Page 123

He cursed, stepping aside to let me dress.

As much as I didn’t want to leave his room, we shouldn’t keep Leo waiting. If he was asking to see us this early in the day, there must be a good reason for it.

Once we were dressed and put together the best we could be after a long night of little sleep, we walked to the castle’s meeting room, only stopping once we reached the closed door.

Adrian took my hand, squeezing it three times. A promise of what he felt for me, with an underlying message that he was ready to take me back to bed.

I shook my head teasingly and knocked on the door. This man was going to be the death of me.

“Come in,” Leo’s voice answered from inside.

I opened the door to find Leo seated, his head in his hands.

Adrian’s voice was guarded as he closed the door behind us. “What is it, Leo? What’s happened?”

Leo lifted his head, rising from his seat to greet us. He seemed happy. Happier than I’d seen him since losing his parents. “Nothing. Everything is great.” He gestured to the table. “I wanted to share something with you guys, please, sit.”

I looked at Adrian warily, but he shrugged his shoulders, pulling out a chair for me before he sat in one of his own.

“I’ve found something,” Leo said, walking to the map of the Earths hanging on the back wall, “out there.” He motioned past the nine spheres that made up the nine Earths to a bit of the map that was unmarked, left open for the unknown to us.

Adrian appeared just as confused as I felt. “What have you found?”

Leo smiled. “Earth Ten.”

“How?” I exclaimed.

“I’m not sure exactly. I was making my usual rounds, checking in at the guard stations to make sure all was running smoothly, and I just felt a portal call to me, a new path opening, as if it . . . sensed me in a way.” He turned from us, hiding his face.

“Is it the same as the others?” Adrian asked, his voice unsure.

“It would be easier if I just . . . showed you.” He turned to us, looking past us, almost as if he were in a trance.

He seemed off. I was sure Adrian could sense it, too. But I didn’t have the heart to squash whatever this was for Leo, so I nodded. “Then, show us.”

“Just wait until you see it, Bryn. It’s the answer to everything.”

Leo walked to us with outstretched hands.

He would be portaling us there.

Leo never failed to impress us with what his magic could do. Transporting us from one spot to the next, in the middle of the morning.

He trusted us with his secrets, just as I trusted him with my own secret of what my powers could do.

He was my oldest friend. If he had found something, I wanted to know what it was.

I didn’t have time to see Adrian’s face before Leo’s hands were locked with ours, his darkness filling the room around us, a portal opening into the great expanse of space.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

BRYN

Twenty-Six Years Earlier—Continued

“Leo . . . what is this place?” Adrian asked in disbelief as I worked to swallow down the toxic air that filled the barren landscape around us.

Leo clapped Adrian on the back, face proud, as he announced that this place was Earth Ten.