He gives me a look and gets in. Of course he gets in. We all get in.
We should probably not all be in here at the same time.
The doors close.
Gunnar’s chin is about four inches from Leif’s jaw.
“Isn’t there a weight limit on these things?” Brock asks. He’s standing sideways like he’s trying to be smaller. It’s not working.
There are more buttons on the panel than this box has any right to, and Gunnar hits the wrong one immediately.
“That’s not it,” Leif says.
“I know.”
“Then—”
“I know, Leif. Fixing it.” He presses a second wrong one. I catch the reflection of his grin in the metal.
Brock reaches past both of them, presses the right floor, and says nothing about it. The box starts to climb. Slowly.
Leif’s gone quiet — not the calm quiet, the other one — staring at the doors like holding still will make them open faster. His breath is careful. He was not built for a box and he knows it and the box knows it and he hates that the box knows it.
Gunnar opens his mouth.
“Don’t,” Leif says.
Gunnar shuts it.
I’m shaking.
My hands won’t stop but it’s not from fear. It’s from the pull. Every floor we climb winds it tighter. I need to move.
The doors open.
Down the hall — a woman screams.
I’m moving before the sound finishes, past Leif, out of the box, and the pull isn’t a pull anymore, it’s a straight line and I’m the thing traveling it. Second door from the end. A man’s voice under the scream, low, and I hit the door and it breaks and the scream comes again and I—
Erik.
Right there, solid and real, and something that’s been braced since the night we lost him lets go all at once, and it should be the whole world—
And then I see her.
She’s in a heap of blankets and pillows with Erik’s hands on her, huge green eyes aimed at the door. At me. The pull that’s had me since the crossing doesn’t drop into place so much as crash into me.
I’ve never been more sure of anything.
Home.
I’ve been with her in dreams and now she’s right in front of me.
My dreams crossed realms for her.
Only for her.
And then it happens to her too. Her lips part — half a second, and she’s all the way in it with me, both of us feeling everything, all at once and —
