The doorway opened in the pocket realm three days after the kingdom came home.
It was the same kind John Wicked always made, a thin line in the air that split open into a clean circle of light. Big D noticed it before anyone, the way he noticed everything, and let out a low grunt from where he sat.
"That's John's door," he said, not bothering to get up right away. "Took him long enough. Three days. The man has no sense of timing." But there was a sharp little gleam in his old eyes as he said it, and he was already pushing himself upright.
Almost everyone was beneath the Virion Iridant Tree when it happened. That was where people spent their free hours now, in the cool shade with the iridescent leaves shifting overhead. The whole leadership turned toward the light at once. John Wicked stepped through first, hands in his pockets, and stopped to look up at the giant tree like a man appraising a painting.
