“Long body,” Jason continued, “long head.”

“Heads,” Gary corrected.

“Heads?” Jason said. “As in more than one?”

“Yeah, two heads, scales, horns…”

“That sounds horrifying,” Jason said. “We are definitely not talking about the same animal.”

“The animal doesn’t matter if there aren’t any here,” Rufus said. “Which means we start walking.”

Jason looked down the slope, getting a panoramic view of the land below. It was a flat, dry landscape of sandy yellows and sober reds, punctuated by withered grass or spiky scrub. Every so often, a low tree with sparse foliage would jut reluctantly up from the barren earth. The sun hammered relentlessly down over all of it, but the arid air was almost pleasant after the cloying humidity of the sacrifice chamber.

The climate bore no resemblance to the moderate warmth and lush greenery he had experienced in the hedge maze. Even the heat had felt different there, more pleasantly warm than this unforgiving desert air. He remembered looking at the world map, a warped, but not entirely different globe to the one with which he was familiar. It marked his position as being in the Kalahari Desert, which matched the terrain now before him.

They started down the slope, Gary in the lead. He was wearing loose clothing to let air flow through, along with a hood to shield him from the sun. The others were wearing more fitted clothes but didn’t appear discomforted.

“They brought us here while I was unconscious, right?” Jason asked.

“That’s right,” Rufus said.

“How long was I knocked out for? This is very different from the place we were before.”

They all turned to look him with curiosity.

“The Vane Estate uses climate magic,” Farrah said. “Didn’t you notice when you went there in the first place?”

“Actually, how did you get involved with all this?” Rufus asked. “Now that we have time to talk.”

“Um, I think I might have been summoned,” Jason said. “Not on purpose, obviously. I mean, who’d summon me? I went to bed, which was last night, as far as I know, and woke up in the middle of the Vane family hedge maze. I sort of stumbled around for a bit until I found one of the residents, and from what I gather he was trying to summon something and got me instead. He called me something that sounded specific. I don’t remember what, exactly. ‘Other-worlder,’ maybe?”

“Outworlder?” Rufus suggested.

“Sounds right,” Jason said. “Is that what the name suggests? Is this really a whole different world?”

“We’ve always been in this one,” Rufus said. “You’d have to tell us if it’s different enough from where you came from.”

Jason thought about the flying eels and leech monsters, people throwing around magic chains and streams of lava. Healing potions, reading languages he’d never seen before. The magic powers he’d used for himself. All of it should be impossible.