“My what?” I asked, and a look of impatient fury marred his features.

  Remembering the fire, I stood up, and looked around.

  “I’ll go,” I said, and he pointed at a stack of clothes folded on a nearby chair.

  “Get dressed.”

  The clothes made me realize I wasn’t wearing much of anything, but the elf didn’t seem to care. I glared at him.

  “You’ll have to leave,” I said.

  “No.”

  “I need to get dressed.”

  “Your point?”

  “You could at least look away.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, and then nodded, crossing to the window.

  “Better?”

  Given it reminded me there were no curtains, and the window looked out into a forest full of pixies, not much, but I gave him the answer he wanted.

  “Yes.”

  It was the fastest clothes change I’ve ever done. For one thing, I didn’t know if he’d stay looking out the window, and, for another, pixies or not, the fact anyone could see in made me really uneasy. It seemed I could feel something after all.

  “This way,” he said, when I was done, and he headed for the door.

  This time, I was able to follow on my own. I did not need a swarm of pixies, and a herd of unicorns to guide me. I did not need the strength of his arm across my shoulders to keep me upright.

  I still felt nothing, and wondered if the numbness would ever fade, or if that was part of the price the druids had asked.

  We went down a staircase made of planks and ropes, and suspended between a branch and the forest floor, and then we walked out across grass partially buried by fallen leaves.

  “It’s autumn?”

  “You slept.”

  “How long…” I began, but he held up his hand for silence.

  “We are about to cross the veil.”

  “It’s Canterbury Park,” I told him. “How bad can it be?”

  He looked at me, and I caught a flash of pity.

  Maybe.

  It was either that, or indigestion. Finally, he shrugged.

  “You never know what you’ll find on the other side,” he said, and we were about to move forward, when I heard footsteps running through the leaves behind us.

  We both turned, and the elf cursed.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Luca’s shadow!”

  “Are we there, yet?” I asked, and wasn’t prepared when he turned and gave me a powerful shove, propelling me past two she-oaks, and through the scraggly growth of a bottlebrush.

  “Go!”

  “Hey!”

  There was no response, so I picked myself up, and turned around to see where I’d landed.

  Luca’s shadow, indeed! Shock shivered through me, and I turned back the way I’d come. There was no way... No freaking way…

  I took three deep breaths, and held the last one in, then I closed my eyes and did a slow one-eighty away from the forest. Counting to three in my head, I opened first one eye, and then the other.

  Oh. Hell to the Hells, no.

  I wondered if running back into the forest would do me an ounce of good, but I kept my eyes open, letting my head get used to the idea of what I saw. Maybe I was under the influence…

  I was still trying to wrap my head around what was in front of me, when something came crashing through the undergrowth behind me. I thought of unicorns and then I thought of trolls, and then I remembered sunlight, and dawn, and pixies dancing, and registered I was seeing nothing but twilight and streetlights, and I started to run. I was too close to the veil to do anything else.

  If it’s a troll, I thought, I’m toast.

  I briefly wondered what I would do if it was something else? But I didn’t want to think about that. I just wanted to outdistance whatever it was that was tearing through the bottlebrush behind me.

  I reached a streetlight and was glad to find pavement under my feet. Behind me, I heard a thump and a clatter, followed by an angry shout, so I sprinted forward.

  Streetlights weren’t a problem. Things that go bump in the night, especially things that come charging out of elven forests, can be.

  And I had no intention of stopping to find out if I’d been right.

  The streets were wider than I remembered, the warehouses long gone, replaced by elegant, double-story apartments, but that wasn’t what had made me stop beneath the streetlight at the edge of the park. No, that had been the shuttle rising above the apartments about two blocks down. The space shuttle.

  I heard someone call out behind me, and then footsteps.

  “Wait!”

  I kept running, and the footsteps picked up pace.

  Whoever it was called out again.

  “Please wait.”

  The ‘please’ almost did it, but the street was deserted, the streetlights too far apart—and I knew there were creatures that could mimic a human voice. I ran on, heading toward the point from which I’d seen the shuttle rise.

  “You’re hallucinating,” said the little voice inside my head, but I ignored it.

  If I was hallucinating, then I’d come to, eventually.

  “Oh, God,” the voice called from behind me, and it sounded more plaintive than before. “Don’t leave me on my own.”

  It was the ‘Oh, God’ that did it. None of the creatures of the dark used that phrase. They called on specific deities, old deities, and that was if they called on them at all. I slowed down, taking a chance, and stopping in the cold, white glow shed by the next street light.

  I wasn’t taking that much of a chance.

  To my surprise, the thing following me was human, and he was loaded down like a pack mule. I watched as he passed under one of the street lights half a block behind me. He really was human…and, now I looked more closely, sort of familiar.

  “Who are you?” I asked, waiting as he came closer.

  He looked like he was wearing a paramedic’s uniform.

  “I gave you a blanket,” he said, and caught the blank look I gave him. “After the warehouse. You were in pretty bad shape, so I gave…you…a blanket.”

  He stopped in front of me, breathing hard.

  “Didn’t want shock setting in,” he finished lamely. “You don’t remember me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, you were pretty out of it, and the elf wouldn’t stop.”

  That was one way to put it, but I didn’t want to remember. Man didn’t seem to recognize it, though.

  “They said you were dead,” he said. “That you died in the fire. I tried contacting your department, but…”

  I waited for his voice to peter out, then pointed to the extra pack he was dragging behind him by its straps.

  “You want a hand with that?”

  He glanced down as though he’d forgotten it.

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks. They let me grab some supplies. Said time moves differently in the other realm. This one’s yours.”

  There was a roar from behind and slightly to the right of us, and I turned in time to see another shuttle lifting from behind the buildings. The medic stared at it, and I half-turned to follow his gaze.

  “You are shitting me,” he said, his voice not much more than a breath, and I felt my world shudder.

  “You saw that?” I asked.

  “It was a bit hard to miss.”

  “You mean I’m not high?” I pressed, and he looked at me, and shook his head.