The Stolen Chapters (20 page)

“She's here,” Owen said, faking confidence, trying to be more like Kiel. Just to prove it, he glanced at the boy magician and gave him an awkward wink.

Kiel gave him an odd look back. “Are you sure?” he said. “I don't feel my spell book anywhere close. If Doyle has them and he's with her, then she's not here, Owen.” He glanced around, his hands opening and closing anxiously.

“I'm
not
wrong,” Owen said, hoping he was telling the truth. “Doyle put us here to taunt us. We were here all along, and she was right under our noses! We just have to find her. Split up, but don't let anyone see you.”

“I've got
all
the faith in you guys!” Moira said, leaning back on the ground and closing her eyes. “Let me know if you find her and need to get rid of the body or something.”

Owen glared at her, which she didn't see, then set off with Kiel and Fowen, Kiel moving one way, Owen the other, with Fowen following Owen.

“
I
think you're right,” Fowen said, his eyes on Owen. “She's got to be here. That's exactly how villains work, you know?”

“That's the weird thing,” Owen said, picking his way slowly through the bushes around the side of the library, trying to stay out of the lights of the fire engines. “Since when is the great-something-grandson of Sherlock Holmes a villain? Why is he doing all of this? What could he possibly get out of locking me and Kiel away and making Bethany leave us behind? I think he wants something.”

Fowen shrugged. “All he ever said to me was that he was looking for Bethany's father, and that your author—”

“He's not
my
author,” Owen said, far more angrily then he expected. “I'm
real
.”

“That your author isn't real,” Fowen finished, then raised an eyebrow. “So wait, you don't think
I'm
real?”

Whoops. “Of course you are,” Owen said, glancing at his watch. “That's not what I meant. I just . . .” He groaned. There was no time for this right now. “Look,
you
don't have an author either. You and me, we're just extras, background characters for important people. No one's writing stories about us, you know?”

Fowen shook his head. “You're
wrong
. Look at you right now.
You're
the one saving the supposedly important people. Where's Kiel? Bumbling around, useless without his magic. Bethany's captured and needs saving—”

“Actually, I think she's the one who's going to save
us
,” Owen said quietly.

“And you're the hero of
Story Thieves
,” Fowen finished. “The book doesn't make you out to be, but you are. Or you
should
have been! You're a bigger hero than either Bethany or Kiel were, for sure. You saved the Magister, Charm,
and
Kiel, even if they didn't all deserve it.”

For a moment Owen let himself imagine it was Charm standing next to him instead of his fictional double. “He's not wrong,” Imaginary Charm told him. “But why are you wasting time with doubting yourself? Bethany needs you.”

“I'm looking for her, but I feel like I'm missing something,” he told Charm in his mind.

“Of course you're missing something,” Charm said, her robotic eye shining on him. “Why would Doyle put her here, then light it on fire? What happens when something burns down?”

“The fire department comes,” Owen said, glancing at the trucks.

“And what do
they
do?”

“Put out the fire?”

“With?”

Owen's eyes flashed to the hoses still spraying water on the various small fires around the building. Most of the library was now soaked down, with excess water running down the sidewalks and into the sewer.

Oh!

Ohhhhhh.

Oh
no
.

“You've got it,” Imaginary Charm said, and gave him a half smile.

“I miss you,” Owen said as she faded out.

“You do?” Fowen said, giving him an odd look.

Owen started to blush, but grabbed Fowen's hand and pulled him back to where Moira waited. He whistled softly, then waved when Kiel turned back. The boy magician quickly returned too, and Owen gathered them all in a huddle.

“I think I know where Bethany is,” he said. “I—”

And then police sirens sounded down the street, and Owen shook his head. “Just follow me, okay?”

With that, Owen took off, following the flow of excess water from the library.

“Where is she?” Kiel asked. “Owen, we're almost out of time, and—”

“Doyle burnt down the library with us in it and started the clock when he heard the fire engines,” Owen said, wincing as the sirens got closer. “If the two are related, then Bethany's danger had something to do with the fire. What if the clock had to do with the fire department putting out the fire?”

“Nothing like a ticking clock to make things more exciting,” Moira said, yawning.

“I'm not following,” Kiel said, as Fowen began nodding vigorously. “What would that have to do with Bethany?”

The water flowed down the sidewalk and into a sewer grate, and from within, Owen could hear a deep splashing.
There.
“What if it's not the fire that's the danger,” he said, “but the water?”

00:04:17

B
ethany had never felt so tired in her life. Every muscle in her body ached, and all she wanted to do was slip below the surface of the water for a minute, maybe two, and just . . . relax. Close her eyes and stop kicking, stop treading water. It was just so tempting to let the water hold her up, do all the work. Not for too long . . .

Her lungs began to burn, and her eyes burst open. She
was
underwater!

Her legs were so tired they refused to respond, so she frantically pumped her barely functioning arms until her face broke the surface, less than a foot from the ceiling now, and rising.

This was it. She'd failed them. Kiel and Owen were going to be trapped in the fictional world, but she just couldn't hold out any longer.

The guilt felt like a truck parked on her back between her shoulders, but alongside that was a feeling almost like relief. She'd hung on until the very last moment, hadn't she? She'd almost drowned a few hundred times over the past two hours, and now . . . now she could just let go, and jump back to reality.

. . . Where she'd have explain to Owen's mother why her son had gone missing, and probably was never coming back.

She forced her dead legs to slowly kick, switching up between her numb, dead limbs as the water rose and her face got closer and closer to the ceiling.

Of course they hadn't found her. How could they? Doyle had hidden her away somewhere secret, and neither Owen nor Kiel was a detective. Not that Moira would have been a help either, if she'd even shown up. That girl was the opposite of a detective. She should have made Owen find someone better. Or just left them both behind and come alone.

Bethany sank below the water level again, this time letting herself drop deeper until she was suspended weightlessly, her legs and arms crying out in thanks. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the fact that soon there'd be nowhere in the room for her to breathe, and she'd have no choice.

She'd look for them. Of
course
she would. Every bit as long and hard as she had for her father. And maybe it'd even be easier. After all, she knew they'd have to be in some sort of realistic world. Doyle had crossed into other stories somehow, but they'd all been set in the real world.

Unless he figured out how to do whatever it was she did when she jumped out in a minute. Then he could take them wherever he wanted, and Kiel and Owen were both going to be just as lost as her father. Lost in a book, or worse, lost in an unwritten book, stuck somewhere she could
never
find them.

Her lungs began burning again, but she didn't bother kicking back up to the surface. There was no point. They weren't going to find her. It was all impossible.

Be more fictional,
Kiel had said before she faced the Magister. And she had been. She'd taken the advice, and when his finder spell hadn't worked, she'd broken her own rules, broken
all
the rules when she'd hired Doyle.

And for that, she was paying the price. Doyle had won.

Something inside of her screamed in rage and anger at that thought, and in spite of everything, her legs began kicking again. Part of her tried to quiet the screams, just wanting to stay underwater where everything was silent, but the screaming part was too wild, too angry. It forced her to the surface, forced her to push her mouth up just inches from the ceiling, and breathe in, even as the air tasted far too stale and made her light-headed.

She stayed there, windmilling her arms behind her, practically kissing the ceiling for a minute.

Then another.

And another.

And then, finally, her watch blinked 00:00:00 and the water rose above her face.

Everything felt weird and sleepy as she sank back into the water. She'd stopped noticing the cold a long time ago, but her arms and legs began feeling weirdly warm now, like she was floating in a warm bathtub, completely comfortable.

Some part of her was still screaming about her friends, about Kiel and Owen, but that part needed to shush. It was really too loud. And the water was so warm, and everything was just nice and relaxing.

Jump,
something in her head said.
You
need
to jump
.

But that was the last thing she needed to do. Not when she could just float effortlessly, letting the current of the water do all the work.

Sorry, guys,
she thought, but had to struggle to remember what she was apologizing for. Had she done something wrong? And to who?

And why was she holding her mouth closed? Her lungs were saying they needed air, so why not open her mouth and just breathe in?

She parted her lips, and the cold water hit her tongue, just enough to jolt her back to awareness.
JUMP!
her mind screamed.
JUMP OUT NOW!

Bethany began to jump, pushing her aching, nonresponsive muscles to cross from the fictional world to the nonfictional one before she drowned.

Weirdly, though, instead of pushing up and out of the book, she felt like she was being pulled down instead. Down toward the bottom of the room, where she could hear a roaring even under the water.

Jump!
her mind screamed again, and she tried, pushing her arms and legs as hard as she could.

But the water pulled her down toward the roaring, and between the fog in her mind and the ache in her lungs and muscles, she just couldn't make herself fight it.

Kiel, Owen!
she screamed soundlessly.
I'm so sorry. I deserve this! I deserve what's happening! It's all my fault. I'm so, so sorry.

And then the water pulled her down to the floor, and her eyes closed, her breath completely gone as everything went black.

0:00:00

Y
ou're putting two worlds in danger just by being here,” the stranger behind her said.

“You brought this on yourself,” Doyle Holmes said from behind his mask.

“You
promised
you wouldn't go to the fictional world,” Bethany's mom said. “You've broken my heart!”

“You left us behind, Bethany,” Kiel said.

“Just like you did your father,” Owen said.

“Give her mouth to mouth,” said a second Owen.

. . . Wait.
Two
Owens?

“I'm not sure how!” said the first Owen, just above her.

“Oh,
you guys
,” said a girl's voice. “What would you ever do without me?”

Then silence.

Abruptly, Bethany began choking, coughing up water, and her eyes slowly opened.

Moira, criminal genius and great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes's greatest enemy, was bent over her, giving her a disgusted look. “I get that you were almost dead and all,” she said, wiping water off of her face, “but basically you just puked on me. You're honestly not my favorite person in the world right now.”

“Bethany!” Owen shouted, and pushed Moira out of the way. Bethany weakly let Owen hug her, relief and confusion fighting for dominance in her brain. They'd found her? She hadn't left them behind? But
how
had they found her? And were those sirens in the distance?

She looked around over Owen's shoulder, and saw they were at the bottom of a ladder leading up to a manhole, letting in the only light around them. The smell confirmed what the slippery walls and dank floor hinted at: They were in the sewer.

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered to Owen, her throat raw from coughing. “I waited for you two as long as I could. It's all my fault.”

“It's
my
fault,” Owen whispered back. “I never should have told you about Doyle in the first place.”

“No, she's right,” said a
second
Owen, and Bethany's eyes widened. She hadn't been imagining it . . . there really were two Owens. What exactly had she missed? “She came to Doyle before you even knew about him, Owen,” the other Owen continued. “She's the whole reason you're in this mess.”

The first Owen let her lie back down, and Bethany turned from one Owen to another, having trouble finding the words. Finally, she pointed at the Owen closer to her. “Who?” she said.

Mercifully, Kiel swooped in for a hug at that point and held her close. “The one farther away is the fictional version of Owen,” he whispered in her ear. “We didn't really have a choice. Turns out he's met Doyle.” Kiel squeezed her hard then, and for a moment she couldn't breathe again but didn't really care. Instead, she just hugged him back and didn't let go, trying not to worry about anything else.