Her blood was boiling. She could feel the Atlas in her ear, the pressure. Jacinta ignored it, strode forward, eyes searching the area, flicking on light switches, spaces. A large home, at least to her standards. Cozy, full of family photos; a slice of comfortable Americana everyone seemed to crave. A good family—two parents that loved one another, two kids, a dog, white picket fence. She saw a few photos, now Olivia’s intrusion, addition—

  But no Olivia.

  Silas was calling someone; she heard him in the distance, growing fainter, as she strode up their wooden stairs. Unlike Doña’s house, nothing creaked—instead, new. Lacquered wood, spotless windows, fancy misted air fresheners.

  No fucking Olivia.

  She searched the guest room beside Emmy’s. Olivia’s things, scattered—expressive paintings in gouache and watercolor, fierce and beautiful splatters. Olivia loved expressionism, Munch’s The Scream; Kandinsky’s jazzy, apocalyptic works. Jacinta saw a canvas—a woman, face distorted and ugly like Picasso’s and Lucien Freud’s works, all segmented and cut apart. Was it…her? The wild hair, the image—

  Didn’t matter. Jacinta averted her gaze, cursed aloud. Olivia lived in color, in light; her room was brightly decorated, colorful, yet stylish and modern. Jacinta sat on the edge of her bed, panting, needing a moment to sit, to breathe.

  Alright. No sign of life—magic, magic; that’d show the way. She held out her wand with her earthquake hand and asked the Atlas to show her the spell and—

Magic Sense Enhancement:

(Lasts 10 minutes. Other senses are dulled during the duration.)

Mana cost: 15.

  It showed her the grimoire page within her vision. She readied her wand, pointing it to herself as instructed, and read the spell aloud, then, with her free hand, miming the ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ images to go along the proverb. Magic shuddered over her—her balance suddenly warped; she teetered to the side, propping out an arm against the wall, gaze forward, around. Her stats appeared—she ignored it, instead focusing on the magic.

  She saw glimmers of shuddering light; magic, pulses of energy, left behind like light trails in slow-motion, only blooming in midair like galaxies. Magic was, in short, primordial energy carved from the stars, the chaotic, impossible nature of existence and life, colored in galactic, colored blushes—

  But this was sour, like expired milk. While magic was smooth and free-flowing, like commercial-perfect slow-motions of cream spilling into a glass, this was full of unnatural chunks and clots. It was borrowed or stolen magic. She’d heard of it—Gregory telling her about supernaturals that took magic in unnatural ways, used it for themselves in fights—magic fights, sports, brawls. But it never lasted; it was twisted—it was venomous. Often, it killed people who used it.

  Was she taken by some of them? Those supernaturals? But—

  Jacinta swallowed, shook her head, and looked around for something, anything, that’d tell her why or how Olivia was taken. Aquaman? Maybe he was working with some others, some damn crooks—Olivia was so pretty, so sweet; how dare they. She’d supernova like her mother and burn them all to the fucking ground.

  Her fingers shook, but she searched Olivia’s bag, blinking, looking up. Hold on—

  Something at the floor. Jacinta looked, lifted the rug—a device, the size of the palm of her hand. It was made of steel and silver, whirring softly, magic seeping out through the holes. Some kind of…bomb? Wait—

  She realized, threw it down and grabbed Olivia’s sketchbook, the painting, her bag, tugging Silas back, who was in the doorway, staring and standing and—

  And the bomb detonated. Foul magic filled the air, smelling of sulfur and bone-dust and chalk. Silas rushed forward, catching Jacinta before she fell, helping her angle against a wall. She panted, stepped back, tugging Silas with her. The magic was working inside the room; she heard the screech of papers ruffling, the scuffs of furniture along wooden floors. It wasn’t dangerous, wasn’t toxic—but it was chaotic. Purple, dark—so dark it almost looked like shadows.

  She waited until it faded, breath caught in the tangle of her lungs.

  “What…what’s happening?”

  “I don’t know.” Jacinta breathed, shaking her head, holding Olivia’s things like they were the last of her. Once the smoke was gone, Jacinta strode closer, slowly—and opened the door, crack, then full—

  Inside, the room had changed. It looked like a standard gust room—minimal. Not lived in. The sheets had smoothed back over, bed perfectly done. Olivia’s stuff was gone. The magic lingered; Jacinta stared around, scowled—

  Nothing of Olivia’s was there. Jacinta hissed in Spanish, strode forward, ran her hands along the sheets. Her pillows were gone; she could see a vague haze or film of where all of Olivia’s items were, like a weak hologram or ghost of an item, but they were gone. Her fingers passed through them, cutting through, swirling the memory. It was fading rapidly, all of it.

  “The…hell?” Silas breathed, looking around. “But her stuff was just here…”

  “You think?!” Jacinta snarled. She spun around, trying, clawing at empty air. Nothing.

  They planted something…but it wasn’t meant for her or Silas. Her head buzzed in annoyance; flies in her skull, it seemed like. A mental spell? That type of magic had to be exact, and it wasn’t hers…

  Something else was in the air, though. She stared down, around; the house was covered in the film. She saw the magic within, shaped almost like synaptic nerves of a brain, parts wound in white-matter rope. Mental magic…but not meant for her or Silas. Did someone leave it as a trap for Olivia? Or Emmy, or—

  “What are you seeing?”

  “Mental magic. I don’t know this—it’s fucking advanced. Really advanced and precise—one wrong part and it’ll make a person forget…uh—a lot. Mental magic takes planning, though; it’s not something you can do on the fly. Whoever did this, they were…planning. But for what? Olivia? But she wasn’t even supposed to be here…”

  Oh, God—did Jacinta make a self-fulfilling fantasy? If Olivia went, would she have been safe?

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Her room, that’s—that was like a…temporal spell, reverting it back to before she came, but—it had a trigger. And this magic, it’s stolen…” Jacinta panted, moving back into Olivia’s room. It was just like a guest room, now. But Olivia’s stuff was still there on the floor; Jacinta took it, lifted it.

  “Stolen magic…” Silas echoed, frowning.

  Jacinta headed downstairs, rushed. Her spell was starting to fade; she couldn’t see the magic as clearly, but it held. Garage was pulsing, full of magic—she headed there, then tensed. No cars, just power tools off to the side, metal grate closing the garage from the outside.

  And, of course, the giant gash.

  It was unlike anything she’d seen. It was a slash through the air; behind it, a shimmering galaxy—and even fainter, the shape of a forest. Thick trees, axe wedged in the core of a stump. Both images were overlaid, shimmering.

  Jacinta explained what she saw to Silas, pointing out its exact location. He nodded, frowned, and stepped forward, lifting the device. It began to flash in code, text—Jacinta couldn’t see it beyond a moment’s time. She only watched.

  “Is that a…portal? To—”

  “Yes.” He interjected, waiting, pressing the device against the spot. “Another dimension. Not a passage portal…this goes somewhere else.”

  Her gaze was on his device. He had technology like it.

  So…SEE was doing this? Jacinta’s expression hardened, lips curling.

  “Hold on, please. It’s not SEE. It’s another group. They’re taking supernaturals. There’s a pipeline: first taken by SEE, released, then taken by this group. Transported to another realm, dimension, whatever—but we can’t track it. We…don’t know who, or what, they are. Yet. It’s recent. Last few months.”

  Jacinta laughed. She violently shook her head, glancing at her wand. It was thrumming with magic—she slid it back in her shirt, not wanting to explode.

  “Liar, you fucking liar. You! Your people did this. Your fucking people and the fucking SEE; fuck!” Jacinta’s voice rose to a screech, strained. She kicked the wall, then pressed her forehead flat against it, eyes shut. Even the shut-eye darkness spun, nauseating, slow.

  Jacinta heard her breaths. Her wheezing. She hated the way she was born, the imperfect, wounded body—it demanded extra care. Fuck it. Fuck this. She should’ve been superwoman, flying and lassoing the truth from everyone’s lips and demanding Olivia free without the struggle to breathe, to think.

  “The technology, going across dimensions—that’s theirs. Not ours. This…group, they’re—we don’t know, Jacinta, but I’m trying. Just—”

  She heard his tone. The voice-crack, the hitches. Imperfections. He was telling the truth—or, at least, he was attempting it. Something told her that.

  But her instincts hadn’t been good thus far. Fuck.

  She didn’t know what to believe.

  Jacinta swallowed the urge to break down and cry. She couldn’t, not right now. She needed to figure out what happened to Olivia…

  And how to get to her.

  “I’m sorry.” Jacinta slapped herself in the face, spun around, pulled her wand free. Silas ducked away from it, hand on his gun—Jacinta wasn’t focused on him, but she waited, ready if needed, holding the wand just a little away from him, fingers coiled, knuckles raw-white. “This group. Can you trace their magic through your SEE databases?”

  Silas nodded. “Not stolen magic. It’s impossible for us to track, then; nobody knows where it comes, or where it goes. Whoever did this, they’re smart. And not alone.”

  Jacinta stared at the shimmering gash. Okay. Silas had sent them into Verdance, made them get reborn as Arborem; by accident, sure, but they survived.

  And Silas knew where they went.

  “Your device says where the portal leads?”

  Silas cleared his throat, hesitating to answer. His gaze settled on hers for a moment, but he wordlessly nodded after a pause.

  Trust. Mutual trust. That meant giving out information.

  And taking a chance.

  “You’re going to send me to that universe, now.” Jacinta hissed, eyeing the space. It was fading; she could hardly see it now—it was like seeing a rainbow right before it faded. “I don’t care if I’m a fucking baby when I wake up there. I’ll wait as long as it takes to get my sister there, got it? You said they don’t kill the victims, not immediately. And if the seconds pass here are years there, we don’t have time to wait. So send me.”

  Silas took a step away from her. “Jacinta, let’s think this through. They—”

  Jacinta’s wand was burning. Her blood was enflamed; she could see it beneath her skin, raised and blue and—

  She staggered. The world spun on its axis. She leaned against a wall, waited, watched. He was checking the device, spinning buttons, mumbling under his breath. He stopped, read, looked up.

  “Alright. This realm—I know it. I was there before. Time there passes more or less equal to time here; it’ll be…a while until they do anything to your sister, okay? You’ll have time.” He flipped the device to show her, but kept it beyond an arm’s length away so she couldn’t snatch it. Jacinta squinted, trying to see.

  “If you jump there, it’d be a mistake.” He snapped it away once she moved closer, turning it off. “Years would pass here before you’d even have a shot at finding her. No—we know where it is. We spend time here and wait it out and figure out a plan.”

  For a moment, she ached to be an Arborem again, to live against nature, with nature, to be free and away from all the stress and—

  No.

  She’d never run from this…not for her sister. Olivia came first. Always.

  Silas was being reasonable. Jacinta, the opposite: impulsive. De sangre caliente—hot-blooded, her mother always mused. Also a side-effect of being a blood witch.

  Or just a shared personality trait.

  Jacinta wiped at her eyes, tears leaving, gone. She stared ahead, the portal gone from her vision, but…still there.

  “You’re…you’re right.” she sighed. Olivia’s bag, painting, and sketchbook were still there. The other stuff was…well—she wasn’t sure. Temporal magic was all about physics; she did all of the tutoring possible when she took that class. “I’m sorry. I’m just—”

  Silas’s expression was distant. He refused to meet her gaze at that comment, just fiddling with his device. “I’m bookmarking it for later. This is a great lead, Jacinta—”

  “Why were you there?”

  Silas froze at the question. He cleared his throat, easing. “It’s a popular one. Medieval, full of magic…uh—I was sent, but after they realized it was the same time passing as here, I was pulled out and returned here. You just gave me an amazing lead, Jacinta…we’ll get to the bottom of this. I promise.” He smiled.

  She glared at him, lips twisting into a scowl. “And what’ll you do once you get there? Chain up all of the kidnapped supernaturals like my sister? I don’t give a shit about anyone who took her—I’ll rip their throats out—but the supernaturals…”

  The SEE agent swallowed. “I can’t promise anything. You know I can’t. But…they’re victims—that’ll look good in their cases, hopefully st—I”

  “Every supernatural’s a fucking victim.”

  Silas rubbed his temples. “You know what I mean. And I have leverage; I’ll get to the bottom of this and—”

  Jacinta set the wand against his neck, closing the gap between them once more. “No. We are getting to the bottom of this, understand? I’m not letting you and SEE kill my sister and—”

  The metal garage door rattled, peeling upwards. Jacinta cursed aloud, sent Silas a sharp glare, and snapped her wand into her shirt, straightening, grabbing Olivia’s things. Blinding light aimed in their direction.

  The car shut off before it rolled in. She and her boyfriend exited the car; the girl pale and blonde and tall and strong, soccer player type. Jacinta recognized the boyfriend from Olivia’s descriptions; short, soft-faced, sharp eyes.

  She froze, staring at Jacinta and Silas.

  “Uh—who the fuck are you?” Emmy hissed, voice charged with anger.