Tania gripped Edric’s hand and held on with all her strength. She hooked her other arm around the princess’s waist as they were dragged by the Dark Arts from one century to another.

There was carpet under her feet and a blue light surrounded her.

Her mother’s voice rang out. “Edric! You found her! Oh, thank the lord!”

Tania gazed around. The five girls were in the Globus with her. They were holding hands and gazing at her and the princess with eyes full of gladness and calm understanding.

“We helped bring you back,” said Flora. “You would never have got back without us.”

“I know,” said Tania. “Thank you.”

“We had to rescue you,” added Georgina. “We have important things to do together.”

“We know everything,” said Marjorie. She frowned. “I feel like I should be scared and sad . . . but I’m not. Isn’t that peculiar?”

“There is great wisdom and strength in the Power of Seven,” said Edric. “The wisdom to see your own fates and the strength to face them with fortitude.”

Beyond the limpid ball of sapphire light Tania could see swimming faces.

The curtains had been drawn back from the windows of the Palmers’ living room, and the light of dawn was filtering into the room.

Jade’s voice. “Way to go, Edric! You’re awesome!”

And Rathina: “Praise the goodly spirits, she is found!”

Zara’s voice was calm. “Did I not say all was not lost?”

Edric walked Tania and the princess out of the ball of light. The five other girls followed, still holding hands. Tania felt dizzy and drained. But she had succeeded! She’d survived the challenge.

“By the rood!” murmured Rathina, gazing saucer-eyed from Tania to the princess. She reached out tentatively and touched the princess’s ragged clothes. “This was the very gown you wore when you . . . when you disappeared.” Her expression crumpled.

The princess put her arms around Rathina’s shoulders. “It was not your fault, Rathina, that I was lost to the Mortal World. Gabriel Drake had great and terrible power over you. Your mind was not your own.”

Rathina lifted her tear-streaked face. “I would die a thousand deaths to roll back time to the first moment I set my eyes upon Lord Drake,” she said grimly. “A crystal blade through the heart would be his payment for the evil he was to do!”

Tania’s father stepped forward. “Are you all right?” he asked. He turned his eyes to the princess. “Both of you?”

“Thank you, Master Clive,” said the princess. “My sickness abates for a while. The good spirits allow me the strength to do what must be done ere the end.”

“Unbelievable!” breathed Jade, looking from Tania to the princess. “Two of you! As if one wasn’t enough.” She took the princess’s hand. “Hi—I’m Jade.”

“Aye, I know you well, most loved friend of my friend.”

“Excuse me?”

“We both have the same memories now,” said Tania. “A thing happened when we touched. She knows everything I know, and I know everything she knows.” She looked from Edric to Zara and Rathina. “It’s all come back!” she said. “I remember everything!” She looked at Zara. “Like the time we were on the Cloud Scudder, on our way to visit Chalcedony for the Masquerade of the Wingèd Moon. You lost your flute overboard and Father—Oberon, I mean—he asked the sea creatures to search for it for you, and a dolphin found it!”

“I remember it well,” said Zara with a smile. “And I rejoice that you know it also.”

Tania turned to Rathina, full of excitement. “And you!” she said, emotions thick in her throat. “For weeks before your tenth birthday you were dropping huge hints about wanting a horse. And on your birthday the King and Queen gave you a wooden statuette of a horse, and you tried really hard to look pleased.”

“And ’twas not till eventide that they relented of their teasing ways and I was blindfolded and taken to the stables,” said Rathina, her eyes welling with tears. “And there I met for the first time my noble and beautiful Maddalena!”

“So?” asked her father. “How does it feel to remember everything?”

“It feels good, Dad,” Tania said, taking his hand. “It feels really good.”

Mrs. Palmer glanced over to where the five girls stood watching them. “Do they know what’s going on?” she asked in a low voice. “They seem so normal. As though nothing extraordinary has happened.”

“They are in a state of grace,” said Zara. “They know where they are, Mistress Mary—and they understand everything.”

“Can you not feel it?” said Rathina. “Their Faerie souls burn like suns. With my eyes closed I can feel the warmth of it.”

Edric was standing a little apart from them, his brow creased. A glow like trapped moonlight seeped from between his eyelids.

Tania went to him and kissed him gently. “You found me,” she whispered.

“You found me,” he replied, his voice a little strained.

“We found each other.”

He opened his eyes and the silvery light flared. “Always!” he said.

Tania bit her lip. Don’t be scared by the light! It’s Edric. It’s not Drake. Edric will never harm you.

Edric turned his face away. “I cannot maintain the Globus Heim for much longer. We need to try and get into Faerie soon, or I won’t have enough power left.”

“Indeed, it is most imperative you act swiftly,” agreed Zara.

Tania nodded. “What do I need to do?”

“The Seven must step together into the blue Globus,” said Zara. “Stand you with your other selves, and with Edric at your back.” She glanced at him. “You know what to do, Master Chanticleer?”

“I do,” said Edric.

Tania looked at the princess. She had moved to be with the five other girls, and she was speaking softly to them.

“Is there really no time for . . .” Tania had been intending to say, “time for them to enjoy being alive for a little longer.” But she knew it wasn’t possible.

Zara had said they knew everything.

They know they’re going to die.

The princess took Marjorie by one hand and Flora by the other. The other girls linked hands again.

“We are ready,” said the princess.

Tania turned to her mother and father. “I’ll find a way back here,” she said earnestly. “I don’t care what gets in the way—I will find a way back to you.”

“I’m sure you will,” said her mother, hugging her. “Take care of yourself, please.” She smiled. “You’re the only Faerie princess daughter we’ve got!”

“I will.” Tania gave her father a fierce hug.

“That’s my girl,” he said. His mouth came close to her ear. “I’m more proud of you than I can ever say,” he murmured. “Come back soon, okay?”

“Absolutely!” said Tania, breaking free. She looked at Jade.

“Thanks for everything,” she said.

“No problem.” Jade grinned. “Kick some bad-guy butt for me!”

“I will.” She turned to Zara. “Are you coming with us?”

“Alas, I cannot.” Zara sighed. “The realm of Faerie is closed to me.” She smiled ruefully. “Indeed, I have also fulfilled my task in this place—it is time for me to step over the Eternal Threshold.”

Mrs. Palmer came forward and put her arms around Zara, pressing her close. “Your own mother was never able to say good-bye to you,” she said, her voice full of tears. “Let me do it for her.”

They hugged, and Mary Palmer whispered something into Zara’s ear that Tania didn’t catch. They parted and Zara lifted her hand to touch Mrs. Palmer’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Wordlessly Mary Palmer walked back to stand beside her husband. His arm came up to circle her shoulders.

Rathina stared at Zara. “No!” She caught hold of her sister’s hands. “You cannot go! I will not allow it!”

“There is naught you can do to prevent it, Rathina, my love,” said Zara. An odd echo had come into her sister’s voice, as though it was already sounding from far away. She leaned forward and kissed Rathina on the forehead. “I do not say you will ever be entirely free of pain, Rathina, but I tell you this—someone will come. Someone to soothe your agonies, someone with a healing heart . . .” She began to fade. Rathina’s hand fell through Zara’s fingers. Rathina stumbled, trying to catch hold of her, but her smiling sister was gone.

A trill of laughter sounded out of nowhere, followed by a series of rising notes on a flute, playing a melody more achingly beautiful than anything Tania had ever heard. Then . . . silence.

Princess Zara Aurealis, fifth daughter of Oberon and Titania had passed from the Mortal World and had entered forever the hallowed land of Albion.

“We should go,” said Edric, taking Tania’s hand.

She reached for Rathina’s hand, and together the three of them stepped through into the blue globe. The princess was close behind, leading the five girls.

Tania could see her mother and father and Jade as wavery images through the blue haze.

“Stand in front of me,” Edric told her. “All of you—link hands now.”

Tania stood staring into the blue shimmer, Rathina on one side, the princess on the other. The other girls stood with them in the globe—hand in hand in hand in hand.

“Ready?” asked Edric from close behind.

“Yes.”

For a moment there was nothing. Then Tania felt a lightning sharp pain strike the back of her head. It bore through her skull and burst in her brain. A blue light filled her mind, like water rushing through her, sending her senses tumbling and rolling on its flood. But deep inside her head, the blue light was met by a blaze of purest white that burst upward like seafoam on rocks.

She felt a sparking, streaming power pulsing in her body, passing along her arms, entering Rathina and the princess, moving through them and into the other girls. Into little Flora and Gracie, Georgina and Marjorie and Ann—until they all blazed with the scintillating white energy.

Tania felt it building within her—like a slow explosion until, at last, she had to let out a shout.

The others cried out with her, and from their mouths came shafts of brilliant white light. Spears of dazzling white light darted from their eyes.

“Take the step!” Tania could only just hear Edric’s voice.

She gripped Rathina and the princess hard and made the impossible side step that would take her between the worlds.

Everything was white. It was a white so incandescent that Tania felt as though she had become the light, that she had shed her body and melded with something eternal.

She heard a voice.

“Wait for me!”

There was a curious tugging to one side as she stepped through the skin of light and found herself standing in a grove of aspen trees, in a glowing Faerie dawn.

“Oh, wow!” said a shaking voice. “That was totally amazing!”