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“With magic.”

Which he didn’t have right now, and he wouldn’t be getting it back until we got out of Shadow Fall.

I hesitated for a moment before pointing out, “I have magic.”

“You repelled the Cursed Ones.” He shook his head. “I have no idea what kind of magic that’s supposed to be.”

Useless magic. But of course I didn’t say that.

“Maybe if you show me the spell for finding the tears in the veil, I can kind of wing it,” I suggested.

“Wing it?” He sounded horrified. “That spell is highly complex. It takes most people years of study to master, assuming they ever do. You cannot simply ‘wing it’.”

“Ok…so then do you have magic weapons or artifacts or something else that could help us?” I asked.

“I do. But their magic also blew out when my spells collided.”

I was hit with the sudden urge to punch a wall or something. But there were no walls here. Only fog. And monsters.

“There are monsters here!” I realized.

“So?”

“Soooo can any of them find tears in the veil?”

“You want to hunt a monster?”

“Not especially.” I balled my hands into fists to stop the trembles. “But if it’s the only way to get out of here…”

“We’d need to find a monster who is drawn to magic—or, more specifically, drawn to Dreamweaver magic. That’s the type of magic which connects all the realms and the dimensions between them together.”

He made it sound like one, big interdimensional sandwich.

Mmm, what I wouldn’t give for a sandwich right now. I was famished.

“Ok.” I cleared my throat before I started drooling. “Well, how about the fire tiger?”

“No. They’re drawn to blood, not magic. We need something like a fairy.” He tapped his helmet. “Or a dragon.”

I suppressed a shiver. Fairies didn’t sound too bad, but dragons…well, let’s just say there weren’t any fairytales about nice dragons. They sounded even scarier than the Cursed Ones.

The Cursed Ones!

Suddenly, I remembered something about them:they are attracted to Dreamweaver magic.

“How about the Cursed Ones?” I said. “They’re attracted to Dreamweaver magic.”

“They are…but how do you know that?” The surprise in Kato’s voice was unmistakable, even through the helmet.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.” I’d learned that little nugget of magical knowledge from the invisible stranger I met yesterday, but I couldn’t tell Kato that. I’d promised the invisible stranger not to tell anyone about him. “All that matters is we now have a way out of here. First, we find the Cursed Ones. And then we let them lead us home. Easy-peasy.”

“It will be anything but easy. But at least it’s doable,” Kato said in a level voice.

“That’s the spirit! Let’s go hunt some Cursed Ones!” I pumped my fist in the air. “Wait, unless there’s a tear right around here, where I came through the veil?” I squinted at the fog, but of course I didn’t see anything but white, billowy nothingness.

“Unlikely. Once created, the tears constantly hop around. Until…”

“Until what?”