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Space stretched and danced around them. Something knocked him back and forth. He had to tighten his grip on Jack’s hand.

At least he was in his body. To spirit walk through this might shred him. He pulled his wards around himself and pushed them through his linked hands to help guard the others. Neither Jack nor Daffodil had magic, as far as he could tell.

They landed in a pile, not standing, but they’d managed to hold onto each other.

Daff curled herself into a ball.

“Daff, it’s okay. He’s okay,” Jack was saying.

“Really?” She lifted her head over her knees to peer at Adam. “He didn’t touch me?”

“No. He’s fine.”

Adam shot Jack a questioning glance as he stood.

“It’s her power,” Jack explained. “You want to avoid skin-to-skin contact. If you’re, you know, organic.”

He waved a metallic hand.

“It’s okay,” Adam said. “No one’s hurt, right? And we’re here. Are we there?”

The group took in the tunnel they’d landed in. The floor was smooth, pale stone. The walls were lined with ceramic tiles grouted in neat black. It reminded Adam of a shower, only the walls curved and the ceiling arched. The light fixture above them was ornate, dark metal wrapped around a sphere of crackly-looking glass. It glowed a vivid orange.

“I believe so,” Jack said.

“Okay, then next question. How do we open that?”

Adam nodded at the massive door looming in front of them like a challenge. Comically large, round, and brass, it looked like the kind of bank vault you’d see in a cartoon.

“We could try knocking,” Daffodil suggested.

Before anyone could stop her, she did just that, banging her fist on the door.

“I like her,” Adam said to Jack.

“Me too.”

Nothing happened.

“Maybe they didn’t hear me,” Daff said.

“Maybe there’s no one there,” Adam said. “It’s not like there’s a doorbell.”

“No, but there’s a keyhole,” she said, pointing at the round hole. “Or something like one.”

Jack produced the cylinder the scholar had given them and pressed it into the slot in the door.

A metal drawer opened to the right of the door.

It looked like one of those things on firehouses where you deposited babies.

Adam took a long breath and removed the Binder family grimoire from his backpack.

He set it in the drawer and closed it.

The door began to whir and click. A sound like a giant, ticking clock echoed throughout the space, and with a metallic scraping, the vault opened.

“Shall we?” Daff asked, smiling at the two of them as she stepped inside.