Chapter 2

The layout of the Otherworld defies human physics. There are no straight lines from point A to point B, even when you walk along a road that doesn’t seem to curve or fork away. One step forward on a road may take you into a kingdom you thought you’d cleared ten miles back. Most of the kingdoms tended to stay in the same proximity to each other, but there were no guarantees. A road whose quirks you thought you knew by heart might suddenly change without warning.

Fortunately, there were no such surprises today. The road we’d taken to reach the Hudson gate eventually got us back to the Oak Land, with only the expected detours into friendly lands. The Oak Land wasn’t one of my kingdoms. It was ruled by my strongest ally, who was also the one who made me the most nervous. Dorian and I had once been lovers and waged an Otherworldly war together. Things had fallen apart when he’d tricked me into a quest designed to conquer a kingdom I didn’t want. We’d been quite hostile toward each other for a while, but my pregnancy had changed our relationship. He was one of the advocates of the prophecy that said my father’s first grandson would conquer humanity, and so, even though he wasn’t the father, Dorian had vowed to aid and protect my children.

Once he’d ascertained I was alive and well, however, he showed little sympathy upon hearing about our ambush.

“I never understood why you had to go to that Ohoho place anyway,” he said, pouring a glass of wine. “I say good riddance.”

I sighed. “It’s Ohio. And you know why I was there. The twins need medical care.”

“So you claim. They can receive ‘medical care’ here. Ours is just as good as humans’. Do you want a glass?” He held up the wine bottle.

I rolled my eyes. “No. And that’s exactly the point. Medicine here’s not the same at all. Wine’s terrible for babies.”

Dorian swept into the sitting room to join me, elegantly arranging himself on a love seat that displayed his purple velvet robes to best effect. “Well, of course it is. I’d never dream of giving wine to an infant! What do you take me for, a barbarian? But for you ... well, it might go a long way to make you a little less jumpy. You’ve been positively unbearable to live around.”

“I can’t have it either. It affects the babies in utero.”

“Nonsense,” he said, tossing his long auburn hair over one shoulder. Life would be easier if he wasn’t so damned good-looking. “Why, my mother drank wine every day, and I turned out just fine.”

“I think you’re proving my point for me,” I said dryly. “Look, I know you believe everything’s fine here and there’s no reason I should ever set foot outside the Otherworld, but I just don’t feel safe not having this pregnancy monitored by a—human doctor.” I’d been about to say “real doctor” but caught myself in time. It was true that I’d watched the gentry perform some amazing feats of healing. I’d literally seen limbs reattached. Yet, despite all the gentry magic, nothing could match the comfort I took in the reassuring numbers and bleeps of medical machinery. I was half human, after all, and had been raised that way.