With two flying beasts in their company, Jasmine and the others found their way back to the Creature's Court with relative ease. It was, after all, located in the largest clearing in Fowlina's Forest.
They spent some time there, never daring to dismount Kur and Enkaiein as the two beasts said hello to a few creatures here and there, which they described as their old friends. With the humans wanting nothing more than to return to Castle Albreton, Kurventhor made a quick stop mainly to eat, he explained, because he had not been able to when he was trapped inside the pendant. While they were all antsy and waiting for Kur to finish gobbling down the platter of meat a human-looking man in a dazzlingly white tuxedo had placed in front of him, Jasmine could have sworn she saw a teenager with purple hair walk by. And normally that wouldn't have made her bat an eye, especially after all she had seen, but the girl looked to be entirely human except her hair color and she sported a silver dragon pendant around her neck, walking with the kind of nonchalance a human teenager shouldn't be capable of in the Court. Then again, thought Jasmine, there wasn't any guarantee it was the same pendant. And there also wasn't a guarantee the girl was entirely human in the first place, so she thought nothing more of it. Besides, the pendant meant nothing to Jasmine now that Kurventhor was restored.
"Shall we depart," said Kurventhor, and they took to the skies once more.
Enkaiein thought it best to travel above the canopy of Fowlina's Forest until they neared their destination, so Kurventhor followed him up with a mighty flap of his wings.
"Ah, it is good to fly," said Kur. "Becoming silver made my wings stiff and rigid." Jasmine felt something crack under her calves, heard it over the wind. Kur sighed happily.
"Didn't think dragons could get kinks too," said Jasmine.
"Ah, Jasmine," said Kur, "Anything with bones can get them."
Jasmine smirked, looking over towards Enkaiein but more importantly, towards Salina and Albert. Salina had mastered flying with Enkaiein by now and had enough skill to move around as she pleased knee-deep in his ink. She patted Albert on the back and then rubbed in circles as he moaned gloomily.
"Looks like the prince is still airsick," said the red knight, also glancing over from his place on Kur's back behind Jasmine. He was having a hard time containing a chuckle at Albert's expense until Jasmine elbowed him in the ribs. Then he made a noise quite like the one Albert was making and curled over himself. Jasmine did not feel bad for him.
"So it would seem," said Kur. "Alas, we shall arrive soon. Can you sense it as well? The atmosphere changes ahead."
Now that Kur mentioned it, the air did feel weird. It was as if it was misplaced, askew, like a hair pressing the wrong direction against a comb or a nail growing inward. Yet there was no physical evidence for the strange disturbance, no definite visual cue to indicate there was something awry. It sent a chill down Jasmine's spine, colder than Kurventhor's scales.
The forest warped below them.
"The rift has spread wider," said Enkaiein.
"I'm going to guess that's a bad thing," said the red knight. Jasmine couldn't disagree with him there.
"Is everyone ready," Kurventhor asked, spinning around to see Albert and Salina and Enkaiein. Salina gave him a nod, Albert braced himself and Enkaiein reared and then dove through the rift. "Here we go!"
Jasmine and the red knight clenched as hard as they could on Kur as he plummeted after Enkaiein. Like water lapping against her, everything felt like it was floating and shoving against Jasmine's skin. The air stung but it was also calm, eerily stagnant. Her senses were having a hard time keeping up with all the contradiction and so she barely knew it when Kurventhor landed in the swamplands of Otherworld, sliding through the water to decrease his momentum.
The red knight sucked in air, struggling to catch his breath.
"Are you two all right?"
It was Prince Albert. Jasmine gave him a meek thumbs-up and an even mousier smile. Salina jogged through the water behind Albert with Enkaiein close behind. The red knight slid down Kurventhor's wing, offering a hand to help Jasmine down. She took it.
"Hey guys," she said once she and everyone else were in shallow water, "Is it just me or does this place look different?"
The trees seemed larger, though not as large as they had been in Fowlina's Forest and certainly not the same species. The water had an iridescent film at its surface that glistened in the setting sun and stuck to Jasmine's legs even as she got up to higher ground. The wildlife, which had before been mainly concentrated in the water, was now more easily found in the treetops where birds and monkeys hooted. She spun. The rift was still there, as wide as it had been when they left. Or perhaps... yes, Jasmine saw it now. It had grown taller, blacker, stretching the sky as if someone was ripping paper to peek through at her, and burning brown at its edges.
"Perhaps we switched direction somewhere," said Salina.
"Or maybe the world really is changing," said the red knight, pointing at something he saw. A purple Vein was reaching out of the rift a few yards away, curling itself into the roots of a tree before it vanished. But it was not gone. A minute later the tree morphed, shifted, grew sideways until it became intertwined with those around it, branches swallowing branches, leaves of contrasting color and shape molding into each other like putty before they re-solidified into a unified whole.
"That can't be good," said Jasmine.
"Quickly," said Kurventhor, "We must seal the rift before it spreads any further!"
"Okay, but how do we do that?" Jasmine bit her lip. She had no clue. And when she looked to Salina, it appeared she didn't have any ideas either. Albert drew his sword, facing the rift, but he only stood there and stared. "Enkaiein?"
Enkaiein sighed.
"At the very least we must return it to its previous size," said Kur. "My old friend, you know what happens to worlds Olden bleeds into. Otherworld has aided us both in the past, regardless of whether we belong to it."
"Don't tell me you were just going to let this happen," said Jasmine.
"It would appear that even if I wished it to be so, I could not convince you all to leave things as they are. Very well," said Enkaiein, "To seal a rift as large as this one, we must procure fastitocalon. I believe Jasmine has one remaining scale in the pouch at her side."
"No I don't. I used it up to free Kur."
"Look again," said Enkaiein.
Jasmine humored him and was very surprised to find not one, but three fastitocalon scales tucked inside her pouch. "What the..."
"Victor was generous. He must have been impressed with all of you."
"All but one of us," said the red knight, "There's only three there. I bet it was me he snubbed."
"But when the heck did he even give me these?"
"Does it matter?" Prince Albert asked. Jasmine supposed it didn't.
"Okay, so we use these like before," she directed her question to Enkaiein, "Just imagine the rift closing? Like a door?"
"That is how magic usually works," said Salina, plucking one of the scales out of Jasmine's fingers for herself. "We worked well together back there. I suggest we make haste or it will become more difficult. Yes?"
"Right."
So they both held their scales and thought, imagined the rift closing shut. The scales glowed and glowed and so did they, but in the end Olden pushed them back, snapping at them both like a whip. Salina fell into Albert and Jasmine felt the red knight grip her shoulders and ease her down. The magic luminescence was gone and Jasmine had a killer headache. She winced angrily at the rift.
"What happened," she said through her teeth, "Why didn't it work?"
"Were we not synchronized?" Salina asked as Prince Albert helped her up with a worried expression on his face.
"Fastitocalon has lesser power outside of Olden," explained Enkaiein. He walked towards the rift, looked to his left to see another tree being swallowed by the Veins.
"Are you two alright?" The red knight asked.
"Peachy," said Jasmine. She marched out of his grasp through the water, getting dangerously close to the rift, and put her hands on her hips, scowling. "What are we supposed to do if magic doesn't work?"
"I do not know," said Salina.
"I have an idea." All turned to face the red knight. He asked Jasmine for the spare fastitocalon scale and she gave it to him, looking perplexed. He proceeded to tie it onto the end of one arrow and then draw it back on his bow. He didn't fire it, only testing its weight to see how much it would affect his shot.
"I see," said Kurventhor, "That just may work."
"What just may work," Albert asked.
"See," said the red knight, "If these things work better if they're inside of Olden, all we have to do is get one of them charged up with magic and fire it inside before the magic fades. At least, in theory."
"Yeah well," said Jasmine, "In theory everything works."
"You have so little faith in me, Jasmine."
"Bite me."
And for a moment the red knight looked positively downtrodden.
"Look, sorry," said Jasmine. Then she let out an exasperated noise. "It's just that every time we solve one problem, another comes up to screw with us. I'm just frustrated. It isn't you."
"And here I thought you hated me," said the red knight, but his cocky smile was back.
"If you two are finished," said Salina, "The task at hand awaits." She had her fastitocalon back at the ready and stood a few feet away, knee-deep in the water as Jasmine was. The red knight gave Salina a jut of his chin and moved back, knocking his arrow onto the string of his bow. Prince Albert backed away from Salina now, walking backwards until he bumped into Kurventhor. Enkaiein followed suit soon afterward. The rift stretched out before them, as if tempting them to challenge it.
"One," Jasmine started the count.
"Two," followed Salina.
"Three!" The red knight released his arrow and the girls began their spell.
The rift splintered, spitting black energy and in their direction. Jasmine opened her eyes to see the darkness reaching towards her over the water like a shadow stretching long in the sun. She imagined a shield to keep it at bay. The dark deflected around her, heading towards Salina now, but Salina was prepared despite her eyes still being closed. She imagined a net to wrap over anything menacing that came too close, and it snagged the dark, twisting until it could no longer move past her magic.
The red knight's arrow struck the rift.
"Now," he called.
Then Salina and Jasmine refocused their efforts towards closing the rift, and this time instead of a door they both caught onto the same thought wavelength and pictured a needle and thread to sew it closed for good. One needle appeared on either side of the rift and together they wove a string of white magic through the top and bottom of the rift with the red knight's arrow as the tie-off point. As they did this, more dark energy seeped through, squeezing through the opening before it closed entirely. Unable to reach Salina and Jasmine, it curled itself into the trees. Branches hurled towards the girls like staves and leaves fell upon them sharp and violent as knives.
Kurventhor defended them both, spanning his wings out to block them from the darting leaves. The few branches and sticks that made it past him did not make it as far as Jasmine or Salina. The red knight and Prince Albert guarded them both respectively, with Enkaiein watching everything detachedly, almost sadly, not participating in the process unless it was absolutely necessary to keep someone out of harm's way.
There was one moment when the rift was nearly sewn shut that an entire tree collapsed of its own accord, stringy Veins glowing from its roots. Enkaiein and Kurventhor had to work together to stop it from flattening the humans, bracing it over their backs until the spell was complete. Jasmine saw the wooden debris fall around her, splashing into the water as Kur shaded her and Enkaiein kept the tree away from Salina. It was messing with her concentration, so she closed her eyes as Salina had done from the beginning and put all her efforts into imagining the knot tightening around the fastitocalon scale that hovered midair in the center of the rift.
And this time, it worked. The rift closed completely, the darkness faded and the only indication anything unnatural had ever been there in the first place was the floating fastitocalon scale, clear as the sky, which could easily be mistaken for a trick of the light if someone didn't know what it was. The swamplands extended past the rift now, the flora returned to its usual shape and everyone moved out of the way as Enkaiein bucked the fallen tree off his back, Kurventhor doing the same with a swift jerk of his wing. It sloshed and then boomed as it landed, drenching everyone in swamp water.
"Ew," said Jasmine, picking algae off her arm. Salina made a disgusted face as she wiped herself down. Her sparkling blue top was now slimy with swamp life, not that it had been in good condition since Olden anyway.
"I don't know about any of you," said the red knight, "But I could sleep for a week."
"Me too," admitted Prince Albert.
"Come then," said Kurventhor, bending down so he would be more easily mounted. "I want nothing more than to curl up with Ellindris myself."
And they all flew back to Albreton slowly, tiredly, but with the serene sense of calm that comes with accomplishment.