The Forest of the Forgotten

Chapter One

A gentle breeze brushes along the leaves of the neighboring trees. I'm lying in the grass, tall and overgrown as far as the eye can see, making it almost impossible for me to see. The sound the wind makes had always brought a smile to my face, especially here.

Across from me sits a mirror perched up against the tree, a reflection of myself lying in the grass reflects at me. I don't mind, though; I ignore it anyway.

The air feels so nice here! I wonder why I don't come here more often...

I begin to doze off to the cooling whistle between the blades of grass before "Ellie! Hey, Ellie!" I raise myself from the grass, lean against my elbows, and look toward the foreign sound. Sloshing through the thick, lush grass, inching toward me, was Amnity, the purple-haired witch. "Ellie! I thought I'd find you here," she proclaimed.

Amnity had one hand on the strap of her satchel and the other was at her side, keeping her balanced as she ventured toward me.

"Hi, Ams. What brings you to my little piece of Nova?" I ask, lying back down in my spot. Nova was the name of the land we both were from and have always lived. It was a quaint little Island that took a year to go full circle, if you're into that sort of thing. It was full of life; some spots were even overpopulated, but it was also full of abandoned towns and forgotten landmarks from ancient civilizations. There are even some places, like here, that remain untouched and ever-growing. Amnity, finally standing next to me, smiled and then politely asked if she could sit next to me. I knew by now that she was asking the grass that.

Amnity finally sat down next to me; her once long, flowing, dark purple hair was now lighter and shoulder-length, and swooshed outward on either side, revealing more of her face than it had at the beginning of the year.

I watched, side eyeing her, as she closed her eyes and thanked the ground in silent prayer.

I couldn't help but smile; she was such a gentle soul.

"So" Amnity began to speak again.

"Hm?" I asked, closing my eyes, I thought if I couldn't see her, maybe I could hear past her and listen to the air around us, ignore my disrespect.

"Eleazar is looking for you," Amnity said, finally getting to the point.

I let out a regrettable sigh and sat back up. "Of course he is," I said through my teeth softly. "Hey, you didn't tell him where I was, did you?" I asked.

"I never do." Amnity smiled.

Somewhere else deep inside the woods sat an old hole inside a dying tree. Deep in that hole sat a mirror, and reflecting out of that mirror was Ellie and Amnity. Talking softly as they sat in the middle of an overgrown grassy field surrounded by an even heavier thicket of healthier-looking trees. Ellie stood from the spot she had been lying in and walked towards the mirror. Amnity followed.

"Can you carry this back?" Ellie asked through the mirror.

"My satchel is big, El, but I don't know-"

"-it compacts, see? Here?" Ellie interrupted, pointing to the hinges on the mirror.

"Sure." Amnity smiled more softly.

"Thanks, Amnity." I smiled in return. "Meet you at the Hut tonight for tea, okay?" I said before stepping into the mirror. It was a bit drafty, I always noted that, when I was in between mirrors, that the air was always kind of crispier and unnaturally icier than I was used to. When I was younger, learning how to travel through mirrors, I had noted it always felt like winter in summer clothes, except colder, between the two doors.

Amnity collapsed the mirror once I had fully stepped through the mirror and slid it into her satchel, which had always been a tad bit bigger on the inside; inside her bag were a couple of diaries and a white hardback grimoire with golden rimmed leaved pages, it was gifted to her on her tenth birthday and proved quite useful on many of our adventures and endevers through The Forest of the Forgotten.

***

The sun was setting just behind the trees when Amnity turned the corner. I smiled and waved at her before filling the emptiness between us. We stopped in front of the Hut and smiled at one another. Amnity reached into her satchel and pulled out my compacted mirror.

"Here you go," Amnity said with a smile on her face.

"Thank you," I smile back, taking the mirror and pulling out its sister mirror that I had climbed out of in the dead tree earlier that afternoon. I tied them both together with a little bit of string made from canvas yarn and put them back in my bag. It had been a minute since these two mirrors had been together.

"Did you see what Eleazar wanted?" Amnity asked.

"Nah, I'll let that old rabbit wait," I said.

"Ellie..." Amnity hesitated. "...you know how he gets."

"Yeah, I'll let that old rabbit wait, though. Right now, I'm more interested in tea at the Hut." I said.

The inside of the Tea Hut was rightfully darker than the girls had anticipated it would become; it was always so atmospheric during the day, but with the sun almost completely set it was eerily darker than they had cared for. The walls were dark with twinkling fairy lights that hung from the ceiling and dangled down, taking up half of the wall and as a twinkling curtain against the empty darkness outside.

Each table sat two and was lit by tea candle, the Hut looked almost empty when Ellie and Amnity walked through the old wooden door. They sat at their usual table across the room and up against the wall before getting to talking again.

It was good and dark outside when Ellie and Amnity were done having tea at the Tea Hut. The air was surprisingly cooler than it had been the following nights before it had been. The girls thought to themselves, silently rubbing their arms and laughing it off as they walked with each other to their next destination, which for the night, was back at Amnity's Magics' Shoppe. It acted as a magic shoppe during the day and living quarters at night. Pretty standard here at Nova. The people of the Forest working out of their homes was pretty common.

"See you tomorrow?" Amnity asked.

"We'll see, Eleazar really doesn't 'look for me' unless he needs me to run an errand," I said before yawning a little.

"Can you swing by the shoppe before you do?" Amnity asked.

"For you? Sure" I smile.

"Thank you, get home safe," Amnity said. She watched as I took a half step back and turned to walk away before entering the loft.

On the walk home, I met with an elf named Pasley, anytime Eleazar goes looking for me, it's usually because he has an order waiting for pickup at Pasley's. Sure enough, they had an order ready for Eleazar and handed me a box. I scoffed at the box and knew by now that whatever was inside the box was probably stolen from someplace else.

I took the box, heavy and bent in one of its corners and smiled as we said our polite goodbyes before continuing down the steps of the nearby park where a couple of Novasian Mirrorette Children were smoking a bowl. They noticed me as nothing more than what I was - a common criminal, just like them in a way.

I sighed and shifted my arms - the box getting heavier as time passed. By the time I reached The Hole, Eleazar's dump trunk of trinkets and parts, I was ready to put the box down.

Chapter Two

Amnity sat on the old tree stump. Her face was gentle and fair against the light blue and orange hue that engulfed the early morning hours surrounding her friendly metaphysical shop when I came walking up. Amnity had her nose deep in her white oak magic book with the golden-rimmed sheets of paper, and she was reading from it calmly. Crickets broke the silence, but not her attention as she read.

"Hey, Amnity," I said softly and kind of sleepily. Amnity looked up from her book and smiled, her once light blue hues were now shining a soft gold color as she embraced the space that Ellie's presence began to fill.

"Good morning, Ellie," Amnity said through her smile. I noticed the words on the page were glowing just like her eyes. Amnity's smile grew softer, and her gaze shifted comfortably. Her gold hues flicked and became blue once more as she closed her book. "Did you talk to Eleazar and see what he wanted?" She asked. I nodded comfortably. "Was he upset?"

"About?" I asked.

"About being gone all day?" Amnity asked. I shook my head.

"No more than normal, anyway. What did you want to see me this morning for?" I asked, leaning against a neighboring tree to the stump Amnity had been sitting on.

"Yes. I wanted to tag along with you today, if that's okay? The Midnight Moon festival is coming up, and I wanted to collect Glowing Imp root for a potion," Amnity sang gently.

"I don't see why not," I smiled at her. Amnity stood up from the stump and stuck her book back in her satchel.

"Perfect." Amnity smiled back at me. "Let me go get a few things from the kitchen -"

"- You may want to change into your shoes too." I interrupted her. Amnity was wearing a light brown long-sleeved canvas shirt, tucked into some brown khakis. Her toes were covered in mud, like always. She enjoyed walking around outside barefooot, but of course she did.

The sun was peeking out from the baseline of the highest mountain several hundred miles away when Amnity walked out of her cottage cabin. I don't know how long I had been standing there, waiting - but it took her as long as it was going to take her to get ready.

Amnity emerged from behind the door, she was still wearing her long-sleeved light brown canvas shirt, this time it was tucked into a pair of long khaki-colored canvas pants that she had tucked into a pair of dark brown combat boots. Around her neck sat a stone of some kind tightly placed with a woven rope like cord that sat loose around her neck and fell above her breast. She had with her a dark green canvas backpack. In the backpack, sat a couple of journals, a pen, and her book of shadows that she had been reading when Ellie arrived.

"You ready?" I asked. Amnity looked up from her boots, they looked almost out-of-the-box brand new, which they probably were. I knew Eleazar had a way of getting his hands on things that weren't from Nova - finding these rare items for The Hole always seemed too convenient. I'd learned not to ask too many questions about it.

"Yes, sorry that took me a while, I didn't realize I was holding you up." Amnity said, she was looking at the side through the trees. Her voice sounded melancholic as she admired the orangish-yellow tint that cast itself over Nova.

"Don't do that - it's okay, I want you to be comfortable." I said.

Chapter Three

The morning mist clung to Nova like ghostly fingers as Amnity adjusted her canvas backpack for the third time in the last five minutes. Ellie could tell the cold morning air was already starting to get to her. It made her smile. as she checked the supplies in her bag one last time. Rope, check. Water, of course. A small knife, and her mirrors, in case they get stuck in a bind.

"You sure about this?" Ellie asked in a small laugh as she rose to her feet. Her voice, barely a whisper, a small respectful gesture to the rest of the forest that was still very much asleep. The trees surrounding them seemed to swallow what little light was starting to touch this side of the forest, their ancient bark twisted and contorted into blank, lifeless screams, frozen in eternal silence.

Amnity nodded, rubbing her hands together gently as she blew into her palms for warmth, her heart hammered against her ribs in a solemn chill as she hopped in her boots. "The Glowing Imp root only blooms in the deepest part of the forest, and the Midnight Moon Festival is only three days from now..." Amnity trailed off, thinking about her grandmother Elara, and how her weathered hands used to mix similar potions.

The Forest of the Forgotten had earned its name honestly. Local tales spoke of travelers who wandered in seeking treasure or adventure, only to emerge a few days later with no memory of what they found. Or worse, never emerging at all. Of course, Amnity and Ellie had studied the lost texts. While Ellie marked the safe paths, Amnity learned the protective charms. She hoped her new charged charms would be enough for the trek through the forest.

Amnity and Ellie stepped across the threshold together and immediately the air changed. It grew thick and sweet, heavy with the scent of moss and something flowery that seemed close enough to eat but felt just out of reach. Sunlight started to filter through the canopy in thin, golden shafts that seemed to move independently, regardless of the wind above it.

"Stay on the path." Ellie suddenly spoke with caution. She pulled on the compass Eleazar had given her. The needle spun wildly for a moment before settling on what she could only hope to be true north. "And whatever you do, and whatever happens, don't listen to the voices."

As if summoned by her words, a soft humming drifted through the trees, a lullaby in a language that neither of them recognized. An old, forgotten language. Beautiful and haunting. Amnity grabbed Ellie's hand and squeezed hard.

"Those voices."

They walked deeper into the forest, following a path that seemed to shift when they weren't looking directly at it. The trees grew larger and stranger, the deeper into the woods they went. The branches intertwining overhead formed cathedral-like archways. Flowers bloomed and withered along the forest floor, their petals carpeting the ground around Amnity and Ellie's feet in an ever-changing pattern of different colors.

"Oh, there's one!" Amnity leapt to life as she and Ellie walked the forest grounds. A faint blue glow pulsed between the base of the ancient trees, whose faces were long and tiredsome.

The glowing imp root was growing in a small clearing, its bulbous form nestled among ordinary ferns, like a fallen star in the dead of night. The root pulsed with an inner light that shifted from azure to violet and even a s;iver of silver peeked through the glowing fungi. Just looking at it, made Amnity feel dizzy with possibilities.

As they stepped into the clearing, the humming slowly came to a calming halt.

The sudden silence was more unsettling than the strange music had been. Ellie's grip tightened around Amnity's hand as shadows seemed to move at the edges of their vision and the air around the root began to shimmer.

"Quickly," Ellie whispered. Amnity let go of Elli's hand and pulled on her dark green canvas backpack. Ellie watched, on guard, as Amnity knelt down. She unzipped the top of it and dug out a pair of kitchen shears she had repurposed for her gardening and a baggy. Ellie continued to watch cautiously as Amnity worked her fingers into the soft soil. The root came free easily enough. As Amnity lifted it, the forest around them sighed to life.

The sound was like wind through autumn leaves, like the last breath of something ancient and tired.

"We should go." Ellie said urgently, suddenly very aware of how quiet it had actually gotten. "Now."

Amnity dropped the glowing fungi into the little baggy before slipping the baggy into a glass box before putting it all back in her canvas backpack. "Now, Amnity." Ellie's voice ranng, like a soft echo in Amnity's ear. Amnity's eyes glowed a soft golden blue as if Amnity was in a trance. Amnity slid the backpack back on her back and turned to face Ellie blinking the feeling away.

"It's quiet." Amnity said suddenly. Her voice breaking the thick silence between them. Amnity looked over Ellie's shoulder and sighed. "The path." Amnity spoke softly. In its way sat three identical paths, each winding away from different depths of the forest. "The compass." Amnity said. Ellie pulled at it again and looked down. The needle was spinning uneasily, unable to find any direction in its place where magic seemed to have pooled so deeply it defied the very laws of nature.

The humming began again, closer now, and with it came whispers, fragments of conversation, half-remembered dreams, the echo of laughter from celebrations of the past. Amnity closed her eyes and thought about her grandmother.

"When lost in magic," Elara spoke. "Trust not your eyes or ears. But your heart's true compass." Amnity spoke aloud softly, remembering the first time her grandmother Elara had said that. The first time, she had felt lost in the woods.

Amnity thought of the festival, the tradition she was trying to preserve, of the community in the valley that gathered with the lo specchio people of the east at the baseline of the forest underneath the full midnight moon to share in the wonder that she was bringing home. The potion Amnity planned on making would help them see the aura spirits that danced between the worlds. Worlds, Ellie and Eleazar would traverse through mirror magic and portkeys.

When Amnity opened her eyes again, one path in particular glowed faintly silver in the dim light. "This way." Amnity smiled, her eyes glowing a gentle but hazy yellow as she spoke.

Chapter Four

They had barely made it fifty yards from the clearing when Amnity stumbled, her canvas backpack suddenly feeling like it weighed a hundred pounds. The Glowing Imp Root pulsed inside its glass container, and with each throb, the forest around them seemed to... shift.

"Ellie," Amnity whispered, her voice tight with growing panic, her eyes glowing a deep red through the calming blue. "Something's wrong."

The trees were bleeding shadow. Not casting shadows—bleeding them, dark rivulets of liquid night that pooled and writhed at their roots. The shadows moved with purpose, reaching toward the girls with fingers made of crystallized fear and half-formed thoughts.

Why did you take what wasn't yours?

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, a whisper that tasted like copper and regret.

Ellie grabbed Amnity's hand and pulled her forward, the voice seemed to get louder. "Don't listen to it. It's the Root—it's angry we removed it."

But the darkness was learning. It shifted and flowed, becoming the shape of Amnity's grandmother Elara, her face twisted in disappointment.

“You've failed, Amnity. I know I shouldn't have left you my cottage.”

"That's not real," Amnity muttered quietly to herself. Ellie looked up at the direction Amnity was looking and saw it, a shadow of something dark and menacing through her yellowing eyes.

“Elle, come home. Ellie we miss you”

Ellie closed her eyes and shook her head. The voices sounded faint but familiar like a lost memory of something she used to love being yanked on in her chest.

They ran, crashing through undergrowth as the darkness behind them grew more solid, more terrible. It became a writhing mass of every doubt, every fear, every mistake they'd ever made given form. The abstract thoughts of the Root's ancient consciousness pressed against their minds, whispering of worthlessness, of failure, of the inevitable moment when they would be consumed.

Amnity's breath came in ragged gasps, her golden-blue eyes wild with terror. The Root in her backpack pulsed harder, and each pulse made the pursuing darkness stronger, more focused, more real.

That's when they saw it—an ornate mirror propped against a massive oak tree, its silver frame tarnished but intact. It looked completely out of place in the wild forest, like something that had fallen from another world entirely.

"A mirror," Ellie breathed, and suddenly her hand was diving into her pocket, searching for the small pouch she always carried. "Amnity, I can get us out of here."

Behind them, the darkness roared—a sound like breaking glass and screaming wind and the last breath of dying stars. It surged forward, no longer content to play with them.

Ellie's fingers closed around the pouch of sand she'd carried since she was eight years old, the same sand from that first lesson with Eleazar. As she pulled it out, her mind flashed back to that day...

Ellie was so small then, standing on the beach with her bare toes digging into the warm sand. Eleazar knelt beside her, his weathered hands gentle as he showed her how to cup the grains in her palm.

"The sand remembers every shore it's touched, little star," he said, his voice urgent but kind. "Every world, every realm. Mirrors are doorways, but they need a key." He sprinkled sand across the surface of a small hand mirror. "Say the words with me: 'Specchio di sabbia, apriti per me.'"

Eight-year-old Ellie had been nervous, still unsure if she could trust this man who'd taken her in, but desperate to learn how to protect her new home. Her voice was barely a whisper as she repeated the words, watching in wonder as the mirror's surface rippled like water.

"Good," Eleazar smiled. "But remember—never use this magic in fear. Fear makes the mirrors... unpredictable."

Now, with the shapeshifting darkness mere yards behind them, Ellie threw the sand across the mirror's surface. "Specchio di sabbia, apriti per me!" she cried, her voice cracking with terror—exactly the kind of fear Eleazar had warned her about.

The mirror's surface rippled, but wrong, chaotic. Instead of the controlled portal she'd practiced making, this was wild magic, uncontrolled and dangerous.

"Ellie, what's—" Amnity started to say, but the darkness crashed into them like a wave of liquid nightmare.

Ellie grabbed Amnity's hand and dove toward the mirror, pulling them both forward as the sand-magic caught them and yanked them through the rippling surface.

The last thing they heard was the Root's ancient voice, no longer angry but almost... amused: *Let us see what your stolen prize brings to the world beyond...*

Then they were falling through silver light and crushing darkness, tumbling end over end through a space between spaces, until they crashed onto something hard and cold and utterly alien.

Concrete.

Amnity groaned and pushed herself up on her elbows, her backpack somehow still secured to her shoulders. They were in an alleyway between two impossibly tall buildings made of glass and steel, structures that reached toward a sky the wrong color of blue. Strange smells filled the air—exhaust fumes, hot asphalt, something chemical and sharp.

"Where..." Amnity whispered, staring up at the foreign sky. "Where are we?"

Ellie sat up slowly, her heart still hammering. The mirror was gone, leaving them stranded in this alien place. In the distance, she could hear sounds like nothing from their world—roaring engines, blaring horns, the cacophony of a civilization built on metal and speed.

"I think," Ellie said quietly, helping Amnity to her feet, "we're not in the forest anymore.”

Chapter Five

The sun felt wrong on Ellie's skin, but wrong in a way that made her chest ache with something she couldn't name. It was harsher than Nova's gentle light, more direct, but there was something underneath that recognition that made her breath catch.

She knew this sun.

Amnity struggled to her feet, brushing dust and grit from her pants as she stared up at the towering buildings surrounding them. "What is this place?" she whispered, her voice small and lost. The structures rose impossibly high, their surfaces gleaming with materials she'd never seen—glass and metal and something that reflected the harsh sunlight in ways that hurt her eyes.

But Ellie barely heard her. The Glowing Imp Root in Amnity's backpack pulsed steadily, and with each throb, another piece of memory crystallized in her mind. The smell of exhaust and concrete and something cooking—something fried and salty that made her mouth water with a recognition she didn't understand.

*A woman's voice, calling her name. Not Ellie—something else, something she couldn't quite grasp. The sound of vehicles roaring past, just like the ones she could hear now in the distance.*

"Ellie?" Amnity's voice cut through the memory fragments. "You're staring."

Ellie blinked and realized she was looking at the mouth of the alley with an expression Amnity had never seen on her face—not quite recognition, not quite confusion, but something caught between the two.

"I..." Ellie started, then stopped. How could she explain that this alien place felt like coming home to somewhere she'd never been?

They emerged from the alley onto a sidewalk teeming with people, and Amnity immediately pressed close to Ellie's side. The humans moved differently than the people of Nova—faster, more purposeful, their clothes strange and uniform. Many stared at rectangular devices in their hands, their faces illuminated by unnatural light.

A man in a dark suit brushed past them, speaking rapidly into a small device pressed to his ear. Amnity jumped, but Ellie found herself following his conversation with an understanding that surprised her.

"—need those reports by three, or Henderson's going to have my head—"

"You understand him," Amnity breathed, staring at Ellie with wide eyes.

Ellie nodded slowly, another memory flash hitting her as the Root pulsed again. *Sitting in front of a glowing screen, similar voices speaking similar words. The taste of something sweet and fizzy on her tongue.*

"The language," Ellie murmured, more to herself than to Amnity. "It's... I know this language."

A group of teenagers walked past, their laughter bright and careless, and Ellie caught fragments of their conversation that made her heart race with familiarity she couldn't explain.

"—totally going to fail that chemistry test—"

"—did you see what happened at lunch? Sarah was so—"

School. The word hit her like a physical blow, bringing with it a cascade of sense memories: the smell of cafeteria food, the squeak of sneakers on linoleum, the weight of books in her arms.

"Ellie." Amnity's voice was sharper now, worried. "What's happening to you?"

Ellie turned to look at her best friend, her partner, someone she knew her whole life—the girl she'd grown up with in Nova, who knew nothing about the life before Eleazar had found her and brought her through the mirror.

"The Root," Ellie said quietly, her hand moving unconsciously to where she knew Amnity's backpack contained the pulsing fungi. "It's... showing me things. This place, it's like... it's like where I came from. Before Eleazar."

Amnity's eyes widened. "Before Eleazar? But you were just a child when he took you in. You said you didn't remember—"

"I didn't." Ellie's voice was barely audible over the noise of the street. "But being here, with the Root... it's all coming back. The smells, the sounds, the way the light falls. Amnity, I think Eleazar brought me to Nova the same way we fell through that mirror. I think he threw me through."

The admission hung between them like a bridge neither was sure they wanted to cross. Around them, the city continued its relentless pace—cars honking, people shouting, the constant background hum of a world that ran on electricity and ambition instead of magic and tradition.

A woman pushing a small cart stopped near them, and the smell that wafted from her vendor's station made Ellie's knees weak with recognition. Hot dogs and pretzels and something else, something that tasted like childhood and safety and Saturday mornings she'd forgotten she'd ever lived.

"I think," Ellie whispered, watching the woman serve customers with practiced efficiency, "I think I might be from here. From a place like this, I mean."

Amnity stared at her, the Glowing Imp Root pulsing steadily in her backpack, each throb bringing more fragments of Ellie's lost past to the surface. The girl she'd grown up with, shared secrets with, learned magic alongside—suddenly felt like a stranger.

And in the distance, the city stretched out around them, vast and overwhelming and somehow, impossibly, like coming home.

"Ellie, baby, You're scaring me. I think... " Amnity wondered for a minute, grabbing at Ellie's shoulders carefully. Amnity looked into her eyes, they seemed normal enough, maybe a little red and kind of puffy, but normal enough, she thought about the root and sighed. "...I think we should get something to eat."

Chapter Six

The wallet felt foreign in Ellie's palm—thin leather worn smooth by countless hands, containing rectangular plastic cards and green paper bills that meant nothing to Amnity but everything to the world around them.

"I can't believe you just did that," Amnity whispered, her voice barely audible over the street noise. They'd moved three blocks away from the businessman whose pocket Ellie had so deftly emptied, her fingers moving with a skill that surprised them both.

Ellie stared down at the bills, counting them with an expertise she didn't remember learning. "Twenty, forty, sixty... eighty-seven dollars." The numbers came naturally, as if she'd been counting this currency her entire life. "It should be enough for... for whatever we need."

"How did you know how to do that?" Amnity's eyes were wide, watching Ellie fold the money with practiced ease. "That wasn't magic. That was just... skill."

Ellie tucked the cash into her pocket, hearing Eleazar's patient voice from years ago echo in her mind:

Light fingers, quick eyes, Ellie. Sometimes survival requires taking what we need from those who have more than enough.

She'd always assumed he'd been teaching her skills for their adventures in Nova, for emergencies when they traveled to dangerous places. She'd never considered that maybe he'd been preparing her to return to a world where those skills were necessary for basic survival.

"I don't know," she said quietly. "Instinct, maybe."

The smell hit them before they saw the source—rich and dark and bitter-sweet, wafting from a storefront with a green circular logo that made Ellie's chest tighten with inexplicable longing.

"What is that?" Amnity asked, wrinkling her nose. "It smells... intense."

"Coffee," Ellie said automatically, then paused. She could taste the word, could almost feel the warmth of a ceramic mug in her hands. "It's... a drink. People here drink it."

The interior of the Starbucks was a sensory assault after the gentle tea houses of Nova. Everything was sharp angles and bright lights, the hiss and gurgle of machines that looked like they belonged in an alchemist's laboratory. People sat hunched over laptops, fingers flying over keyboards, or stood in a serpentine line that moved with mechanical efficiency.

Amnity pressed closer to Ellie's side as they joined the queue. "It's so loud," she murmured. "And why is everyone staring at those glowing rectangles?"

But Ellie was transfixed by the menu board above the counter—a bewildering array of words that somehow made perfect sense to her. Venti, grande, tall. Macchiato, americano, frappuccino. Each word came with a ghost of flavor, a phantom memory of sweetness and caffeine and mornings that started before the sun rose.

"Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get started for you?" The barista's practiced smile was as bright and artificial as the lights overhead.

Ellie stared at the menu, the words swimming in front of her eyes. Something about the smell of this place, the sounds, made her feel like she should know what to order, but she had no idea what any of it meant. "Um... coffee?" she said uncertainly. "Just... regular coffee?"

"What size? And would you like room for cream?"

"Medium?" Ellie guessed, glancing at Amnity helplessly. "And... yes?"

The barista's gaze flicked to Amnity, taking in her out-of-place hiking clothing and the way she was staring at the espresso machine like it might attack her.

"I..." Amnity looked helplessly at the menu. "What's a... cake pop?"

"It's cake. On a stick. Very sweet," the barista explained with the patience of someone who'd answered stranger questions.

"I'll try that," Amnity said quickly.

Ellie handed over two of the stolen twenties, and the change that came back felt natural in her palm—the weight and feel of coins she'd handled countless times before.

They found seats in the corner, Amnity perched on the edge of her chair like she might need to run at any moment. When their order was called, Ellie retrieved it with the confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times.

The first sip of the coffee made Ellie's face scrunch up immediately.

"Oh," she said, blinking rapidly at the bitter taste. "That's... really strong."

But even as she set the cup down, something nagged at her. Not the taste—that was harsh and unfamiliar—but the smell. The rich, dark aroma that filled her nostrils felt like safety somehow, like being small and sleepy and curled up somewhere warm while adults talked in low voices nearby.

"You don't like it?" Amnity asked, watching Ellie's confused expression.

"It's not that," Ellie said slowly, picking up the cup again and inhaling deeply. "The smell is... familiar. But not like I've tasted it before. More like..." She struggled for the words. "Like I used to fall asleep to this smell. Does that make sense?"

Amnity bit into her cake pop and made a small sound of surprise at the sweetness, but her eyes never left Ellie's face. "The Glowing Imp Root?"

Ellie shook her head. "No, this is different. This isn't a memory being unlocked, this is... muscle memory. Like my body remembers even when my mind doesn't." She picked up the cup again, inhaling the familiar scent. "Eleazar always said I adapted to new situations unusually quickly. But what if it wasn't adaptation at all? What if I was just... remembering?"

The admission hung between them, as heavy as the espresso-scented air. Around them, the Starbucks hummed with laptop keyboards and muffled conversations, a soundtrack that felt as natural to Ellie as the forest sounds of Nova.

"Wait," Ellie said suddenly, reaching for her bag. "The mirrors. I still have Eleazar's traveling mirrors." She rummaged through her pack, pushing past herbs and supplies until her fingers found the familiar weight of the small, ornate folded mirrors that she had retrieved from Amnity yesterday. Its silver surface caught the bright Starbucks lighting as she pulled it out. "We don't have to stay here if we don't want to. We can go back to Nova anytime."

Amnity's shoulders sagged with visible relief. "Oh, thank the stars," she breathed. "I thought we were trapped here forever."

But Ellie found herself staring at the mirror's surface, not activating its magic. Outside the windows, the city moved past in its endless rhythm, and somewhere in its vastness were the answers to questions she was only beginning to know how to ask. The question was: did she want to find those answers, or return to the safety of the only home she remembered?

Chapter Seven

"We need somewhere quiet," Ellie said, clutching her bag closer as they walked down the busy sidewalk. The Starbucks coffee still left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth, but the stolen money felt reassuring in her pocket. "Somewhere private where no one will see us disappear."

Amnity nodded eagerly, her eyes darting nervously at every passing stranger. A businessman bumped into her shoulder without apologizing, and she pressed even closer to Ellie's side. "How private? Like, completely alone?"

"The mirror magic needs concentration," Ellie explained, remembering Eleazar's careful instructions. "Any distraction could send us somewhere we don't want to go. Or worse, split us up between worlds."

They tried a small park first, but children were everywhere—climbing on playground equipment, their laughter echoing off the surrounding buildings. Then an alley, but it reeked of garbage and something else that made Amnity gag. Finally, after nearly an hour of searching, they found themselves standing outside a department store with multiple floors.

"Public restroom?" Ellie suggested, pointing to the small sign near the elevator.

"That's..." Amnity paused, considering. "Actually not terrible. People expect privacy there."

The third floor restroom was mercifully empty, with stark fluorescent lighting and white tile walls. Most importantly, it had a large mirror mounted above the sinks—not as ornate as Ellie's traveling mirrors, but reflective surface was reflective surface.

Ellie locked the main door and wedged a trash can against it for good measure. "Keep watch," she told Amnity, who positioned herself by the door with the nervous energy of someone ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

From her bag, Ellie pulled out a small leather pouch that clinked softly. Sea salt mixed with the sands of Nova, blessed by the moon mirrors of Nova, and charged with Eleazar's careful enchantments and Amnity's grandmother's old hyme. She had used this sand to get them there; she could use it to get them back, she thought calmly. She'd never attempted mirror travel through anything but her own mirrors before, but the principle should be the same.

"What are you doing?" Amnity whispered, watching as Ellie approached the wall-mounted mirror.

"Trying to save our traveling mirrors," Ellie said, carefully sprinkling salt at each corner of the mirror frame. "If I can use this mirror instead, our mirrors won't get interdimensionally separated from each other. Eleazar always said that was the most dangerous part of mirror travel—losing your anchor."

The salt caught the fluorescent light, each grain glittering like tiny stars. Ellie began the ritual she'd watched Eleazar perform dozens of times, her hands moving in precise patterns while she whispered words in the old language of Nova. The mirror's surface seemed to shimmer slightly, like water disturbed by a gentle breeze. She reached into her bag for her sand n

"Is it working?" Amnity asked, her voice barely audible.

Ellie placed her palm flat against the cool glass surface and closed her eyes, focusing on her destination—not just Nova, but the specific place that had always been hers alone. The hidden glen deep in the Forest of the Forgotten, where ancient trees formed a natural circle and where she'd spent countless hours in meditation, far from the mirror people's settlements. A place so remote that even the mirror people had forgotten it existed.

The mirror began to warm under her touch, and she felt the familiar tingle of magic responding to her call. The surface rippled like liquid silver, and for a moment, she could almost smell the clean air of the forest, hear the whisper of leaves in the eternal twilight of her sanctuary.

Then someone rattled the door handle.

"Hey! Why is this locked?" A woman's voice, irritated and impatient.

Ellie's concentration shattered. The mirror snapped back to ordinary glass with an almost audible pop, and she stumbled backward, her hand burning from the interrupted magic.

"Occupied!" Amnity called out, her voice higher than usual.

More rattling, then footsteps moving away, grumbling about inconsiderate people.

Ellie stared at the mirror, which now looked perfectly ordinary—just a bathroom mirror reflecting fluorescent lights and white tiles. Her palm still tingled with residual magic, but the connection was gone.

"It almost worked," she said, disappointment heavy in her voice. "I could feel the forest, smell the trees. But the interruption..." She shook her head. "We need somewhere we absolutely won't be disturbed."

Amnity moved the trash can away from the door. "How long do you need?"

"Five minutes of perfect silence and concentration. Maybe less if I can reach the glen quickly." Ellie carefully gathered the spilled salt back into her pouch. Some of it had lost its charge from the interrupted spell, but most was still usable. "It has to be somewhere completely private."

As they left the restroom, passing a line of irritated women waiting outside, Ellie found herself looking at the city with new eyes. Somewhere in this maze of concrete and glass was a place quiet enough, private enough, for the delicate magic that would take them home.

Chapter Eight

"The Starbucks," Ellie said suddenly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk as the realization hit her. "Their bathroom. It'll be quieter than a department store, and people expect coffee shops to have locked bathrooms."

Amnity looked skeptical. "But what if someone—"

"Coffee shops are different. People take longer, and no one questions it." The knowledge came from somewhere deep in Ellie's recovered city instincts. "Trust me."

The Starbucks bathroom was small and cramped, with barely enough room for both of them to stand comfortably. But it was private, and the steady hum of the espresso machine outside would mask any sounds of their departure.

Ellie locked the door and began the ritual again, her movements more confident this time. The sea salt caught the harsh bathroom light as she sprinkled it at each corner of the small mirror above the sink. The space felt different from the department store—more intimate, more focused.

"Hurry," Amnity whispered, though no one had tried the door yet.

Ellie placed her palm against the mirror and closed her eyes, reaching once again for her hidden glen. This time, the connection came easier, the mirror's surface warming under her touch almost immediately. She could smell the green darkness of Nova, feel the ancient peace of the forgotten forest.

The glass began to ripple, then suddenly turned liquid silver. Through the surface, she could see glimpses of towering trees and filtered sunlight.

"Now," she breathed, grabbing Amnity's hand.

The transition between worlds was always shocking—a plunge into cold so intense it felt like drowning in ice water. The mirror's surface pulled them through like liquid mercury, and suddenly they were falling through a void that wasn't quite darkness, wasn't quite light. Ellie gasped as the frigid emptiness seized her lungs, every breath feeling like swallowing shards of winter. The space between worlds had its own terrible physics—weightless yet crushing, silent yet filled with the sound of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears.

Beside her, Amnity's grip tightened painfully, both of them tumbling through the gap between realities. Time moved strangely here; the journey felt like hours and seconds simultaneously. Ellie could taste metal and starlight, could feel her hair whipping around her face in winds that didn't exist.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the cold released them, and they were stumbling onto soft moss, their knees buckling as gravity reasserted itself. The familiar scent of Nova's eternal forest filled their nostrils—earth and growing things, the green smell of life that never quite slept.

Ellie collapsed to her knees, still shaking from the crossing, her hands pressed against the moss as she tried to convince her body that solid ground was real again. Amnity sprawled beside her on the forest floor, gasping and shivering, her Nova clothing damp with the strange moisture that always clung to travelers between worlds.

Around them, the ancient trees rose like cathedral pillars, their silver-threaded bark catching what little light filtered through the canopy. This was Ellie's sanctuary, the place she'd discovered as a child and claimed as her own. The trees here were older than memory, their roots so deep they touched the very heart of Nova. She'd spent countless hours in this circle, learning to quiet her mind, to listen to the whispers of magic that flowed through everything in her world.

But now, something felt fundamentally wrong.

"It's so quiet," Amnity whispered after a long moment, her voice seeming unnaturally loud in the stillness. She pushed herself to a sitting position, brushing moss from her palms, her eyes wide as she took in the unnatural silence.

Nova had never been silent. Ever. There were always sounds threading through the forest—the whisper of wind through leaves that sang different notes depending on the season, the distant call of mirror-birds with their crystalline voices, the soft chiming of the wild crystals that grew in the deeper woods like musical wind chimes. The very trees themselves usually hummed with a low, almost inaudible vibration that spoke of deep roots and deeper magic.

But now, the forest held its breath around them, as if the very air was waiting for something. Even the small stream that normally bubbled between the oak roots had fallen silent, its water moving but making no sound, like watching the world through glass.

Ellie pushed herself to her feet, unease prickling along her spine like cold fingers. The glen looked exactly as she'd left it—every detail perfectly preserved. The circle of ancient oaks with their silver-threaded bark, the soft moss that had cushioned countless hours of meditation, the flat stone where she'd often sat to watch the play of light through the leaves. But the oppressive quiet transformed her sanctuary into something alien, like coming home to find all the furniture rearranged in subtle, disturbing ways.

"Maybe it's because we've been gone?" Amnity suggested, but her voice carried uncertainty. "Maybe the forest is just... adjusting to our return?"

Ellie didn't answer. She was remembering the constant noise of the other world—car horns blaring, people shouting, the mechanical hum of a civilization that never slept. The sensory assault that had felt overwhelming at first, but had also felt... alive. Vibrant. Real in a way that this perfect, silent forest suddenly didn't.

"The root!" Amnity's voice cut through the eerie silence, excitement overtaking her unease as she pulled her backpack around to check its contents. Her hands moved quickly, carefully unwrapping the bundle that held their precious cargo. "Oh, thank the mirrors, it's still intact!"

The Glowing Imp Root pulsed softly in its carefully wrapped bundle, its bioluminescence undimmed by their journey between worlds. If anything, it seemed brighter than before, as if the strange transition had somehow energized it. Amnity's shoulders sagged with relief as she confirmed that all her other gathered ingredients were still safely secured—the silver moss, the crystallized dew, the handful of singing stones that would help focus the healing magic.

"Look at it," she breathed, holding the root up so its gentle light played across the silent trees. "It's perfect, Ellie. With this, I can brew for The Midnight Moon Festival, and it's huge, maybe I'll make some sweets with it too!" Amnity sang.

But Ellie barely heard her. She was staring up at the canopy, at the way the light fell wrong somehow, too still, too perfect. In the city, light had been harsh and changeable, reflecting off glass and metal, creating sharp shadows and brilliant highlights. It had hurt her eyes, but it had also felt dynamic, alive, real in a way that Nova's gentle, filtered illumination now seemed pale by comparison.

The contrast was jarring, disorienting. In the city, she'd felt like she was remembering something vital about herself, awakening parts of her mind that had been sleeping. Here, in the place that had been her sanctuary for years, she felt like a stranger wearing someone else's life.

"I need answers," she said quietly, her voice harder than Amnity had ever heard it.

"Ellie?"

"I need to talk to Eleazar. Now." Ellie's hands clenched into fists. "He's been lying to me my whole life. Teaching me to steal, training me for a world he claimed I'd never see again. He knew I was from there, didn't he? He always knew."

Amnity had never seen this side of her best friend—this cold anger that made Ellie's usually warm brown eyes look almost black. "Maybe he was just trying to protect you—"

"By lying? By letting me think I was some orphan he'd found wandering the forest?" Ellie's voice rose, and somewhere in the canopy above, a few mirror-birds finally stirred, their crystalline calls echoing strangely in the quiet. "I'm going to get the truth out of him, one way or another."

Without another word, she strode toward the path that would take her back to the settled lands of Nova, her steps quick and purposeful. The city had awakened something in her—not just memories, but a fierce determination that sat uncomfortably in this peaceful world.

Amnity watched her go, then looked down at her backpack full of precious ingredients. The Glowing Imp Root pulsed steadily, and she could already envision the delicate work ahead—preparing her kitchen for the complex spellwork that would transform the root into the healing draught they'd originally set out to create.

But as she began gathering her things to head home, the excitement in her movements gradually fading to something more thoughtful, she couldn't shake the feeling that their brief journey to Ellie's birth world had changed more than just Ellie's understanding of her past. It had changed Ellie herself—the way she moved, the sharpness in her eyes, even the way she breathed seemed different. More alert, more predatory, like she was constantly assessing threats and opportunities.

The girl who had left Nova that morning had been gentle, contemplative, someone who preferred solving problems with patience and careful thought. The person walking away toward Eleazar's cottage moved with the fluid confidence of someone who had learned to take what she needed to survive, who had remembered skills that had nothing to do with Nova's peaceful ways.

Amnity shouldered her pack and took one last look around the glen, hoping the familiar peace of the place might settle her nerves. But the oppressive quiet remained, and she found herself hurrying toward the path that would take her back to the settled lands, back to her cottage with its comfortable kitchen and well-ordered shelves of ingredients.

She had work to do. Important work. The root needed to be processed within days of harvesting, or it would lose its potency. She needed to prepare her workspace, gather the secondary ingredients, plan the delicate sequence of steps that would transform the raw root into a healing draught that could save lives.

But as she walked through the unnaturally silent forest, she couldn't stop thinking about the way Ellie had moved through that overwhelming city—not like someone lost and confused, but like someone coming home to a place they'd always belonged.

The forest remained unnaturally quiet around them both, as if Nova itself was holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen when two worlds finally collided in the heart of one person who belonged fully to neither.

Chapter Nine

Amnity's cottage felt like a sanctuary after the strange silence of the forest. She dropped her pack by the door and took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scents of dried herbs and the lingering sweetness of yesterday's honey cakes. Everything was exactly as she'd left it—copper pots hanging from their hooks, wooden counters worn smooth by years of use, the cheerful clutter of a kitchen that was truly lived in.

But it was the narrow alcove beside her spice rack that called to her now. Her apothecary was modest compared to the grand laboratories she'd seen in the mirror cities, but it was perfectly suited to her needs. Glass vials of varying sizes lined wooden shelves, each one labeled in her careful handwriting. Brass scales gleamed on the counter, flanked by mortars and pestles carved from different stones—each one chosen for specific magical properties. A small cauldron hung from an adjustable iron arm over a magical flame that burned without fuel or smoke.

Amnity carefully unwrapped the Glowing Imp Root, setting it on a special preparation board made from heartwood. The root pulsed with gentle bioluminescence, its surface ridged and twisted like a miniature tree. This was the most complex potion she'd ever attempted, requiring perfect timing and precise measurements.

She pulled out her grandmother's recipe book, the leather binding soft with age, and turned to the page she'd studied countless times but never dared attempt. The Healing Draught of the Deep Forest required thirteen ingredients, prepared in a specific sequence under the light of the waxing moon. Tonight, fortunately, the moon would be in its perfect phase.

First, the root itself had to be prepared. Amnity lit the magical flame with a whispered word, adjusting it to the lowest possible setting. The Glowing Imp Root needed to be heated slowly, carefully, until its outer skin could be peeled away in thin translucent layers. Too much heat and the essential oils would evaporate. Too little, and the skin wouldn't separate properly.

As she worked, her mind naturally drifted to tomorrow night's Midnight Moon Festival. She'd been looking forward to it for months—the one night when all of Nova's scattered communities came together in the Great Meadow. Vendors would line the paths with their wares laid out on blankets and wooden tables, selling everything from spiced ciders to enchanted trinkets. Musicians would play under the stars, and couples would dance on the soft grass while children chased fireflies through the crowd.

The root's skin came away in perfect spirals, revealing the luminous flesh beneath. Amnity smiled as she collected the peelings in a silk cloth—they'd be useful for lesser healing salves later. The exposed root glowed brighter now, its light pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat.

Next came the silver moss, which needed to be ground to powder while still damp from the morning dew. The brass mortar rang like a bell as she worked, the sound clear and pure in her quiet kitchen. Three full turns clockwise, then three counter-clockwise, then a final clockwise turn while humming the ancient preservation song her grandmother had taught her.

She paused in her work to pull out a piece of paper and her favorite quill. The invitation had been forming in her mind as she worked, growing clearer with each careful step of the potion-making process.

Ellie,

I know you're probably still talking with Eleazar, but I wanted to invite you to the Midnight Moon Festival tomorrow night. Would you like to go with me? As my date? I've been thinking about asking you for weeks, but there never seemed to be a right moment. We could walk through the vendors together, try the honey wine from the northern settlements, maybe dance if the musicians are good.

I'll be finishing the healing draught tomorrow evening—it should be ready just in time for the festival. I think you'd like to see how it turns out.

I hope things go well with Eleazar. Whatever you learn, whatever you decide, I want you to know that you're always welcome at my table.

With love,

Amnity

She folded the letter carefully and set it aside. She'd send it with one of the message-birds in the morning.

The crystallized dew came next, tiny diamonds of trapped moonlight that had to be dissolved in spring water heated to precisely the temperature of a human tear. Too hot and the magic would break; too cold and it wouldn't integrate properly. Amnity held her hand over the small cauldron, feeling for the exact moment when the water was ready.

As she worked, she found herself humming—first the preservation song, then a harvest melody, then one of the dancing tunes they'd play tomorrow night. The familiar rhythms of magical cooking soothed her in a way that conversation never could. This was her element, her gift. In this small alcove with its carefully organized tools and ingredients, she could heal the sick, mend the broken, bring comfort to those who needed it most.

The dissolved dew shimmered in the cauldron like liquid starlight. Perfect. Now came the delicate work of adding the prepared root, slice by paper-thin slice, while maintaining the exact temperature and stirring in the complex pattern that would bind all the magical properties together.

Outside her windows, Nova's twilight was deepening toward true night. Somewhere across the settled lands, Ellie was probably confronting Eleazar about her past, demanding answers to questions that had been buried for years. But here in her kitchen, surrounded by the tools of her trade and the promise of tomorrow night's festival, Amnity felt perfectly content to focus on the work at hand.

The healing draught would be ready by tomorrow evening, just as she'd promised in her letter. And if Ellie said yes to being her date, it would be the perfect ending to what had begun as a simple gathering expedition and turned into something much more complicated.

But complications could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, there was only the gentle glow of the magical flame, the steady rhythm of stirring, and the quiet satisfaction of creating something beautiful and useful with her own hands.

The Glowing Imp Root settled into the potion with a soft sigh, its bioluminescence spreading through the liquid like dawn breaking over still water. Tomorrow night, under the light of the full moon, this draught would be ready to heal anyone who needed it.

And hopefully, tomorrow night, she wouldn't be dancing alone.

Chapter Ten

The Hole looked exactly the same as it always had—cluttered, chaotic, and filled with treasures from a dozen different worlds. But as Ellie stood in the doorway, taking in the familiar chaos with new eyes, she began to see patterns she'd never noticed before.

The shelves that lined every wall from floor to ceiling weren't just randomly crammed with objects—they were organized by world of origin. The eastern wall held items with the sharp, geometric aesthetic of the Crystal Cities: prisms that split light into impossible colors, metal tools that hummed with their own energy, bottles filled with liquid that moved like living mercury. The western shelves displayed softer treasures—silk scarves that changed color with the wearer's mood, wooden instruments that played melodies when the wind touched them, jars of spices that smelled like homesickness and distant rain.

And there, on the north wall behind Eleazar's workbench, were the objects that made her breath catch. Things that looked almost familiar, almost ordinary, but slightly wrong in ways that made her newly awakened memories stir uneasily. A coffee mug with a logo she almost recognized. A magazine with text in a language that felt like it should make sense. A small snow globe containing a miniature cityscape that looked disturbingly like the place she and Amnity had just escaped from.

This was where she'd grown up, in the spaces between Eleazar's collections from other worlds. Where she'd learned to read by deciphering labels on bottles filled with sand from distant beaches, where she'd practiced her first magic by helping to seal the spontaneous portals that opened during Nova's storm seasons. She'd crawled through these aisles as a toddler, played hide-and-seek among artifacts that could have filled museums in a dozen different realities.

But she'd never questioned where any of it came from. Never wondered why Eleazar, supposedly a simple hermit living in the deep forest, had access to treasures from so many different worlds. She'd accepted his explanations about "trading" and "finding things" the same way children accept that toys appear under trees at winter festivals—as magic that didn't require deeper investigation.

Now, with the bitter taste of stolen coffee still lingering on her tongue and the memory of her own skilled fingers emptying a stranger's pocket, she was beginning to understand what kind of "trading" Eleazar really did.

But today, walking through the familiar chaos, Ellie felt like an intruder.

Eleazar was hunched over his workbench in the back corner, carefully cataloging what looked like a handful of smooth river stones that glowed with their own inner light. The stones were arranged in a precise pattern on a piece of dark cloth, and he was making notes in one of his endless journals using a quill that wrote in silver ink.

He looked older than she remembered, Ellie realized with a start. When had the lines around his eyes deepened so much? When had his hair become more white than gray? She'd always thought of him as timeless, as permanent as the ancient trees of Nova, but now she could see the weight of years—and perhaps secrets—etched into his weathered features.

He looked up when her footsteps announced her arrival, and his weathered face broke into the warm smile she'd known since childhood. It was the same expression he'd worn when she'd taken her first successful steps, when she'd sealed her first portal, when she'd mastered the complex mirror-walking techniques he'd taught her. The smile of a proud father watching his daughter grow up.

But today, it made her feel hollow inside.

"Ellie! Back so soon? I thought you and Amnity would be gone until—" He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes narrowing as he took in her appearance. Something in her posture, the way she held herself, made his smile falter. "You look different."

"Do I?" Ellie's voice was flat, controlled. She moved closer to his workbench, her eyes scanning the familiar tools and half-finished projects. There was the set of enchanted chisels he used to carve focusing crystals, the collection of measuring devices calibrated for different magical frequencies, the neat rows of glass vials filled with substances that glowed, swirled, or occasionally tried to escape their cork stoppers.

And there, tucked behind a stack of leather-bound journals, was something that made her steps falter. A child's drawing, crude and faded with age, showing two stick figures standing in front of what was unmistakably The Hole. One tall figure with wild hair and a pointed hat, one small figure with a gap-toothed smile. At the bottom, in the uncertain letters of someone just learning to write, were the words "Me and Papa Eleazar."

She'd drawn that when she was six years old, she remembered suddenly. It had been a gift for his birthday—or what he claimed was his birthday, anyway. He'd made such a fuss over it, tacking it up on the wall above his workbench where he could see it while he worked. She'd felt so proud, so loved, so grateful to this wonderful man who'd taken in a lost little girl and given her a home.

Looking at it now, with the taste of bitter truth in her mouth, she wondered if he'd kept it as a reminder of how easy it had been to win her trust. "Maybe that's because I've been remembering things, Eleazar. Things you told me I'd forgotten."

The old man went very still. The glowing stones in his hands seemed to pulse brighter, as if responding to the sudden tension in the room. Around them, The Hole seemed to grow quieter—even the self-winding clocks stopped their ticking, as if the very air was holding its breath.

"What kind of things?" His voice was careful, measured, but Ellie could hear the underlying current of worry. It was the same tone he'd used when she'd asked too many questions about the locked chest in his bedroom, or wondered aloud why some of his "trading partners" only visited in the dead of night.

"Coffee shops. Cars. The taste of tap water and the sound of sirens." Ellie picked up a small mirror from his workbench—one of his ordinary scrying glasses, nothing like her traveling mirrors. Her reflection looked back at her, but somehow wrong, like seeing a stranger wearing her face. The girl in the mirror had sharper eyes than she remembered, a harder set to her mouth. "I remember the smell of exhaust and the way sunlight looks when it hits concrete. I remember being small and scared and hungry, and I remember—"

She stopped, because the memory that had just surfaced was too big, too painful to voice aloud. She remembered crying. Crying for someone who wasn't there, calling out a name that wasn't Eleazar's, reaching for arms that would never hold her again.

"Where did you go, Ellie?" Eleazar's interruption was sharp, almost urgent. He'd set down the glowing stones entirely now, his full attention fixed on her face with an intensity that made her skin prickle. "Where did these memories come from? What happened to you?" "Where did these memories come from?"

She set the mirror down carefully, not breaking eye contact. "You know where. You know exactly where, don't you? The question is why you never told me I could go back."

She set the mirror down carefully, not breaking eye contact. "You know where. You know exactly where, don't you? The question is why you never told me I could go back."

"Go back?" Eleazar's laugh was strained, too loud in the cluttered space. "Ellie, you were barely more than a baby when I found you. There's nothing for you to go back to. No family, no home, no life that you could possibly remember with any accuracy—"

"Found me." Ellie repeated the words slowly, as if tasting them. "That's always been your story, hasn't it? That you found me wandering in the forest, alone and lost. A convenient little orphan who needed rescuing."

She moved to one of the shelves, running her fingers along the spine of a book written in a language that looked almost familiar. "Tell me, Eleazar, in all these years of 'finding' and 'trading,' have you ever brought back a person before? Or was I your first?"

The question hung in the air like smoke from a snuffed candle. Eleazar's face had gone pale, and she could see a muscle jumping in his jaw as he struggled to find words.

"That's what happened," he said finally, but his voice lacked conviction. "You don't remember because you were so young, so traumatized by whatever happened to your... to your original family. The mind protects itself from trauma, Ellie. It buries memories too painful to carry."

"I fell through a mirror." Ellie's statement cut through his explanation like a blade. "Amnity and I, we were gathering Glowing Imp Root in the deep forest, and a mirror opened up. We fell through. Landed in the middle of a city that felt like..." She paused, watching his face carefully. "Like coming home."

Eleazar had gone very pale. "A spontaneous portal. Those are dangerous, Ellie, you know that. The weather patterns this season have been unstable—"

"Don't." The word came out sharper than Ellie had intended. "Don't you dare try to explain this away as some random magical accident. You trained me to seal those portals, remember? You taught me to recognize the signs, to feel when the barriers between worlds are weakening. I know what a weather-driven portal feels like."

She moved closer to the workbench, her hands braced against the scarred wood. "This wasn't weather magic, Eleazar. This was deliberate. Controlled. Someone opened that portal on purpose."

"Who would do such a thing?" But even as he asked the question, Eleazar's eyes were darting toward a particular section of his shelves—the one where he kept his most sensitive materials, the things he'd never let her touch as a child.

"That's what I'm here to find out." Ellie followed his gaze to the forbidden shelves. "Funny thing about that mirror we fell through. It felt familiar. The magic signature, the way it resonated. Like something I'd encountered before, but couldn't quite place."

Eleazar stood up abruptly, moving to position himself between Ellie and the shelves. "Ellie, you're talking about very dangerous magic. Controlled portal creation, cross-dimensional travel—these aren't things that amateurs dabble in."

"No," she agreed quietly. "They're things that professionals use. People who make their living moving between worlds. People who might need to... acquire things... from places they're not supposed to be."

The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications. Eleazar's workshop suddenly felt smaller, more cramped, as if the walls were closing in. All those shelves full of impossible objects, things that couldn't possibly exist in Nova naturally. Things that someone would have had to bring back from other worlds.

Things that someone would have had to steal.

"The mirror I fell through," Ellie said softly, her voice carrying a new edge of understanding. "It wasn't the first time I've been through it, was it?"

Eleazar's face crumpled slightly, aging years in the span of a heartbeat. "Ellie—"

"Was it?"

"You don't understand how complicated—"

"Was it the first time?" Her voice was harder now, demanding.

Eleazar looked at her for a long moment, this girl he'd raised and trained and loved, who was now looking at him with the eyes of a stranger. Finally, almost inaudibly, he whispered, "No."

The admission hung in the air between them like smoke from a dying fire. Around them, the treasures of a dozen worlds seemed to press closer, each object a silent witness to secrets that had been buried for far too long.

Ellie nodded slowly, as if confirming something she'd already known. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet but steady, carrying the weight of newfound understanding.

"I want you to know," she said, still not looking at him, "that I loved you. For fifteen years, I loved you like a father. I trusted you completely. I would have done anything for you."

She finally turned to face him, and Eleazar flinched at the expression in her eyes.

"But I'm not a child anymore, Eleazar. And I'm not the lost little girl you could protect with gentle lies and half-truths." She straightened her shoulders, and for a moment she looked less like the gentle forest dweller she'd been that morning and more like someone who'd learned to survive in harder places. "I think you and I need to have a very long conversation about what really happened the day you 'found' me. And this time, I want the truth. All of it."

The silence that followed was broken only by the soft ticking of the many clocks scattered throughout The Hole, each one keeping time for a different world, a different reality. But in this moment, suspended between past lies and future truths, time itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting to see which version of Ellie's story would finally be told.