The portal spat us out into the dark, but the smell of the ocean immediately hit me. All I could hear was waves crashing for a few moments while my eyes adjusted. Then the water was visible, a few yards out. Must be high tide. Great.

  That meant wading through knee-deep water to get back to the trail. At night.

  Ugh. How did I let Dad convince me that this was okay?

  Syrinthinor was leaning against the cave wall, head against his arm, and breathing a little too fast.

  “Hey, you okay?” I asked.

  He let out a hum. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Finally, he muttered, “Feels weird here. Wrong.”

  “Let’s get you out of this cave. Maybe you’ll feel better?”

  His silhouette shifted, and suddenly light leaked between his fingers: bright, alive, and impossible. I gasped as a little sphere of light appeared, floating up into the air. The same as the ones I’d seen earlier that night when he’d arrived. Totally normal in Kirath, but not here, never here.

  I reached out slowly. The ball didn’t disappear, just danced around my fingertips, like it didn’t want to be touched. “You made this?”

  “Yes?” Syrinthinor said, his shoulders hunching like he was unsure if his answer might bring trouble down on him. Maybe it would bring trouble. If someone walked in here, then they were going to freak, but… he shouldn’t have been able to do it in the first place.

  “How?” I asked.

  Syrinthinor’s brow creased in confusion. “The same way that I always do?”

  “You shouldn’t have–”

  “I can put it out,” Syrinthinor jumped in, reaching for the ball of light. It danced back towards his palm.

  I caught his hand. “It’s not that. Remember what my dad said? Magic doesn’t work here, not the way it does in Kirath. I’ve brought magic objects back before and they just stopped working like whatever powered them doesn’t exist anymore.”

  Syrinthinor frowned down at the light in his palm. “Those are objects, though. An actual person is different.”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “But wizards that cross over have the same problem, or at least the magic is incredibly weakened, barely useful. My dad can hardly do anything with water here. That’s why he doesn’t like coming.”

  Syrinthinor bit his lip, and his eyes shut like he was concentrating. Then his skin flared with light, and he let out a gasp.

  I swore, blinking spots from my eyes. “What are you doing?! Someone is going to see and then—”

  I cut off. I didn’t even know what they would do. Honestly, they’d probably think it was some prank. It would be better if no one was out there.

  “Sorry, sorry!” Syrinthinor’s voice was panicked. “I just—I had to see if I was still connected to the Light. I didn’t think that would happen!”

  I took a deep breath, trying to force myself to calm down, but it was hard when he’d just admitted he couldn’t control it. What was I supposed to do if he started glowing on the street? How was I supposed to explain that?

  Light flickered again, dancing along his skin. I could almost see his panic, like the glow was tied to it, feeding on his fear.

  “Hey,” I said, forcing my voice steady. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. At least we can see now, right?”

  Syrinthinor froze. Slowly, the light stopped pulsing. “You… you’re not angry?”

  “No. Sorry. You just scared me for a second. If someone saw, they’ll probably think it’s some prank. As long as we get out of here soon, it’ll be fine.”

  The glow dimmed, fading to a soft shimmer before winking out. We were left completely in the dark again.

  I hesitated, unsure if I should ask, but my phone was dead, and I really didn’t want to hike in total darkness. “So… do you think you can just make your palm glow? Or one of those little light-ball things? Maybe hold it? If not, I get it, but—”

  Fabric rustled somewhere in the dark, and I stopped as a faint glow started up again. I breathed out a quiet sigh of relief. Syrinthinor’s shoulders dropped slightly, like he was relieved he’d finally done something right.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Just in case, though, we should get out of here.”

  He lifted his hand, the glow spilling forward across the cave wall, and we picked our way out, trying not to slip on the rocks. Outside, the air was cooler, the fog thicker, and the sea hissed against the sand.

  Unfortunately, the path ended at an inlet where the waves reached knee-height. I glanced at Syrinthinor’s cloak—the poor guy’s boots and heavy trousers were about to get soaked. The night wind bit through my own cloak.

  Would the buses even be running? I glanced at my watch: 3 a.m. Probably not. We’d be hiking up a cliff, wet, in the dark, and Syrinthinor had lost a lot of blood earlier. His side seemed better, but forcing his body to deal with cold and salt water probably wasn’t the best recovery plan. Maybe if we waited, he could practice a bit, get this light thing under control. It’d be less obvious in daylight, anyway.

  I squared my shoulders. Beach camp it is. Morning would be safer. And drier.

  “Okay,” I said finally, crossing my arms. “We’re not doing this tonight.”

  Syrinthinor blinked, light still cupped in his hand. “Doing what?”

  “Climbing cliffs, wading in the ocean, dying of hypothermia.” I gestured toward the surf. “Look at that. Even if we made it halfway up the trail, you’d be half-frozen, and I don’t feel like explaining to my mom why you got pneumonia the first night you were here.”

  He frowned slightly. “So… we stop?”

  “Yeah. We’ll stay here until morning. Camp.”

  His shoulders relaxed slightly, like that at least was a familiar idea. He’d probably been on the road for days with Dad. He glanced around. “Just… here?”

  I studied the sand. “No, further back. Looks like the water gets this far up sometimes.”

  We hiked until we found a small alcove in the cliff. The sand was dry enough there; the tide didn’t reach that high. I dropped my bag and sat down. Syrinthinor crouched nearby, moving a little stiffly like his side still hurt, then finally sank back into the sand. His little light drifted to rest beside him.

  He stared out at the waves for a long moment, then said quietly, “It smells different here.”

  “Salt. Seaweed. Probably someone’s leftover bonfire.”

  “Maybe, but Crithlinor is a port city, and it still just… smells different.”

  I grinned at him. “Can’t say my sense of smell is great. Pretty sure I lost part of it to COVID a few years ago.”

  “COVID?”

  “It was a sickness that went around. A lot of people got it. Sort of shut the whole world down for a while.”

  “Like… a plague?”

  “Kinda.”

  He folded his arms over his knees, resting his chin on them.

  I bit my lip, feeling sort of bad. This was all entirely new to him, and I didn’t even know a thing about him. “So… why’d you have to run with my dad?” I asked softly.

  He stiffened and didn’t look at me, gaze fixed on the ocean. “I…” He drew in a slow breath. “A few weeks ago, a woman who lived on the edge of the city fell. They couldn’t wake her, but they were also worried if they moved her, she’d die, so I went there.”

  He was silent again.

  “You can… heal people?” I asked quietly.

  He gave a single, tight nod. His arms tightened across his knees before he finally said, “I healed her. But when I was walking back to the tower… someone tried to kill me.”

  “Like… in retaliation for healing her?”

  He shook his head quickly. “No. We think it was political, but… it threw the city into a panic.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He traced a circle in the sand with his finger, then said quietly, “There are only ever two Keepers at a time." His light flickered slightly. “The current Keeper and their heir. It takes years to bond an heir to the Light. The fact that it happened inside our own city…” He exhaled slowly. “My father was worried. I had to take guards everywhere. I hated it.”

  He drew a line in the sand with his boot. “Then… it happened again. Even with the guards. An arrow. I was lucky it hit my shoulder.”

  I sucked in a breath. “Twice?”

  Syrinthinor just nodded. “Torrik was in the city then. He and my father are old friends. He said he knew somewhere safe I could hide while they figured out who was behind it. And suddenly, I was being sent away.”

  The little light beside him flickered, like it echoed his mood. “I’d never even left Crithnon before,” he added softly. “And now I’m here.”

  “And now you’re here,” I murmured back. I wasn’t even sure what to say to that story. Sorry you almost got assassinated? And going to another world when you’d never even left the country had to be a little brutal, so I just stayed silent. The waves rolled in and hissed against the rocks, and all I could think about was how small we both looked under that big black sky.

  “Here’s not so bad,” I murmured. “At least you still have an ocean, right?”

  He snorted.

  “It’s weird being stuck between worlds. Never easy, but… welcome to the club, I guess.”

  That got the faintest smile out of him, just a little twitch at the corner of his mouth, but it felt like a win.

  “We’ll figure it out,” I said, tugging my cloak tighter around me. “Dad wouldn’t have sent you here if he didn’t think you’d be safe. And, well, you’ve got me now. Guide extraordinaire. Literally my job for the next few days. You can see all sorts of crazy stuff no one in your country has ever seen.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Like a penguin. I bet you’ve never seen a penguin. Or a panda. We can go to the zoo. It’s, like, super famous.”

  That got a sharp laugh out of him.

  “I have no idea what either of those are.”

  I grinned. “Exactly. That’s why we have to go see them. It’s an experiential thing.”

  “Perfect. A whole new dictionary of words to learn.”

  I huffed. “Hey, I’m not even forcing you to learn English. Just random animal names.”

  “Very useful.”

  “Exactly.”

  He rolled his eyes, but I caught the small smile before he looked away.

  A light breeze came off the water, cool and salty. I scooped up a handful of sand and let it fall between my fingers. “Get some sleep, okay? Tomorrow we’ll… I don’t know. Figure out IDs, food, hiding the whole glowy thing. You know. Normal errands.”

  He huffed a quiet laugh. “That sounds… better than memorizing a bunch of animals.”

  “But they’re so adorable. You’ll come around.”

  He shook his head, but he was still smiling as he settled into the sand. I did the same.

  The waves kept whispering. The glow of his light dimmed until it was barely there, and the night finally went still.