"Not to mention," Zane added suddenly, as if the idea had just occurred to him, "if we find the missing thread, maybe we can put it back into the Loom! Maybe that would set everything back to rights again! After all, our Loom was switched with one from another dimension, right? It got stuck here instead of reverting back to its own universe because whoever broke into the Vault stole the crimson thread from it! Remember what Professor Jackson said? He said that the switching of the Looms between our dimension and some foreign one changed everything, and maybe even broke the balance of the destinies! He made it sound like if the thread wasn't returned, eventually things would break down into complete chaos! Maybe if we put it back…"
"Then all of our destinies will snap back to the way they were before the break-in happened," James said, completing his friend's thought. "I wonder, is that really possible?"
"Perhaps Petra will never have been arrested?" Izzy suggested, a small ray of hope alighting on her brow.
"Maybe, if we replace the crimson thread," Zane replied thoughtfully, "then none of this will have happened."
The gathering was quiet for a moment as they all considered this. Finally, James nodded decisively.
"All right then," he announced. "Everyone take a look around. Let's see if we can find any evidence that someone from our world was here recently."
Ralph blinked. "Like, maybe, a candy wrapper or something?"
"Why," Zane asked, "do you see one?"
"No," Ralph shook his head, and then pointed. "But there are some stairs carved into the rocks by the ledge over there. Maybe somebody dropped something there…?"
James peered around the larger boy, looking toward the right corner of the cave's mouth. Just as Ralph had said, a series of worn, narrow steps curved around a boulder, leading out into the dull light.
Lucy asked, "Where do you think they go?"
Petra took a step toward the stairs. "Up," she said simply. She let go of James' hand, renewed her grip on Izzy's, and moved toward the nearly hidden stone staircase. The rest followed in silence.
The stairs did indeed go up. As James followed Petra and Izzy into the strangely flat light of the World Between the Worlds, he saw the stairs rising unevenly before them, carved into the crags of the cliff. The steps were worn smooth with age, and were wet with mist so that James gulped as he began to climb them. He felt the pull of the distance on his left side, heard the shuddering crash of the surf as it reached up, up, trying to drag them all down into it. To compensate, he leaned against the cliff face on his right, nearly hugging it as he climbed. Behind him, Lucy, Zane, and Ralph followed closely, shooting worried glances into the hungry depths.
Several minutes went by. The cliff was remarkably high and James felt that the steps had taken them some distance around the strange island. Finally, unexpectedly, the six travelers reached the top. Petra and Izzy moved a few paces out onto a flat plateau and the rest gathered around them, clustering unconsciously against the gaping white space all around.
James realized where they were even before he saw the black castle. He remembered the hissing shush of the yellow grass and the march of the clouds as the wind pushed them. He'd seen it all in Petra's dream-visions and had assumed it had only been a figment of her subconscious mind. Now, standing on the solid rock of this place, feeling the salty mist on his face and the feather of the wind as it combed through his hair like fingers, he felt the subtle shift of destinies. Here, everything was possible. The six of them were standing on the raw bedrock of reality, from which all dimensions sprang and grew. Here, every footstep had the potential to shake universes. And somehow, deep in the basement of Petra's mind, she had known. She had sensed they would end up here, and because she had known it, so had James. He just hadn't made the connection.
"I sure wasn't expecting that," Ralph breathed, staring with astonishment at the black castle. It stood on the distant ledge of the plateau, defying gravity, encrusted with turrets and conical roofs. Its windows were tall and narrow, glassless, black as doom.
"That's where we need to go," James said, not at all wanting to go there, but knowing it was their destination nonetheless. Beside him, Petra nodded.
"Someone's there," Lucy said in a low voice.
Zane peered up at the castle. "Looks empty to me," he commented, a little hopefully. "It almost looks… sort of… dead."
"Nice," Ralph moaned.
Petra spoke calmly. "If there is someone there, then they're expecting us. This is what we came for, isn't it? Let's go. But… keep your wands handy. You never know."
The group began to make their way across the gentle hump of the plateau, wading through the whispering yellow grass. With a sinking jolt, James remembered that he had dropped his own wand during the last seconds of the Clutchcudgel tournament and had completely forgotten to retrieve it afterward. He cursed himself silently, but reminded himself that he was walking alongside one of the most powerful people in the magical world. If Petra proved unable to confront whatever was to come, then his wand surely would not be of any help anyway.
As the minutes passed, the castle grew gradually closer. It was rather small, at least compared to Hogwarts, but nearly fantastically tall, scraping its towers at the grey clouds. James noticed that just as in the dream-visions, the castle was perched on the ledge of the far cliff, jutting partly over it in complete defiance of gravity. Perhaps magic held it in place or perhaps it was simply balanced there by habit. Either way, it was very disconcerting to look at. James felt that the mere weight of his gaze might be enough to send the structure collapsing backwards into the waiting waves below.
"What's that?" Izzy asked suddenly, stopping and pointing. James turned and saw an object protruding from the grass some distance away, in the shadow of a low outcropping of boulders. Silently, the troop angled toward the object, cautious but curious.
James was the first to reach it. He peered at it, trying to make sense of the shape of it. It was quite large, but low and streamlined, comprised of wood and metal and draped with tangles of thin, silky rope. It lay tilted onto its side, nearly buried in the grass.
"It looks like a boat," Ralph suggested uncertainly. "But how could it have gotten up here?"
"It's not a boat," Zane called from some distance away. "Look at the hill next to it. See all that old fabric?"
James looked. Next to the boat-shape was a pool of wrinkled blue fabric, faded almost white. It clung to the rocky hill like a skin, poked through in a thousand places with tufts of grass.
"It was an airship," Lucy said, her voice filled with awe. "Someone came here by air. A long time ago, by the look of it. Maybe decades ago."
"Maybe even centuries," Petra added. "There's no way to know for sure. There're no bugs here. Nothing to rot the cloth or wood, nothing to corrode the metal. It looks almost like the day it landed except that the balloon is flat and destroyed by the grass that poked up through it."
"Travelers from one of the other island dimensions, you think?" James asked, approaching the wooden hull and peering in. The inside was nearly empty save for a few seats and a large rudder handle which protruded crookedly from the rear.