"Sissy."

While Alice's body was sleeping in bed, her mind was free in dreams. She was giving a cooperative dragon laughing gas so Hieronymous could teach a roomful of students how to fill one of the dragon's cavities.

"Sissy."

Donald was there with a car jack, and was putting it in the dragon's mouth so it wouldn't snap shut while Hieronymous worked.

"Alice? Can you hear me?"

Alice blinked. "Nancy?" she asked, looking around the cave for her baby sister but not finding her.

"Sissy, touch my hand!"

Alice looked around, noticing a translucent arm starting to materialize and just then realized that she was dreaming. She reached forward and touched the hand and was instantly transported. She and her sister were now contained within a transparent blue dome in a place she had never seen before. The trees above were as tall as redwoods, but the long blades of grass and flowers before her appeared trampled. Everything had an aura that had nothing to do with the blue dome. They were in Otherworld.

"I didn't mean to Sissy!" Nancy tearfully explained. "The hole was on the floor, beside my bed when I got up to get a drink, and I fell in here."

"Nancy, are you really here, or just dreaming you are here?" Alice asked, realizing that the situation could become dire very quickly.

"Both," Nancy explained. "My body is here, but I'm dreaming myself here so I can show you where to go to get me. That's what Asim told me to do."

"Asim is with you?" she asked, breathing slightly easier. A manus might be a formidable foe, even to the Kahmras and goblins that normally feasted on mage children that found themselves in Otherworld.

"Yes," Nancy answered. "And my friends are up there, to try to stop the others from eating my soul." Alice looked up to see a swirl of white and black directly above them. "Asim is protecting my body from the goblins on the ground, but he says that he's going to get tired sooner rather than later and can't get me out himself because of what's happening up there. He said to have you memorize where I am, so you can open a gate for adult wizards to come through and get me."

"Ok, I should be back with help soon," she said, picking a spot some meters away to memorize just in case Asim had to move Nancy a bit.

"I'll call Clark too," Nancy said, disappearing from inside the blue dome, and then the scene faded as Alice's eyes popped open in the dark dorm room.

...

"HIERONYMOUS!"

He still heard Violet scream his name just before the goblins tore her body apart in his dreams, while their shaman inhaled her life-energy. After all these years, that sound still brought helplessness, fury, and bone-crushing grief immediately to mind.

"HIERONYMOUS! WAKE UP!"

Wait…that was not Violet.

He felt someone shaking him, and his eyes popped open. Alice was kneeling in his bed in her nightgown with a hand drawn back as if to slap him awake. He sat up so fast that Alice nearly tumbled off the bed. She did not seem to care in the slightest. "What's wrong?" he asked, knowing that this would only be an emergency.

"My sister fell into a portal and is in Otherworld! She was able to show me where in a dream, you have to get Potsdam to help you and show me how to make a Spiral Gate!" Alice exclaimed.

Mentally sending Petunia a shout he judged loud enough to wake the dead, he put his feet over the side of the bed and put his shoes on reflexively. There might not be sufficient time to summon additional aid. "Do you know how long it has been? Could she not make it back to the portal she came through?"

"Asim, Grandfather's manus, is with her and he would have taken her back out already if he could," Alice explained while he searched for his most powerful wand. "I don't know how long it has been."

A manus was with her? Good, there would be a little time. "Hafiz!" he called, and his own manus materialized. "Alice will give you the mental image of the location…just think it at him…and check to see if the child is still alive and what we will be facing." Not that it would matter what they were facing to him, but being forewarned was part of being prepared.

The manus locked eyes with Alice for only a moment before disappearing, which was when Petunia rushed through the door. She still looked a little bleary-eyed herself, and wore a thick flowered robe over her nightgown. "Hieronymous? What is the matter? Is it a student?" Then she noticed Alice standing there, who explained the situation to her.

"I sent Hafiz to make sure she is still alive," he told Petunia as he finally found the wand he wanted. "I assume that this is the five-year-old that has been giving the locals so much trouble?"

Alice nodded, and he watched as Potsdam gave his wife the fastest crash course in opening the Spiral Gate that he had ever seen. Absently, he noted that while his wife had remembered her wand, she had neglected both slippers and robe.

He felt his manus return. "The child is still alive," Hafiz stated, "but Asim is starting to weaken. There are various spirits battling above the child, I am guessing some intend to eat her soul while others are attempting to prevent that. On the ground are a number of goblins, who wish to feast and are becoming increasingly belligerent that they are unable to do so. Their shaman is attempting to dismiss Asim, which is why e is weakening. Shall I go help em Master?" There were few things his manus would enjoy more than participating in a bloodbath.

"No," Hieronymous said, thinking quickly. "Alice should be able to open the gate, but will not be able to stop anything from getting to her. You are to protect Alice and prevent Otherworld creatures from entering while Petunia and I get the child. Asim may enter once the child is back here." It would be just like em to try to deny entrance to es counterpart simply to be contrary.

The manus nodded. "I should also note that their position has moved approximately ten meters left from where Mistress was shown."

"Just breathe deep and calm yourself, and it will be easier to open the Gate," Petunia reminded Alice, who then nodded. "And keep it open if you can, it will make our getting out that much faster, especially if that shaman is making trouble. If the battle above is causing sufficient interference that a gate cannot be opened from the other side, it will be imperative to keep it open." She then turned to him. "You clear the path, and I'll maintain it."

He nodded as he watched his wife take a deep breath and calm her features before weaving White as she had just been shown. Her first attempt closed quickly, but her second attempt Spiraled in a swirl of purple and white light he had used so rarely himself, but saw often in his nightmares. He noted that Hafiz's assessment was accurate as he looked upon the crowd of ravenous goblins all beating towards a single point. And a grim smile came to his lips.

This time, he was not helpless.