“Or what? You think you have enough magic to oppose me?” The man scoffs. Without another word, he lifts a hand and sends a force, composed of magic, our way. However, we are made of the same stuff as the Between, and the Between is made of magic. Magic won’t harm itself. Space shrinks around the man, and the magic force he exerted returns to him, boxing him into a small sphere without any air in it. He gasps for breath.

Seeing his situation, the scaled middle worlders move toward us. In response, we scream. When we scream, the Between shudders. Our screams melt into each other, so sharp and piercing, they become a weapon. The scaled middle worlders collapse and turn into liquid while the man, with his hands over his ears, opens the nearest door and escapes through it.

Tea, the City of Stairs, and the Story of a Boy

Jiufen is a small mining town not far from Taipei. We follow Kamboja out of the Between into a narrow alley that leads to the stairs that Jiufen is mainly composed of. The sun is nowhere to be seen, but a glance at a clock reveals the time to be a little after ten in the morning. A light rain is falling—not that this deters any of the tourists that fill the old streets of the town.

We walk up many flights of stairs, through twisted alleys, stopping every so often to sample some snacks from the many food vendors (the barbecued mushrooms are delicious), until we finally arrive at a long, dark tunnel. Taraana looks apprehensive, but we sail through it, determined not to give in to the fear stalking our heels. It is not every day that our travels are interrupted by murderous middle worlders, after all. On the other side of the tunnel is a multileveled teahouse that belongs solely to the middle world and is patronized only by beings of the magical variety. This teahouse sits on one of the peaks of Jiufen and boasts views not possible at any other place in the vicinity.

We have been frequenting this teahouse for decades now; the owner, a not-human woman we call Ah Mei, is a friendly sort as long as you don’t ask her any questions. The teahouse is deserted at this time of the day, so Ah Mei seats us at a coveted spot on the balcony facing the bay. She gives Taraana a once-over, looking at his starry eyes a bit longer than we are comfortable with. But she doesn’t say or do anything else and leaves us to deliberate over the menu.