Thero rode silently along for a long moment, then sighed. “I’m sorry I shouted at you. I realize you did all you could before she bewitched you. I doubt Seregil would have fared any differently.”

“But you would have?”

“I would have known what she was, yes, and that might have changed things. We have to find a way to get me into that place.”

“The lightstone didn’t work there. What makes you think your magic will?”

“It does for the woman, obviously, since you witnessed her levitating Mika.”

“Maybe only her magic works there.”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

At the palace Alec and Thero revisited the two places he’d found portals, but there was nothing there now. They tried the surrounding corridors, but with no luck.

“How does something like that move?” Alec wondered as dawn light seeped in the windows of the first corridor he’d disappeared in.

“This plane is in some contact with ours, but it’s likely not solid, like two walls meeting at a corner. It may be more like a curtain waving in the breeze. That’s more like what you described, the first time you came back.”

“Then there’s no way to know where it’s going to be?”

Thero shook his head grimly. “No.”

Chapter 21: Kordira Lends a Hand

SEREGIL was awake in bed when Alec returned to their tent.

“Well?”

Alec sat down on the edge of the cot and told him of the skull and Thero’s visions.

“Khazireen, eh?” said Seregil. “That was a good night’s work, Alec. It’s good to have a name, at least.”

“How are you?”

Seregil grinned his crooked grin. “Oh, I’ve been better and worse. So I’d say middling. You’re not looking too chipper yourself. Get some rest. Daylight will be here soon.”

Alec stretched out on the other cot, not expecting to sleep after all he’d seen tonight. But he did, and dreamed of trying and failing to get to Mika. Sometimes it was Seregil he was trying to save, only to find him in a pool of blood, head split open.

The sun was just up when he was shaken awake and opened his eyes to find Thero kneeling beside him, looking frantic.

“What is it?” Alec mumbled, sitting up and pushing his hair out of his eyes.

“Klia is missing!”

That knocked the sleep out of Alec’s head. “When?”

“She never made it to Deep Harbor. She’s been missing for two days and no one knew!”

“Who brought word?” asked Seregil from his cot.

“I did.”