Zann froze as Zing snorted and spurted out a puff of smoke.
But the little dragon was only turning over in his sleep.
Soon he was snoring in harmony with Darb once again.
Rubbing his fingers, Zann touched the note he'd just written.
It disappeared, though he could still feel the paper under his fingers.
He hoped he'd performed the Vanishing spell correctly.
If he had, the note would reappear in exactly three hours.
He glanced at Darb's sleeping form, feeling guilty.
The note explained where Zann was going and why—just in case he never made it back.
Zann tiptoed out of the room. Then he zapped himself to the palace.
When he saw the hulking guard standing outside the main entrance, he realized he hadn't thought his plan through very well.
Powerful Shield spells stopped people from zapping into the palace uninvited.
How was he going to get inside?
Just then the guard looked up and spotted him.
"Zann!" he exclaimed. "Is that really you? What an honor!"
"Oh," Zann said in surprise. "Um, thanks."
"Are the king and queen expecting you, or do you need me to wake them?" the guard asked.
"Shall I show you to the throne room?"
Zann was amazed. At last his new celebrity status was coming in handy!
"Thanks, but I remember the way," he told the guard, trying to sound casual.
"And you don't need to wake anybody."
Zann hurried inside. Only a few flickering candles lit the palace halls, but Zann had no trouble finding his way to the main courtyard.
He shuddered as he glanced at the spot where Morb's monstrous magic-sucking machine had stood.
Then he headed toward a balcony jutting from the second floor.
He levitated to it and stepped into the hallway beyond.
Spotting the door he wanted, he opened it and stepped inside.
"Oops," he whispered as he looked around.
He was in a bedroom he'd never seen before.
A stout older man was snoring. Luckily the man didn't wake up as Zann quickly backed out of the room.
Zann glanced up and down the hall.
Okay, if that wasn't the right door, then surely it was the next one down . . .
But the second door he opened revealed only a linen closet. And the third opened onto a deserted dining room.
Zann stood in the hallway, trying to figure out why he couldn't find the room he wanted.
"This is stupid," he muttered. Rubbing his hands together, he took a moment to focus his mind. "Zap," he whispered.
He landed in a storage room. He smiled, sure he'd finally found the right room.
But Zann's smile faded as he realized the room's window overlooked the aviary in the palace menagerie.
This wasn't the right storage room. It wasn't even in the same part of the palace.
"Drat," he muttered. Zann carefully pictured the right storage room in his mind. "Zap!"
This time he landed in the palace library.
He zapped again and ended up in the banquet hall.
"Zann?" a familiar voice said. "What are you doing here?"
Zann spun around. Yog sat at the table in his pajamas, feasting on wiggle root pie.
"Yog!" Zann exclaimed. "Um, hi. I just came to, uh . . ." He thought fast.
"To get something Boz left here earlier.
But Boz said it was near the wormhole, and I can't seem to find the right room."
Yog looked surprised. "Didn't Boz warn you that you wouldn't be able to get to it?
The Red Council didn't like having a wormhole inside the palace.
Anyone or anything could wander through from another world."
Zann was confused. "Then why didn't they do something about it sooner?" he asked.
"You know how wormholes work," said Yog.
"They can appear or disappear at random.
We didn't know that one was in the palace until Morb used it."
"Are the king and queen afraid that Morb might try to come back?" Zann asked.
"I doubt it," Yog said. "Once you destroyed Morb's magic-sucking machine, he went back to being a Void, remember?
It takes powerful magic to navigate the vortex connecting the wormholes. Morb will probably be lost forever."
Zann thought anxiously of his parents. Were they still lost in the vortex, just like Morb?
Thinking of them brought Zann's mind back to his quest.
"So what happened?" he asked. "Did the Red Council close up the wormhole, or blow it up or something?"
Yog shook his head. "Even the strongest magic can't destroy a wormhole," he explained.
"All the Magic Masters joined together to block it off with a special Repel spell paired with an extra-strong Containment spell."
"So that's what Boz and Teplo were doing here at the palace all day," Zann said.
"Right," Yog said, taking another bite of his pie.
"Okay. I should get home," Zann said. "See you later."
He zapped himself out of the palace and stood in the moonlit courtyard outside, feeling frustrated. Now what?
With the palace wormhole blocked, there was only one other option.
Before he had time to get nervous, Zann muttered, "Zap!"
Wormwood was a scary place at night.
Moonlight shone through the branches of the gnarled old tree, casting spooky shadows over the ramshackle huts.
Strange smells and stranger sounds drifted on the night breeze.
Doing his best to ignore the creepy atmosphere, Zann stepped toward the tree's massive trunk.
The wormhole opened, and Zann stared into its spinning, pulsating depths, feeling terrified and dizzy. Could he do this?
Zann thought of his parents and knew he had to try.
Holding his breath, he stuck one leg into the wormhole.
A second later he felt the vortex's powerful energy pulling him in.