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Chapter 1
Iwasn’tahero.
I always knew that. I wasn’t the person who sacrificed for others. I never intentionally placed myself in danger. But I never thought myself a villain, either.
Until today.
Thick globs of mud dangled from the bog witch’s matted hair. A smile split her face, revealing enormous gaps among rotting teeth. “Make your choice, dear.”
The ripples in the dark pond curled and eddied. My feet sank deeper into the squelching clay. Despite the mugginess and insects buzzing around my head, shivers rolled over my body.
I stared at the shimmering archway in front of me. The magic pulsed through my veins.
Self-preservation was a powerful instinct. Stronger in some than in others. It didn’t matter that I caused the approaching death and destruction that was about to lay waste to this realm. It didn’t matter that only I might stop it.
I wanted to live.
And only one choice made that a guarantee. I lifted my feet from the festering mud and pulled myself up onto the root of the tree, free of the bog’s depths. I drew in a shuddering breath, then stepped into the shimmering archway, passing through the portal, entering the human realm.
Leaving the Otherworld to war and ruin.
I awoke, lying on the stark cold floor of my bathroom, utterly naked. The freezing tile dug into my back, my body still dripping water, wet hair stuck against my neck. An ache in my shoulder marked where I’d hit the floor when I fell. I didn’t move, my chest rising and falling in steady breaths as I tried to regain my bearings.
A vision. The swampy smell of the bog lingered in my nostrils. The memory of the witch staring at me with sunken eyes made the hair on my arms stand on end. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a vision of the future.
The attack had come upon me right as I was leaving the shower, reaching for my towel. The familiar electric shock had run up my spine, and then my sight tunneled before I’d collapsed onto the bathroom floor. And the vision had taken me.
They came when they wanted. Sometimes I could go weeks, even months, without seeing one. Then they’d just come, leaving me helpless to stop them.
I hated it. I hated it every time.
Sitting up, I gripped the counter. My slick, bare calves dragged across the tile until I pulled myself to my feet, shaking from the cold. Electric toothbrushes and hair supplies littered the countertop. I snatched my towel off the rack and wrapped it around my body while I tried to process what I had foreseen.
It was a vision of me leaving the Otherworld, the magic realm that was home to all magical creatures. But that made no sense. I wasn’t eveninthe Otherworld. I’d never even stepped foot there.
And didn’t plan to.
A loud banging came on the bathroom door. “Hey, Chels! Are you finished? You better not have used up the hot water again!” shouted Nellie, my roommate.
I was definitely in the human realm.
I bit my lip. What did it mean that I would leave the Otherworld to destruction? That it would be my fault? My stomach churned.
The pounding came again. “Come on! I have a date. My boyfriend’s going to be here in twenty minutes, and I need to show you something first!”
“Just a second!” I examined the red mark on my shoulder where it had hit the floor, right above the tattoo of the griffin on my arm. I grimaced. It would bruise. The banging sounded yet again, and I rolled my eyes. “Oh my god! Just a second!”
I finished toweling off and threw on a black sleeveless top and blue jeans before jerking open the bathroom door.
Nellie stood there, tapping her foot, staring at me through her wire-rimmed glasses, her shoulder length red hair as fiery as ever.
I felt a twinge of envy in my chest. Humans didn’t have to worry about visions of the future causing them to pass out on the floor of their bathroom. Humans didn’t have other magical beings out to kill them. Humans could form deep attachments that didn’t get others hurt.
I wasn’t human.
“Okay, we don’t have a lot of time, but I wanted you to try this new gadget I made.” Nellie held up a thin metal rod with a moonstone in the center. She frowned when she took in my expression. “What’s wrong?”
I hesitated, unsure how to explain what I’d just seen.
