Embedded in a wide clearing, the lake, frozen and black, stretched as wide and long as it had in the dream. Only the faint hiss of the falling snow and the sound of my own panicked breathing disrupted the muted silence of the night.

Every few stumbling steps, I kept checking over my shoulder, searching for any sign of red amid the trees. Then, skidding to a halt at the bank, the stitch in my side loosening by a fraction, I scanned the surface of the lake for a weak point.

Flawless, the ice reflected only the darkness of the forest, as well as the overhanging tangle of white-laced limbs. My own face, haggard and frightened, nearly unrecognizable in the onyx ice, begged for the answer of what to do next.

“Lucas,” I whispered aloud to the ice, and his name left my lips in in the form of a cloud. One that I imagined could, like a prayer, somehow find its way to him.

Nearby, I spotted a jagged stone poking through the snow and seized it.

When I made it to my world again, would I find Lucas there, too? Had he also been trying to reach me? Could he have possibly even come here with the man?

Tap . . . Tap . . . Tap . . .

The sound of my steps on the ice pierced the bubble of my swelling hope. It reminded me of the ticking clock on Erik’s mantel. A sound that must have plagued him for years. Decades.

Over a century.

I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t stay in a place like this for my whole life and beyond. I’d go insane. Like I was right now. Ready, apparently, to die if it meant I got a chance to live.

Reaching the center of the lake, where the ice thinned enough to creak and whine underfoot, I stopped and peered down again at my reflection and took a simultaneous breath.

Then I slammed a heel hard into the frozen barrier.

A crackle split the silence, but I didn’t go through. Instead, white spiderweb splinters burst out in jagged lines beneath me.

The impact hadn’t been enough.

Determined, I knelt onto the crack and raised the rock over my head before bringing it down as hard as I could, hard enough to cause the edges of the rock to slice into my flesh.

Multiplying, the white veins shot farther outward, spiking thinner offshoots.

A growl that started in the back of my throat transformed into a yell of frustration. Again, I slammed the barrier separating me from the water—from home—and this time, along with a sharp crunch, there came a soft and eerie ping. I blinked, startled by the unexpected sound. The way it echoed through the silent wood caused me to pause. And strangely, to want to hear it again.

As if answering my unspoken request, the sound repeated—an ethereal and almost musical peal—like the far-off snapping of a metal cord. Confused, I lowered my hands, now bleeding.