My eyes burn, but I can’t look away, can’t let myself blink. What if I miss her? I block out as much of this world as I can, staring at the empty spot where the door always appears. Her door.
Three hundred and sixty-four days, twenty-three hours, and fourteen minutes since she’d said goodbye.
“How long has your wife been missing, Mayor Collins?” Kelvin Lockhart asked, leaning forward in the leather guest chair. The move was as much about comfort as it was about being direct. The chair almost swallowed his small, wiry frame.
On the other side of the mahogany desk, Geoff Collins shook his head. “Quite an interesting euphemism.
Let me tell you the story of a dragon who wanted to be a man.
My name is Eleanor Thornhail, and I’m a worldhopper—long story—and I’d gotten myself stranded on a strange world of magic and dragons.
One dragon in particular was my ticket out. I’d found him hiding among the humans, working as a librarian for the Infinite Library.
I first consider a 1600s castle but prefer something more thrilling.
I leave the grand castle painting and wander through the antique store, one of the few places where I can truly be myself—free and unwatched.
What would it be like if I did this with a friend? I wonder. But no one
An ocean of color floods Damien’s eyes as he steps out of the portal. A blinding array of purple, yellow, blue, and white blooms. He frowns.
Irises? Not what he expected. But little about this search has gone according to plan.
Jerking up his binoculars, Damien surveys the land beyond the field of flowers.
“Isolde, listen to me!” My older brother’s grip on my arm tightens as he pulls me toward the staircase. “The lifeboats are our only chance. This ship is sinking, and we both know it’s not because of a blasted iceberg!”
I halt, making him turn. “Alaric, the passengers… They’re going to die because of us.”
Jane poked at the arrangement of boulders that formed an archway in the middle of the room.
“This is the portal?” She lifted her glasses and peered at one of the boulders. “It doesn’t seem like it should stay upright, and yet it appears solid.”
“Don’t try to understand Xaether magic,”
“Another human got in.”
Clio yawned and preened one long coppery feather. Annoying humans. “Another? Which portal this time?”
“That’s the problem.” The minotaur shifted his hooves in the sand of the desert zone. “We don’t know how she got in.”
“You’re too soft, Terminus. You should block every portal. How are
Gentle, green hills rolled before me. I raced across soft grass. Ancient white statues veiled in a delicate blanket of moss adorned the pastoral landscape. Behind me howled a wild horde of giant, chittering, angry, club-wielding prairie dogs bent on my destruction.
Eleanor Thornhail, what have you gotten yourself into now?
No matter what
I flapped my wings, soaring into the clouds. The sun felt glorious warming my scales. Mountains spread below, among them the labyrinthian castle complex of the Infinite Library. Broad skylights glowed in the sunlight.
Suddenly I was inside, still in dragon form. I tried to sort a stack of books, but I kept clawing…
I linger in the shadows of the antechamber door. Of all the places a lady should never be, a dank, dark, and—I wrinkle my nose—malodorous cave tops the list.
You’ll chicken out. The mysterious peddler’s voice haunts me. Turn and run like the spoiled princess you are.
I clench my fist…
The world swayed around me like the ocean waves, but I couldn’t feel the water’s calming caress. Pain pounded in my left temple. My eyes refused to focus. I tried to swim, yet I couldn’t lower my arms from over my head. And my tail… where was my tail?
I wiggled my toes…
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