They rolled along a paved driveway that wound its way through what appeared to be a wild, untamed forest. Redwoods climbed into the sky. Smaller trees and towering bushes lush with summer foliage marched away from the driveway. But as Jacob gazed out at it he could see the signs of order. The trees were well spaced, the bushes trimmed to a contained mess. One could walk amongst them. It wasn't quite a garden proper like VanDusen, but it wasn't quite raw forest either.

Up ahead a mansion he could only describe as palatial emerged from the trees. It was the same pink stone as the gate, with slashes of dark mahogany and eggshell trim. Layers of stone steps like the ones outside old parliament buildings led up to two massive mahogany doors set beneath regal eggshell pillars. A verandah wrapped around one side and on the other a squat tower with a conical top rose four stories into the air.

The driveway circled around a bone dry fountain. Arturo pulled the Rolls around the dead fountain to the steps, and slid out.

"C'mon." Camilla said, pushing him.

Jacob shoved himself out of the Rolls and she followed. Arturo handed them their bags, gave Jacob a long, hard look, then slid back into the Rolls and drove it around the side of the manse.

"Quite the place for a party, eh?" Jacob said nervously, staring up at the looming mansion.

"I wish." Camilla grunted.

He followed her up the broad steps to the door, which she heaved open. They walked into a great entryway that towered up three stories above them and looked like something out of a movie set in the Victorian Era where lords and ladies pranced around at balls. Twin staircases curved up to a balcony that led deeper into the manse. A chandelier that would crush a car if it fell hung from the ceiling, little electric faux-candles glinting on gold. But the walls were oddly bare, as if Camilla and her family had just moved in.

By the entrance was a little mat with several pairs of sneakers on it.

"Take off your shoes." Camilla said. She slipped her's off onto the mat.

Jacob followed her example.

"Camilla, dear, you didn't tell me you were bringing guests." A rich voice called out.

Jacob looked up. A moment before there had been no one in the entire hollow entryway. Now a tan-skinned man with dark, curly hair stood at the centre of the balcony. He wore big aviator sunglasses that covered half his face and a pink bathrobe tied open around his waist, showing the dark curls of hair on his chest.

"... Much less talented guests." The man finished after a pause.

Jacob couldn't see the man's eyes behind the sunglasses, but he could feel the weight of his gaze. He looked away quickly and shivered.

"Yes, father, my last day at school was great. Thank you for asking." Camilla said. "This is Jacob, from school. He's a friend."

There was a silent tension that filled the massive entryway to bursting. Jacob looked nervously between Camilla and her father.

Her father broke the silence. "Of course. Sorry, I didn't ask you about your day."

"Whatever."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Jacob."

"Um, thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Mr... D'Angelo."

Mr D'Angelo smiled warmly, then shifted his attention to Camilla. "I wish you would have told me you were bringing someone over. You know I have to leave for... work, now."

"I thought you would already be gone." Camilla said, folding her arms. "You usually are when I get home."

Jacob's eyes widened and he glanced sidelong at Camilla. This was her father? Christ, she was being so rude, right to his face.

"There were complications this afternoon. The portal is ready now. I will see you in a few days."

"Yeah, okay. Bye."

Camilla beckoned Jacob to follow her beneath the twin staircases. When they were out of sight of her father Jacob let out a little sigh of relief. What a weird guy.

He watched Camilla's back as she led him down a stairwell into the basement. He couldn't imagine calling out his parents like that to their faces. Was that how all kids behaved towards their parents? Maybe it was that rebellious streak his mother kept going on about. Maybe it wasn't. He didn't know Camilla hardly at all.

Jacob froze on the stairwell.

There was something off about this whole thing. Her father hadn't just been weird. The man had seemed...

Vampiric, was the word that came to mind.

Jacob gulped.

And here they were going down a long stairwell, deeper into a mansion in the middle of the woods. Where was she taking him, a dungeon? A feeding room? If magic was real then it wasn't exactly a stretch to think that vampires were too. And where else was a better place for vampires than a mansion in the woods in the Pacific North West, with a creepy chauffeur and the patron of the house wearing sunglasses and being off.

"Camilla, I-"

"I'm sorry about my father. He's always weird to people when he meets them for the first time."

"Is he a vampire?"

Camilla stopped, then laughed.

That wasn't reassuring. "Are you a vampire?" Jacob was suddenly sweating.

She turned and looked at him and rolled her eyes. "You think I'm a vampire?" She said, planting her hands on her hips. "Do I look pale and sickly to you, hmm?"

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Jacob found himself rooted to the spot on the stairs.

"No. I... uh..."

Camilla sighed. "Ugh! Sorry, it's just too funny. I know, I know, you're probably terrified because this is all so new to you." She smiled warmly, little dimples appearing in her freckled cheeks.

Jacob relaxed a little.

"But c'mon, let's get going. I have a life too, y'know? And besides, if we were vampires, it would already be too late for you."

She bared her teeth and continued down the stairs.

Jacob swallowed and wiped the sweat off his forehead. If Mr D'Angelo wasn't a vampire, then what was he? He shook himself. Yesterday he'd helped her fight that monster, and now today he was jumping at shadows. So much for any of that courage he'd shown in that fight.

That in mind, he followed her down the stairs.

It wasn't a dungeon they entered, but a million dollar version of the TV room at his house. A long, carpeted space with bay windows overlooking a grassy slope down to the forest behind the house, a projector screen the size of a small movie theatre, and deep, soft couches and pillows. It was a room you could spend days in.

"Nope. Follow me." She said, as if reading his mind.

They walked past a luxury bathroom, a small, spare bedroom, and into what he could only describe as a ritual dungeon.

Jacob swallowed.

The room was as big as the first floor of his parents' house. The walls were dark granite covered in scorch marks and gashes. A sad looking wooden dummy and a punching bag were in one corner of the room.

"Watch." Camilla raised her arm, palm facing the far wall.

A small fiery red ball swirled into being, then exploded outwards at the far wall. It singed the granite, then dissipated.

"Satisfied?"

"What do you mean?"

"That magic is real?"

"Yes. I already was."

"Right." She folded her arms and paced the room. "I don't even know where to start."

"You said I gave off a magical signature." Jacob burst.

"You do." She said.

"What does that mean? Besides the sound wave thing."

"It means you have an innate ability to use magic. All mages have one."

Him, a mage? He laughed again and Camilla shot him a sidelong glance.

"Sorry. Just thinking how ridiculous this all is."

"It's not ridiculous. It's real. And you're lucky I found you first."

"How did you find me?"

"Your magical signature."

"Yes, but how does it work?"

"'It's like a light in a dark sea.'" She said as if reciting from a book. "Which means anyone and anything can find you."

"So that blue tiger thing was looking for me?"

"It's a Dream Tiger. A magical creature. One of the rarest. And no, I don't think it was looking for you. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that's not supposed to happen. Magical creatures aren't supposed to be able to get to the point where they can cross the barrier between our worlds."

"Wait, what? There's another world? Like Narnia?"

Camilla laughed. "No, silly. Think of it more like," She cleared her throat and recited once again, "'two layers of the same world, slightly out of sync with each other.'"

"Okay..."

"And sometimes, magical creatures get so much power they break through the barrier between the worlds. It's called a crossover."

"Wait, so you're telling me that this happens all the time?" Jacob asked. "Why haven't I heard of this?"

Camilla shook her head. "Not all the time. There's a group called the Regulation Order that tries to regulate the crossovers. My father works for them. They have these agents called Rangers who go into the magical realm and fight magical creatures like the Dream Tiger who have gotten too much power to prevent them from crossing over. But that's the weird part. That Dream Tiger should never have been able to cross over. Vancouver has a big detachment of Rangers downtown that manage crossovers for all of British Columbia. If they weren't able to stop it from reaching the threshold to crossover, then they should have at least felt the Dream Tiger break through the barrier."

Jacob frowned, trying to fit all of it in his head. A secret society of mages who fought magical creatures? What the hell? "So, wait, why did it crossover and attack me?"

Camilla shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"But I go to VanDusen like every day."

"Really?"

Jacob glanced away. "Well, yeah."

"But it's just a garden."

"I like it, though."

Camilla looked at him for a moment then shrugged again. "The barrier between worlds is probably weaker there."

"Why?"

"I still can't believe you don't know anything about this. Okay, so there's like three factors that determine whether the barrier is weakened: One, the amount of life or death there. Two, the significance humans give the location. Three, the natural prominence of the place. So, a graveyard or even a city would be an example of the first, a sacred waterfall would be an example of the second, a massive volcano an example of the third. In reality it's not as cut and dry because a place like VanDusen Botanical Garden has multiple of those attributes, all of which probably made it easier for the Dream Tiger to cross over into our world. You got it?"

"Wait, so you're telling me if I walk into a random graveyard there's gonna be a bunch of monsters, or I could fall into this other world?"

Camilla shook her head. "It's relative. So like the graveyard near Granville Street would just make it slightly easier for magical creatures and people to cross between worlds. But like, I don't know, at the peak of Mount Everest, or at the field of a huge battle in World War II, the barrier could grow so thin you might be able to just walk across. But cities are also really bad too because of the amount of people that live in close proximity. That's why the Order posts a lot of Rangers in cities. Which is why it's so weird that no one showed up yesterday. That shouldn't happen. Sheriff Hueller is a really good Ranger, he wouldn't let something like this slip. Something is wrong and I don't know what."

Camilla suddenly went rigid.

At the exact same time, a shiver ran down Jacob's spine, raising the hairs on his forearms.

"There it was again!" Camilla bolted out of the room.

Jacob, suddenly terrified, chased after her. "What?" He cried.

"That magical signature from yesterday! Did you feel it?" She asked.

"I felt something."

"Good." She ran back into the TV room and leapt up onto one of the couches and peered out the window like a child looking into an aquarium.

Outside, the sky was still in the golden stages of early evening, but the dense forest surrounding Camilla's manse was dark.

"It came from back there. Definitely on the property. Damn it! I knew it had to do with you. I knew it. Wait here!"

She ran back the way they'd come and returned a moment later carrying two curved cutlasses. She held one out to Jacob, hilt first. He gaped at her.

"Be careful, it's the sharpest thing you've ever touched."

"I don't know how to use a sword." He said. Did she think they were going out there? In those dark woods? After some unknown magical signature?

"I thought all boys played video games!" She wiggled the sword in his face.

"Yeah but-"

"But shit! Point and swing!"

He reluctantly took the cutlass. It was surprisingly light.

"Follow me." She ran out of the TV room to a small back entryway, slipped on a pair of shoes, and threw open the door.

"Shouldn't we tell your dad?"

"He's gone already."

She took off across the sloping back lawn.

"But I have no shoes!"

She didn't answer.

Jacob watched her go, her legs pumping across the grass. Jacob knew you weren't supposed to run with scissors. He couldn't imagine running with two feet of steel was any safer. His parents were not going to be happy. The image of his mom's face, her hands clasped to her cheeks in horror, made him smile. But should they really be running off into the woods after that magical signature? That didn't seem like a smart idea at all.

Jacob thought of Camilla's creepy father, vampire or not, and what would happen if the man found out Jacob had chickened out while his daughter went running off into danger.

Gulp.

There were a pair of slides and small pink sneakers, both too small. He crammed his feet into the slides and went flopping after Camilla and the mystery magical signature, wondering why he hadn't just gone home like he was supposed to.