Page 57 of The Princess of Portals

Kato slapped a pair of handcuffs on the Senator.

“This is treason,” he snapped.

“You know all about treason, don’t you?” Kato countered.

Conner nodded. “You see, Senator, Kato and I did some digging. And it turns out it wasn’t the General who sold those kids to Prince Fenris. It was you.”

Oh, wow.

“You sent those kids to Fenris,” Conner continued. “You wormed your way into the Castle to spy on the Knights.”

Senator Gaines met his stare for a moment, then he started laughing.

“What exactly is it about kidnapping people that you find so terribly amusing?” Kato demanded.

“You, Knights.” An irritated crinkle formed between the Senator’s eyes. “You think that just because you can do a few magic tricks, you understand what it means to take care of a whole world. You know nothing,” he hissed.

I stepped forward. “You traded those kids to the vampires in exchange for a few boxes of supplies. You traded people for things! Why would you do that?”

“Because, little girl, we need things to survive. I did what had to be done to save this world.”

Kato pulled him toward the SUV. “Somehow, I don’t think the citizens of Gaia will agree.”

CHAPTER 8

ACROSS THE MANY REALMS

Senator Gaines tried to convince the driver to untie him and toss the rest of us out the window, but the driver ignored him. Then the Senator started prattling on about how the Government was going to punish us all. That’s when Kato and Conner gave him a taste of his own sedative.

“Have you talked to anyone at the Castle?” I asked them. “Did Kylie and the other Apprentices make it back all right?”

“They did, and they’re fine,” Kato told me. “Killjoy is running tests on them just to be sure, but they appear to be all right, at least given the circumstances.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“I just got a message from Ainsley,” Kato said. “Senator Gaines wasn’t at the Castle. He realized we were on to him and went into hiding. He must have a secret office somewhere with state-of-the-art technology. He hijacked your phone call before it could make it to the Castle and redirected it to himself.”

“So, how did you guys know I was in trouble?”

“The necklaces,” Conner said.

Oh, right. I’d totally forgotten all about the necklaces. I really needed to get some sleep. And a meal.

“Mine started glowing,” Kato said. “Conner’s was glowing too.”

“We knew it had to be serious if you were calling both of us,” Conner added. “Sorry it took so long. We were searching the Many Realms for you when the necklaces called out to us, leading us back to Gaia.”

I looked at them, my eyes tearing up. “You guys searched the Many Realms for me?”

“Of course. We would search as long and as far as we had to until we found you.”

Kato sounded so serious, so matter-of-fact, that I had to hug him.

“Hey, what about me?” Conner said. “Don’t I get a hug?”

I pulled him into the hug and squeezed them both to me. I was so lucky to have such great friends.

“So the necklaces showed you where I was?” I asked.