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“Is this what Jesus did with the loaves and the fishes?”

“Don’t even go there, that’s a theological clusterfuck we’re forbidden from discussing.”

“So, yes?”

“More bread,” he says. “You’re stalling.”

“Can I eat some of the bread?”

“Sure. Just keep making it.”

Hours pass, and the cell fills with bread. We stack it up against the wall.

“Alright. That’s enough. Your magic is actually almost as full as it can get now, given your general leveling. I can teach you a low-level portal spell. It will be small. You might have to crawl through. And I can’t promise it will take you exactly where you want to be. In other words, it’s a bad idea and we shouldn’t do it.”

“I’m going to do it.”

“I thought you might. Come here again.”

We do the handshake of magic knowledge, and I get a tingly feeling in some very sensitive places that tells me I have learned something powerful.

“Try,” he says. “The dragon word for portal is Drauf.”

“Drauf,” I say.

Nothing happens.

“It didn’t work,” I say, obviously.

“Not yet. But try again.”

“Drauf!” I say, putting a little more energy into it. The air in front of me shimmers slightly, then goes back to normal.

“Fuck!”

There is an explosion as I curse out loud, full of frustration and fury at how hard I’ve worked to try to achieve the simplest, smallest thing and yet somehow it still hasn’t gone to plan.

When I turn around, the bread is gone. But that’s not the biggest problem. The bigger problem is that I seem to have somehow blasted a hole right through the wall of the Golden Keep and into the tunnel system that winds around the outside of it—it’sa secondary dungeon in the game, I don’t know what purpose it serves in this more real life.

“Uh. So. Do you want to escape or something?” I turn to Equinox, who is looking at me with no small measure of horror.

“That shouldnothave been possible,” he says. “For one, that’s not a dragon spell word. For two, you just breached the keep. It’s magically sealed.”

“Well, the good news is the fucking portal didn’t work, which was the whole point.”

“Are we sure?”

Ornix

I did not mean to be here this long. I know the night is long past, and my mate has woken up to a new day in the dragon realm alone. I did not leave instructions for her care because I assumed I would be back.

The seal remains missing. I have searched the local area, and put out a request for any of my associates to let me know if they see anything matching its description. I say it is a family heirloom, an antique, though I am almost certain that it will be recognized as having more power than that if a human finds it. It could have horrific effects on them. It could do terrible damage.

Why did she have to bring it with her? Why does everything my mate does lead to immediate and worsening trouble? I wonder if perhaps I made a mistake in the selection process, even thoughI know it is not actually possible to make such a mistake. Mates are not so much chosen as they are recognized.

Just as I am mulling these thoughts, a portal opens above my head, and hundreds of loaves of bread come tumbling out of it before rolling away down the steep Californian hill. To say that I am confused is an understatement.

Something is going wrong in my realm, that much is clear.