Saffie smiled, watching Acorn roll around on the grass from where she sat on a bench outside the Alchemist’s Guild.
It had been two days since the battle at the top of the Trellis, and everything after Jade’s defeat was a bit of a blur. She had vague memories of Nate running and wrapping his arms around her, and police helicopters arriving, but they almost seemed like someone else’s memories, as if that stuff couldn’t possibly have happened to her.
But it had.
The newspapers the following day had been plastered with pictures of Jade’s face alongside bold headlines including: “COMPUTER HACKER SEIZES CONTROL,” “ILLEGAL VIDEO GAME CAUSES THOUSANDS TO LOSE THEIR MINDS,” and “RESTAURANT OWNER FACING LIFE SENTENCE FOR MURDER OF EX TEACHER.”
Peter had bought every single paper, and was already planning to have an article that mentioned him and Saffie laminated and framed. He couldn’t stop talking about the night, and would find a way to bring it up in any conversation.
Holly, on the other hand, hadn’t said a single word to Saffie. Saffie had the feeling that her mum was only going to make life for her even worse from here on out, but the relief of thwarting Jade’s plans to take over the world was thankfully overshadowing it, at least for now.
“Ruben just loves to send us these mysterious messages instructing us to come meet him somewhere, doesn’t he?”
It was Cora’s voice.
Saffie got up and turned to find Cora approaching, closely followed by Nate. Even though they’d all been messaging each other lots over the last few days, it was the first time she had seen either of them in person since that fateful night, and she couldn’t hide the happiness it brought her to be properly reunited.
“I hope he isn’t going to feed us more fish-juice jellies or whatever they were,” said Nate.
Saffie had no idea why Ruben had summoned them to the Alchemist’s Guild. Dax’s antidote had only been brewing for 3 days, and it would need an entire week before it would be ready.
As they headed inside, they could see Ruben hurrying around behind his desk looking very excited about something.
“It’s ready!” he exclaimed as they joined him. “The potion I was foraging ingredients for in Epping Forest.” He held up a small vial and peered at it hungrily.
Cora rolled her eyes.
“Seriously? Your Muscle Booster? Just how much muscle is that going to give you?”
“It’s not going to give me any,” Ruben replied. “You may be good at… whatever it is you do, but your alchemy could do with a bit of brushing up. You mistakenly assumed I was brewing a Muscle Booster because of the ironore, protoplasmia combination, but you didn’t take into account the added snapsprig or springbotch, or the temperature it had been boiled at, for that matter.”
Ruben poured some of the mixture onto a little plate and set it in front of Bultras. Carefully, the toad panion crept up to it and began licking. Before long he had slurped up the entire contents.
Ruben took a deep breath and said:
“Bultras… leap.”
There was a pause, then Bultras pushed with his back legs and flew high into the air. “Bultras, leap!” Ruben said again, more excitedly, and the toad leapt even higher. As Bultras continued to leap, doing backwards somersaults, Saffie noticed a tear in the corner of one of Ruben’s eyes.
Cora made a fist and held it up to Ruben. Ruben flinched.
“I’m not going to punch you,” said Cora.
“Oh,” said Ruben.
He lifted his own fist and they fist-bumped.
“I’m happy for you,” Cora said with a smile.
“So am I,” said Nate.
“I am too,” added Saffie. “No matter what happened at the beginning of all of this, I want you to know that I’m thankful for all of your help. You’re a good guy deep down.”
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“Wow,” said Ruben. “I can’t believe I just got praised by the legend that is Saffie the Slayer.”
“Saffie the Slayer?” said Saffie.
“Thought I’d come up with a more fitting nickname for you for when we go back to school.”
“Saffie the Slayer,” said Nate, nodding slowly. “Sounds like the perfect nickname for the total badass who defeated Jade with an icicle through the stomach.”
“Okay,” Saffie chuckled, “I’ll take it. But it wasn’t just me who defeated Jade. You guys did just as great of a job taking out her followers. And we can’t forget the help of our panions.”
She glanced down at Acorn, who puffed out his chest with pride.
“To be fair,” Saffie continued. “I didn’t do a whole lot of damage to Jade with that Ice Shot. Keith told me a while back about a girl he used to teach who was so ambitious it came at the cost of her own wellbeing. In the end, this was still true. The greatest damage she was dealt came from herself.”
There was silence for a moment as they all reflected on Keith’s death.
“Is there any news on a funeral?” Nate asked.
Saffie shook her head. She knew that there would be one held at the Mage’s Guild in the coming days, but she hadn’t heard any details as of yet. She had spent the last couple of days recovering, and hadn’t stepped foot in the guild, though she had heard that Ashmi had taken over Keith’s duties for the time being. She felt her heart tug at the thought of Keith not being there to greet her when she did eventually return, or to offer her a hot bowl of soup in his cosy office.
“Liam’s facing trial too for his involvement,” said Cora, and Saffie reached out to touch Cora’s arm. Cora gave her a grateful smile.
“What about Overworld itself?” said Nate. “What’s going to happen now that everyone knows about it? Will they shut it down?”
“They can try,” said Cora. “But they won’t get anywhere. Nobody has ever been able to locate the servers. The data is filtered through multiple virtual networks before reaching any of us.”
“No idea what that means, but I trust you know what you’re talking about,” Nate replied.
“Right,” said Ruben. “I have to go in a moment - I’m showing some newbies the basics of brewing - but before I do, I want to show you what I brought you here for.”
“Didn’t you bring us here to see Bultras jump?” said Cora.
Ruben shook his head and pulled another potion from a drawer underneath his desk.
He placed it in front of Saffie.
“What is it?” said Saffie.
“It’s it,” said Ruben.
Saffie stared at him.
“I spent yesterday thinking really hard about ways to speed up the brewing process, and eventually something hit me. I made some small additions to the mix, and by this afternoon it was finished.”
Saffie’s heart was hammering away in her chest.
“It’s the antidote to wake your uncle up,” Ruben confirmed, and Saffie let out a yelp of joy.
She carefully picked it up.
“Thank you, Ruben.”
“When you wake your uncle up, he isn’t going to… come after me, is he?” Ruben said with a gulp.
Saffie laughed.
“If he does, I’ll tell him he’s only allowed to use weak spells.”
Ruben returned the laugh, though Saffie noticed a small bead of sweat form on his forehead.
“Okay, I’d better go train these newbies. I’ll see you guys soon.”
“Wait,” said Cora. “There wouldn’t be room for another trainee, would there?”
Ruben tilted his head.
“You said I could do with brushing up on my alchemy,” Cora continued.
“I could make room,” Ruben said cautiously, his cheeks blushing pink.
As Ruben led Cora away, he turned back to Saffie and Nate and said loudly, “Oh! I almost forgot!” He pulled something from his robes and threw it.
Saffie caught it with her free hand.
“I fished it out of the tank earlier,” Ruben called. “Fully restored!”
Saffie and Nate looked at each other. It was the scroll.
“Can you believe we met fighting over this thing?” said Saffie.
“It seems like a lifetime ago,” said Nate.
“Come on,” Saffie said cheerfully. “Let’s take it out to the bench I was sat on earlier and open it there together.”
They headed out into the late afternoon sunshine, and when they were both sat on the bench, they each took an end of the string that was wrapped around it and gently pulled.
Saffie peeled open the parchment and held it up for them both to see. There was just one large line of text, printed in all capital letters. She read the line twice, then she just stared at the words, unable to comprehend what she was truly looking at.
YOU WILL FIND YOUR ADVANTAGE IN THIS CLEARING
“I don’t get it,” said Nate.
“It’s just a simple note,” Saffie said, shaking her head in disbelief. “There must have been something else in that clearing that we both missed. We spent all that time arguing over the scroll when the scroll itself was worthless. The actual advantage was something else entirely.”
They turned to look at each other, and they both burst into fits of hysterical laughter.
When they had calmed down, Nate said:
“I swear there was nothing there, though. Aside from the scroll, the only things in that clearing were you and Acorn, and me and Talia.”
Saffie wiped her eyes, and her smile wavered a little.
“What did you say?”
“I said, aside from the scroll, the only things in that clearing were you and Acorn, and me and Talia.”
Saffie stared at him, blinking a few times.
“You… and… Talia,” she said, the words feeling like cement coming out of her mouth.
“What’s the matter?” said Nate.
Saffie suddenly felt very, very ill.
No, it couldn’t be true.
It couldn’t be true.
“Saffie, what’s wrong?” said Nate, but Saffie couldn’t find any words to say.
Slowly, she reached through her Overworld robes and into the pocket of the real life jeans she was wearing - the same pair of jeans she had been wearing underneath her robes on the day she had gone looking for Nate at the Warrior’s Guild - and pulled something out of that pocket that had been there ever since; the pound coin Jeremy had thrown at her in the tavern.
With an unsteady hand, she placed it on the bench between them. Then she looked up at Nate and said:
“Pick up the coin.”