“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.”

“Wrap your arms and legs around me, Christian. Don’t let go. No matter what happens, don’t let go.” Sweat was pouring down my face, dripping from beneath my MacHalo, into my eyes, pooling between my breasts. I was wearing too many clothes, a bike helmet, and a leather coat in a desert.

He didn’t question me. Just wrapped his legs around my hips and locked his hands in the small of my back. I prayed he had enough strength to keep his grip. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I didn’t expect it to be gentle.

I slid the pouch from between us, loosened the drawstring, and uncovered the tips of the stones. They flared to life, pulsing with blue-black fire.

The terrain responded instantly and violently, just as the pink tunnel did.

The desert began to undulate, and the air was filled with a high-pitched whine that quickly turned into a metallic-sounding scream. Sand whipped up, stinging my hands and face.

“Are you crazy? What the—” The rest of Christian’s words were lost in the howling wind.

The atomic-white sky darkened to blue-black, in dramatic, quick increments. I looked up. The suns were being eclipsed, one by one.

The sand shuddered beneath us. Swells rose, dips formed. Christian and I rolled, down, down, deep into a sandy valley that was still forming as we tumbled. I felt brackets snapping off my MacHalo. I was suddenly afraid the desert would swallow us alive, but the desert didn’t want us. That was the whole point, although I didn’t know it then.

I struggled to keep my grip on the pouch, clutched it tightly to my chest. Christian’s legs were steel around my hips, his hands locked. The temperature dropped sharply.