I had the Door.
But he had Dad.
Shaking off Liam and Gabriela, I drew the Door out of the bag and held it in my gloved hands toward Mr. Keene. I felt very calm. As I walked toward him, I was making plans. All I had to do was take off a glove. If I touched the jewel, I could end this. I could go through and return with the exiles. That would be proof of what Mr. Keene had done. That would end his power. But I had to time it right….I had to be far enough out of the house so the other wyverns could see me, see that I was alive, see me use the Door….
Dad saw me first. Guessed what I was about to do.
“Sky, no!” Dad cried. “He’ll destroy it and trap you there.”
Ryan ran past his father and jumped over mine, vaulting into the kitchen. “He won’t destroy it while I’m there.” Before I could speak or even react, he placed his hand on the jewel.
Ryan vanished in a rainbow.
“No!” Mr. Keene howled.
His mother rushed toward us. “You swore you wouldn’t! You promised me! Not our son!” But she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to Ryan’s father.
Stunned, he was silent. She’d never raised her voice to him before, at least not that I’d heard. She was always quiet, always in the background, with a meek smile. She’d served us muffins and milk when we were little, and she’d have her husband’s dinner ready when he was home from work. I’d never expected her to be the one to step forward. Clearly, he hadn’t either.
I seized my chance. I held the jewel over my head. “This is the Door to Home!” I shouted, loud enough for all the other wyverns to hear me. “Thomas Keene has been using it to rid himself of his personal enemies. For power. This is how he became the head of the council. This is how he became the wealthiest wyvern. It wasn’t because he followed our rules better than other wyverns. It was because he broke them!”
“Give it to me,” Mr. Keene roared.
It was a risk. I knew it. But I also knew the people I faced, and I knew—hoped I knew—what they would do. Bending down, I rolled the jewel toward Mr. Keene. I aimed it carefully, so it would roll past Mrs. Keene. Mr. Keene lifted his talon off Dad’s neck in order to reach for it—and Ryan’s mother stepped in front and caught the Door. She cradled it in her sleeves, not touching it.
“Gretchen,” Mr. Keene pleaded. “What are you doing?”
She began to retreat. Backward. Step by step. Toward me. “This has to stop, Thomas. Don’t you see it’s gone too far? And now our son…No more.”
“But I did it for you,” he said. “All for you.”
Ryan’s mother smiled sadly. “In the beginning perhaps, it was for love. But it hasn’t been about love for a long time now. You’ve changed, Thomas. This power has changed you, and not for the better. I miss who you used to be. That is why I told Anabeth about the jewel. That is why I helped her try to steal it.”
Ryan’s mother was Mom’s contact, I realized. She was the human who had helped Mom bypass the wyvern detection spell. She had interfered with their security cameras. She had given Mom all the intel she needed. She simply hadn’t known about the final alarm on the Door—she’d been unable to see that part of the vault. He’d aimed the cameras away to hide how he was using the portal. He hadn’t wanted a record of what he’d done to my mother, Maximus’s wife, and who knew how many others.
“You betrayed me,” he said. “We’re family!”
And in that moment of distraction, I transformed and flew toward him, my claws extended, as my brothers breathed fire at Mr. Keene. Benden’s flame shot out past theirs. As Benden’s white-hot fire hit his side, scorching his scales, Mr. Keene launched himself into the air.
Soaring up, I chased him, shooting through the night sky. I felt the wind in my face, saw all three of my brothers in the air out of the corner of my eye.
He fled.
Larger and faster than us, he outdistanced us. When he was a pinprick in the distance, indistinguishable from the night stars, my brothers and I returned to the courtyard.
Transforming back into our human selves, all of us raced to Dad. He was clutching a gash on his arm but otherwise was okay. He smiled at me, a strained, lopsided kind of smile, but it still counted. “I’m proud of you, Sky.”
Those words were like music from a solid gold piano.
“Now go save your mother.”
I walked toward Mrs. Keene, who was still staring at the sky, at the spot where her husband had vanished into the distance, and still cradling the jewel wrapped in her sleeves.
When I stopped in front of her, she blinked and seemed to notice me for the first time. She licked her lips. Swallowed. Tried to speak, failed, and then tried again. “Will you…will you bring my son home?”
“I’ll bring all of them home,” I promised.
And I put my hand on the Door.
