LITMIR.BIZ

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want us to go some other way now.”

      He squinted, trying to decipher the symbols and what they were now showing him.

      “I don’t get it,” he muttered with frustration. “Now it’s pointing at a tree, a brick wall, a key, and…” He tipped the compass upside down to try to make sense of the final symbol. “… a fire hydrant?”

      “Oh,” Hazel’s voice came. “You mean like them?”

      Oliver’s head rose immediately to see Hazel pointing across the street. Sure enough, there stood a fire hydrant in front of a large oak tree. A little behind them was a tall, red brick wall. Set into the wall was an old wooden door with a large, rusty keyhole.

      Oliver’s breath hitched. The compass must have directed him toward the factory in order to get him to this specific spot.

      “Do you think the door is the portal?” Hazel asked.

      Oliver put the compass back into his pocket. “There’s only one way to find out.”

      He led the others across the street to the door. They gazed up at it. It looked completely normal. No signs of it being a portal at all.

      Walter tried the handle. “It’s locked.”

      A bolt of inspiration struck Oliver then. He recalled the key symbol on the compass. He crouched down, positioning his eye to the keyhole to look through.

      A purple and black vortex swirled on the other side, with bright white forks of lightning zapping across its surface.

      Shocked, Oliver gasped and flinched back so violently he fell right onto his backside.

      “What did you see?” Hazel asked, grabbing his arm to break his fall.

      David grasped hold of his other arm just as quickly.

      “A portal…” Oliver stammered. “That’s the portal.”

      As David and Hazel helped Oliver to his feet, Walter rushed excitedly over to the keyhole and looked inside. When he turned back to face them, his face was in a wide grin.

      “That is wild!” he exclaimed.

      He was always the most enthusiastic of Oliver’s friends, though he was also prone to fits of ill temper. Hazel was the smart one. She’d helped Oliver defuse Lucas’s atomic bomb.

      Hazel hurried to look through the keyhole next. But when she turned, her expression was quite different from Walter’s. “That looks kind of terrifying.”

      Oliver nodded slowly. He felt the same way as Hazel. The swirling purple lights and the long, endless tunnel he’d seen through the keyhole were beyond intimidating. The thought of stepping in there terrified him. He’d been through enough of them now to know how peculiar and unpleasant it felt to travel through a portal. But he knew he had no choice. He had to be brave for Esther and for the school.

      “So, how do we get inside?” David asked, rattling the handle.

      Unlike the others, he didn’t seem interested in peeking through the hole at the portal.

      “I need pure intentions,” Oliver explained. “Then it will connect me to wherever it is I need to go.” He looked at his friends standing behind him. “Then you all follow.”

      Oliver knew there was one way to ensure his intentions were pure. He looked in the sephora amulet.

      On the surface of the shiny black onyx gemstone, he could see that Esther was sleeping. She was as pretty as ever. But she looked troubled, as if she were enduring a terrible pain.

      Oliver’s heart lurched. He had to save her.

      “I’m ready,” he said.

      He grabbed the handle and turned. But the door was stuck.

      “It didn’t work!” Oliver said.

      His chest heaved. Were his intentions not pure enough after all? Doubt began to take hold of him. Maybe Professor Amethyst had made a mistake sending him on this mission. Maybe he didn’t have a pure enough heart after all.

      “Let me try,” Hazel said. “Esther’s my friend, too.”

      She, too, rattled the handle. But it just would not open.

      Walter tried next. He, too, failed.

      Oliver’s stomach dropped to his feet. They couldn’t fall at the first hurdle! And the ticking clock in the hollow tube of the scepter was a constant reminder that Esther’s time was finite, that they were in a race to save her. They had to hurry.

      Just then, David stepped forward. Oliver knew that David, who had no intentions toward Esther at all, having never even met her, couldn’t possibly be the one to open the door to the portal. But they were out of options and so he may as well try.

      David looked contemplative as he studied the wooden door in front of him, quirking his head left and right. Then he took a couple of steps back, planted his feet firmly to the ground, and kicked the door heavily with the sole of his boot. He used the strength of a kickboxer.

      To everyone’s surprise, the door flew open.

      The portal swirled ahead of them, a huge, roaring beast like a violent churning whirlpool. Oliver gasped as a huge gust of wind seemed to try to suck him inside.

      But even with access now, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being a failure. Why hadn’t the door opened for him? Why David?

      He looked over, hair flying in his face, at the boy Professor Amethyst had sent on this mission with him.

      “Why did it work for you?” Oliver asked over the roaring wind.

      “Because,” David called back, “I figured if the portal only takes you to where you need to go with pure intentions, perhaps the portal door only opens to someone with the pure intention to unlock it. You’re all focused on Esther, on the destination. My focus, though, is to help you in whatever way I must. So my pure intention was to open the door for you.”

      His words struck Oliver deeply. So David’s sole intention on this mission was to help him? His ability to open the door to the portal had proven his loyalty. That’s why Professor Amethyst had sent him.

      “Now it’s your turn, Oliver,” Hazel said. “Your turn to show your true intentions.”

      Oliver understood. Motivation zapped in his veins as he grabbed the amulet again and focused on Esther sleeping inside. His heart lurched.

      The wind swirled.

      He looked back at his friends. “Here goes nothing.”

      They jumped.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Chris stood on the soggy field in the shadow of the Obsidian School for Seers. He was covered in mud, all the way up to his waist. Rain lashed down on him.

      “Again,” Colonel Cain demanded. His eerie blue eyes flashed.

      Chris gritted his teeth. He was exhausted. He’d been running laps around the field for what felt like hours. But then he remembered his mission—to kill Oliver—and his motivation returned.

      His grueling combat training had started immediately. And while Chris was thrilled on one hand to be the only seer in existence to possess the power of dark matter, the early morning drills were grinding him down.

      Chris had always been a chunky kid—he preferred snacks to sports—and all the hours of running in the mud and rain while having orders barked in his face was wearing him down. And yet despite all the hardships, his motivation only grew stronger. He would kill Oliver. Next mission, he would not let him slip away.

      He began to run again, his chest heaving. He had a sharp stitch in his side but he ignored it and carried on. Out the corner of his eye he could see Colonel Cain watching on, his blue eyes glowing even through the driving rain.

      Just then, Chris caught sight of a figure standing in one of the dormitory windows of Obsidian’s. He knew immediately it would be Malcolm Malice. He smirked, filled with pride that Malcolm was watching him. He knew

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