“Another, I said.”
“A’ight, a’ight, coming right up. Immortals be good.” The bartender began preparing his drink with a gravelly chuckle. “I’ve seen beasts thrice your size pass out after a dozen of these. It’s the strongest stuff on both sides o’ the river, after all.”
Of course I know that, Harry sulked to himself. That’s why I’m drinking it, damn it all. His body flushed out toxins too quickly for most liquors to have any effect on him.
And tonight he was drinking to get drunk.
One hundred days had passed since he had begun searching for Orion. One hundred days since he had delivered Rose and a comatose Quinlan back to Eradore. One hundred days since he had summoned a portal to the Immortal Realm, without even hesitating to catch his breath. That had been his first mistake—not only had he shadow traveled halfway around the world three times in a row, but he’d torn a rift between the two realms. That first moment back in the Immortal Realm, when he’d hit the ground of his front yard in Dusk District, his legs had folded like wheat stalks and he’d face-planted directly into the grass.
Luckily for him, Soraya had been watering her lawn next door. His anygné neighbor dropped her garden hose and rushed to his side before dragging his ass into her house. He lay gasping on her fluffy rug, unable to summon even a thank-you to his lips. She pinched his chin with one manicured hand and force-fed him nectar out of a jar with the other, scolding him all the while, the delicate silver bracelets on her wrists jingling melodiously.
“Mark my words, Harry,” she said, shoving another spoonful of nectar down his throat. Her wayward shoulder-length bob bounced when she shook her head, the raven-black strands glinting lavender at the tips when the lantern light hit her just right. “You’re going to break yourself in half one day.”
Harry only moaned around the spoon and swallowed. Sweet, golden bliss. A tingling buzz spread through his veins as the nectar revived him, healed him, warmed him to the core. He always forgot how good it was—sadly, it turned to ash when brought to the Mortal Realm.
Once he had regained some semblance of strength, he wobbled toward the window. He breathed in the comforting aroma of cinnamon and spiced ginger, a scent that had always clung to Soraya despite the absence of either in her home. Just another stubborn remnant of the eldest anygné’s past, perhaps. Harry wondered fleetingly what remnants he brought with him from the Mortal Realm whenever he returned home—if this was home, though he still didn’t quite know.
He ran his hand along the smooth varnish of Soraya’s furniture as he strode toward the window, his fingertips hopping from one pale-wooded surface to the next. He always marveled at her eye for aesthetics. This century, she had transformed her home into a rustic wonderland, from the exposed stone walls and trestle tables to the tiny faerie lanterns skirting the oak beams that crisscrossed the ceiling.
In comparison, his home looked like an abandoned, dreary cave.
Peering out the living room windows into the indigo horizon, Harry asked, “How long was I away?”
Soraya joined him, cupping a steaming mug of nectar tea. She blew at the steam and wrapped her worn shawl tighter around herself with her free hand, the shimmering fabric woven with intricate whorls of feathers—her only memento of a life abandoned millennia before. The light in her eyes was teasing when she spoke. “Shall I give it to you in mortal days?”
“It wasn’t that long,” Harry groused.
Her face sombered. “Maybe not in mortal days.”
Harry pursed his lips, still waiting.
Eventually, she took a long sip before answering. “Two thousand six hundred and twenty-five.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “That’s not possible. It couldn’t have been more than a year!”
She clicked her tongue. “I’ve been around far longer than you could ever comprehend, little shadowling. I’m never wrong.” She pointed at the heavens, at two little specks of red. “The stars refuse to lie. There is mine, and there is yours.” A third speck twinkled a few constellations away. “There is Lady Killian’s.” Her finger traced an arc through the sky. For each day he and Killian spent away from the Immortal Realm, their stars inched their way westward. When they departed the Mortal Realm, their stars vanished from the west and reappeared in the east to begin the journey anew. “This time, yours made it all the way past the third prong of Lord Tidus’s trident.”
Harry followed Soraya’s gaze outside, where beyond Dusk District’s four perfect emerald sprawls of grass lay the Jade River, and just past it, on the other side of the misted banks, rose the city of Rèvé—four times the size of Axaria, but still small by Immortal Realm standards. Its jewel-hewn dwellings glittered in fiery, psychedelic polychrome, almost too dazzling to look at. A few of Rèvé’s younger inhabitants were playing in the shallows, dunking each other’s scaled faces into the river no one could ever drown in.
“It won’t be much longer, then,” said Harry softly. “Until the next eclipse.”
Soraya sighed. “And not much longer until the fourth house will finally have an occupant.”
Centuries had passed since Dusk District had last expected a new inhabitant, and nearly two mortal decades since the fourth house had appeared on their street. A new house marked the birth of a new future shadowling. And though Harry didn’t dare mention it, he had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly who it was meant for.
Soraya turned away from the window and raised a hand to brush a stray curl behind his ear. “I’m worried for you, Harry. You and Killian both. Our worlds are changing. There are darker, worse things than nightmares, and they are getting ready to crawl out into the light. You must take care.”
Dread rose fast like bile in his throat. He thought of Orion. “Soraya, have you heard any rumors recently?”
She gave him a long, hard look, her ancient gaze clear as glass and undulled by time. “Of what sort?”
He chose his next words carefully. “Anything . . . peculiar.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Care to be a little more specific?”
“Anything about a young mortal man.”
“You opened the portal to the Pit when you first returned, didn’t you?” she whispered. “I felt it. And then something else—or rather, someone else—followed you, like a hiccup. An accidental ripple across the wrinkle between the realms.” Her brow knitted. “I’m sorry, Harry. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but it’s been quiet on my end.”
He inhaled, quelling a sudden flare of panic. If Soraya of all demons hasn’t heard anything . . . no. No way would he lose faith before he had even begun his search. “Well, the Immortal Realm is huge. There’s hope yet.”