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“Why so stunned?” I tossed the ring in the air once. “Being a Soturi yourself, surely you recognize the strike of a bone mage.” I clicked my tongue and stood again. “You’re rather pitiful, aren’t you?”

“I-I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“No matter, I have what I want, and you would do well to leave Vondell lest I see you again. Oh”—I paused at the edge of the tent— “I’d get those fingers rearranged before they fuse in place like that.”

“No.” The woman stood, still clutching her hand. “That band was given to me to use. I need to find my way out. Dammit, why the hell does it hurt so much?”

“I’d imagine because your fingers are fractured in the joints.”

“Dreams don’t hurt.” Her voice was a whimper, nothing more than a soft plea to no one but the shadows.

“You’re not dreaming, woman.” I furrowed my brow. “Do you have mind rot?”

“What?”

“Causes delirium.”

She glared at me and adjusted the strap of her hideous satchel over her shoulder. “Just . . . give it back to me. I didn’t steal it. And fix my damn hand.”

“Afraid I don’t believe you, but what does it matter? Even if I did, nothing changes. This is mine.” I held up my wrist, dipped my chin, and said, “Many thanks. I do hope we don’t meet again.”

The woman lunged at me, swifter than expected, but she only brushed against my side before I was out of her path.

I chuckled, a taunt, a bit of fuel to the fire in her eyes. With a fierce kick, I toppled some of the clay pots Aelfled kept stacked in the hope generous folk might leave a few offerings to him as the gatekeeper. Pots clattered and cracked, grating shrieks in the somberness of the tent.

“Goddess protect the star!” As expected, old Aelfled burst into the tent, face alight in fury. His gaze saw only the woman.

“No, wait?—”

I didn’t hear her accusation, nor her insistence that anyone else had been in the tent, and dipped out the front flap while Aelfled was distracted. With a curl to my shoulders, I peeled away from the trade square and sprinted into the trees.

CHAPTER 5

Adira

The old watchmanmoved swiftly for being at least a hundred years old. One second I was watching that bulky bastard slip out with my ring, the next I was pinned down on the damp grass of the tent.

“You shame the sanctity of the star!”

In all his thrashing, Aelfled knocked my crooked fingers. I let out a shriek of pain and rolled, accidentally flinging my elbow. The point caught the old man just below his eye. He roared against the strike but flung off to the side. It gave me enough time to scramble back to my feet. Enough time to snatch my bag again, and sprint from the tent.

Aelfled’s cries of frustration followed me. Demands for my head and life—I felt—were rather dramatic. Still, more than one spectator in the market had turned their heads.

Think quickly and survive. I was no stranger to sticky situations and had been backed into a corner more than once. My sore fingers were cradled against my heart, throbbing with blood and pain. That wizard bastard turned my hand into something out of an experiment gone wrong. Pulpy skin coated my knuckles, and without a doubt, some of the bones were fractured.

There wasn’t time to puzzle through the madness of literal magicthat shifted bone; Aelfled had freed himself of the tent and was shouting for my capture.

Fog gathered in my skull. A fierce kind of panic took hold in my chest as I looked around, searching for an outlet. There was only one way to go—to the trees again.

Whatever nightmare this was, it was a place where I could feel, where pain was as real as the air in my lungs.

Head down, I kept a rapid pace until the wood thickened. Heavy tree limbs drooped under the weight of wide leaves. Knotted branches shielded the faint light from the storm overhead.

One hand shot into my bag, removing my phone to use the flashlight to guide my steps until I found a natural clearing. In hasty swipes, I removed a few mushrooms off the mossy bark of a fallen log and perched on the edge. My lungs burned from the trek, my body ached from the altercation with the cruel wizard. But alone, the world seemed to fall into a silence—peaceful and soft.

Once I returned the phone to my messenger bag, I let it drop to the ground, then leaned onto my elbows over my knees.

I needed to decide, and fast—was this a delusion, a strange setup in hell, or was I truly, impossiblytrappedin some other world?