The White Rose of Fiorazzurro (A Dvorak Novel; Complete)

Chapter 22 (or, "War Begins")

The groups separated for the night. Tama stayed with Daisy at Gallathia, handling legislative matters now that the  castle was gone. Jason teamed up with Collodi and stayed in charge of the magic users, while Jen spent his time tinkering with the boombox to extend their band on Dvorak.

Rifka, meanwhile, went with Calimero back to Strada Pianure Bianche, intent on finishing the potion. "You're going to need all the help you can get right now," she told him. "Ultimately, we need to focus on this."

Calimero nodded as he pulled the materials down from the shelf, where they had been hiding. "I'm sad that I'll be missing the market tomorrow, but I can miss one day if it means saving the world. I know you've mentioned before that I have other duties as guardian, but you've never actually told me what those are."

"Really, there's only one." Rifka looked underneath one of the cabinets and pulled out the extra sugar, since the second level of the potion called for it. "You have to travel to a place called limbo."

"Isn't that where people go when they die?"

"That would be what the church would want you to think, but you don't actually die." Rifka filled up one of the size A beakers with water from the sink. "Limbo is a place that exists between two worlds. You go there to rewrite reality, so you can save it. I'll take you there, and you'll literally write down how you want the world to be. You can keep all the good things from this world, and then add other good things to it. This happens right before the point of impact. At that time, the worlds will merge, and everything will become permanent."

"Okay." Calimero put three mixing cups next to each other. "That makes sense, I guess. You'll walk me through it?"

"As long as you walk me through what I'm supposed to be doing with this potion."

"I thought that was understood." Calimero dragged out more supplies. "I think this is everything. Let's unroll the scroll."

There were there phases to the potion. Phase one had been completed by Calimero the previous day, and it needed to be frozen overnight, which he had taken care of. Phase two was next, and it needed to sit at room temperature for exactly six hours. Phase three required mixing the two over a burner in a huge pot for two hours straight, while mixing continuously. That part was easy but boring. The trickiest part would be this second phase, since it required meticulous detail.

"Okay," Calimero said. "We start off with two cups of water. Did you pour the water?"

"I did." Rifka put the water in, and Calimero added a cup of salt and then a pinch of pepper, stirring it. "What's next?"

"Two cups of lettuce, a tablespoon of blood -- don't worry, I have some in the back -- and two cups of mold. Then we stir it for fifteen minutes." Calimero retrieved the ingredients, putting them into the mixture and beginning to stir them with a huge ladle. "Put your goggles on over your eyes. I don't think anything will explode at this stage of preparation, but we have to be prepared."

Rifka had borrowed Tama's goggles specifically for this reason; she put them over her eyes now. "That's why you have goggles," she said.

Calimero nodded, putting his own on. "Where did that boy get goggles, anyway?"

"They're from his grandpa. A long time ago, there was a war and he flew planes in it or something."

"Fascinating." Calimero continued to stir. "So this other world that Merlin was in is going to merge with mine. What will happen to all of the people in that world?"

"Whatever you want to happen. They can either become part of this world, or they can be destroyed. Dopplegangars will override at random unless you pick the appropriate people ahead of time. In the worlds we've dealt with, sometimes we've left it up to chance and sometimes we've had guardians put an override protection clause on. There's nothing we can do to prevent the collision. It will happen anyway. What we're doing is organizing it so that it's not as random."