Page 15 of Loving Amari

He moves quickly, evading my magic like he’s done this a thousand times. He appears on the other side of the crib in a blur of motion.

“I knew you’d find me eventually. It was only a matter of time.”

The air shifts and Anora and Amir are suddenly in the room with me. Then the door kicks open. Yara and Kofi, my massive spider children, charge through.

The spiders attack without hesitation, their legs moving faster than the eye can follow. But the man manages to create a door portal that looks just like the one I came through. Dark wood. Silver inlays. Twisted brass handle.

“You’ll see me again.” He winks at me.

I use my magic on him, pink threads shooting from my hands, but he quickly opens the door. What I see behind it is the void of limbo. My limbo.

I start to run after him, but he quickly closes the door and it vanishes like smoke.

Amir and Anora are focused on Solomon. Anora picks him up and cradles him against her chest while Amir looks over them. Then he looks to me.

“When are you going to stop this from happening? You are the queen of limbo.” His voice is sharp, accusing. “So it’s not just my sister who’s after my son.”

He teleports in front of me, then looks over at the door I stepped out of from limbo. It’s still there, a rectangle of pure darkness against the nursery wall.

“One of the lost souls there seems to have access to some magic.”

I grow frustrated. “Look, I’ll figure it out. I’m not sure what this is about, but I’m going to find out.”

Anora glares at me over Solomon’s head. “You better deal with it, or I will.”

I narrow my eyes at Anora. We haven’t really had been close with each other since our battle on the tourist island. We’ve chatted here and there, but it’s never been the same since, and I don’t think it ever will be.

I know I need to try to find whoever this was that got out of limbo.

I look to Amir. “I’ll do something about this.”

I look to Yara and Kofi. “Who was this?”

Yara and Kofi start sending images to me in response. A man battling with Tabatha in limbo, in the void of darkness. But not the Tabatha who helped guide me through limbo. She looks different. This Tabatha looks different. She’s striking, with deep brown skin that seems to glow even in the darkness of limbo. Her blue eyes are vivid, almost luminescent, like someone captured the sky and placed it in her irises. Her black hair is twisted into elaborate braids with golden threads woven throughout, and tiny points of light adorn her ears, pulsing softly like captured starfire.

She’s wearing robes similar to the man’s, covered in symbols. The man fights with her magic. The same magic. Blackwood magic.

Anora walks over to Amir and passes Solomon to him. He takes his son willingly and tries to comfort him, bouncing the boy gently.

“He’s a Blackwood.”

“That’s Tabatha, the Blackwood witch from our bloodline.” I stare at the images still flooding my mind. “Why is she fighting another Blackwood in limbo?”

Anora looks to me and we both say in unison, “Angie.”

We know she has much more knowledge of our history from the books.

“I’ve gotta go try to find him. It’s clear that I need to keep him in limbo and he’s finding a way out.”

Anora shifts Solomon in Amir’s arms. “Come find me when you get back.”

I nod to her, running back through the door. It shuts immediately behind me, sucking all the noise out of the air in one violent pull.

Now I’m back in that strange room. The bed. The dresser. The dim, sourceless lighting. And the other doors.

Three more, all different, all waiting.

The space itself feels wrong. Like a waiting room between worlds. The air is thick, almost syrupy, and it makes my skin prickle. This place wasn’t here before. Someone made it. Or something made it.