“Hey. Do that again,” she said quickly, narrowing her eyes, intensifying her focus. There—she couldn’t be imagining it. As if in response to her thoughts, the Fog was thickening, condensing… she redoubled her efforts, her brow furrowing, elation warring with shock as she realized that something was happening. The Fog was thickening in front of her, almost seeming to solidify… and when she reached out to touch it, it wasn’t cold, damp air that she felt, but something warm and soft and undeniably solid, thrumming with life.
“What are you?” she whispered. Her fingers disappeared into the thickened Fog before her—she pushed her whole hand in, then curled her wrist to the right, only to blink in shock. She could feel where her hand was—she should be able to see her fingers, poking out beside the thick disc of Fog. But there was nothing there… and when she reached her other hand out to make contact with where her fingers felt like they were, there was nothing there.
“The Fog is a grave, the Fog is a door,” she whispered. And as if it had heard her voice, the disc of Fog thickened and expanded. Was she imagining it, or was the Fog around it thinning? It was as though the water vapor in the air was being pulled into the growing gray oval in front of her… but it was becoming pretty clear that whatever the Fog was, it wasn’t just water.
She pulled her hand out of the disc, and it came free easily—unmarked and undamaged. For a moment, Lana hesitated, glancing over her shoulder. She knew where she’d come from—she’d made a point of remembering. If she left now, she could be back in her bed before Seth had even realized she’d gone. The temptation was overwhelming… but Lana clenched her jaw. Not this time. This time, she wasn’t running away from what she’d made.
Lana took a deep breath, then stepped through the portal that had opened before her in the Fog.
It was something of an anticlimax, in the end. A rush of warmth as the thick substance enveloped her… and then, just as quickly, it was gone. She was standing on gray tiles, a little like the ones in the lobby of her hotel back in New York. Lana lifted her head, almost expecting to see the ornate staircase that had dominated the lobby—the reason she’d chosen the place, in the end, though the reviews were all terrible.
There was a staircase, alright. In fact, there were hundreds of them.
For a moment, she thought she was going to be sick. The world lurched before her, geometrically impossible, staircase after staircase running into one another and overlapping in ways that made no sense at all. Her eyes were beginning to ache, and she shut them hard—only for them to fly open again at the unmistakable sound of someone calling her name in an anguished tone of voice.
“You too, huh?”
“Conrad?” She could hardly believe it. There, somehow sitting on one of the upside-down staircases—she shook her head hard, taking a few steps closer to see if it was really him. “Conrad!”
“I hoped you’d gotten away.” He rose to his feet, somehow above her and below her at the same time—she winced, staggered a little, took a step backwards, and then he was in front of her, mercifully on the same piece of tile. “It’s disorienting here, huh? You get used to it. At least, I think you do.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered, tears springing to her eyes. “I’m so sorry for running off like that, Conrad. It’s my fault you’re here. I just—I couldn’t handle it, the wedding, the wolves, any of it—”
“It’s alright,” he said softly, reaching out to squeeze her arm. “I’m just so sorry you’re stuck here with us too, now—”
“No,” she said fiercely. “No, I’m not stuck.” Her eyes widened. “Wait—you saidus?”
Conrad nodded, a faint smile on his face. “One upside to this horrible place—we’re all together. All the missing dragons, all the missing wolves. We’ve been getting on quite well, actually. Life-threatening situations really have a way of bringing people together.”
She could see what he meant, when she squinted at the horrible array of geometrically impossible staircases that surrounded them—dozens of figures, sitting or lying on each set of stairs, seemingly in defiance of gravity or any known laws of physics. “Can you—reach each other?”
“Oh, yes. You get the hang of it. Ewan’s pretty good at stair-surfing. Ewan?”
A rangy-looking young man rose to his feet, somewhere in the distance—and though Lana couldn’t describe the space-time contortions that were involved, in a couple of steps he was standing with them, breathing hard with his silver eyes shining.
“Ewan,” she said slowly. That was a name she’d heard Seth say. “You were one of the first to go missing.”
“Was I?” The wolf blinked, clearly surprised by the news. “I can’t say I really remember.”
“Time and space do a similar thing here,” Conrad said, nodding to the unpassable staircases. “None of us know how long we’ve been here. We don’t seem to be hungry or thirsty, though, so that’s… good. It’s a little like a dream.”
“We’re going back,” Lana promised. “All of us. Okay? Trust me. The Fog is a grave, the Fog is a door,” she muttered under her breath, clearing her mind, trying to find that strange sense of focus that had brought the Fog under her control back in the forest… and then she heard Conrad gasp. In front of her, another portal had appeared—this one composed of the same gray tiles as the floor beneath her feet. “Told you!” Beaming, she reached for the handle and yanked the door open … only to feel her hair blow back in what felt like a gale-force wind.
And no wonder. Instead of the Foggy forest she’d been expecting, the doorway framed absolute chaos. She stared into it, trying to understand. It was like looking at a television that was cycling through channels as rapidly as possible… but as she caught her breath, she began to catch glimpses of the blur of images whizzing past. The Statue of Liberty on a cloudless summer’s day. A pristine beach at sunset. A bar, crowded with people talking and laughing. A snowy mountain peak. A theater, a museum, an art gallery. Dozens of places she’d visited, hundreds of places she hadn’t—and as she gazed into the maelstrom, she realized what she was looking at.
Why had she expected that the Fog could only take her to one place? It had gotten her from New York to the valley, hadn’t it? Here was the evidence that it could have taken her no matter where she’d been. And here—her eyes widened as an imposing hallway appeared, high ceilings, austere works of art on the walls. Her childhood home. She blinked once, and saw her father’s study. She blinked again, and saw a little town in Idaho, the first place she’d stayed after she’d left home.
“I’m in control,” she whispered. “I can go anywhere I want.”
She could feel her body swaying, feel Conrad steadying her with one hand on her elbow, calling her name. Anywhere she wanted. Anywhere she wanted… this was literally her wildest dream come true.
And then the realization struck her like a punch to the jaw. For the first time in her life, Lana knew precisely where she wanted to be. Not for a few days, not for a week, not until she got restless again… but forever.
The portal blurred, and then it stopped shifting. There, framed by the tiles, was Seth, calling her name at the top of his voice as he strode past Fog-obscured trees. She could feel her body trembling, sensed that the effort she was using to keep the portal open was a stock that could be depleted… and without taking her eyes off the portal, she grabbed Conrad by the wrist.
“Get them through,” she whispered. “All of them. Now.”
Chapter 24 - Seth