I took Liam’s hand and stepped toward the door. “Come with me,” I said, turning to him.

His eyes widened. “Do you love me, then?” he asked.

Did I? I looked into his eyes for the answer. I could practically feel my heart swelling. Surely that was love! But then a cold and barbed coil squeezed my heart and the words died in my throat. I could see the look of disappointment in Liam’s eyes and then, as if I’d broken the bubble we were in as well as his heart, the snow globe shattered into a million pieces. Lorelei rode the shattered glass, teeth bared, claws aimed at my throat.

“Go!” Liam screamed. He flung himself on Lorelei just before she struck me. I tried to grab onto Liam’s shirt but the impact had sent me sprawling backwards. The storm picked me up and carried me through the door – along with something else that seemed to be flying beside me – and then I was sucked into its black maw and swallowed whole.

CHAPTER FIVE

I CAME TO on the forest floor, face in the mud and the rush of water in my ears. Drowned, I thought. I tried to move, but I couldn’t feel anything except the mud against my face. Every bone in my body felt as though it had been ground to dust.

“There she is!” said a familiar female voice.

At least my ears worked. Or was I imagining voices? They came and went on the shrieking wind and amid gusts of rain.

“She’s in the ravine,” I heard, and then, “She’ll drown if we don’t get to her right away.”

Drown? Hadn’t I already? I felt water pooling under my cheek. I could taste it – it tasted like mud and grass and it smelled like rain. It had reached my nose. If I didn’t move, I would drown.

I tried to turn my head, but something seemed to have happened to my spinal cord. Lorelei. That’s what had happened to me. That bitch undine had raised a storm in Faerie that had slammed through the door. The storm followed me into this world. Had anything else followed me? All I remembered was Liam tackling Lorelei to give me time to escape. Had he been able to restrain her – or had she killed him?

Something hot slid down my nose. Tears mingling with the rain and mud. I’d asked Liam to come back with me but he’d asked me if I loved him and I hadn’t been able to say yes. Then Lorelei attacked and he’d sacrificed himself so I could get away. But it had all been for nothing. My neck was broken. I was paralyzed. I might as well drown in this two-inch-deep mud puddle.

“Is she alive? Can you see if she’s breathing?”

The voices were closer. I felt the vibrations of footsteps against my cheek – but nowhere else. I was paralyzed. That bitch had turned me into a vegetable. Before I died I ought to at least try to tell them about Lorelei – warn them that she was trying to come through the door …