Chapter 2
HAILEY
For a moment, I just stood there, breathing hard and clutching Flint to my chest. The strange world, or what little of it I could see, was beautiful open blue sky and craggy stone, a hundred impossible angles outlined in gold light.
Even the air tasted different. Drier, sparking with charge and something ancient, something that vibrated under my skin in a way that dared me to try to feel at home.
Behind me, Luci spun in a slow circle, hands in his pockets.
For half a second, I considered tackling him, maybe knocking that smugness off his face, see if the Prince of Darkness bled on alien soil the same way he did on Earth.
I didn’t have time to entertain that particular dream.
As my eyes adjusted, the portal hung just above the uneven ground, about twenty feet back.
From this side, it wasn’t a hovering circle.
It was a door. Vertical. Flat as glass and about seven feet tall, the edges sizzling.
And through that window, the world I’d just left was framed in bizarre, high-definition clarity.
My backyard, rendered at a ninety-degree angle, every blade of grass glinting.
The patio, the battered lawn chairs were visible, the huddle of people on the other side, all standing sideways as if gravity itself had forgotten its job description. The effect was dizzying.
They didn’t notice me at first. Maybe there was a lag, or maybe I’d become a ghost. But for a full, stomach-knotting thirty seconds, the scene on the other side played out in fast-forward.
Ransom was the first to move. He lunged at the threshold, his face locked in a rictus of pure rage, the veins in his neck corded.
His fists collided with the invisible wall, sending tremors through the air, and the sound was earsplitting on this side.
He tried again, and again, each time more brutal. The muscles in his arms strained, a grotesque ballet of power and futility. The ground beneath his feet gave way, but the portal didn’t budge.
Kendra was next. She circled wide, lips moving at triple-speed, drawing runes in the air with both hands. Her magic left trails of yellow-white light, which fizzled and vanished the second they touched the edge. She started screaming, high and sharp.
“Hailey!” she shrieked. It was weirdly clear, even with the barrier between us. “Hailey, are you…?”
“I’m here!” I shouted back, stepping closer. The portal surface shimmered at the spot where my hand reached toward her. My face reflected there, briefly, eyes too wide, hair standing on end like I’d been electrocuted. I tried not to dwell on it.
Ransom slammed the portal again, this time with both arms, and the impact rattled the entire plane of the portal. On instinct, I stepped back, shielding Flint, but the baby dragon just pressed his snout into the crook of my neck and whimpered.
Beyond the threshold, Izora made her move then. She swept forward, black dress trailing, Courage cradled. For a woman who’d seen a thousand years, she didn’t look even slightly impressed by the metaphysical barrier in front of her. She set her jaw and reached for the glassy surface.
The portal rejected her. Hard. One second, she was within inches, the next, a pulse of force threw her back three paces, heels digging twin divots in the turf. Courage went airborne, legs windmilling, and for a microsecond, I could have sworn the dog’s eyes locked on mine through the portal.
Izora landed with feline grace, bared her fangs, and hissed at the portal as if it had mortally offended her. Which, in fairness, it probably had.
Kendra redoubled her efforts, slamming both palms against the surface, electricity crackling from her fingertips. “I can’t get through. Why can’t I get through?”
On my side, the portal trembled with each assault, the edges flaring brighter, almost white-hot. But nothing came through. I looked over at Luci. He was leaning against a boulder now, arms crossed, face the picture of bored amusement. “Any tips?” I asked, voice raw.
“Patience,” he said, flashing a grin. “It’s a bottleneck, not a brick wall. The trick is knowing which vessel fits.”
Cryptic much?
Before I could reply, a new shockwave rippled through the air, and Jax materialized beside me in a tumble of limbs and involuntary cursing.
He crashed down on one knee, caught his balance, then whipped his head up in a way that made my blood run cold.
I’d seen Jax angry before, but I’d never seen him so…
raw. Primal. Hot, geez. His eyes burned emerald, his jaw set.
For one terrible second, I thought he’d go back through the portal and murder the entire backyard, to get a sense of control.
“Hailey,” he said, voice low and not entirely human.
“I’m here,” I managed. I could feel the familiar gravity of the bond between us, the one that had only gotten worse—um, better?
—since the dragon stuff started. Flint twisted out of my arms and scampered up my shoulder, then onto Jax’s, where he immediately buried his face in the fabric of Jax’s jacket.
Adalinda followed a heartbeat later, sliding through the threshold with all the elegance of an Olympic diver. She landed lightly, shook out her hair, and glanced around as if trying to recalibrate her senses.
For a moment, she locked eyes with Luci, who gave her a wink and a little finger wave. “Queenie-Poo,” he said. “Long time no see.”
“Not long enough,” she replied, the chill in her voice freezing the space between them.
I watched them for a beat. Did Luci know everyone?
On the other side, things were unraveling. Ransom bellowed once, deep and guttural, then slammed the portal again with enough force to send a shockwave through the yard.
Then Luke made his move. He circled, fast and purposeful, then dove at Ransom from the side, arms looping around Ransom’s torso in a bear hug.
For a split second, I thought Ransom would break him in half.
But Luke held on, anchoring them both, whispering something directly into Ransom’s ear.
The effect was immediate. Ransom went slack.
He wrapped an arm around Luke and pulled him close, which said something for Ransom’s state of mind because he didn’t do PDA often.
“I’m not leaving them,” he said, loud enough that even through the portal, every syllable came through.
“I know,” Luke replied. “But you can’t break it. They’re okay.”
He looked up then, straight at me. Our eyes met through the impossible angle of the portal, and for a second it. Ransom took a shuddering breath, then bared his teeth at the portal.
“Hailey,” Luke said, and this time his voice was softer, even through the dimensional echo. “Can you hear me?”
I nodded. “I can.”
“Is Flint with you?”
I moved so they could see the baby dragon, still wrapped around Jax’s neck.
“Good,” Luke said. “Okay. We’re going to figure this out. Don’t do anything dumb.”
That stung. A little.
Kendra drifted into frame. “I’m guessing since you, Jax, Flint, and Adalinda can go through, that only dragons can enter that realm.”
I glanced at Adalinda for confirmation. She nodded but didn’t say anything. Then I looked back at Kendra and the others. “She thinks so, too.” I turned to the dragons here with me and echoed Luci’s earlier words. “Welcome to the other side.”
Behind me, Jax was pacing. Adalinda stood with arms folded, eyes fixed on the swirling haze. Luci had vanished. Surprise, surprise. Flint was getting a bit braver, peeking around and looking everywhere he could without fully removing his face from Jax’s neck.
I ran my finger along the edge of the portal. I pressed harder, half-expecting to be shocked. Instead, the surface bowed under my touch, then snapped back. I glanced at Jax. “Should I try it?”
He didn’t answer. Or rather, he answered by going rigid, eyes locked on the portal. I took that as a yes.
“Here goes nothing,” I said, and put my palm flat against the surface.
It yielded. The whole world stretched and then inverted, and for a fraction of a second, I was everywhere at once, the yard, the rocks, the blue of the sky, the damp scent of mowed grass, the metallic tang of the portal itself.
Then gravity remembered its job and yanked me down, straight through the center of the glass.
I fell. Not far, just enough for my stomach to plummet and for the wind to snatch a curse from my lips.
My feet hit the ground hard, but I landed on my toes, arms outstretched.
The world righted itself, and I was back in my yard, standing on the trampled lawn, with every set of eyes locked on me in shock.
The reaction was immediate. Kendra, hands still sparking with the last of her failed magic, ran over and enveloped me in a hug so fierce it cracked my spine.
When she let go, I flexed my fingers, then reached up toward the surface again. “Watch this,” I said. I crouched low and, with a single motion, jumped up and through.
For an instant, the world split in two. I was both in the yard and on the other side, suspended in the glassy matrix of the threshold. Then I landed with my knees bent.
Jax was already moving toward me, hands out. “You made it back,” he said, and he didn’t bother hiding the relief.
“At least we aren’t stuck here. That’s something, I guess.”