Chapter 11
This time, the landing is smooth.
No violent lurch, no ear-popping pressure change, no feeling like the universe is wringing me out like a wet dishrag. One second I’m choking down half-formed wish water in a collapsing temple while a wyrm eats the other version of me, and the next I'm just... standing on solid ground.
The wish. It actually worked. At least the transportation part. Whether it got the destination right is another question entirely, considering I choked on the water before I could finish the thought.
I open my eyes.
Pink.
Everything is pink.
The sand beneath my boots is the color of crushed rose petals, like someone ground up seashells and blush and scattered them across the shore.
The water stretching out in front of me is the same shade but deeper, richer, catching the light in ways that make the surface look like it's been mixed with liquid pearl.
Small waves roll in and out with the lazy rhythm that makes you think the ocean itself is half asleep.
It is, without question, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
And I have seen some wild stuff at this point. Bioluminescent forests, underground crystal caverns, a beetle riding a giant sandworm like a rodeo cowboy.
I take stock of myself. Still wearing the same sand-caked clothes from the Barrens.
My hair is matted and disgusting. My palms are scraped from wrestling with myself, literally, on the temple floor.
But I'm alive, I'm standing, and nothing is currently trying to eat me, enslave me, or collapse around me.
By recent standards, this is a vacation.
I scan the shoreline. To my left, the pink beach curves into a small cove where dark rocks jut out of the water, forming a natural sheltered area with a wooden dock. And sure enough, there's a small rowboat approaching it, someone pulling at the oars with strong, even strokes.
I walk toward the dock, keeping my guard up because the last time I trusted a peaceful-looking setting, I got ambushed by twenty of Auradelle's soldiers.
The figure in the boat gets closer, and I squint against the light reflecting off the water.
Dark hair. Olive skin. Green eyes I'd recognize anywhere now.
Thalia.
She rows the boat up to the dock, loops the rope around a post, hops out. She’s wearing different clothes than last time: a loose linen shirt, dark pants rolled to her calves, bare feet. She looks rested.
"You made it," she says. There’s genuine relief in her voice.
I stop a few feet from the dock, cross my arms. "Let me guess. The Sage sent you again."
Thalia tilts her head, gives me that half-smile I’m starting to associate with people who know more than they’re telling me. "Does it matter?"
"It matters to me. I’d like to know who’s pulling the strings on my little interdimensional scavenger hunt."
"Fair enough." She reaches into the boat, pulls out a folded bundle of clothing. Clean. Soft-looking. She holds it out to me. "Here. You look like you crawled through a sandstorm, then got in a fistfight."
"I crawled through a sandstorm, then got in a fistfight. With myself." I take the clothes. They smell like salt air, something floral I can’t name. "Where are we?"
"The Starblush Sea." Thalia gestures at the expanse of pink water behind her. "One of the oldest places in Wynmire."
"It's incredible."
"It is." She watches me for a moment, something flickering behind those green eyes. "Change your clothes. I have a surprise for you."
"The last surprise someone gave me in Wynmire was a magical corruption mark and a one-way ticket to an interdimensional crisis. So forgive me if I'm not jumping for joy."
Thalia just smiles. "You'll want to see this one. Trust me."
I duck behind a cluster of rocks and change quickly. The new clothes are simple—a soft gray tunic, fitted dark pants, sturdy boots that actually fit. After weeks of sand-crusted disaster wear, it feels like slipping into a cloud. I emerge feeling approximately forty percent more human.
Thalia leads me along the shoreline toward the cove.
The rocks here form shallow tide pools, little natural basins where the pink water collects and grows still.
Some of them are barely wider than a dinner plate.
Others are the size of a small bathtub, deep enough that the water goes from translucent pink at the edges to a rich rose at the center.
She stops at one of the larger pools, circled by a pile of dark rocks that look like they've been deliberately stacked. Not a natural formation. Someone built this.
Thalia reaches into a pouch at her hip and pulls out a small vial filled with liquid that shimmers like crushed starlight. She kneels at the edge of the pool, uncorks the vial, and pours the contents into the water. The surface ripples, then goes flat. Then it glows.
She looks up at me with a smirk. "Look."
"If something grabs me and pulls me in, I'm blaming you."
"Noted."
I crouch at the edge of the pool and lean forward. The glowing surface shifts, and then it's not a pool anymore; it's a window. The water clears and I'm looking at a room. A living room. Familiar furniture, familiar clutter, familiar ceramic frog on the windowsill.
Grandma Jo's house.
My heart slams against my chest.
And then a face appears in the water. Blue-green compound eyes, mandibles curved into what I can only describe as a smolder, antennae angled at what he probably considers a seductive tilt.
"Well, well, well," Bryx says, his voice rising up from the water clear as a bell. "If it isn't the most beautiful woman in any iteration. Hey everybody—it's Elle! She's here! Get over here!"
I let out a sound that's half laugh, half sob. "Bryx?"
"In the flesh! Well, in the chitin. Same difference." He leans closer to whatever they're using on their end, and his compound eyes fill up most of the frame. "You look great, by the way. Very post-apocalyptic chic. Love what interdimensional travel has done for your complexion."
"Bryx, move your colossal head, we can't see—" Mora's voice, then her face pushing into view beside him. Her dark eyes go wide. "Elle! Oh, thank the goddess."
Then Kevin buzzes into the frame, his fuzzy face taking up the entire view for a second before Bryx shoves him aside. "Kevin, buddy, I love you, but read the room."
More shuffling. And then I see Leo.
My cousin. Standing in Grandma Jo's living room, looking like he hasn't slept in a month but alive, present, real. His hair is sticking up in twelve directions, and he's got a grief-stricken look on his face.
"Elle." His voice breaks on my name. "Jesus Christ, Elle."
"Leo." My throat is so tight I can barely get the word out. "What—how—"
Sarah appears behind him, one hand on his shoulder. Her dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she gives me a firm nod.
"Hey, Elle," she says.
"What is going on?" I look from face to face, trying to process. "How do you all know each other? Leo, what are you doing with Bryx?"
Leo reaches up and rubs the back of his neck, his tell, the thing he always does when he's about to deliver news he knows you won't love. "Yeah, Elle, that's kind of a long story. And I don't think we have the time for it right now."
"We really don't," Mora confirms, glancing at something off-screen. "Things are moving fast here."
Bryx pushes back into the center of the frame. "More importantly, is Kaelren with you?" His voice drops the flirtatious edge. He's serious. Actually serious. "I'm guessing tall, dark, and corrupted found you by now?"
I shake my head.
The change in their faces is instantaneous. Like watching five lights dim at the same time.
"He didn't find you?" Leo says.
"I haven't seen him. Not, not the current one, anyway." I press my palms against the rocks framing the pool. "What do you mean, 'found me'? What happened?"
They exchange nervous looks.
Mora speaks first. "Kaelren went looking for you, Elle. He used the locket and the Elm Gate to pull you back. But something went wrong. Instead of pulling you through, it pulled him in." She pauses. "He's somewhere in the iterations. Same as you. He's been searching for you."
The ground tilts beneath me. Or maybe that's just my knees going weak. Kaelren is in the iterations. Scattered across timelines. Looking for me while I've been stumbling through iteration after iteration.
"How long?" I ask. "How long has he been gone?"
"On our end? About three weeks," Leo says. "We briefly spoke to him a little over a week ago, and he was in Iteration Fourteen. We do not know if he is still there now."
Three weeks. He's been lost for three weeks, and I didn't even know.
I hear a sharp crack, the unmistakable sound of wood connecting with something solid, and then a new face shoves its way into the frame. Round. Bearded. Wearing a pointed red hat that's seen better centuries.
"Listen here, missy." A gnome jabs a gnarled finger at me through the water. "We've got stuff to do, but you need to hurry. Things are getting pretty hairy here, and I don't know how much longer we can hold them off."
I blink. "Who are you?"
"The name's Raskel, and I've been standing guard over your grandmother's backyard since before your bloodline figured out indoor plumbing. Now—"
Bryx leans into the frame. "He hits really hard for someone so small."
"I'll hit harder if you don't stop interrupting me, bug boy." Raskel turns back to me. "The borders are fracturing. The Elm Gate is destabilizing. Every day Kaelren is gone, the anchor weakens, and without an anchor—"
The image ripples. A wave passes through the pool, distorting their faces, warping the sound.
"You're breaking up," I say, leaning closer. "Raskel, what do I need to do?"
"—find him—" Static. "—before the gate—" More rippling. "—no more resets—"
"Elle!" Leo's voice cuts through, desperate. "Just come home. Please. Find him and come home."
"We love you!" Mora calls out.
"Stay gorgeous!" Bryx shouts.