With each step toward his house, Jim's pace sped up until he flew down the street. A faint glimmer of hope rose in his heart, and though he was still afraid to accept it, its presence was enough for now.
"Wait up!" Claire tried to hold pace with him but fell behind after the first four blocks and had to shadow portal to catch him. "I can take us straight there, ya know. We don't have to run."
A smile—a real one—tugged at Jim's lips. "We'll portal to the canals—and Camelot. Don't wear yourself out." Jim took off again, leaping ragged scars in the blacktop. Every time he landed, he winced a little, but the pain faded as he neared home, where Excalibur waited.
Pieces of him wanted more than anything for the images he'd seen in the Chronosphere to come true, but doubt still owned a piece of him. The things he'd seen were impossible.
We've done the impossible before.
Still, that didn't mean they could do it again.
When they reached Jim's house, he went in first to make sure his mom wasn't home. "It's clear.
They hurried upstairs.
"I can't believe you went to all that trouble to keep Excalibur quiet." Claire stood over the double-wrapped sword, still on the beanbag chair.
A hum, stronger than last night, resonated through the floor.
"You weren't kidding. It is like a phone alarm."
Jim tossed the coat he'd wrapped around the sword onto his bed and pulled off Blinky's twine and canvas bag. Another quake rippled through the sword and up his arm. This time, Jim laid a hand over the remaining stone and listened.
Dictatious had said the sword muttered. Time to find out if he was right.
At first, the sounds jumbled into a twisted mess, and Jim was afraid he'd damaged the sword when he took one of its stones to make his new amulet work.
He waited, waited… waited.
Five times the sword thrummed, then a sixth.
On the seventh, a few words became clearer.
By the ninth, he'd deciphered them.
"Chronosphere will make right. Time unfolds differently, like a flower. Only Trollhunter will know."
"Nari," Jim and Claire said.
"This can't be coincidence," said Claire. "First, she showed up in the Chronosphere, now, it's her voice coming from Excalibur.
"It's the same thing she said after Doux got through to her in Mexico—before you portaled us back to Arcadia," said Jim. "But… how is what she said then being broadcasted to us now, and through Excalibur of all things?"
"Time unfolds like a flower," Claire whispered. "Nari came to Morgana in the Wild Wood long before we met her. She helped Merlin send us back in time." She sat on the beanbag.
"What does that have to do with flowers?"
"Haven't you ever seen a lily bloom?"
"Not really something I spend time doing."
"Mami loves them. The bud doesn't open all at once. One petal has to open first, then the others follow. We're missing a piece from Nari's life—something important. There's got to be more to her story—something we don't know yet. A connection to Excalibur, or Merlin, or Morgana, or… It could be anything."
"Time unfolds like a flower," Jim repeated slowly as he let the tip of Excalibur's blade sink into the rug. "I still don't understand."
"But you will. You're the Trollhunter, after all. Nari had faith in you, and so do I." She got up and planted a kiss on his nose.
"Can you get us to the canals?" Jim said.
"Thought you'd never ask. Because I'm not running after you all the way there." Claire stretched open a shadow portal in the middle of Jim's room, and they stepped through together.