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Omaera was beside me. She pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. “He’s burning up. He’s got heat stroke.” She glanced toward the mountains. But we’d wandered so far that they were hours away now. “We can’t even run back to the passageway for shade.”

“What’s that?” Drak asked, breaking through the buzzing in my ears. He pointed, but my head pounded too much, and my vision was too fuzzy for me to see.

“That’s it,” Maxar said, relief coloring his tone. “It has to be.”

“I don’t see it.” Omaera squinted.

“See the hazy air there,” Maxar said, pointing with his free hand, since he was still holding me up with the other arm.

“It’s all hazy,” she said. “Heat is rising off the ground like steam.”

He got right beside her, extended her arm out and directed her fingers with his to point. “Yes, but if you look rightthere,you’ll see it’s extra blurry and there’s a bit of a rainbow texture to it. Do you see it?”

She glanced at him with skepticism in her eyes. “Barely.”

“Let’s go,” the mage said, still carrying my weight but leading the charge. I was too weak to argue. I hated all of this.

The heat. The fact that we were prey. And most of all, that I was relying on themageto help me. The only saving grace in all of this was that it was the mage and not the vampire. If the vampire was the one helping me, I’d just tell them to leave me here as bisibra food. I’d rather die than be indebted to a vampire.

I hedged a glance upward to see if I could spot the blurry rainbow air the mage was talking about. But as soon as I lifted my gaze from the ground, that pounding in my skull intensified and all I saw were black spots.

“Easy, Paddington. We see it. No need to look up. We’ve got you.” Maxar hoisted me higher up onto his shoulder.

“Okay, now I see it,” Omaera said with triumph. “That’s it? You’re sure?”

“Ninety-nine percent,” Maxar said.

“That’s not what the portal looked like on Earth,” she argued.

“Not all doors are the same,” the mage replied.

She growled, which made me smile despite the agony in my head. “Of course not. Fucking Hell.”

Maxar chuckled. “All the better to fuck with you, my dear.”

We walked for another ten minutes or so before we stopped. Maxar was practically dragging me at this point. I was essentially dead weight. But he managed, and to my surprise, he never complained.

I still didn’t like it when he tickled my balls, but maybe in a century or two I would call him … “friend.”

“Gonna put you down here for a sec, fluffy,” Maxar said slowly, gently lowering me to the ground. I was able to sit up, but slumped over. My entire body was one enormous ball of fire at this point. I could swear my organs were threatening to shut down as they boiled inside of me like lobsters in a pot.

A bottle of water was brought to my lips. “Drink, Pooh Bear,” Omaera said with concern. “Please.”

I sipped as best I could, but a lot of it ran down my chest.

The familiar humming sound like the portal on the Earth side filled my ears. It was not a pleasant sound. It scratched the inside of my brain like a cheese grater and made me nauseous. The air around us sparked and crackled, and you could feel the magic pulsing.

“Remember, just like last time,” Maxar said, stepping closest to the portal, “linear thoughts. Just think about keeping it together. About getting home. Back to Earth.” He gripped my shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze. “And keeping your cock.”

All I did was grunt.

Unlike last time, I wasn’t able to watch as Maxar stepped forward. I barely had enough energy to lift my head. I could only imagine the vampire was suffering nearly as much. He was cold-blooded after all and suffered from the intense heat like I did.

“See you on the other side,” Maxar said. I heard him kiss Omaera, then he was gone.

“Drak, you’re next,” Omaera said, crouching down beside me. “I’m going to stay with Pooh Bear.” Her hand landed on my shoulder and from the corner of my eye, I could see the vampire’s feet step forward, then disappear.

“All right, big guy,” Omaera said, “you’ve got to rally enough strength to get up and get through. I’m not leaving you here to be bisibra food. I love you too much to see you go out like that.”