Chapter Text
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By the time Sarah realised she'd made a grievous mistake, it was already too late.
It was mid-morning in the oasis city of Lahemata, and the twin suns overhead were growing in intensity. The cloudless azure sky promised a scorcher of a day, yet the colourful covered market stalls throughout the streets were bustling with activity, music, and the chatter of many different languages.
It was only her second time in this world of dusty buildings and too-hot afternoons.
The people here were friendly and adept at magic. They also welcomed visitors of all realms without discrimination, not at all like the elves of the northern misty forests or the mountain dwarves that had taken so long to warm up to her.
It truly was the perfect place for Sarah, who was usually content to observe and take notes. She never went anywhere without her notebook.
She found herself in Lahemata hoping to catch a glimpse of a roc—a giant bird of prey which had been known to carry off entire cloud ships. There was a desert tracker she’d been told lived in the city, someone who could take her out into the wild sands and maybe get her a glimpse of the beautiful birds. After all, first-hand knowledge of the creatures would be the most excellent source material for her newest novel.
But he hadn’t made much progress with her inquiries since she’d arrived, so she had allowed herself to become sidetracked. She was particularly drawn to the bright displays of trinkets in the never-ending market.
The place was bustling, full of chatter and music. She enjoyed watching the people as much as she liked investigating the many strange things for sale. And oddly enough, this place reminded her vaguely of her own world (though of places she’d never actually visited). How ironic.
Maybe this was why she had been lulled into a false sense of security. It had been so very long since she’d made a misstep, and something about this place made her feel like nothing could go wrong.
As she’d browsed the stalls, peering at a constellation of insect-like brooches with jewelled eyes and wings, a woman stepped up close beside her. Sarah glanced at her. She was beautiful, with dark hair and amber eyes, dressed in a long, flowing and formless robe.
Since communication charms hadn’t been working well with many of the people here, she was surprised when the woman spoke to her in clear English.
“The xyarath for safe childbirth, and the chsuthi for warding off unfaithful lovers,” the woman said, her voice low and song-like.
Sarah laughed. “Nothing I need, then. Is there one for good luck on exams?” she asked, thinking of Toby.
The woman tilted her head, considering, before pointing to a small ladybug-looking brooch. Its insect eyes shone green, the colour of new clovers. Lucky? Maybe.
Sarah took the brooch, paid the stall owner, and accepted the woman’s invitation for tea and conversation.
They chose a small but busy teahouse and settled down on woven, patterned cushions. They sipped potent violet coloured tea from tall crystal glasses that caught the light and made the liquid look like fantastical potions.
The woman, named Lithiri, was a visitor to this realm as well.
This partially explained her ease of communication with Sarah. Lithiri explained that she was a fortune-teller who travelled from realm to realm, revealing the good and bad, warnings and prophecies.
Sarah knew enough now to take such things seriously, so she hesitated when Lithiri asked if she wanted her fortune told. She wondered briefly if this was Lithiri’s schtick—befriend vulnerable or solo travellers and then reveal prophecies of death, curses, and destruction.
Many creatures enjoyed that sort of thing. Sowing discord. They received their pleasure not from directly ruining someone’s life, but through witnessing the increasingly desperate actions of some poor soul trying to avoid their inevitable misfortune.
As if sensing Sarah’s train of thought, Lithiri asked, “A look at your past, then?” She was pressing, insistent.
And Sarah (perhaps because she was still too trusting and too eager) placed her hand, palm up, in Lithiri’s.
Lithiri pressed her other hand on top, pressing their fingers together. Her skin was cool and dry. She spoke, and her lyrical voice was suddenly darker, deeper. It seemed to echo oddly in Sarah’s ears.
“You believed, at first, that your gift was a curse. Now you believe it to be a boon, yet you use it like a trivial thing to gather inspiration for your silly little stories.”
Taken aback by the unexpectedly sharp words, Sarah went to pull her hand away.
But Lithiri held fast, her eyes bright. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips. Sarah saw that it was black. The sight of it made her stomach twist.
Lithiri continued. “Stolen tales for your own profit. A gift wasted on mortal flesh.”
Sarah jerked away. She cried out as a sharp pain tore through her palm. Cradling her hand, she looked incredulously between the sharp line of blood and the woman sitting across from her.
“What the hell was that?” She grabbed her napkin and pressed it against the wound.
Lithiri raised her finger—Sarah’s blood—to her mouth. Her black tongue tasted it.
“Delicious.” The sound of her voice was off-putting, like a chorus of voices in unison, and not all of them were happy.
Sarah grabbed her backpack and stood from her seat of cushions. Her heart was pounding in her chest, a frantic beat of warning. A creeping sense of dread was stealing over her.
She’d made a mistake.
“I don’t know what that was about, but we’re done here,” she declared hotly, ignoring the curious stares from the other patrons.
Lithiri stared up at her, and her eyes were filled with sudden hunger. “An Earthling in a foreign land with a touch of magic bestowed by a faraway kingdom. A tasty morsel. I think I will enjoy you,” her many voices purred.
A strange ringing started in Sarah’s ears. For a moment, it eclipsed the sound of the market.
She winced, squinting, and the light seemed to bend oddly around Lithiro, rippling around her form like a warped glass window. For just one moment, Sarah thought she saw something else through that window. Something dark and huge and very, very hungry. It swirled around the woman, a formless oozing haze of shadow.
“Sarah Williams,” Lithiri said her name again.
Her full name, which she had not given.
Sarah fled.
She didn’t wait to see if Lithiri followed, but ran as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.
She ducked and wove through the moving throng of people and creatures in the market, trying not to crash into anyone but clipping a few shoulders nonetheless. Shouts followed in her wake, and she prayed she didn’t draw the eye of any more powerful beings. It would be just her luck.
She just narrowly missed being taken down by a navy-skinned person carrying a large urn on their shoulder, and then skidded sharply into a tight alleyway tucked away between two stalls selling neon coloured fruits.
Breathing heavily, she collapsed back into the cool stone wall. She took a moment to try and calm her racing heart. She was alone, but she kept a wary eye on the sliver of market visible through the alley’s entrance.
Sarah cursed at herself.
She hadn’t made a mistake like that in ages, not since her first few trips in those early years. Then, it had been pure ignorance. She’d had lessons to learn. Yet she knew better now. She knew to be cautious, to trust sparingly, to make her way without drawing too many eyes.
She even had a damned trinket for that, the small fairy stone bracelet she wore around her wrist.
The elfin lady she’d bartered with for it assured her its power would never fade. She was beginning to think something had been lost in translation. The bracelet glinted cheerily in the low light of the alley as she stared at it accusingly. Maybe she should have brought her camouflaged cloak instead.
No matter, she told herself. Her only choice now was to leave this place and abandon her research. This realm was as good as closed to her. For now, at least.
Heaving a big, steadying breath, Sarah ventured further into the tight alleyway. It was barely more than the width of her shoulders, and the walls were smooth, unbroken stone. Just up ahead, she could see a small crooked doorway notched into the side of the building.
Sarah glanced around carefully. Above, there were a few windows, but they were shuttered against the heat. There was no one behind her, and no one in front.
Perfect. She didn’t need any curious eyes. Normally, she wouldn’t cross through realms in a public space, but today was not a normal day.
Stopping in front of the crooked old door, Sarah shrugged off her bag and fished out a ring of keys from a concealed side pocket. They were all different shapes, sizes, and colours. The keyring was strung through a leather cord, which she usually wore around her neck, but there were a dozen keys now, and it was becoming too heavy. Not to mention the constant noise. So she kept them tucked away, safe and sound.
Sarah selected a small, modern-looking silver key and slid it into the door’s keyhole. It shouldn’t have fit, but it did.
When she turned the key, the door gave a soft click and swung open.
The space inside revealed nothing to her. From where she stood, it was just a dark nonthingness in the side of the building. Distantly, though, she could hear a familiar rumble and the faintest sound of an automated voice over a speaker, muffled.
Sparing another glance down the way she’d come and taking in that one last glimpse of the market, she ducked her head and went through the doorway.
A train was pulling up, brakes screeching, just as Sarah stepped onto the subway platform of Times Square at 42nd Street station.
Being one of the most crowded stations in New York, she went completely unnoticed in the crush of people. Tourists, families, locals, they all crowded together as the train doors opened. And if someone had seen something, well, it would just be one of those strange New York tall tales, wouldn't it?
Sarah didn’t manage to grab a seat, of course, but the squeeze of humanity around her was a palpable relief. The doors slid closed and the train continued on its way.
It took Sarah almost two hours to reach her home in Queens.
Drained of adrenaline, her body felt heavy as she dragged herself out of the subway and through the streets.
Her apartment was a modest top-floor, single bedroom in an old converted brownstone along a street of similarly converted brownstones.
Her downstairs neighbour and landlord, Linda, was just exiting the building as she trotted up the front stairs. Linda’s greying hair was dyed a light violet, and she wore a bright orange shawl over a paisley blue blouse.
“Oh Sarah!” she exclaimed, grabbing her arm and squeezing. As always, her voice was several decibels too loud. “It’s so good to see your face. You’ve been gone for so long! Jerry and I were chatting the other day about how lucky you are, being able to travel like you do for your work, though I just can’t imagine how you do it on a writer’s salary!”
Sarah willed herself to look pleasant and patient. “Oh, you know, Linda, royalties can be pretty good on books nowadays.”
Linda patted her arm. “It’s good to hear that kids still like reading. I remember when all of this internet and electronic video gaming started up. I swore to Jerry it would be the end of it all. But we just got one of those big bookstore chains down the way, you know the one with the coffee shop inside, so I guess not.”
Sarah slowly inched herself inside the front entryway, forcing her smile. “Yeah, I guess not.”
Linda was still fully engaged. “You’ll have to tell me all about your trip soon. You know how I did a lot of travelling back in the day.”
“It’s a date, Mrs Stephenson,” Sarah told her, and let the door close between them.
She gave the woman a polite wave through the door’s window and then dashed up the two flights of stairs to her apartment.
The large keyring was in her hands again. She unlocked her front door, and then she entered the blessed familiarity of her own space.
She locked the door behind her, shuffled her shoes off, and dropped her bag as she stepped into the room. The entryway opened up directly into her living area, and she staggered towards her old couch, collapsing sideways into its comfortable embrace. With a deep sigh, she grabbed one of her mismatched throw pillows and squeezed it to her chest.
“Get yourself together, Williams,” she said aloud.
The air in her apartment was a bit musty from being closed up for a week. The main room was small, the living area and kitchen shared the same space and were only separated by a small island where two barstools sat.
The doors to her bedroom and bathroom were along the far wall, and every available space in between had been taken up by bookshelves. The shelves were full to near bursting—not just with books, but with various odd and obscure items she’d picked up over the years. Her writing desk by the front window had been overtaken as well, with stacks of paperbacks on the chair and piled around the computer.
Everything was all familiar and all comforting, and Sarah allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment.
She must have dozed for a time because the small cuckoo clock on her wall was suddenly chiming the hour.
Groggily, she cracked open an eye. The clock read noon.
She realised that she didn’t even know what day it was.
What she’d originally planned as a short trip to visit the realm of the mountain dwarves had turned into a week-long venture that had her travelling aboard a cloud ship to Lahemata. She wasn’t usually such an impulsive traveller, but the lure of those damned rocs had gotten to her.
She levered herself up, rubbing tiredly at her face. The light on her answering machine was flashing. Reality intruded.
She knew she should check her email to see if there was anything from her editor, but what she really wanted to do was have a shower and then a proper nap in her own bed. Instead, she went into her kitchen.
Over the sink, she inspected the cut on her hand. It was red and sore, but as she gently cleaned it out, she realised it wasn’t that deep. A bit of ointment should do the trick.
After food, though.
She rummaged around in her bare fridge for some sort of sustenance, and several minutes later wandered over to her answering machine with a cheese, mayo, and pickle sandwich. As she took a bite, she told herself she’d had much worse.
When she pressed the playback button, Toby’s crackly teenager voice filled the room.
“Hey Sarah, Mom wants to know if you’re gonna be coming over for Thanksgiving. If you do, she says she’ll make that sweet potato thing with the marshmallows. You know, since we’re the only ones who eat it? So you better be coming! See ya!”
Sarah smiled and picked up the phone to call Karen back. It was so like her stepmother to use Toby as an intermediary, even though they’d solved their differences years ago. She really must have scarred the poor woman with her surly teenage girl attitude.
Bam!
She dropped the phone as the sudden slam against her front door startled her. It clattered to the floor, the dial tone ringing.
Sarah turned to see that the charm hanging above her doorway was spinning like a top. It was emitting small red sparks, almost like it was short-circuiting.
She abandoned her sandwich next to the phone and took a tentative footstep forward. If she could look through the peephole…
Bam! Bam! BAM!
She jumped. She swore she saw the door shudder in its frame.
The charm was emitting a high-pitched sort of squeal, swinging frantically from side to side as it spun.
“Sarah!”
Her name, shouted in that awful, awful-sounding voice, like many people trapped and screaming. Frantic. Longing. Very, very angry.
Sarah swore with the realisation that Lithiri had followed her. It didn’t make any sense.
“Sarah! Open the door!”
The pounding started again, and she could feel the reverberations from it through the floorboards. Her front door wasn’t going to hold.
Sarah grabbed her bag and her keys, then rushed to gather her things.
What do you take with you if you knew you might not be returning for a while, if you knew your journey was going to be long and very possibly dangerous?
Sarah wasn’t sure she knew, but she took what she could.
In her bedroom, she found the dagger forged by the dwarves of the northern mountains, a corked bottle of energy tonic, a length of invisible rope, a compact mirror, and a tube of lipstick. She crammed them all into her bag alongside her stash of fuzzy peaches and a worn baggie full of uncooked rice. She pulled on a sweater and then stuffed in a change of underwear.
The pounding on her front door continued, accompanied by the telltale sound of wood beginning to crack.
Sarah tore down the travelling cloak hanging off the back of her bedroom door and jammed her feet into a fresh pair of sturdy boots. The cloak would camouflage her some, and her boots were charmed never to give her blisters.
Bam! Bam! BAM!
Sarah struggled to close her closet door, kicking frantically at a few stray clothes on the floor. Her hands were trembling as she selected a simple golden key.
It fit perfectly into the keyhole.
Sarah felt the click as everything aligned. She yanked her necklace of keys safely over her head and flung open the door just as she heard the splintering of her front door finally giving way.
“Come on, feet!” she said, rushing forward.
It was night and it was raining.
She exited onto a narrow cobblestone street slick with rain and slammed the door—a gatehouse—behind her. The buildings around her rose in haunted, crooked angles. Shop signs swayed and creaked in a gusty wind.
She pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head and hunched her shoulders against the wind as she stepped out into the damp. Quickly, she started up the street.
She didn’t spare a second glance at the darkened shop windows advertising curious things—broomsticks, wands, a plethora of sweets with odd names. Her destination was the pub down the way. It was the only building whose windows still held light, like a glowing beacon in the darkness.
She pushed open the pub’s door and entered a large, warm room with a low-beamed ceiling, filled with several large tables and booths. Beyond a few hunched, chatting patrons, a fire roared in the massive hearth. There was a walnut-faced man behind the bar, methodically drying glasses.
No one spared her a glance, not with her cloak.
She edged into the room and fished around in her purse for several coins. The familiar clink caught the attention of the bartender. He nodded to her, not friendly but not unwelcoming.
She placed the coin on the bar top. “A room for the night, please.” She pushed back her hood.
The bartender merely grunted at her and nodded to something behind her. When she turned, there was a pale, goblin-like creature standing there, waiting. It was dressed in rags.
“If you’ll follow Tibby, miss,” the creature said in a rather pitiful, creaky voice.
Sarah followed Tibby through the pub to a set of low-lit stairs in the far corner. The wooden steps were polished to a sheen with decades, even centuries, of boots climbing up and down. The ceiling beams were low here, too, and she had to duck her head slightly as they ascended.
Tibby led her down a short hallway to a room at the very end. The creature handed her a simple key, and then all but disappeared into thin air.
Sarah studied the key. It was an old thing, but one without much power. Not terribly useful to her. She unlocked her room and went inside.
The room itself wasn’t much, with creaky wooden floors and faded covers on the old bed. A ratty woollen blanket was folded near the foot. The windows were dirty and needed a good scrub, but the small fireplace was already blazing. It was warm, at least.
Sarah felt herself relaxing.
She could stay the night here and then move on. Perhaps, she could reach out to a few friends. Someone who had access to a phone. That reminded her that she really needed to call Karen back. Her editor could wait, but her stepmother couldn’t.
She had just placed her bag on the bed when there was a loud crash from downstairs, followed by several raised, angry voices.
She froze. She waited to hear more.
The floorboard beneath her jumped as if struck from below.
“Shit.”
She just knew that Lithiri had followed her. She didn’t know how. She’d made sure the door she entered through was closed behind her. The way should have been shut.
It wasn’t a question to dwell on now. Hurriedly, she slung her bag back on and seized the old wooden chair from the small table. She was about to wedge it under the doorknob when she realised she would be blocking the only door in the room.
“Double shit,” she muttered, setting the rickety chair aside.
She fumbled for her keys. One of them was snagged on her knitted sweater.
The big silver one. She needed the big silver one.
Her fingers were useless. Why wouldn’t they stop trembling?
There were more shouts from below, then several loud explosions that made the whole building tremble. For a moment, Sarah worried that the whole place might end up collapsing.
Then, distantly, the sound of something very large coming up the stairs.
Lithiri, a slender woman, couldn’t possibly make that much noise. But Sarah recalled how she’d gleaned the sight of that large, dark shadow around the woman, something very other.
The doors in the hallway were being slammed open. Sarah braced her shoulder against the all too thin wood of her own door, still struggling with her keys. There were more raised voices, the sizzle of an electric current. Several loud booms, the smell of smoke.
Lithiri roared, and it could have been Sarah’s name, but it also sounded like a hundred angry screams all at once. It was like nails on a chalkboard, like the dead and the dying and the fatally wounded.
Sarah finally yanked her keyring free. Any one of them would do now. It didn’t matter. She shoved a small brass key into the keyhole, turning it just as Lithiri slammed into her door. She felt it move.
The key clicked.
She hesitated for just one second. Her hand was on the doorknob. Then, she yanked it open and threw herself forward into nothingness—
—into a very small space where she was forced to crouch down on her hands and knees. There was movement, voices, and then she knew where she was. She pushed up with her back and spilled out of a large wooden chest being carried by two burly men who could only be called pirates.
Her sudden appearance surprised them so much that they dropped the chest as she clambered halfway out. She fumbled her landing and hit down hard on her knees. The chest slammed shut behind her, and for a long moment, there was nothing but stunned silence all around.
She was on the deck of a tall ship, surrounded by nothing but blue sky and clouds. It was familiar. She’d been here just a few days before, though in vastly different circumstances.
She staggered up and lunged for the chest.
“Lock it! We need to lock it now!”
One of the men moved into action, but by then it was too late. The chest jumped and shuddered like a living thing.
It sprang back open, and Sarah got a very good look at what Lithiri truly was.
A miasma of oozing black shadow shot out from inside the chest. Like a tsunami, it stretched up and up until it was almost as tall as the sails, a towering mass arcing over all of them. It was not human. It was not a person. It was nothing that Sarah had ever seen before.
It was formless for a moment, and then the top congealed into something almost shaped like a head. It turned this way and that, searching. And it opened its mouth, a stark, gaping maw of sharklike teeth.
“Sarah!” it screamed in a hundred wailing voices, and Sarah hated herself for being so fooled. It was a monster.
The pirates around were shouting in alarm. Some had their weapons. A man with a pistol aimed and shot—boom!—but the thing was unaffected. The bullet was absorbed.
Sarah, quite sensibly, ran. There was a cabin at the far end of the ship with two double doors.
She still had her keys in her hand.
The doors opened just as she reached them, and Sarah collided with the woman striding out. They tumbled backwards into a large cabin, legs and arms tangling.
Sarah struggled to disentangle herself without being sliced by the wicked-looking blade trapped between them.
The woman shoved her off. “What in the seven hells, Sarah! Gods, I nearly cleaved you in two!”
But Sarah was on her feet again. She ignored the large desk in the corner, maps sprawled messily across its surface. She didn’t spare a glance at the large standing globe with unfamiliar lands and seas.
She went for the large chest in the corner of the room, falling to her knees before it. “I’m so sorry, Amara!” she called over her shoulder. Again, she fumbled with her keys, wrestling with the lock. “I didn’t mean to lead it here!”
Men were yelling outside.
“Sarah! What is going on?” The woman, Amara, was back on her feet with her sword in hand. She wore tan breeches and a flowing shirt with a colourful sash tied tight around her waist. Her burgundy coloured hair was woven into a tight braid, and there was an eyepatch covering her left eye. She was both familiar and fearsome, and Sarah wanted to tell her everything, but there was no time.
Her back was also to the open doorway, right between Sarah and that thing outside.
“Get out of the doorway!” she urged, gesturing frantically while still fiddling with the lock.
It clicked open, falling off.
She flung the latch open and pushed the chest’s lid up, already climbing inside.
“Amara, get away from the door! Hide!” she shouted again.
The dark thing was just outside the door. Amara turned, sword raised. Sarah didn’t wait any longer. She pulled the chest closed. Just as the lid slammed down, the bottom disappeared out from beneath her.
And then she was falling, falling—
Sarah hit the ground hard. The impact slammed the breath from her lungs.
For a long moment, she gasped soundlessly, her body curled up in pain, stars speckling her vision. Her heart felt as though it was going to burst through her chest, and not just from the mad chase. It was the agony of knowing what she’d just done. She’d left a dear friend to face that thing, Lithiri, alone.
Lithiri, who was dangerous and angry and had a damned sandworm mouth.
A sobbing breath broke from lungs. She wanted to scream, but forced it back down, pressed it deep into her chest, trying to hold herself together.
Angry and trembling, she swiped the tears from her eyes. Gods, why hadn’t she just taken Amara with her? Surely they both could have fit in the chest.
When had she turned into such a coward?
A sharp bird call pierced the air, startling her. Her head shot up, taking in her surroundings.
She was sprawled out on a lush forest floor. It was cool and quiet and oh so green. The sun was filtering down through the canopy of gently fluttering leaves, dappling the underbrush with golden light. Birds were chirping in the surrounding trees.
It was such a startling contrast to the chaos aboard Amara’s ship that she just sat there, stupidly. She forced herself to breathe and swallowed down the knot of dread in her throat. She needed a game plan, her next move. She needed to stop running and start thinking.
A sudden darkness cut through the sunlight.
Sarah looked up in disbelief.
A large shadowy form was crashing through branches above, almost on top of her.
She lunged to her feet, staggering slightly, and began to run just as the thing that was Lithiri slammed down into the earth behind her. The collision shook the very earth beneath her.
Sarah threw herself through the forest, crashing through the underbrush with no clear destination in mind other than to put some distance between herself and the monster in pursuit. She fought through the tangle of branches, hoping they slowed the thing down.
Her foot came down on uneven ground and her ankle twisted sharply. She cried out at the pain but forced herself to keep going in a hobbled run, favouring her uninjured foot.
“Sarah, stop running from me!” bellowed in that awful voice. It seemed to echo through the trees.
It was right behind her, so close. Too close.
With a burst of energy, Sarah launched herself over a fallen log and then shrieked as the ground suddenly gave way. She lost her balance, sliding wildly for a moment before tumbling head over heels down a steep incline.
She came to a sudden stop, flat on her back, covered in dirt and leaves. Her body ached, feeling every sharp rock from the fall. Still, she managed to lever herself up to face her pursuer.
The steep drop was nothing for the shadowy ooze. It floated down towards her, slowly and confidently, as if knowing the game had already been won.
Sarah gritted her teeth. There were no doors in sight. She had chosen the wrong key, and now she would pay for it.
The thing coalesced in front of her. It stretched up, looming. Although she could see no eyes, she sensed it was watching her. She, in turn, glimpsed indistinct shapes suspended in its dark, slightly translucent skin. Were they stuck? Consumed?
Then it opened its mouth, revealing rows upon rows of shark-like teeth. And that black tongue. It was grinning at her.
Sarah edged away, but her back hit up against a large tree. She was trapped. She reached for her bag.
“Sarah,” it said, voices rasping. It oozed closer, almost touching her now. “Tasty morsel. There is no escaping.”
Blindly, she scrabbled through the depths of her bag. Her fingers found what they were looking for—her ziplock baggie filled with rice. She tried not to let the relief show on her face as she grabbed a fistful.
“Stop fighting me, and I’ll give you a quick death,” it told her, as if that was some sort of favourable deal.
She hoped that Lithiri was one of those dark creatures that had a compulsion for counting small things.
“Go screw yourself!” Sarah swore and flung the rice.
It hit the thing’s body and was absorbed. The rest fell to the forest floor without incident. Lithiri was unmoved.
Damn.
The thing laughed, its whole body shuddering. It was a horrible parody, the sound of voices in pain, tortured, all cackling.“You silly mortals with your silly mortal games. Don’t you know, human, that you have no power over me?”
Those words. They resonated, unlocking something deep in her memory.
They were so similar to something she’d said in the past. She was brought back sharply into that moment, to him, to her voice. She’d said those words.
Then had also said other words.
Sarah had the undeniable certainty of what she had to do next.
She took a deep breath, glaring up at the monster.
“I wish the goblins would come and take me away, right now!” she shouted…
…and then winked out of existence.
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