I duck behind a cluster of rocks and change quickly. The new clothes are simple—a soft gray tunic, fitted dark pants, sturdy boots that actually fit. After weeks of sand-crusted disaster wear,it feels like slipping into a cloud. I emerge feeling approximately forty percent more human.
Thalia leads me along the shoreline toward the cove. The rocks here form shallow tide pools, little natural basins where the pink water collects and grows still. Some of them are barely wider than a dinner plate. Others are the size of a small bathtub, deep enough that the water goes from translucent pink at the edges to a rich rose at the center.
She stops at one of the larger pools, circled by a pile of dark rocks that look like they've been deliberately stacked. Not a natural formation. Someone built this.
Thalia reaches into a pouch at her hip and pulls out a small vial filled with liquid that shimmers like crushed starlight. She kneels at the edge of the pool, uncorks the vial, and pours the contents into the water. The surface ripples, then goes flat. Then it glows.
She looks up at me with a smirk. "Look."
"If something grabs me and pulls me in, I'm blaming you."
"Noted."
I crouch at the edge of the pool and lean forward. The glowing surface shifts, and then it's not a pool anymore; it's a window. The water clears and I'm looking at a room. A living room. Familiar furniture, familiar clutter, familiar ceramic frog on the windowsill.
Grandma Jo's house.
My heart slams against my chest.
And then a face appears in the water. Blue-green compound eyes, mandibles curved into what I can only describe as a smolder, antennae angled at what he probably considers a seductive tilt.
"Well, well, well," Bryx says, his voice rising up from the water clear as a bell. "If it isn't the most beautiful woman in any iteration. Hey everybody—it's Elle! She's here! Get over here!"
I let out a sound that's half laugh, half sob. "Bryx?"
"In the flesh! Well, in the chitin. Same difference." He leans closer to whatever they're using on their end, and his compound eyes fill up most of the frame. "You look great, by the way. Very post-apocalyptic chic. Love what interdimensional travel has done for your complexion."
"Bryx, move your colossal head, we can't see—" Mora's voice, then her face pushing into view beside him. Her dark eyes go wide. "Elle! Oh, thank the goddess."
Then Kevin buzzes into the frame, his fuzzy face taking up the entire view for a second before Bryx shoves him aside. "Kevin, buddy, I love you, but read the room."
More shuffling. And then I see Leo.
My cousin. Standing in Grandma Jo's living room, looking like he hasn't slept in a month but alive, present, real. His hair is sticking up in twelve directions, and he's got a grief-stricken look on his face.
"Elle." His voice breaks on my name. "Jesus Christ, Elle."
"Leo." My throat is so tight I can barely get the word out. "What—how—"
Sarah appears behind him, one hand on his shoulder. Her dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she gives me a firm nod.
"Hey, Elle," she says.
"What is going on?" I look from face to face, trying to process. "How do you all know each other? Leo, what are you doing with Bryx?"
Leo reaches up and rubs the back of his neck, his tell, the thing he always does when he's about to deliver news he knows you won't love. "Yeah, Elle, that's kind of a long story. And I don't think we have the time for it right now."
"We really don't," Mora confirms, glancing at something off-screen. "Things are moving fast here."
Bryx pushes back into the center of the frame. "More importantly, is Kaelren with you?" His voice drops the flirtatious edge. He's serious. Actually serious. "I'm guessing tall, dark, and corrupted found you by now?"
I shake my head.
The change in their faces is instantaneous. Like watching five lights dim at the same time.
"He didn't find you?" Leo says.
"I haven't seen him. Not, not the current one, anyway." I press my palms against the rocks framing the pool. "What do you mean, 'found me'? What happened?"
