Page 31 of Red

Yeah, wasn’t that just the thing. “I’m figuring that out, I think.”

And yet that was also part of what made Jack feel safe. He didn’t hide things, didn’t see a need to lie, like humans from our world did. He was the most honest man I’d ever met. And if he’d been thoughtless, even careless in the past about life from outside his little world, he had also just admitted that had been wrong of him.

I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow. “And won’t you be part of this inhuman world, if you stay?”

“That’s the other reason I haven’t, yet. I don’t know what it’ll make of me. I don’t know if I want to. These little otherworlds have a way of…”

“Sanding the edges off your humanity?”

Amma chuckled. “Very nice.”

“The bottom line is that he did save me.” And as a result, I felt safe.

Or I would, anyhow. Once we figured out what to do about Wulfric. But even if we didn’t, I’d be safe with Jack—and I wanted to be safe with Jack, more importantly.

“And the witch saved him. But it cost him, whether he minds the payment or not.”

She had a point. And yet, “He hasn’t asked me for anything yet.”

Amma pursed her lips pointedly. “Oh, hasn’t he?”

I met her gaze for a moment, confused. And then we both laughed out loud. I admitted, “More like I asked him. Practically begged.”

She laughed even harder.

And then, of course, Jack burst through the front door. “Ah, sorry! But Wulfric’s getting closer. And I have an idea.”

All three of us stared into the black mirror in the excavated basement. And I sputtered, “Anything could’ve been through there! And you said your magic doesn’t work in other worlds!”

“I still like to visit them, sometimes. When things are peaceful.” Jack shrugged, as if he hadn’t just explained that he’d jumped headfirst into five different magical realms in the last ten minutes while I was having a heart-to-heart with my grandmother. He went on, a little bit of awe in his voice. “I’ve never seen so many portals in one place.”

I rubbed my face with one hand. “Jack.”

“Trust me, yeah?” He gestured to the black mirror. “Look, this one leads to a lonely kind of place, lots of dry brush and no life I could see. This could be the one.”

“How would we even get Wulfric into it?” I wondered. “Can’t blow magic smoke in his face—he’s obviously immune.”

Jack shifted from foot to foot and licked his lips. “That’s the part I’m not sure about.”

“We have to lead him down here,” Amma said with a determination I did not feel.

“He’d never come near Jack,” I protested. Even if he would’ve before, he’d definitely be wary after that mean blow to the head a few days back.

“So we hide Jack,” Amma said. “Let him come after us.”

I was not enjoying her matter-of-fact tone. “Now we’re bait?”

Jack frowned. “I don’t know. The crows say he’s acting erratic. Enraged.”

“Sore loser, sounds like,” Amma said. “And it’s making him sloppy. He should know better than to come back to the Greenwood after getting bludgeoned like that.”

Jack grunted in agreement.

Amma went on. “So we let him chase us down here. Set the portal at the foot of the stairs and jump over it.”

I shook my head. “What if he catches one of us before we get that far?”

Amma thought for a moment. “Then Jack springs out of hiding and chops him in half.”