Leopold flinched as if he’d been slapped.

  “Your scores did stand out in one respect.” She glanced down at her clipboard, and despite everything he felt a tiny shoot of hope poke up from the nightsoil. “Their averageness.”

  The shoot withered and died.

  “I can honestly say you may be the world’s most ordinarily magical person. Remarkably unremarkable. Average absolutely to the decimal point. Unspecial by every magical metric.”

  There was a ringing in his ears, and for a moment he was unsure which interview he was failing, which recruiter or counselor or administrator he was disappointing. Everything she said sounded like an echo of something he’d heard before. Leopold sat down blindly, bracing himself against the mattress. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

  “I’m sorry,” said the Executive, without malice. “The Aether shortage is too severe. We have no more room in Sunder for sparks of mediocre talent.”

  And then she nodded to the man in white, and he raised his focuser.

  Thirty-Five

  He awoke knotted in bedsheets.

  Sun fell across his eyes through window blinds and he rolled away from the bright light, feeling vile. His head pounded and his throat was so dry he could hardly swallow.

  A strange thought occurred to him.

  I’m back.

  It was not immediately clear where he was back from. Or what he’d been doing the night before to make him feel as though his brains had been siphoned out, blendered, then poured back in through his ear canal.

  He was in his room. That much was evident—though room, not home, was the word that came to him. Room was a leaky, weather-beaten lifeboat inside a house that had never really felt like his. Home was something else.

  He attempted to sit up, and his brains sloshed alarmingly inside his skull.

  He settled for turning his head, searching for evidence of what might’ve happened the night before. An empty bottle of cheap whiskey would’ve explained things, or the baseball bat he’d been beaten with.

  No such luck.

  Just his bookshelves, neatly arranged. Paperback fantasy novels ordered by series and personal rating. C. S. Lewis on one end, the endless diminishing sequels of Dragonspear on the other. Model race cars and Lego contraptions. A smattering of action figures. A telescope he’d built himself out of cardboard and balsa wood. Graveyard of his lonely boyhood passions.

  Most other surfaces had been abandoned to chaos, and he liked it that way. His bedroom was the only part of the house that was allowed to be less than spotless.

  School notebooks spilled across his desk. Dirty clothes were heaped in a corner. A gallery of monster movie posters papered the wall, mementoes of a cherished ritual. He’d once asked his mom why they only watched old movies and she’d told him that movies used to be magic. Leopold hadn’t really known what she meant, but he never complained. Movie time meant that, for a few hours, he had his mom all to himself. That was magic enough.

  He carefully levered up to a seated position. When his brains had finished sloshing, he disentangled his feet from the sheets and lowered them to the floor. He was wearing shoes. He’d never in his life slept in his shoes. He must’ve been drunk out of his mind. The poisonous headache, the dimmed-out memories; it was the likeliest explanation, though a little confusing. He’d been drunk only once before and hadn’t enjoyed the experience sufficiently to repeat it. He and Emmet often talked a big game about Emmet’s dad’s bourbon collection, but the thing about bourbon was that it tasted like wood-flavored demon urine. They didn’t mention that in commercials.

  Of yesterday’s disasters Leopold could remember these: disastrous interview, disastrous argument with Richter in the car, disastrous near-accident on Sunset Boulevard. And, he could’ve sworn, a disastrously ill-tailored suit. He looked down at himself: The shirt, vest, and pants he wore now, though a bit wrinkled from having been slept in, fit perfectly.

  He was never drinking again.

  Leopold scooted to the edge of his bed, put his hand on the wall to steady himself, and stood. Minimal sloshing this time. His headache had receded such that he could open his eyes all the way.

  He shuffled to the window and peered through the blinds. His room was on the second floor, and there in the driveway below was Bessie, his boxy yellow steed, parked at a wonky angle with two wheels off the travertine pavers in the grass. A parenthesis of crushed lawn curved behind her—a serious transgression of the Richter code.

  More worrying, though, was how the car had gotten there. He had apparently driven himself home last night, though he knew he wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel if he’d been drinking.

  He frowned.

  He never would’ve gotten behind the wheel if he’d been drinking.

  Feeling uncertain again, he thought, suddenly: phone. There would be answers on his phone. He located it among his sheets only to discover it had been turned off. This was strange, because in addition to never driving home under the influence, Leopold never turned off his phone.

  Exhausted, he sat on the edge of his bed, then powered up his cell and looked through his texts. There was nothing from the previous day. No texts at all. No calls, either.

  Weird.

  There hadn’t been a day in his adolescent life in which he hadn’t sent or received a text.

  Leopold closed his eyes. His head hurt too much to play Encyclopedia Brown right now. Tossing the phone down, he hobbled into the bathroom, turned on the taps, and waited for the water to get very hot. He wanted the whole bathroom to fill with steam. He didn’t care if it earned him the Don’t You Realize We’re in a Drought lecture. Leopold wanted to disappear into a cloud of hot vapor and feel his brain melt.

  Noting once more the strangeness of his perfectly fitted suit, he undressed and stepped into the billowing steam. He let the near-scalding water pour over him as he soaped his body and allowed his mind to drift. It was Saturday, and he had a shift at the coffee shop that afternoon, which meant he’d—

  Leopold’s train of thought was interrupted when he noticed a strange discoloration across his ribs. Faintly yellow, like an old bruise.

  He touched it and winced. Had he gotten into a fight with someone last night? Or a parking meter? He probed the spot a second time and winced again, the pain oddly fascinating. Each small shock was like pressing a button. Something was stirring to life deep in the folds of his memory. Shaking dust from its limbs.

  Unburying itself.

  At first it was just the tenor and tone of a woman’s voice. Firm but not harsh. He held his hand to his ribs again, but this time something made him hesitate.

  He realized, with a start, that he was afraid. Beads of condensation wept down the glass shower enclosure. What was he afraid of? Was there something he was terrified to remember?

  Then, with a sharp intake of breath, it all came back to him. He stumbled against the wall, gasping as the memories resurfaced—

  Sunder. The test. The Noxum. Each revelation like a sledgehammer to his chest.

  The Executive’s pained expression as she said, We have no more room in Sunder for sparks of mediocre talent.

  Leopold slid down the wall and let his forehead bang against his knees, scalding water flowing over him as two words repeated in his skull, echoing louder and louder until they were nearly deafening.

  You failed.

  He’d finally found Sunder, and Sunder had found him lacking. He’d gained entrance only to be kicked out and banished in a matter of hours, which had to be some kind of record. He’d killed a Noxum and still failed. It was a dream come true with a nightmare ending.

  He cursed himself, watching water swirl down the drain.

  How could he have been so stupid? How had he let himself believe he was some great magical talent—and if that wasn’t absurd enough, a channeler? Because he’d cast one mediocre spell in an alley? Because rickety old Angels Flight had creaked to life when he’d inserted a novelty coin? Because it had rained unexpectedly and his desperate mind had twisted it into something meaningful?

  No: because he was deluded. Because a good friend had told him something he’d desperately wanted to hear and he hadn’t questioned it—because he hadn’t wanted to.

  That wasn’t on Emmet. That was all on him.

  Remarkably unremarkable.

  He let the shame of it sink into his marrow. Richter had been right about him all these years. Larry Berry was nothing special, and his refusal to believe it had nearly cost him his life.

  Worse, it had nearly cost Emmet’s.

  And yet—

  Leopold’s failure, while devastating, made sense; it aligned with every other experience he’d ever had. What didn’t make sense was everything else. Why hadn’t his memory revision worked? Why had he been granted a token at all? Why had he found those Sunderworld tapes as a kid? And why, for all these years, had he been Seeing into Sunder?

  Suddenly, talking to Emmet was the most urgent thing imaginable.

  Emmet knew. He’d been there too, had gone through everything alongside him. That was something, at least: Leopold wasn’t alone in this.

  He scrambled out of the shower without bothering to turn it off, wrapped himself quickly in a towel, and rushed into his bedroom. He snatched his phone from the nest of sheets.

  The call went straight to voicemail. Emmet’s phone must have been turned off, and probably wiped of all recent calls and texts, just as Leopold’s had been.

  “This is Emmet Worthington’s cellular device. If you’re hearing this, it’s because you’ve bothered to call me, which is frankly ridiculous, and means you’re probably my parents. Just text me, guys. Phone calls give everyone anxiety.”

  Leopold hung up without leaving a message and tried Emmet’s parents, who—partly for emergencies and partly out of nostalgic affectation—still had a landline. Emmet’s mom, Laura, picked up after three rings.

  “Hello?”

  “Dr. Worthington. It’s Larry.”

  He tried not to sound freaked out.

  “Hi, Larry. Emmet’s sleeping. Still. You guys had a late night, huh?”

  “Yeah. Do you think you could wake him up?”

  “You’re asking me for a favor?” She laughed, surprised. “How about I start: Next time, you two stick to curfew or heads will roll.”

  “Yes, Dr. Worthington.” Leopold winced. “Sorry, Dr. Worthington.”

  A beat. “Good.”

  Silently, Leopold banged his head against the wall. “I’m sorry, Dr. Worthington. This is just, uh, really important. Could you wake him up? Please?”

  “Speak of the devil, here he is. Like the risen dead.”

  “Really?” Leopold straightened.

  He heard Emmet in the background muttering, “Who is it?”

  “Oh, Emmy,” Dr. Worthington said pitiably. “You look rough.”

  “Thanks, Mom. Love to hear that. Can I have the phone, please?”

  The phone shuffled from hand to hand.

  “Mister Berry.” Emmet’s voice was thick and gravelly. “What in God’s name did we drink last night?”

  He sounded like hell, which didn’t give Leopold much comfort. There was the sound of footsteps, then a door squeaking shut. The Worthingtons’ landline was straight out of an eighties movie, with a long, coiled cord that could stretch all the way into the pantry, and Leopold knew Emmet had shut himself in to talk without being overheard.

  “Weird,” Emmet said. “I don’t smell like booze but I feel like someone took a shit inside my head.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Did we raid my dad’s liquor cabinet?”

  “No. Listen—”

  “Did we smoke? Where’d we even get weed?”

  “We live in LA, Emmet, they sell weed at the farmers market. But no, we didn’t.”

  Emmet laughed, then whimpered. “Ow.”

  “We went to The Stench,” Leopold continued. “Remember? Mika’s show?”

  “Right. Yeah. Mika.”

  “Your girlfriend.”

  “I almost forgot I had a girlfriend.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Emmet sighed. “Someone took a shit in my head, Larry.”

  For the first time since he’d woken up, Leopold smiled. He fucking loved Emmet.

  “Hold up,” Emmet said, realization dawning. “Didn’t you almost burn down Clifton’s?”

  He was there, he was almost there. Maybe his memory just needed a jog.

  “Yeah.”

  Now Emmet sounded angry. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “The list is really, really long.” Leopold pushed a hand through his wet hair and started to pace. “Listen, do you remember what happened after Clifton’s?”

  “Uh, I remember us going back to our cars, I think. Then we must’ve gotten shit-faced at some point before I fell asleep.”

  Leopold took a beat, a breath, then just said it: “We didn’t go home after Clifton’s. We rode Angels Flight.”

  Emmet was quiet a little too long before he said, “What?”

  “I’m saying we rode Angels Flight.”

  “Bro, did you take something from those D&D guys? They pretend to be straight-edge, but they love to get stoned. One time Jeremiah gave me what he claimed was a clove cigarette, but I saw flying elephants for three hours afterward. Three hours, Larry.”

  Leopold’s stomach began to churn. “Emmet. I wasn’t stoned. We did ride Angels Flight last night. We used the token I got upstairs at Clifton’s—”

  “Be there in a minute!” Emmet hollered. Then, back to Leopold: “Sorry. There are waffles happening and people are calling my name.”

  A slow heat crawled up Leopold’s neck. “Just do me a favor and check your pockets, okay? Maybe they forgot to search you before we got revised—”

  “Jesus, Larry. What are you talking about?” Emmet said, irritated. “Are you having another episode right now?”

  “Would you please just check your pockets?” Leopold said, sounding more panicked than he’d meant to.

  “All right. Jeez.” A shuffling noise. “They’re empty.”

  “Maybe something fell out in your bed? Can you check your sheets?”

  “Larry. Stop.” Emmet sounded tired and, more than that, disappointed. “You need to talk to Richter, okay? This isn’t cool anymore.”

  Leopold was beginning to spiral. Everything was crashing, coming apart.

  He could feel Emmet slipping away.

  “Listen to me,” Leopold said tightly. “I’m not having an episode. We really went to Sunder last night. Don’t you remember Art? The Brite Spot? 99 Spells? None of that rings a bell?”

  “Yeah, an alarm bell. Look, I can’t do this right now. I really think you need to be in therapy. Unless this is all some elaborate prank, which would just be like, wow, go to hell. But I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re just…not okay.”

  “I’m serious, Emmet—I swear, I didn’t remember at first either, but then it all came back to me, out of nowhere, in the shower—”

  “I’m hanging up now. I’m tired and I don’t feel good and I need to go have breakfast with my family. And so should you, probably.”

  “Emmet—”

  The line went dead.

  Leopold stayed still for a long time, shaky hands still gripping his silent phone. Like maybe if he didn’t move, the emptiness and shame he was feeling wouldn’t obliterate him.

  Emmet’s revision had worked.

  Leopold’s had not. And he would never know why because he couldn’t go back to Sunder to ask. They’d taken his tokens, made copies of his ID, rolled up the welcome mat. Left him with more questions than ever and no way to answer them.

  Worse than all that, he’d lost Emmet. They lived on different planets now, and there’d be no reaching him anymore.

  Emmet would never remember.

  Thirty-Six

  He sat in a towel, shivering and paralyzed. For a long time he could do nothing but stare into the middle distance. By the time he became aware of a persistent grinding sound outside his window, his hair had dried and his towel was damp. He stood up automatically, as if his own body were foreign to him, then went to the window and pulled the blinds.

  Half the driveway was now occupied by an ugly, hulking tow truck. His old Volvo was hitched up to it, rear wheels hoisted in the air. A man in blue coveralls was climbing into the cab while Richter stood watching with his arms folded.

  They were taking Bessie. Hauling her away like trash.

  His thoughts turned to static. He threw on a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt and then he was running, shoeless, out of his room and downstairs, past his stepbrother Hal in the kitchen saying What the actual fuck, Larry, and then he was outside.

  Still running, he shouted What did you do at his father’s back and his father yelled Something I should’ve done a long time ago as Leopold sprinted past him. He said something else as Leopold ran into the street after the tow truck, but Leopold didn’t hear and didn’t care.

  The tow truck hadn’t yet rounded the bend at the end of the block. Leopold screamed for it to stop and waved frantically in hopes the driver would see. Donna Chervil, Realtor to the stars, nearly backed over him with her Range Rover as she pulled out of her driveway. Mr. Khan stared from the sidewalk as his little dog did its business.

  The truck picked up speed. Leopold gave chase, still waving like a castaway flagging down an airplane. The one object in the world that still meant anything to him was disappearing, tipping briefly onto one wheel as it skidded around the bend and out of sight.

  He made it all the way to the end of the block before finally slowing to a stop, lungs and legs burning, gasping for breath.

  Bessie was gone.