His head whipped around. There was a line of crimson and black tattoos down the side of his neck that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him.

Mac? His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped closer.

“Is it really you?”

Apparently he could hear me. Elation and relief battled with anxiety in the gorgeous Scotsman’s eyes. He stared at me, leaned closer, looked confused, then shook his head. No, Mac. Stay wherever you are. Don’t come here. Go back.

“I don’t know how to go back.”

Where are you?

“Can’t you see?”

He shook his head. You seem to be inside a large cactus. For a moment, I thought you were here with me. How are you seeing me?

I had to make him repeat it several times. I’m not the best lip-reader. The word “cactus” threw me. I couldn’t see a single cactus in the forest. “I’m in the Hall of All Days.”

Tiger eyes flared. Don’t stay long! It messes with you.

“I kind of figured that out.” A moment ago, my pink mitt had reappeared in my hand, and I could hear the sounds of the ballpark around me. I began to jog in place. The Hall was not fooled. The mitt remained on my hand. I jogged a tight circle in front of the mirror. Glove and memory vanished.

It’s a dangerous place. I was there for a time. I had to choose a Silver. I chose badly. They are not what they seem. What they show you is not where they lead.

“Are you kidding me?” I nearly went ballistic. If I entered a tropical beach, would I end up in Nazi Germany with my highly inconvenient black hair?

The one I chose didn’t. I’ve been jumping dimensions ever since, trying to get to better places. Some of the Silvers are true, some are not. There’s no way to tell which.

“But you’re a lie detector!”

It doesn’t work in the Hall, lass. It only works out of it, and not always. I doubt any of your sidhe-seer talents work there, either.

Still jogging a tight circle, I shut my eyes and sought that place in the center of my mind. Show me what is true, I commanded. I opened my eyes and looked back at Christian. He still stood in a dark forest.

“Where are you?”

In a desert. He gave me a bitter smile. With four suns and no night. I’m badly burned. I’ve had nothing to eat or drink in too long. If I don’t find a dimensional shift soon, I’m … in trouble.

“A dimensional shift?” I asked if he meant an IFP and explained what they were.

He nodded. They abound. But they have no’ been abounding here. “Abooondin’,” he’d said. Although the mirror was showing me a perfectly clean, well-rested man, now that I knew what to look for, I could see his exhaustion and strain. More than that, I was picking up a certain … grim acceptance? From Christian MacKeltar? No way.

“How bad off are you, Christian?” I said. “And don’t lie to me.”

He smiled. I seem to recall saying the same to you once. Have you slept with him?

“Long story. Answer my question.”

That’s a yes. Ah, lass. Tiger eyes held mine for a tense, probing moment. Bad, he said finally.

“Are you actually even standing there? I mean, up on your own feet?” Was anything I was seeing remotely true?

No, lass.

“Could you stand if you wanted to?” I said sharply.

Not sure.

I didn’t waste another moment.

I stepped into the mirror.

Some Silvers feel like quicksand. They don’t like to let you go.

I expected this one to behave like the one hanging in the LM’s house: hard to push into, certain to expel me with a rubbery snap.

It was hard to push into, more resistant than the first one, but it proved even more difficult to get out of. Without Christian, I might not have made it.

I found myself trapped inside silvery glue that held my limbs nearly immobile. I kicked and punched and ended up getting so turned around that I had no idea which way was out. Apparently there was only one direction that would work.

Then Christian’s hand was on my arm (he could stand), and I shoved toward him with all my strength.

The college back home where I take classes part-time has a wind tunnel created by the unique placement of the math building breezeway and the science buildings around it. On especially windy days, it’s almost impossible to cut through it. You have to lean forward at a precarious angle as you pass the math building, head ducked, forging ahead with all your might.

I learned the hard way about break points, where either a design flaw or a joke by some pissed-off engineer leaves an “eye” in the breezeway, where the wind abruptly stops. If you’re unaware of it and still forging ahead, you fall flat on your face in front of all the math and science geeks—who know about it and loiter in the general vicinity on windy days but don’t tell freshmen because that would deprive them of the endless amounts of amusement they get from watching us wipe out, preferably in a short skirt that ends up around our waist.

That was this Silver.

I shoved toward the hand, fighting, pressing with all my might, and abruptly the resistance gave way—and I went flying out of the glass, into Christian, at such velocity that we went rolling and tumbling across sand.

I tried to gasp, but it didn’t work. I was in a blast furnace. It was so bright that I couldn’t open my eyes; the air was so hot and dry that I couldn’t breathe.

I struggled to acclimate and finally sucked down a breath that seared my lungs. I slitted my eyes, got a good look at Christian, and rolled off him.

He was worse than “bad off.” He was in serious danger. With his dark complexion, he’d tanned, but there was a cruel redness to it, his lips were cracked, and I could tell by his eyes and skin that he was severely dehydrated. Blisters covered his face.

I whirled around, hoping to find a mirror hanging in the air behind me through which I could drag us to safety.

There wasn’t one.

There were, however, hundreds of man-size cactuses, any one of which might have been the one he said I’d appeared to be standing in. Was there a mirror camouflaged inside one of them? It stood to reason that on worlds the Fae wanted to visit unobserved, they’d have had to conceal the Silver in something if there was no place it didn’t appear utterly incongruous with the terrain. Or had Cruce’s mysterious curse screwed things up?

I wondered if I should try flinging myself into a few of the nearest cactuses, employing the same method Dani had used to try to break through wards, hoping for a two-way portal. The thought held little appeal. She’d gotten nothing but badly bruised for her efforts. The cactuses sported a protective armor of needle-sharp spines.

Squinting, I glanced around.

We were in an ocean of desert.

It had to be a hundred fifteen degrees. No shade anywhere to be seen. Nothing but sand.

I looked up and instantly regretted it. The sky was painfully bright, with four blazing suns. It was whiter than white. It was radioactive white.

“You bloody damned fool,” Christian managed through split lips. “Now we’ll both be dying here.”

“No, we won’t. Which … uh, cactus did I come through?”

“I’ve no bloody idea, and those spines are poisonous, so good luck poking around at them.”

Damn. Onto plan B, which was basically a wing and a prayer.

I began to remove the black pouch from my waistband, preparing to uncover the stones. Would they return us to the Hall, where we could choose the next portal together? Who knew? Who cared? Anything was better than this. He would die here and so would I.

I rolled close to Christian and pressed against him.

“Och, and now you flirt me up, lass,” he said weakly, with a shadow of that killer smile. “When I canna do a thing about it.”