Multiverse of Magic & Mistakes (Completed)

Part Three - Thieves and Saboteurs - 1.3.17 Chapter 17

Bath, UK, Earth, September 2019.

And two steps later, they found themselves standing in the space between the window and the desk on the pale blue carpet of Vi's bedroom in 64 Henrietta Street, Bath, Earth. The trip was entirely painless, as easy as climbing through an open window, stepping from one world into another. The portal closed behind them with a quiet pop; Vi no longer having the energy to sustain it. Her face paled and she staggered forward, kneeling on the carpet, dropping her bag onto the floor. Rho hurried over, wrapped an arm around her waist and helped her stagger over to the unmade bed.

Vi sat down hard and promptly collapsed backwards. A pile of clothes was heaped atop the bed, which she was now uncomfortably lying upon. That was odd. She had left the room in a complete mess, after her rush to pack to go to Verdyn. Her parents never came in here, so who had heaped all the clothes together? Before she was able to ponder the matter further or push the clothes out of the way, Vi passed out into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She awoke several hours later, to the bizarrely familiar sight of her bedroom, with the out-of-place addition of Rho, who was scrolling on her old abandoned laptop and spinning in her desk chair.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, socks scraping the carpet.

"Rough. World's worst hangover times a million" she replied hoarsely, one hand on her aching forehead.

Rho handed her a glass of water that he must have fetched whilst she was out.

"More like a magic hangover. You drew up all of your power and used it all way too quickly. It was the same my first time."

"But it worked!" she exclaimed taking a sip and looking in amazement around the familiar space. There were her desk and books, the blue duvet, the empty cat bed on the windowsill, the candles Lily had given her last Christmas. Somehow, she had done it, she had managed to create a stable inter-world portal just like that.

"Evidently!" Rho came over to sit beside her "Vi, that was fucking incredible. I can't believe you just managed to create a portal just like that, on your first attempt!"

Vi rubbed her throbbing head "So, you are not mad?"

"I'm in shock! I wasn't expecting you to just create a portal right there and then!" he paused and shook his head "There wasn't even time to check it was stable... What if you had been unable to hold it open? We could have been stuck in the in-between!"

Vi repeated what she had said to Toni earlier that week in another world "I just knew it would be OK!" She took another sip of water, feeling slightly better and added "Thanks for taking the risk and coming with me! You didn't have to do that."

"I couldn't let you go through alone!"

She smiled weakly. "Thanks!" she said again "Thanks for trusting me and my magic and coming back to Earth"

Rho squeezed her hand, "Please just give me a warning, next time you're gonna do something like that! Give me a chance to change and bring as much food as I can carry with me!"

"Hey, Earth food isn't that bad!"

Rho pulled a face and stuck his tongue out. "Not to you! If it's what you are used to it isn't."

Vi finished the water and rubbed her forehead. The headache was dissipating, but she felt strange. Hollow. Empty. There was an empty space, a void inside her torso where her magic usually resided which was now a gaping hole. She placed both hands on her stomach and turned to Rho.

"It's gone!" she said quietly "I can feel now, what the First Rune helps me to find, only there is nothing there, no magic."

He nodded, "That's as you used it all up creating the portal. But it will come back".