I was in the Great Barrier, between universes, and for one second I didn't feel like a Caster or a Mortal. All I felt was magic.
I could feel it and hear it and smell it, the air thick with sound and salt and water. The shore at the end of the bridge was pulling at me, and I was overwhelmed with an unbearable sense of longing. I wanted to be there with Lena. More than that, I just wanted to be there. I didn't seem to have a reason or logic for it, apart from the intensity of the longing itself.
I wanted to be there more than anything else.
I didn't want to choose one world. I wanted to be part of both. I didn't want to see only one side of the sky. I wanted to see it all.
I hesitated. Then I took a single step and walked out of the fog and into the unknown.
6.20
Out of the Light
Cold air hit me, sending goose bumps up my arms.
By the time I opened my eyes, the brightness and the fog had disappeared. All I could see was a blur of moonlight pouring into a hole in the jagged cave in the distance. The full moon was clear and luminous.
I wondered if I was looking at the Seventeenth Moon.
I closed my eyes and tried to experience the intense rush I'd felt the moment before, when I was between worlds.
It was there, behind everything else. The feeling. The electricity of the air, as if this side of the world was full of life I couldn't see but could sense all around me.
“Come on.” Ridley was behind me, pulling Link, whose eyes were squeezed shut. Ridley let go of his hand. “You can open your eyes now, Super Stud.”
Liv appeared after them, breathless. “That was brilliant.” She came up beside me, barely a golden hair loose from her braids. She watched the waves crash against the rocks in front of us, her eyes sparkling. “Do you think we're —”
I answered before she had a chance to finish. “We've crossed into the Great Barrier.”
Which meant Lena was here somewhere, and so was Sarafine.
And who knows what else.
Lucille was sitting on a rock, casually licking her paw. I saw something next to her, snagged between two rocks.
It was Lena's necklace.
“She's here.” I bent down to pick it up, my hand shaking uncontrollably. I had never seen her without it, not once. The silver button was shining through the sand, the wire star caught in the loop where she had wrapped the red string. These weren't just her memories. They were our memories, everything we had shared since we met. The evidence of every happy moment she'd ever experienced in her life. Tossed aside like all the other lost bits of broken shells and tangled seaweed that washed up on the beach.
If it was some kind of sign, it wasn't good.
“Did you find something, Short Straw?”
Reluctantly, I opened my hand and held it out for them to see. Ridley gasped. Liv didn't recognize the necklace. “What is it?”
Link looked at the ground. “It's Lena's necklace.”
“Maybe she lost it,” Liv said innocently.
“No!” Ridley's voice was rising. “Lena never took it off. Not once in her whole life. She couldn't have lost it. She would've noticed the second it slipped off.”
Liv shrugged. “Maybe she noticed. Maybe she didn't care.”
Ridley lunged at Liv, Link holding her back by her waist. “Don't say that! You don't know anything! Tell her, Short Straw.”
But even I didn't know anymore.
As we picked our way along the shore, we approached a rocky line of uneven coastal caves. Tidewater pooled in their sandy floors, and jagged rock walls kept everything in shadow. The pathway between the rocks seemed to be leading us toward a particular cave. The ocean crashed around us, and I felt like it could wash us away in a second.
There was real power here. The rock was humming under my feet, and even the light of the moon seemed alive with it.
I jumped from one rock to the next until I was high enough to see past the rocky outcroppings of the coastal caves. The others climbed after me, trying to keep up.
“There.” I pointed at a large cavern, just beyond the caves surrounding us. The moon was shining directly above it, illuminating an enormous jagged crack in the ceiling.
And something else.
In the moonlight, I could barely make out figures moving in the shadows. Hunting's Blood pack. There was no mistaking them.
No one said anything. This wasn't a mystery to solve anymore. It was quickly becoming reality. It was a cave most likely filled with Dark Casters, Blood Incubuses, and a Cataclyst.
All we had was each other and the Arclight.
The realization hit Link hard. “Face it. The four of us are dead.” He looked down at Lucille, who was licking her paws. “With one dead cat.”
He had a point. From what we could see, there was only one way in or out. The entrance to the cave was heavily guarded, and what waited inside was likely to be an even more formidable threat.