Page 161

He stared at me like he was looking at a ghost, like he couldn’t believe I was there at all, or that I was real, if I was.

The light in the portal was fading now.

It grew less bright, then less… then more blue and green.

The colors swirled more slowly as it died down.

In the end, the doorway looked how it had before it reopened, with only bare wisps of misty, coiling air swirling in the vicinity of the tear.

All of us stood briefly in silence.

Someone ignited two moreyissotorches, and suddenly, the area on the cave floor grew bright with green-tinted light. It washed over the group of people who’d just come through the portal door, illuminating them and dying them a sickly green and yellow, making them look both more and less real.

Nick stood in front of the group that had walked through, wearing what could only be called a uniform: a black, perfectly-tailored but official-looking jacket with some kind of insignia on the arm and shoulder, and a half-moon symbol on his chest. One of those futuristic guns sat in a holster low on his thigh, making him look like some kind of futuristic space cowboy.

Another gun handle poked out of the jacket, probably stuck in some kind of shoulder harness. One of those high-tech looking headsets wrapped around his ear. He had a thick bracelet around his wrist made of a metal I didn’t recognize.

I decided he didn’t look like a cowboy.

He looked like a futuristic soldier, or cop.

It hit me then that he stood in front of the others, as if protecting them.

They all looked beat up, like they’d just come from a fight, but Nick struck me as very much in charge of his rag-tag group.

He also had dirt smudged on his face, and a cut by his scalp.

The woman with him… and she was definitely with him, I realized, as I saw the way she clutched his arm from behind… had bruises on her face and more cuts on her arms and hands. She also wore a dark coat, similar to Nick’s, and long, sleek, black hair peered out of her hood. Pieces of it had been dyed a bright, peacock green, and also gold.

I stared at the woman.

Then I blinked, and realized I recognized her eyes.

“Aura?” I gasped.

She was older.

Hell, she was my age.

She was seer, so the age thing might have been blurred a bit, but she was definitely no longer a child. The woman in front of me was a full-fledged adult, and had an adult’s sharp, angular face. The round face I remembered was now very distinctly heart-shaped, with a sharp chin and a well-defined but delicate jaw.

The way she held onto Nick made me doubt they were only friends.

She held onto Nick like her life depended on it.

She stared at me in utter confusion. She didn’t react to her name at all.

I saw what might have been recognition there, but of me, not the name I used. Mostly, she looked wary of me, possibly even afraid of me. She definitely didn’t look at me like someone who remembered me with any fondness.

I looked back at Nick, totally at a loss.

“Where’s Jem?” I asked.

Nick noticeably paled. He tightened his grip on the woman with him and stared at me like he couldn’t comprehend my words.

Maybe he couldn’t.

I glanced at the woman with him… Aura, I reminded myself, although maybe that’s not her name now… and saw that her blue-green eyes had hardened at my mention of Jem. A scowl pulled at her full, very adult-looking lips, even as she slid closer to Nick’s side.