Chapter 2
We freeze at the border.
All of us, simultaneously, as if the air itself has thrown up a wall. Because it has.
The last time I crossed between realms, the boundary was invisible.
A thin place you could feel but not see, just a shimmer in the air if you caught it at the right angle.
What stands before us now is something else entirely.
A visible barrier stretches across the landscape from ground to sky, a flowing wall of color that shifts and pulses.
Rainbow hues bleed into one another in slow, nauseating waves. It hums.
“Was it like this when you came through earlier?” I ask Bryx.
He shakes his head, compound eyes reflecting the shifting colors.
“No. It was acting strange. The shimmer was thicker than normal, like the border was starting to distort. But this?” he gestures at the wall of light.
“This wasn’t here two hours ago. We barely made it back to Wynmire before a massive crack split open behind us. ”
“Crack,” I repeat.
“In the ground. A big one. Right along the border.”
I walk toward the edge of the rainbow haze, close enough that the colors wash across my skin and make the corruption marks writhe in agitation. The ground beneath my feet changes texture, harder, more brittle, and I look down.
The crack Bryx described is worse than I imagined.
It isn't a crack. It’s a cavern. A deep, jagged wound torn through the earth where the border between realms should be, its edges raw and uneven, dropping into darkness so absolute my fae sight can’t find the bottom.
The rainbow haze pours over its edges and down into the void, colors swirling into nothing.
I lean forward to get a better look.
The ground bucks.
Not a tremor this time. A full, violent heave that throws me forward off my feet. I pitch toward the edge, arms reaching for something, anything, and then the ground crumbles beneath my hands. I go over. My head cracks against the side of the cavern wall on the way down, and my vision collapses.
For a heartbeat, maybe two, there’s nothing. Just darkness and the sensation of falling.
Then pain snaps me back. My vision swims, blurs, refocuses, and I realize I’m dangling. Someone has my leg, my body swinging against the cavern wall, the bottomless dark yawning below me.
“Kaelren, I can’t hold your large ass forever,” Sarnyx’s voice, strained through gritted teeth.
I look up to see her braced against the edge, both hands locked around my ankle, thorns extended from her bracers and dug into the earth for purchase.
“How about you use some of that useful magic of yours before my arms give out?”
Right. Magic. I have that.
I press my palms flat against the cavern wall and push. Roots tear from the stone, thick and gnarled, winding around my arms and torso. Shadows curl from the darkness below, solidifying into something I can grip.
Between the two, I haul myself upward. The roots lift. The shadows push. Sarnyx releases my leg and catches my arm instead.
Bryx catches my other arm and drags me the rest of the way over the lip. I roll onto my back on solid ground, chest heaving, a warm trickle of blood running from the gash above my left eye.
“What the hell was that?” Bryx asks, still gripping my arm like I might slide back over.
“I don’t know.” I sit up, pressing the heel of my hand against the cut. My head is ringing.
Mora steps forward, her pale face drawn tight as she stares at the cavern. “It’s almost as if the realms are tearing themselves apart. Permanently. The boundary isn’t just thinning anymore. It’s breaking.”
“Jeez, Kaelren.” Peeble flutters down to hover directly in front of my face, their wings casting tiny rainbow reflections from the barrier.
“You almost just went kersplat over the edge. I mean, that would have been very inconvenient for the rest of us. What would we do? Who would brood dramatically and make everyone uncomfortable at breakfast? That was very selfish of you. In the future, I’d appreciate it if you exercised a bit more caution around bottomless chasms. Common courtesy, really. ”
I swipe at them, and they dodge easily.
I get to my feet, ignoring the way the ground still feels unstable beneath me, and face the group. Bryx. Mora. Sarnyx. Peeble. Kevin hovering behind Bryx’s shoulder, his damaged wing buzzing at an uneven pitch.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” I say. “But we need to see what’s going on on the other side.
If the Earth realm is destabilizing too, we need to assess the damage and figure out how to stop it.
” I look at the cavern, then at the shimmering wall.
“Crossing the normal way isn’t an option. So I’ll have to make us a door.”
I kneel and press my palm flat against the ground. The corruption in my blood responds eagerly, and I channel it alongside the older, deeper magic the realm grants me.
Roots erupt from the earth, twisting and braiding together as they form an archway roughly eight feet tall. Thorns sprout along its frame, black and silver.
The space within the arch ripples, then clears to reveal the other side. Grass. Trees. The back of a house I recognize.
Jo’s house.
I stand and turn to face the group. “Ladies first.”
Peeble recoils in midair. “Are you insane? Absolutely not. I do not know what’s on the other side. There could be beetle murderers waiting for me. Assassins. Traps. This is exactly the kind of reckless behavior that gets people—”
“Peeble, I don’t have time for this. Will someone please just—”
I don’t finish the sentence.
Peeble, who has been hovering at eye level with me, wings vibrating with indignation, suddenly banks hard to the right and slams into Kevin at full speed.
The bee, caught completely off guard, goes tumbling straight through the portal, a blur of fuzzy limbs and frantic buzzing that cuts off the moment he crosses the threshold.
Bryx screeches. “Peeble! Why would you do that?”
Peeble settles in midair, preening one wing with exaggerated calm.
“If Kevin ever wants to improve his standing with me, he needs to put in some gallant effort. Chivalry isn’t dead, Bryx, but it does require occasional demonstrations of bravery.
” They examine their other wing. “Plus, I’m sure he’s fine.
Maybe lost a wing or a leg, but I bet he’s okay.
” They clear their throat and shout toward the portal. “KEVIN—ARE YOU DEAD?”
A faint buzzing drifts from the other side. Alive, at minimum.
“See? Told you he’s fine.” Peeble gestures grandly at the portal. “Who wants to go next?”
Sarnyx rolls her eyes and steps through the portal without breaking stride.
Mora follows, with Bryx close behind. Peeble settles on Bryx’s shoulder, mumbling something about shielding themselves with someone disposable from potential threats.
I take a deep breath and follow them through.
I wasn’t expecting what was on the other side.
Sarnyx is in full battle mode. Her bracers are extended, thorns running the length of her arms as she swings her sword through black vines dangling from a dead oak.
They move with serpentine intelligence, striking at her.
She cuts through one, and two more drop down, reaching for her shoulders and throat.
Bryx and Mora stand back to back near the garden fence. Thick weeds wind around their legs with deliberate, constricting force. Kevin buzzes frantically around them, jabbing his stinger at the vines and barely making headway.
And to the left—two humans.
A young man, blond, broad-shouldered, big for a human, swinging what appears to be a heavy push broom at a sunflower the size of a large dog. The sunflower has teeth. Rows of them, yellowed and sharp, snapping at him with every lunge. He’s holding his ground, but barely.
Next to him, a woman with long black hair is fighting a different battle.
Rotted tree limbs have reached out from the dead garden and wound themselves into her hair, pulling her backward.
She’s swiping at them with a dull kitchen knife, hacking at the branches with grim determination but limited success.
They’re young. Late twenties, maybe. Close to Elle’s age. And they’re here, at Jo’s house, fighting plants that want to kill them.
Just as I’m about to dive in and help, I hear a shrieking coming straight for my head.
“KAELREN, IT’S GOING TO EAT ME!”
Peeble rockets past my face, wings a desperate blur, with a massive sunflower in pursuit. This one is bigger than the first—the size of a wheelbarrow—its toothed maw open wide, spitting jets of toxic-looking green goo that sizzle where they hit the ground.
I let out a breath, reach inside for the magic, and let it go.
A wave of shadow and root spreads outward from my palms. Vines freeze mid-strike. Sunflowers lock in place, teeth still bared but powerless.
The weeds around Bryx and Mora’s legs wither and release. Tree limbs tangled in the woman’s hair go rigid, then crumble to dust.
The garden falls silent.
“Does someone want to tell me what is going on?”
Bryx straightens, brushing dead weed fragments off his legs with forced nonchalance. “Sorry, boss. We had it handled.”
Sarnyx snaps her head toward him. “You literally shoved me into those vines and took off running until the weeds caught you.”
“Hey, I was trying to save the beautiful Mora. She was a lady in distress.”
Mora pulls a dead vine from her ankle and gives him a flat look. “Bryx, is that what you call it? When you were hiding behind me telling me to protect you from the big, bad plants?”
“I was providing emotional support.”
“You were whimpering.”
“I don’t know who or what you people are,” the blonde man says, stepping forward, broom raised and voice tight with controlled fury, “but someone needs to tell me what the fuck is going on, and why my grandma’s garden is trying to kill us.”
My eyes snap to his. Grandma.
“You must be Elle’s cousin, Leo.”