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Evie blinked. Sam? Ahead of her, the landscape took shape. The side of the crater. Death Valley. They’d made it back. Evie pushed herself onto her hands and knees. The upended helmet lay next to her, its wires mangled.
“Theta? Memphis?” she called.
So much smoke all around. It was hard to see, but she could make out the splintered debris of the Eye scattered all around a wide ring of scorched earth. A few remaining pieces still smoldered. Henry emerged from the haze. He was shuffling toward her, a dazed expression on his face.
“Henry! Over here,” Evie said, staggering to her feet.
“A little help?” Ling. She was sprawled near the ruins of a chair. “Has anyone seen my crutches?”
Henry and Evie helped Ling up and shouldered her weight.
Evie looked up. The sky was no longer bothered by angry clouds. There was no trace of the breach, not even a scar to mark the spot. The day was beginning, a purplish pink hinting at blue.
Theta came out of the fog hoisting one of Ling’s crutches. It was a bit bent, but still functional. “Sorry. I only found one,” she said, handing it over. Evie moved and let Ling balance. “Anybody seen Memphis?” Theta asked.
Evie shook her head. It made her a little dizzy. “Anybody seen Sam?”
“Theta!”
“Memphis!”
Memphis ran to Theta, and they wrapped their arms around each other, holding tightly.
Evie felt a tiny surge of panic. “Sam? Sam Lloyd? Please, please, please answer me—”
“I’m here, Lamb Chop.”
Tears sprang to Evie’s eyes. “Sam?”
And then, there he was, just as he’d said he would be. He was smudged and his hair stood up in funny cowlicks, but he was there, and he was limping toward her. “Didn’t I promise you I’d be here?”
Evie ran the best she could, and it seemed to her that their kiss would be the kiss she would remember for the rest of her days.
Evie wiped her eyes but it didn’t seem to matter. “I was afraid I’d lose you.”
Sam brushed his lips softly across her forehead and nuzzled her neck. “You’d never let me die when I owed you twenty bucks.”
“Sam?”
“Let me guess—shut up?”
“No. No, talk to me. Keep talking to me.”
“There’ll be time,” he said and kissed her again.
“We did it,” Evie whispered.
“Little Fox!” Miriam called. She limped toward Sam. Freed from the Eye, she held her son tightly for the first time in nearly a decade. Evie stepped back, but Miriam pulled her close. “So you are the one my Sergei loves?” she said.
“Ma,” Sam said, embarrassed.
The military men were already talking about what they’d witnessed. “Did you see? The energy was unlike any I’d ever seen before. Bright white light, and then that cloud came up from the ground like… like a giant mushroom! Mr. Marlowe—did you see that? Mr. Marlowe? Mr. Marlowe!”
Jake Marlowe lay on his back beside the ruins of his golden machine. His eyes were open, unseeing. In his hand was the shattered heart of the Eye. It was empty. Miriam Lubovitch looked down into Jake’s lifeless eyes. She spat in his face.
“Jericho?” Evie said suddenly. She waited, hoping for an answer. The smoke was clearing, blown away by a morning breeze that reached down into the crater.
Jericho’s chair remained.
