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“We meet again, pup.” He smiled, the expression not at all pleasant. I didn’t bother trying to break his grip; he was too strong for that. Instead, I snaked a hand down to my belt, going for my shield disk. I didn’t know how much charge it had left or what it would do about his hand on my throat, if anything, but it was the best option I had right then.
He let go with one hand, claws grabbing my wrist before I could make it to the shield. His grip was hard, but what worried me more was the way his fur felt against my skin. It was warm and sticky, matted with a viscous substance I desperately hoped wasn’t blood. I still couldn’t see Acacia. I looked up, unable to do anything else, looked to the faint outline of my home as it flitted through the sky.
“Your ship isn’t coming for you, child.” His red eyes were wide, ears perked up with excitement. The expression closely mirrored a dog’s in a way that was entirely unfunny; a sick parody of something usually comforting and familiar. “Poor little pup, abandoned by his pack…They couldn’t come get you, even if they wanted to.”
Finally, finally, I saw movement behind him. Acacia was struggling to her feet, using the wide tree trunk behind her as leverage. In one hand was the little beeper thingy she’d used to fire at J/O. She raised it and aimed—
Lord Dogknife whirled around, letting go of my throat. He lashed a hand out, smacking the weapon out of her hand and knocking her to the ground. I caught a glimpse of her face as she fell; her nose was bleeding, eyes shutting tightly in pain.
He’d let go of me—that was something. I put all my weight on one leg, using his grip on my wrist as leverage, and sent my heel toward his face. He caught my ankle and pulled, slamming me back onto the ground. Sharp teeth glinting in a fierce, canine grin, he twisted my wrist in his strong grip. I felt something snap, and it took me a moment to realize the hoarse shout of pain had come from me.
“Your ship is stranded out of time, Walker,” he whispered, his voice somewhere between a growl and a purr. “You are the last one left, and you should be commended. It was you who made all this possible.”
I didn’t know if he was just saying that to get a rise out of me, or if he really was evil to a cliché—I didn’t care, at this point. I couldn’t feel my fingers, and Acacia wasn’t moving anymore. I wasn’t sure if it was just the pain from my broken wrist making me dizzy, or if she was actually starting to glow. Certainly everything was looking a little fuzzy.
I tried to wriggle a leg up between us so I could kick him off me, start fighting again, but he was way too strong. His breath was rancid in my face, the sickeningly sweet smell of rotting meat.
“It was you who destroyed my ship, little Walker. And in doing so, showed me how to defeat you. We are even now, yes? I could kill you, little fly, but I have something far better in mind.”
A small, tiny, faint glimmer of hope began to make itself known in my gut. If he wasn’t going to kill me, whatever it was, I could get out of it. If he wanted to boil me down to my essence and try to capture my soul, I’d escaped from that before. I could handle that.
“Your death would be a kindness—you have already failed. You can Walk, but where will you go? You cannot return to your ship, and the few precious moments you have left will not be enough to stop us. FrostNight comes, little Walker. You have already seen it.”
Something about the ground beneath me started to feel odd, like it was becoming softer—or I was sinking. I took my gaze away from his face long enough to glance down at the grass beneath me, and my eyes went wide.
It was wilting. As I watched, it turned brown and brittle, dying right beneath me. The smell of rotting debris was all around me, and I could hear insects buzzing around my eyes, could see flies dropping from the sky as they, too, died.
“The power that will reshape everything.” His voice was echoing in my ears, everything around me sounding hollow.
“FrostNight. The Ragnarok Wave. Our Silver Dream.”
Darkness was creeping into the edges of my vision. At first I thought I was passing out, then I realized the ground was actually turning black.
“You will be alive to see it, little Walker. And you will not be able to Walk far enough away.”
The ground gave way beneath me, and as I felt myself starting to fall, I saw Acacia’s body glowing bright green. She shimmered and vanished, and I fell into the Nowhere-at-All.
EPILOGUE
I WAS THERE ONLY for a few moments, but it felt like forever. The Nowhere-at-All was as disorienting as the In-Between in its own way. Instead of everything, there was absolutely nothing. No sound, no light, no air—at least not at first. After you’d been there for a few seconds, you realized you weren’t alone, that there were things in the darkness that knew exactly where you were.
The one time I’d been there before, I’d managed to will myself where I needed to be. I tried to focus enough to do that now, but I was in too much pain—too tired, too worried, too scared. And too lost. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew it couldn’t be to InterWorld. I couldn’t get home.
Just as I was wondering if Lord Dogknife’s plan had been to trap me in the Nowhere-at-All forever—an admittedly terrifying thought—I saw a small dot in the distance. It grew as I felt toward it, becoming so bright I had to close my eyes. As soon as I did, it was as though I suddenly gained both weight and mass, and was free-falling to my death. I had time for about two seconds of abject panic before I hit the ground.
Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt—not much, anyway. Though it felt like I’d been falling forever, I’d hit the ground from maybe two, three feet up.
Yes, the ground. It smelled like dirt and grass, and when I opened my eyes, that’s exactly what was beneath me.
I groaned, rolling over onto my side. My wrist hurt like nothing else I’d ever experienced—even my fractured shoulder during the avalanche—and I was sure that one of my ribs was actually broken this time. I was alone…back on the world I’d just come from? No…I could hear something in the distance, a familiar sound. Ships?
No.
Something else.
I sat up, looking with disbelief to one side of me, where the machines sped along in neat rows.
Cars.
