“I’ll stay here in the line,” Al said, and I swallowed hard. “That way you can tell me what you can see. Do you think you are capable of that?”

“Sure.” I licked my lips, then wished I hadn’t as my tongue came away gritty.

“Now, maybe?” Al prompted as he tugged his sleeves down. “It’s going to take me hours to get the sand out of my hair. And stay out of that purple shit.”

I looked at the evil purple line, swirls of red vanishing at its black core. “Not a problem.” Taking a slow breath, I closed my eyes and willed myself across the realities. It was different from using a line to jump, and demons seldom did it unless they were dragging an unwilling slave across realities—it was akin to taking a horse downtown when everyone else had a hovercar.

The whine from the line shifted, and I opened my eyes, seeing a ghostlike Al still standing beside me with a shimmer of red between us. The air lacked the bite of burnt amber, and the damned wind that always seemed to be blowing in the ever-after was gone. I could hear birds, and under my feet were weeds and grass. The sound of running water was faint, and tall trees leafed out for spring stood around me. Exhaling, I turned. Behind me Loveland Castle was whole again, albeit a dumpy little building falling apart—one man’s dream of nobility crumbling from neglect. Noble ideas tended to do that when left alone.

“Well?” Al prompted, and I turned to him, catching my balance in surprise. The weirdness of the line was impacting everything. The vision of the dusty, sunbaked surface of the ever-after was superimposed over the lush greenery of the raised garden area of the castle, but the purple-and-black line looked about the same from this side as the other. Ugly.

I lowered the parasol and squinted up at the yellow sun. “It’s hard to tell. Mind if I step away and see what it looks like from outside the line?”

“Hurry up about it,” he grumped, and I took several hasty steps backward until the unsettling scrape across my nerves vanished. My soft headache went with it, and I took a breath of clean air. I was completely in reality, and I brought out the phone from my back pocket, checking the time. I had about fifteen minutes until Jenks summoned me, and knowing Al was becoming impatient, I texted Trent I was okay and to have Jenks give me another hour.