“All the worlds to, they connect to one or more of the worlds from,” said Christopher, picking up the thread. “So Mariposa and Prism both connect to Earth, and get travelers from there. And maybe they also connect to a few similar worlds, like how Nadya’s world touches on Nancy’s, and maybe they connect to another world from, so they can get the travelers they need without drawing too much attention. But when they connect to another world to, it’s always one where the rules are almost the same.”

“And the rules here aren’t like the rules you had back in Mariposa,” said Cora slowly.

Christopher nodded. “Exactly. Mariposa was Rhyme and Logic, and this place is Nonsense and Reason. I can’t say whether it’s Wicked or Virtuous, but that doesn’t really matter for me, because Mariposa is Neutral, so it can sync to either. What it can’t handle is Nonsense.”

“My head hurts,” said Cora.

“Welcome to the club,” said Kade.

They had reached the end of the candy corn field. The trio stepped out of the green, onto the hard-packed crumble of the dirt in front of the farmhouse. It was impossible to tell what it was made of without tasting it, and Cora found that her curiosity didn’t extend to licking the ground. That was good. It was useful to know that there were limits to how far she was willing to commit to this new reality. Or maybe she just didn’t want to eat dirt.

There was Rini, in front of the farmhouse, with her arms around a man who was taller than she was by several inches. He must have towered over Sumi even when she was a fully grown adult woman, and not the teenage skeleton standing silently off to one side. His hair was yellow. Not blond: yellow, the color of ripe candy corn, the color of butterscotch.

“The people here are made of meat, right?” murmured Cora.

Kade glanced down at the patch of blood on his trousers and said, “Pretty damn sure.”

“How do they not all die of malnutrition? How do they still have any teeth?”

“How did your skin not rot and fall off when you spent like, two years living in saltwater all the time?” Kade flashed her a quick, almost wry smile. “Every world gets to make its own rules. Sometimes those rules are going to be impossible. That doesn’t make them any less enforceable.”

Cora was silent for a moment. Finally, she said, “I want to go home.”

“Don’t we all?” asked Christopher mournfully, and that was that: there was nothing else to say. They walked toward Rini and her family, hoping for a miracle, hoping for a solution, while the fields of candy corn grew green all around them, reaching ever for the sun.

*   *   *