some other Archibald’s.”

“No one cares,” Oliver said.

He reached for the Baahl, but nothing happened. Uncertainty flashed across his face, and he waved his arm as if to say,
Come here
. In any other circumstance, it would have been funny.

“Why isn’t it working?” Oliver demanded.

“I told you, it’s broken,” said Ewan.

“Well, one of you must have activated it,” said Oliver. “It didn’t bring anyone else from the other universe.”

“But how?” asked Archie. “We’re moving across universes, not through time.” His eyes widened in understanding, and he turned to Ewan. “You said you used Zaubernegativum; you must have drained some of its power when you drew your magic from the universe. What if that caused it to reset itself, like a failsafe?”

“Oh, that’s clever,” murmured Sophie.

“Thank you, I agree,” said Archie.

Sophie pulled the Baahl out of Archie’s hands and inspected it. “Ewan, if you’re the one who activated it back in the Clock Tower, perhaps it’s bound itself to you now and not Oliver?”

“Well,” said Oliver, envy crossing his face. “It didn’t do a reset of itself when
I
used magic.” Sophie and Archie both glared at him. “And I’m okay with that,” he added hastily. “Because I’m a good sidekick.”

They all turned and looked at Ewan expectantly. Ewan couldn’t make a sound. His stomach churned. He took a deep breath and stretched his hand toward the Baahl like he had seen Oliver do.

It began to glow. When Ewan opened his hand, it rose out of Archie’s grip and into the air. Gently as a cloud, it floated to Ewan. He put his hands on either side of it but didn’t touch his palms to its surface. Despite its burning glow, a pocket of cold air seemed to move along with it, and Ewan shivered.

“I have to tell you,” he said, “I’m terrified out of my mind right now.”

“Look,” Oliver said as Ewan pushed it into a rolling spin. “Do you see this?”

The spiderweb cracks that had covered the outside of the Baahl were gone. It looked whole, good as new; you could hardly tell it had been repeatedly dropped, thrown, crushed, and smashed.

“Is it...?” Sophie trailed off.

“I felt something in the Clock Tower, something powerful,” Oliver said, his eyes lighting up. “When you said you used Zaubernegativum, I’d thought that was it—but I think I was wrong. I think that your using Zaubernegativum did something to the Baahl.”

“What does this mean?” Ewan asked in alarm. “If it’s fixed does that mean—does that mean we can go home?”

“What did the book say?” Oliver asked Sophie.

“What did the book say about Ralph the Ravager’s self-healing world-ending mechanism?” Sophie asked, her eyebrows shooting up. “I don’t know, you blew us up before I had a chance to reach the end.”

“Maybe the renewal of your friendship fixed it,” Archie cut in. They all turned to look at him, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Please, as if that’s the craziest thing you’ve heard today, bird man.”

Sophie frowned skeptically. “Why would friendship fix the Baahl?”

“You’re asking why friendship would fix a disco ball that takes us across universes?” Ewan asked.

“I withdraw the question,” said Sophie.

Oliver licked his lips. “Ewan,” he said, “I think you should be the one to take us somewhere else this time.”

“I really don’t think I should,” Ewan replied helplessly.

“Ewan,” Sophie said gently, “what could it hurt?”

“It
could
hurt,” Ewan insisted, his voice wobbling. “It could hurt loads. What if it doesn’t work and we go to some other, terrible universe?”

“It’ll work,” Oliver said.

Oliver sounded so certain, but Ewan still hesitated. Archie stepped beside him, and Ewan met his eyes.

“It’ll work,” Archie repeated, touching Ewan’s wrist with the pads of his fingers. Next to the cold touch of the Baahl, his skin nearly burned. “We have faith in you.”

“Oliver has faith in everyone,” Ewan said weakly.

“Oh, all right, fine,” said Archie. “
I
have faith in you.”

They stared at each other. The light from the sphere made Archie’s eyes glitter, and Ewan couldn’t pull his gaze away from the quirk of a smile forming in the corner of Archie’s pale pink lips and the way a lock of his hair curled over his forehead.

Oliver coughed pointedly. Ewan flushed and focused his concentration on the Baahl.

“What, so you and Sophie can roll around in the dirt but Ewan and I can’t have a soulmate gaze?” Archie demanded.

“Maybe you can save it till we’re back home?” Oliver snapped.

“Wait.” Ewan snatched his hands back. “What if Louise was right and we really
are
destroying universes? What if we’ve killed everyone we’ve ever known and loved a dozen times over?”

“Ewan,” Oliver snapped.

“Wherever we end up next, we should stay there,” Ewan said. “Unless it’s something horrible, like we go to a universe where everyone’s a vampire or a lobster or something.”

The others exchanged uncertain looks, but finally Oliver said, “All right,” and Sophie and, after a moment, Archie, nodded.

“Okay,” Ewan said. He took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”

He pressed his palms against its surface—

A thought struck him: “What if we’re already in the right universe?”

“I’m not walking to civilization,” Archie replied. “Break the sodding ball already.”

Louise shot up out the grass. Her eyes were as wild as her hair, which had grass woven through it. “Where the bloody hell am I?” she demanded. “Good lord, is this
nature
?”

Panic-stricken, Ewan fumbled with the Baahl. He felt its surface give under his hands, and then there was a shrill cracking sound as several of the mirrored squares broke.

Chapter 33

L
ocal hero Oliver Abrams, the slayer of Duff Slan, has been missing since Wednesday afternoon. He was last seen outside the village of Saint Rasyphus on the Shetland Mainland. Authorities are searching for any details on
—”

Groaning, Oliver reached across his nightstand and hit the snooze button. It was warm and cozy under his duvet; he could already tell it was going to be yet another chilly morning, and he snuggled deeper into his pillows, wanting to doze a little while longer. His morning run wouldn’t suffer it he took another fifteen minutes.

He had been having the strangest dream, he remembered fuzzily. There had been monsters and dragons... Ewan had been there, too...

A warm hand gently shook his shoulder. Heart pounding, Oliver’s hand shot out and roughly gripped the other person’s wrist, his entire body tensing. He felt hard bone under his fingers.

“Oliver,” Sophie said, her eyes going wide. His heart flipped over again, this time for an entirely different reason.

They were nose-to-nose. The smell of smoke wafted from her hair, which was matted and tangled, as if she hadn’t brushed in a week. There were specks of dried blood dusting the side of her face, her lips were red from her having bitten them, and threads of yarn had unraveled from her dirty jumper. She looked exhausted.

“You’re lovely,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed. “Did you hit your head?”

Oliver let go of her wrist, and heard something squeak. He glanced down. Instead of his pajamas, he was wearing a black leather trench coat buttoned all the way up to his throat.

“Why am I dressed like a supervillain?” he asked, confounded.

Everything came flooding back to him in one horrible moment of realization: Louise, the Baahl, the fight between him and Ewan, those few minutes when he had seriously considered embracing his evil side... Suddenly, his body ached, and his mouth tasted like cotton; his chest rattled when he took a deep breath.

He groaned, burying his face in his hands.

“
Oliver
,” Sophie repeated, more firmly this time.

“Where are we now?” he muttered into his palms. “I’m too afraid to look.”

“I think—” Sophie paused, and he heard her swallow. “I think we might be in your flat.”

Slowly, Oliver sat up.

The room had cream walls, gray bedding, and a Manet reproduction over a cheap Ikea desk. A potted plant in the corner looked in desperate need of water. Oliver knew every inch of the room, from the cheap, thin carpet to the wide wardrobe.

It could have been any number of Olivers’ bedrooms in any number of worlds—except for the fact that across from the bed was an overflowing bookshelf, on which sat a medal. It was the same medal Oliver had received for stopping the Order of the Golden Water Buffalo, still waiting to be framed.

It was
his
bedroom. His, not some other Oliver’s.

It was too good to be true. Oliver couldn’t stop himself from chuckling a little hysterically as joy bubbled up in him.

Evidently sharing his thoughts, Sophie whispered, “I’m afraid to jinx it.”

In his trouser pocket, Oliver’s mobile vibrated for the first time in days. He dug it out and saw that he had twelve voice mails and a couple of texts. Somewhere between universes, he had smashed its screen, and long, silver scratches had been carved into its casing.

“
Where u at?
” was the first SMS message. It was from Kaur. “
Guv’s in a strop
.
Did u rly break into the CCH?
”

Speechless, Oliver showed it to Sophie. A strangled sob escaped her lips, and she slapped a hand over her mouth.

“Ewan did it,” Oliver choked out. “We’re home.”

His heart soared. He wrapped his arms around Sophie, his hands trembling, and kissed the side of her head; her hair tasted like seawater and charcoal. He wanted to cry, to jump on the bed, to laugh until he screamed.

“We’re
so
fired,” Sophie murmured against his chest. Her hands twisted in his leather trench coat.

“I couldn’t care less,” Oliver said happily, tightening his arms around her. He grinned so hard his face hurt.

She pulled away from him forcefully, staring him dead in the eye, her face inscrutable. He was about to ask what was wrong when she grabbed him by the face and kissed him.

At first, it was little more of a desperate smashing of their mouths together. But then Oliver’s brain caught up with his body, and he slowed her down, gently coaxing her mouth open. She let out a tiny gasp, her hands sliding across his shoulders. Little jolts of electricity shot up and down his body. It was Sophie, and it was him, and it was fantastic.

Breathing hard, he drew back and pressed their foreheads together. He could feel her heart drumming as quickly as his.

Everything was going to be okay.

¤

The world slowly came back into focus for Ewan. Freezing cold rain splattered against his glasses and soaked through the holes in his hoodie. He was standing in a puddle, and subzero wind was ruffling his hair.

He blinked rain out of his eyes as his memory came back to him.