Jason

Jason kept running, vaguely aware of voices but unable to find any meaning in their garbled sounds. His stomach twisted like he was going to vomit, but he couldn’t even have that relief. There was no way to get this horrible feeling out of him. There was no escape.

People stared at him, but he didn’t care. They were all wrong. Everything was wrong here. The leaves on the trees were too round, or too jagged, or curled in a weird way. The flowers were the wrong colors, and those weird orange ones were everywhere, like spiky little cheese puffs. Even the grass was the wrong shade of green.

And that bird, a gigantic raven with feathers that turned reflections of the sunlight into holographic color? That was something out of a nightmare. Jason was sure it was watching him. But it wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a dream.

Eventually the panic that had fueled his flight faded, and Jason sat down heavily on a stone bench, panting. His stomach rumbled as he looked up at the sky. The sky, at least, looked the same. Blue. Puffy white clouds. A perfect day.

What if his father was actually out there, somewhere, alive in this world? Had he abandoned them on purpose, or was he brought here against his will and trapped, just like Jason himself?

He needed to stop thinking about that. Matthew Nagy was probably dead, his body rotting away in one world or the other. Just like his mother. He was an orphan. He was alone.

A shadow fell over Jason. He looked up to see Esar, the goddamn vampire who’d been lying in wait for them last night, the man who said he could see the future. The sight of him brought all of Jason’s rage and panic to a boil once more. He jumped up and drew back his fist.

It was a wild blow, with anger and tears blurring his vision. But the way that Esar sidestepped wasn’t normal. He didn’t flinch or dodge, he just moved smoothly out of the way, as if he’d just happened to change his position at the perfect moment to avoid Jason’s fist. Esar took another step past him, then sat down on the bench as if nothing had happened.

Jason let his hands drop and looked down at the ground, still shaking, more from fear than from anger, now. Esar hunched forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands folded together, looking straight ahead. Jason waited, bracing himself for some sarcastic remark, but it never came. Esar just sat there.

“What do you want?” Jason finally asked.

“What I want is to be left alone. But for some reason, it never works out that way.”

“Excuse me for ruining your life.”

Esar raised his stupid eyebrow. “Don’t give yourself so much credit. I was doing an excellent job ruining my own life before you came along.”

Jason sat down at the other end of the bench and looked over at Esar out of the corner of his eye. “What is wrong with you?”

Esar sighed. “I don’t know everything.”

“So?”

“Sometimes people assume that I have an all-encompassing vision of the future. But most of the time, my dreams are absolutely useless. I witness events of no importance whatsoever.”

“Seems like a stupid power to have,” Jason said.

“Most of the time, perhaps. But every now and then I get a glimpse of something important.”

Jason snorted. “Like Naomi?”

“What I’m trying to say is, just because something seems useless, it doesn’t mean that it will always be useless.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“So you’re saying that I seem useless, but I might not be? Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’m saying I don’t know why you’re here, and that’s a good thing. Most of the things I’ve been able to predict have been terrible. A little unpredictability is a welcome reminder that I can be wrong.”

“What sort of terrible things do you think are going to happen?” Jason couldn’t keep his voice from wavering.

Esar got back to his feet and ambled a few steps away. “And that’s why I should never try to reassure anyone.”

“You’re pretty awful at it,” Jason said. “Can . . . can they fix that door?”

“I don’t know. Trilane says it’s beyond her abilities, but there might be other engineers who could. And there are other doors.”

“Other—”

“There’s one at the University near Thaliron,” Esar went on. “Along with the best ceram engineers in the world. We can take the overnight and be there in the morning. We’ll need to be careful, though.”

“Why do we have to be careful?” Jason asked.

“I thought you didn’t want to know anything else.” There went that damn eyebrow again.

“Oh. Right.” Jason tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter. This was just another little delay. He’d live with that. He had to.

“Come on. We’ll need to make you look Elorhan enough not to attract too much attention. You’d pass for Namaian with red hair.”

“Really? No one has blond hair here?” Jason said.

“No, or rather, it doesn’t grow out of anyone’s head that color. I knew a woman who bleached her hair to a shade rather like yours, but she was trying to attract attention. In your case, I think it is better to avoid it.”

***

Later that day, Jason was back in Kelsam and Esar’s townhouse, rinsing the henna from his hair in the washroom basin. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain his new hair color when he got back home, but really, that was the least of his problems. He had no trouble counting his problems, but didn’t Grandma say you should count your blessings, even in your darkest hour?

Jason tried. He only counted one. Of all the worlds Naomi could have gotten him stuck in, at least she’d found one that had indoor plumbing.

At last the water ran clear, and he toweled off and turned to the stack of clothing Trilane had brought for him. He picked up the top, which was too long to be a shirt, and he had to try very hard not to think of it as a dress. No, it was more like a tunic. A golden yellow tunic that fell to his knees, with slits up each side and a high collar. It took way too long to fasten all the tiny buttons that had to be put through loops, running from his throat across to his shoulder and then down one side. The trousers were a bit loose, but he could tighten the drawstring to keep them from falling down.

Jason expected to see a stranger when he looked in the mirror. But he was all too recognizable, only now his hair was quite obviously the wrong color, and he was dressed up in a costume that didn’t suit him.

“I look like a screwed-up cosplayer,” he announced when he returned to the living room.

“No, you look nice! Really.” Naomi was dressed in Elorhan style now, too, only she looked like she belonged in it. Her tunic was eggplant purple, with a swirling pattern of yellow embroidery across one shoulder. How come she could look just as comfortable in those clothes as Kelsam and Esar did, when on Jason they just looked wrong?

“And this is for you, too,” Trilane said, presenting Jason with a small box. The red-haired woman had come and gone several times that day, bringing necessary items and peppering Jason and Naomi with questions about the world they came from.

Inside the box she gave him was an elongated oval, about two inches long, made of some kind of opalescent material incised with tiny lines in complicated patterns. A string was threaded through a hole at one end. Jason recognized what it was from the night before.

“A translation-thing? Like Kelsam has?”

“An attuner,” Trilane corrected him. “Hold it for a moment, I’ll initialize it for you—there.” She pulled the string away, and Jason felt a tiny jolt, like he’d just received a shock of static electricity.

Trilan moved on to give Naomi two small boxes. “There’s one for you too, Naomi, and this will take care of the other issue.”

“What other issue?” Jason asked.

“Oh, it’s just a menstruation inhibitor,” Trilane said.

Jason coughed. Naomi took the tiny device out of its box and gazed at it as if she’d just been handed a precious jewel.

“This is the best day of my life,” she said.

“Seriously?” Jason sputtered.

“Oh—oh! Of course not. I didn’t mean—I’m so sorry, Jason, really, I am.”

Jason didn’t want to hear it.

The door swung open and Kelsam rushed in, holding a sheet of paper. He’d gone out to buy their train tickets for the trip to Thaliron, but it was immediately obvious that something was wrong. Esar stepped forward to meet him, and Kelsam pushed the paper into his hands.

“They’re letting another boy into the Ocean,” he said.