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Back My Name Is Magic Save as PDF
Chapters (32)
  1. Author’s Note
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32

“Shut up!” I yell out loud and bury my face in my hands. This was my idea. I know it’ll be my fault if something bad happens to Morgan—if it hasn’t already. It was ridiculous to think we’d find all the answers laid out this easily. I hate myself for even thinking it, but if Aysha and Ekaterina had come along we wouldn’t be in this mess. Can I drag Morgan back to the bus stop? I tug on his legs, hoping I can move him.

Light splashes out of the stones again, no longer an eerie blue but a buttery yellow, like sunshine.

I’m dreaming. I have to be.

I dig my nail into my palm and bite my inner cheek until I taste copper. Nope. Definitely not a dream. What I’m seeing has to be real. The tonttukivi is still there, but the stones are shimmering like a watermark, translucent where—right in the middle of the nighttime glade—a stone archway now stands. The itching in my hands intensifies as I step over Morgan and through the rippling portal, staring down a leaf-strewn pathway leading into summer woodland.

20

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The sunshine thaws my skin. The breeze ruffles my hair and carries with it the songs of summer birds. The path looks so inviting, the woodland so friendly and safe, it makes me extra wary.

Everything I’ve ever read about portals to other worlds always includes a warning about getting trapped by mischievous, magical creatures. Or worse.

Is this where Natalie went? Did the mage open a doorway to this liminal realm, as Morgan called it? What if Hannah is lost in a woodland like this one, waiting for someone to find her? I look over at Morgan, but my mind’s made up.

For such a skinny guy, he’s surprisingly heavy, and I struggle to haul his body across the threshold. I can’t leave him lying in the cold. He’d get hypothermia and then we’d really have a problem. I do, however, leave his left foot in the real world just in case stepping completely into the woodland closes the portal, trapping us in the summer forest forever.

“I’ll be back,” I tell Morgan, hoping he can hear me. “I promise. I’ll be back soon.” I repeat it until I believe it, then dust off my knees and take a few steps down the path.

My crows squawk at the threshold, their wings beating at some invisible boundary. They land in a huff of feathers around Morgan’s foot. They can’t follow me. Interesting, and disconcerting. I’m truly on my own here.