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  I tried to close my eyes, but when I did images of Davie flashed across my mind. We had so many memories, dating back to before I really knew who I was, or all that Davie could be. I remembered when she had first shown up at our school, swaddled in oversized, baggy clothes and shaped more like a ball than a human. Naturally, she had been a prime target for bullying, but the moment that Trent Blaisdale had stepped up to her and called her a fat troll, she had just calmly picked him up and thrown him in a trash can.

  I smiled at the thought. That was the moment that I knew her and I were meant to be friends. I had introduced myself, all eagerness and volume, only to be disappointed when she looked at me like I was insane. She walked off without a word, and thus began a three-month wooing period where I had to prove to her that I actually wanted to be her friend and wasn’t trying to pull a cruel trick on her.

  Some friend I was, though. A lot of our imprisonment and our escape was a blurry haze, but I did remember stepping through the portal back to our world and feeling only relief. I hadn’t thought for even a single moment that maybe my best friend in the entire world—or worlds, for that matter—might not be coming with me.

  Even when Bronn and Mickey came through, the prince holding the slighter woman tightly in a tackle while she screamed and kicked, I still didn’t get it. It wasn’t until a shadow crossed over us and Mickey hastily shot us home that I realized she was gone at all.

  It’s all your fault.

  I shook my head, but that just made it throb more. Sighing, I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was four in the morning, as we were set to get on a plane later. I guessed I could get up, get packed, and then crash while we were in the air.

  Ew. Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word ‘crash,’ considering our luck.

  I slid out of bed and for a moment, the whole room spun. I allowed myself a single groan before focusing on my breathing. In, then out. In, then out. If I could get through one minute, I could get through the next.

  “Come on, Mallory,” I chided myself like Davie used to do when she was trying to focus. “It’s just a cold.”

  But boy, was it one heck of a cold. I had first noticed it when we were captive. It had started with an exhaustion deep in my bones and a chill down my spine. Then it had progressed to a scratch at the back of my throat and an aching in my lungs. Nowadays, I mostly felt like a shambling corpse that was somehow reanimated by some unearthly magic.

  I stumbled to the bathroom, my vision swirling. If I could just get into a nice, hot bath then everything would be a bit better. Steam did wonders for me, and ironically enough, it helped with the uncomfortable inferno that seemed to be about to swallow me every few minutes.

  Somehow, I made it in and managed to turn on the tap, but as the hot water poured into the deep claw tub, my stomach roiled like it never had before.

  I retched and spun around to try to get to the toilet. I didn’t quite make it, however, and ended up on my hands and knees as my body tried to invert itself.

  Ugh, it was painful. My vision swam, and I swore I was going to pass out with each heave. It burned so badly and seemed to go on forever, but after several minutes of agony, it finally finished.

  I wiped tears away from my eyes, only to freeze as I saw the mess I had made on the floor. Instead of vomit, there was some sort of thick, greenish-black liquid in a huge puddle on the formerly pristine tile.

  “Crap!”

  That was not good. I was no expert, but the last I knew, mortals weren’t supposed to be upchucking gothic ooze. Part of me knew that I should go tell the others immediately, but it was quite a small part of me. For some reason, I was consumed by shame and the sudden need to clean the whole thing up immediately before anyone could find out.

  Fighting to my feet, I rushed to the sink to see if there were any sort of cleaning aids there. Naturally, there wasn’t much of anything. For once, I was struck by the inconvenience of having a waitstaff who cleaned up each and every little thing around the palace.

  Chewing on my lip—which tasted quite terrible—I guessed I could clean it up with a towel and then hide it in my laundry, then maybe bury it later? Yeah! That would work!

  Hastily, I grabbed the closest fluffy towel and whirled to clean up the mess I had created, but as my eyes focused after my swift movement, all I saw was clean floor.

  “Wait… What?”

  I walked the entire perimeter of the bathroom, wondering if I had somehow gotten turned around, but there was no evidence of any sort of sickness anywhere.

  Had…had I imagined it?

  Maybe I really should go talk to a doctor. But what if I did, and something was terribly wrong? They’d bench me so that I couldn’t go with everyone else to find this mysterious magic boy Mickey was talking about. I didn’t want to be separated from them. I couldn’t explain it, but there was this fear inside of me that if they left without me, I would never see them again. Like the gaping darkness within me would just become one giant maw and swallow me whole.

  Right. So, no doctor. At least not yet.

  I would tough it out until we found the boy and returned home to fix the shield. Then I could rest.

  Just a little longer. I could make it. I just had to be strong.

  Like Davie.

  4

  Bon Voyage

  Mallory

  “Are you sure you got everything?” I asked Mickey as Mal lugged her suitcase down the stairs. I felt bad for making my much skinnier counterpart carry it, but I was barely managing my own, and although Mickey was trying her hardest, her own illness still took a toll on her.

  Who knew, maybe if we found this magical boy she saw, he could connect with the old magic enough to heal her. Not that I knew if seers could do that or not, but it seemed that each one had different gifts from whatever power source they fed off.

  “I’m a seer, of course I did.”

  “Right, because you’re totally the ‘I see everything’ type of seer. I thought visions were more of Davie’s thing.”

  “Yeah. When I was encased in that crystal stuff, time was a lot easier to read. I was able to reach into Mal’s dreams and Davie’s to warn them of things I saw, but now that I’m in my own body…” The elder sister shrugged. “It’s harder to connect to that skill. It’s strange. I feel like I have to learn everything all over again.”

  “That makes sense,” I said, trying not to sound like I was wheezing. Everyone seemed to know I was sick, but no one seemed to realize just how bad I was feeling, and I wanted to keep it that way. “Your awakening, so to speak, was directly tied to when Davie’s seal was broken by touching Bronn and reconnecting with our world. I wouldn’t be surprised that losing her would greatly affect your ability to access whatever it is that makes seers…seers.”

  “Huh, I guess that makes sense.” Mickey reached over to ruffle my hair, but I dodged, not wanting her to know how sweaty it was. “It almost makes me want to forgive you for lying to the two of us all these years.”

  I managed a weak laugh. “Hah, almost.”

  We reached the stairs and Mal grunted, clearly a bit daunted by the trek downwards, but before she could descend even one step, several servants seemed to appear out of nowhere and take our baggage for us. They were lucky Mal didn’t attack them out of surprise. The girl was doing well with her adjustment to our world, but she still had a lot of intense survival habits from her own dimension.

  Shrugging, we headed down the stairs to where we were greeted by good ol’ Prince Bronn.

  Oh, Bronn.

  He was something else, wasn’t he? I couldn’t imagine the responsibility he felt for what happened with Davie. What could she have possibly said to convince him to tackle Mickey through the portal and leave her to her death? Whatever reasoning she had used, I could tell the weight of his actions hung heavily about him, even though he tried his best to proceed as normal.

  Anyone with eyes could tell that he had been very fond of my best friend. The way he looked at her made me a bit
jealous sometimes, if only because no one had ever gazed at me like I was the center of the universe. Given time, I bet those feelings would have deepened to love.

  But there was no more time. Davie was gone, and we all had to deal with it.

  It’s all your fault.

  “Ah, I apologize for taking a moment,” Bronn said, bowing slightly. “I was just attending to last-minute matters.”

  “Your advisers don’t want you to leave,” Mickey said matter-of-factly, her tone having that same kind of lilt that Davie’s did when she spoke her visions.

  Bronn looked like he wanted to deny it for a moment but realized how stupid it was to lie to a seer. “Yes. But I was able to persuade them.”

  “And by persuade them, you mean you used your princely ‘my way or the highway’?”

  “…that would be an accurate assessment of how it came to pass.”

  “Alright then,” I said, clapping my hands. “So how are we getting there? We strapping our luggage to your back or something? Flying with a cadre of greater dragons?”

  The corner of Bronn’s mouth went up the tiniest amount. Goodness, it had been ages since I had seen him smile. “That would certainly be an interesting option.” He reached into his official-looking regalia and pulled out several copies of what looked like his house insignia. “But I thought a private jet might be more appropriate, given the situation.”

  “Oh yeah, that would work too.”

  “Hey, girl, wake up!”

  I groaned, crossing my arms over my eyes. I had just gotten to sleep, and it felt so nice. For once, I wasn’t burning, or shivering, or dying in general. For once, I felt like me.

  “Aw, come on, don’t you miss me?”

  Wait a minute… I knew that voice.

  I uncrossed my arms and cracked my eyes open to see Davie leaning over me, looking as alive and un-crystalized as ever.

  “Davie!” I said, lurching to my feet and throwing my arms around her. “Oh my gosh! But you— How— Ah! I missed you so much!”

  She was so warm and soft as I embraced her as hard as I could. That was one of the great conundrums of my best friend. She was strong and had enough muscle to make me sweat whenever we play-fought, but she had this wonderful, comforting sort of softness to her that made her the best hugger and cuddler. I remembered many sleepovers where we watched a movie, and I would inevitably fall asleep against her, head resting on her thighs, stomach or chest.

  She was the only person in the world I felt that close to, and I couldn’t believe she was here with me again!

  “Easy there, girl, you are literally an MMA goddess, remember?”

  I let go of her and just stared up at her face. There were the same lines of worry, the same rounded cheeks, the same dyed hair. It was my Davie alright.

  “How are you even here?”

  “I dunno. It’s your dream, not mine. I’m dead, remember?”

  …oh.

  Right.

  My heart sank as I looked around. We were in Davie’s room, or at least what her room had looked like before it got ransacked by dragons. Funny, it wasn’t that long ago, but it seemed like an entirely different life. What had things been like before Davie got wrapped up in the world my parents tried so hard to protect me from? I almost couldn’t say.

  “What?” Davie said, barking a laugh. I used to love that laugh, but now it made me feel…uneasy. “You thought I was alive? That’s hilarious coming from you!”

  Something about her tone made my stomach churn, and I’d had far too much of that lately. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re supposed to be my best friend, right? But you didn’t even look back to make sure I made it. And when you found out I hadn’t, you just kept right on running. Did you even cry for me, Mallory?” She leaned over me, placing her hands on the wall on either side of my head. “Or did you just hold the waterworks until there were other people around to witness it and comfort you?”

  “What are you talking about, Davie?”

  Her eyes flashed amber and her smile grew, and grew, and grew until it was just rows of serrated teeth. “You abandoned me, Mallory! You were supposed to be my best friend!” Her tongue lolled out of her mouth, long and serpentine, wrapping around my throat while a gust of rancid air rushed over my face.

  “It’s all your fault.” Her voice echoed despite the fact that her mouth was no longer the right shape to make words and her skin was beginning to slough off, revealing patches of necrotic musculature and bone underneath. “If you cared about anyone other than yourself, I’d still be here! You might as well have murdered me yourself!”

  Her face rushed forward, teeth glistening, and I threw up my arms to protect myself.

  “Oh hey, Mallory, you alright?”

  My eyes snapped open to see Mal looking over me, skepticism and concern written clearly across her features.

  “Sorry, bit of a nightmare,” I said quickly, pushing the button that made my chair return to an upright position.

  “Well, it’s a shame you’re having such a bad time, because I could get used to this.”

  She flopped backward onto one of the oversized chairs and grabbed the bottle of champagne that was on ice. I almost opened my mouth to tell her that we were all underage, but I figured those kind of laws didn’t exist in her dimension and I was too tired to try to enforce them now.

  “We have seven more hours before we reach our destination, so please enjoy,” Bronn said absently, looking out one of the windows.

  “Not to mention the entire return trip,” Mickey added.

  Assuming we had a return trip. But of course, I kept that to myself. The seers were the ones who were supposed to predict all the doom and gloom. Not me.

  5

  A Heck of an Upgrade

  Mal

  I giggled to myself, definitely a bit tipsy as I downed the bubbly liquid from the bottle I had grabbed. While I hadn’t been in this dimension for very long, I knew that I unequivocally didn’t want to ever go back to my own.

  Everything in this world was so much better. From the food to the air to the socks on my darn feet. It was like someone had tried to make the comfiest dimension and I just happened to be chucked into the middle of it after a lifetime of suffering.

  I heard the tiniest sniffle from behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Mickey looking out the window with slightly watering eyes. I wondered for the tiniest of moments if I should try to comfort her, but that thought quickly fled. I was not the right person, and this certainly wasn’t the right time for that sort of thing.

  Don’t get me wrong, I was incredibly grateful to her sister for saving me, protecting me, killing my former tormenter, and then springing me from the absolute hell I’d been born into, but that was just it. I’d been raised by a world that eviscerated or immolated my friends right in front of me. Loss was as written into my story, my DNA, just as much as my eye color was. I got that it was sad what happened to Davie, and that what she did was incredibly kind, but I didn’t understand why everyone was moping about it so much.

  They had survived!

  They had done the impossible and really, that was all a gift from the tall, deceptively soft girl, so they needed to appreciate it.

  I raised a bottle, toasting the spirit of the girl. Although we had been kept together for quite a while, I wished that I could have known her better. She seemed like the kind of person to always keep you on your toes, never allowing life to get dull.

  Another sniffle and it took everything not to roll my eyes. I needed to respect that these people were different, even if it was incredibly wasteful.

  But really, the sister wasn’t even the worst. I imagined she felt some responsibility for letting her younger sibling die for her, but I’d never had a family to know what that was like.

  No, it was the prince who was the absolute, number one perpetrator.

  Which, in a way, was a bit odd considering he was the one who tried to hide it the most. I saw it as he went abo
ut helping his people and fulfilling his duties. He was trying to make Davie’s sacrifice worth it.

  He was just failing miserably.

  Anyone with half a sense of survival could feel the anger radiating off of him, the vehement self-hate that roiled just under his skin. Clearly, he blamed himself, and that weight hung heavily across his handsome features. I could see it written in the dark circles under his eyes and carved into the lines of his jaw.

  So, clearly he was an idiot.

  I couldn’t quite get how these people weren’t grasping something about someone they were supposed to know so dearly that I could see plain as the nose on my face. They could whine and blame themselves and wax metaphorical about the what-ifs and maybes, but it was all a waste of time because of one simple fact: Davie had made up her mind, and there was nothing in my forsaken dimension that was going to change that. Come hell or high water, she was determined to make sure all of us got out and that the cursed prince and his wicked subjects would never reach her home. I knew better than to think there was a single thing that I could have done to stop her. I saw the iron in her spirit and had seen her face down men who had broken entire armies. I respected her decision, and knew I bore no responsibility for it.

  “Come on, don’t tell me that I’m the only one who wants some of this?” I asked, holding the bottle to my other-worldly counterpart, but she just turned green and rushed off to the bathroom in the back of the plane.

  Yeah, get that. They had real, functioning bathrooms in their giant skybirds! I could say a prayer of gratitude every night and I still didn’t think I would ever be able to get across just how much I felt joy in each and every new discovery.

  So, I wrapped my mouth around the bottle and chugged, letting the bubbly, sparkling liquid slip down my throat.