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Chapter Three

ELLIE

“The unfamiliar stings less than the certainty of being known.”

Wisdom of the Wandering Sages

Cold seeps into my bones, pulling me back from unconsciousness. My eyes flutter open to violet-blue light pulsing along the curved walls. For a moment, I can’t remember where I am. Everything aches. My head hurts. Then memory slams back into place.

The desert. The tower. The man.

I flinch before I even finish the thought. My throat constricts.

I’m still here. It wasn’t a dream.

A soft sound draws my attention. The man, Sacha , is sitting at a desk across the chamber, turning the pages in a book. He doesn’t acknowledge me, but somehow I’m certain he knows I’m awake.

My gaze locks on to his profile, waiting for something—a change in his expression, a shift in posture, anything . But he doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t speak. And the silence makes it worse.

Pushing myself up off the floor, I wince as every muscle protests.

My throat is burning, and my head pounds, but the discomfort isn’t just pain.

Everything feels too slow, unreliable, like my body hasn’t decided if it wants to keep going.

Despite it, I get to my feet, but I don’t move away from the wall.

It’s safer there. Or at least it feels like a boundary I can control.

Wall against my spine. Solid. Not tilting under me the way everything else does.

At the desk, he turns another page, one finger tracing the corner of the paper.

“There’s water on the table.”

He doesn’t look up. Just gestures to my left. My head turns automatically toward the table where the pitcher of water is.

“You should drink.”

The mention of water makes my still-parched throat crave relief even more, but moving seems like a stupid idea. Most of yesterday is a blurry mess of mixed up memories—heat and fear and confusion layered so thick I can’t tell one from the next. But one memory stands out from the rest.

Yesterday, I drank like I was drowning. I didn’t even use the cup. I remember the weight of the pitcher. The way it shook in my hands. I didn’t even think. I just drank. I should be embarrassed about how I behaved. But all I can think about is that I want to do it again.

Thirst wins over fear, and I push away from the wall. The pitcher is heavier than I remember, and water sloshes over my fingers as I pour some into the cup—too fast, too much. My hands still aren’t steady enough to hold the weight.

Once the cup is full, I retreat back to the wall, the only solid thing I can trust right now, then force myself to take one sip. Just enough to cool the burn in my throat.

“I need to leave.” I keep my focus on the cup and don’t look at him. “I need to go home.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible today.”

“What do you mean, not possible?” Panic fills me again before I can stop it. My chest tightens, it’s hard to breathe. “There has to be a way out. The door … the door will be there. I saw it.”

The sound of him turning another page reaches me. “The door that brought you here has gone. It won’t return for some time.”

“How long?” My fingers tighten around the cup, while I fight to keep my voice steady. “When will it come back?”

“That’s difficult to predict.”

“That’s not good enough! I can’t stay here.” The cup slips from my fingers, water splashing across the floor as I tighten my grip to stop it falling.

That finally draws his attention. He looks up, his gaze landing on me. I have to stop myself from looking away. “Yet nonetheless, here you are.”

I have no answer to that. No matter how much I want to argue about it, he’s right. I’m trapped.

But am I? The thought surfaces before I can stop it. The door vanished after I stepped through, but what if I missed something? I was exhausted, barely able to stand. I didn’t spend much time looking around.

“No, I don’t believe it. There has to be another way out.”

Without waiting to see if he has any response, I turn toward the archway. The top of the staircase is visible from where I’m standing. If I came up that way, I can go back down. Something might be there. Something I missed in yesterday’s haze.

The steps are narrower than I remember. I move quickly, one hand sliding along the central column for balance as the spiral hides everything ahead until the floor appears beneath me.

The room itself looks the same as I remember. Smooth walls. No doors. No windows. Nothing that should have let me in.

“This doesn’t make sense.”

I circle the edges more slowly now. The same blue light hums from the walls.

Last time I was here, the air dropped so fast it felt briefly alive, brushing against my skin like breath.

I’m not feeling that now, but I keep checking over my shoulder anyway, while I press my hand to the walls, section by section, searching for anything—a crack, a seam, a hidden mechanism. There must be something I missed.

But the walls remain stubbornly solid and unbroken under my fingertips. No amount of pressing, tapping, or feeling along the surface reveals any weakness.

“Come on,” I whisper, growing more desperate by the second. “There has to be something.” But after what feels like forever, with my fingers raw from dragging across the surface, I’m forced to accept defeat. There is no hidden exit. No secret passages. Nothing but an unyielding wall.

I straighten slowly and make my way back to the stairs. When I reach the top, my legs are shaking from the exertion, my lungs are tight, and I’m lightheaded.

Sacha is still sitting at the desk, reading, exactly where I left him.

“There’s no way out.” My voice catches .

He glances up, a slight frown pulling his brows together. “As I said.”

I sink to the floor, legs no longer able to hold me up. “This is impossible. I can’t be trapped here.”

He sighs, closes his book, and turns on his seat to face me. “You didn’t find a door. You can’t get out. By definition, you are trapped.”

“How did I even get here?” I’m asking myself more than him. “I was in Chicago. It was raining. And then?—”

“Chicago. You mentioned that place yesterday. Is it your home?”

“Yes. Chicago, Illinois.” Names that meant something mere hours ago now feel dislocated from reality. “United States.”

“I’m unfamiliar with these places.”

“That’s not possible. Chicago is a major city.”

“Not in this realm.”

The statement hangs between us. This realm . As if there are others. Like I’ve crossed some boundary between worlds. That can’t be true. It shouldn’t be. But?—

“Where am I then?” Fear for what the answer might be makes my voice shake.

“This realm is called Meridian.”

A name I’ve never heard of. A place that sounds like it belongs in a storybook. A man who looks like a villain from a fairy tale.

My head hurts.

“I need to go home.” The words come out hollow.

“Perhaps you will. In time.”

“I don’t want perhaps . I don’t want in time! I want to leave now .” Anger burns through my fear. “You know something. You know how I got here.”

His expression doesn’t change. “What makes you think that?”

“You’re too calm. Finding a stranger in your home … a place you insist has no door … should have surprised you, but you’re acting like you … expected me.” I push to my feet again. “Tell me how I got here.”

“How do you think it happened?” One dark eyebrow lifts.

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?” Frustration hits hard, twisting in my gut, threatening to bring up the water I’ve drunk. “People don’t just vanish from city streets and appear in deserts. It’s not possible.”

“There you go saying what happened isn’t possible again.”

“Because things like that don’t happen in my world.”

“Don’t they?” He rises from his chair with fluid grace. “Strange occurrences. Inexplicable events. Things that defy rational explanation. Has your world truly eliminated all mysteries?”

“This isn’t a mystery. This is—” The rest won’t come. I don’t have the words.

He moves to a bookshelf, and selects a new book. “When faced with the impossible, one must reconsider what is possible.”

“Stop being cryptic. Just tell me what’s going on.”

He turns to face me. “Would you believe me if I did?”

The question catches me off guard. Would I? Could any explanation for this situation make any sense?

“Try me. ”

“Very well.” He puts the book back and returns to his desk. “What do you know of doors?”

“What?” The question throws me. That wasn’t what I expected him to say.

“Doors. Their purpose. Their function.”

“They … let people in and out of places. What kind of question is that?”

“A fundamental one.” He sits down. “Doors connect spaces. They allow passage between separate domains.”

“I know what doors do.”

“Do you? What if I told you that some doors connect more than rooms or buildings? What if some connect entirely different worlds?”

“That’s …” I was about to say impossible, but the look on his face stops me.

“Impossible? I’m beginning to think that's your favorite word.” The black of his eyes changes slightly, lightens, gleams. Is he laughing at me? “Yet here you stand, in a tower you entered through a door that shouldn’t exist, in a land you’ve never heard of.”

When he puts it like that …

“Are you saying …” I struggle to form the thought. “That I’ve somehow … crossed into another world ?”

“I’m saying it’s the only explanation that best fits your circumstances. You were in a place called Chicago. Now you’re here. The geography you know doesn’t exist in this realm. The simplest conclusion is that you have crossed between worlds.”

The words should sound insane. They should be the ravings of a madman. But something inside me recognizes them as true. It explains the inexplicable—how I could step from a rainy Chicago street into a desert in an instant.

“How?” My voice is barely more than a whisper. “How can that happen?”

“ That is a far more interesting question.” He flips open the book on his desk. “And one I don’t have an answer to yet.”

I don’t believe him. “You’re keeping something back.”