Saffie tucked herself into bed that night feeling an odd sense of calm. The antidote would be ready in a week, and the Onyx was out of Jade’s hands. All she had to do was wait.

But her dreams that night were filled with horrible scenarios, and were made worse by a strange, rhythmic banging, getting louder and louder, like the sound of war drums.

When Saffie woke up, her mouth was dry. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and checked the time on her phone. Was it really almost 11am? She hardly ever overslept. Acorn usually woke her up by licking her face every morning before 8.

She sat up and checked the bottom of her bed where Acorn usually slept, but he wasn’t there.

“Acorn?” she said croakily.

Maybe he was out on the landing. He sometimes liked to climb the bannister if he was in a particularly playful mood.

Saffie tiptoed out of her bedroom, expecting to find him scuttling up one of the rails, but there was no sign of him.

She tried to slow her breathing.

This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. There was no way.

But she knew it could only mean one thing.

She had been eliminated from Overworld.

“No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO!” Saffie said rapidly, getting progressively louder. How had this happened? Had someone snuck into her bedroom and attacked her in her sleep?

She raced downstairs, taking two steps at a time. She had to get to the Mage’s Guild and talk to Keith. There had to be a way back into Overworld.

But as soon as she reached the bottom of the stairs, she noticed something very strange outside the living room window. There were metal beams running down it. She turned to find her mum sitting on the sofa with her legs crossed, and her dad stood with a smug grin on his face, puffing out his chest.

“What are those things?” Saffie said, glancing around. The beams weren’t just outside the living room window, they were outside every window. Saffie walked over, pressed her head to the glass, and peered upwards. It looked like the entire house was covered in them.

“Not things,” said Peter. “A singular thing, and a thing of beauty at that! This, my darling, is a Faraday Cage!”

“A what?!” Saffie blurted.

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“Absolutely fabulous invention! Blocks all wireless signals coming in and out of the house. Had it installed early this morning while you were sleeping! Genius! No more computers, no more mobile phones, no more internet! We can actually be a proper family once again!”

Suddenly it clicked. Saffie was offline. For the first time since she’d joined Overworld, she was somewhere where there was no internet signal.

“I even got these Faraday headbands thrown in as part of the deal,” her dad continued, pulling what looked like a bunch of rubber bands from his pocket. “There’s one for each of us, so we can be signal free wherever we go! Isn’t it wonderful?”

He threw one to Saffie, but she just let it bounce off her chest and fall to the carpet as she glared at him.

Without another moment of hesitation, she darted towards the patio doors.

“Saffie!” Holly hissed. “Where are you going?! You don’t have anything on your feet!”

Saffie didn’t care. She had no idea what happened to players if their signal got temporarily cut off. Were they automatically eliminated? She had to see if she was still in the game.

She skidded out into the garden and glanced wildly around for Acorn, but there was still no sign of him. With tears threatening to form in the corners of her eyes, she searched desperately for him, and then he popped out of nowhere on a patio slab, looking frightened and bewildered.

As soon as he spotted Saffie he scurried to her and buried his face in her arms, his nose wet with excitement.

“Acorn!” Saffie said, almost crying with relief. “I thought I’d lost you for good.” He was shivering now. She held him out so she could see his face.

“Where did you… go when I went offline?” she said.

Acorn slowly reached out his paws to Saffie’s eyelids and closed them.

“Darkness?” she said, opening them again, and Acorn nodded gravely. Saffie felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach.

“You’re going to have to go back to that darkness for a little bit when I go into the house, okay?” she said to him. “But I promise you won’t be there for very long.”

She re-entered the house with Acorn in her arms, feeling his weight vanish as he disappeared again.

“This is ridiculous, dad!” she screamed, storming into the living room.

“DON’T speak to your father like that!” snapped Holly. “Despite it looking absolutely hideous, I am in full support of this Farafay… Faraway thing, whatever it’s called.”

“Then you’re both psychotic! Who has something like this installed?!”

“I’m trying to save you from the same fate as Dax!” Peter shouted back. “I’m trying to save this family! I’m trying to bring us closer together!”

Saffie let out an incredulous laugh.

“You really think this is going to bring us closer together?” she said, shaking her head. “How about taking an interest in me as a person? How about getting to know me? Instead of hating everything that I do? How about giving my friend Nate a chance, instead of being utterly rude to him?”

There was an uncomfortable silence until a ding dong of the doorbell gave each of them a start. Saffie wiped away the tears that had begun to leak down her cheeks.

“Are you expecting someone?” she said.

“Yes darling,” said Holly, standing up and re-adjusting her blouse. “We most certainly are. There will be no more hanging around with… Nate.” Holly said his name as though it physically hurt her to do so. “What you need is a proper friend. The kind of friend you lied about having for weeks. That’s right - we contacted a certain someone’s parents and arranged for their daughter to spend the day with you.” Holly answered the door and stepped back to allow Saffie a full view of their guest.

Standing in the doorway, smiling the sickliest of sweet smiles, was Beatrix Hawthorne.