“I’d like to have clean dishes when I return.” She tried a smile, but nothing much happened on her face.
“Is that what it does? Clean dishes?” Heck joined them and sat on the kitchen counter, looking intrigued by the idea.
As she nodded, wondering if they were making a joke, she realized how little she knew about Allinan. Was there electricity? Did they have cars? She hadn’t seen any.
“How do you wash dishes in Allinan?” She glanced at them, eager to learn about the world on whose throne she might one day sit—one day in a future the was free of her tyrant-grandmother.
The two of them looked at each other for a second. “Soldiers eat at the cafeteria,” Heck explained, “and nobles usually have servants.”
“And the rest of the people do it by hand,” Jemin added.
“Has either of you ever washed a single dish in his life?” Maray asked, incredulous.
As a reply, Jemin rolled up his sleeves, picked up the dirty pot from the stove, and set it in the sink with an unreadable face.
“What are you doing?” Maray asked, shocked as he actually turned on the water and grabbed the soap.
“Washing the dishes.”
Heck laughed in the background.
Embarrassed, Maray took the sponge from Jemin’s hand. “You’re a guest,” she informed him, hoping he’d understand that implied that he wasn’t expected to do any of this.
He eyed her with a hint of confusion before he layered his composure back over it. “And you are royalty. You shouldn’t be cooking for anyone—or cleaning up after them for that matter.”
“And you are pathetic,” Heck told Jemin, placing his hand on his shoulder to lower himself off the counter. “So the princess cooked for us—big deal.”
Maray wasn’t sure whether she found the situation funny or tragic.
“If you don’t stop acting weird and let me clean up, I’ll go back to Allinan alone.” She tried a joke, but both Jemin and Heck straightened and stepped aside as Maray pulled the pot out of the sink and placed it in the dishwasher, closed it, and switched the artifact on.
“Ready?” she asked the boys, and as they nodded, she grabbed her keys, put on Corey’s cloak, and together they left.
As they stepped outside, the icy wind which seemed to blow only west to east in this city hit them in the face. Maray shivered. Next to her, Heck and Jemin wore nothing on top of their Thaotine shirts. Neither of them seemed cold.
“Is that also part of the magic?” she asked and brushed Jemin’s wrist with her fingers.
He lifted his hand in response, pulling it out of her reach. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Heck on the other hand had noticed how she was pulling her scarf more tightly around her shoulders and neck.
“That’s not magic—it’s just us being awesome.” He winked at her.
“I would offer you my shirt,” Jemin said with a frown, “but I doubt it would make much of a difference.”
Maray forgot to walk. “Are you serious? You would freeze,” she complained, thinking about his heroism.
“I thought I’d told you,” Heck commented. “Jem is always serious.”
Maray did remember. And so far, Heck’s words hadn’t been proven wrong. She nodded.
“Only, this time, he would seriously freeze.” Heck grinned at her.
“Shut up, Heck,” Jemin bit at him. “It’s not that cold.”
“Would you do the same for Corey?” Heck didn’t let it go. And with a sideways glance, he caught Maray’s attention. He gave her a significant look.
Her stomach knotted. Had she misread Jemin’s looks and comments? She wasn’t ready to be rejected on top of everything that was going on. She swallowed.
“I would do the same for any of you,” Jemin clarified without as much as a tooth chatter and turned left as they got to the narrow, downhill street that led past the school and to the palace gardens.
The knot in her stomach unclenched.
They walked in silence for the rest of the way down to the bridge where the small street met a main road, Jemin always a couple of steps ahead. He stopped at the red light and turned to the side as Maray and Heck stopped next to him.
“I’m glad we don’t need those in Allinan.” He wrinkled his nose as he watched car after car pass them until the lights changed.
“You don’t have cars in Allinan?” Maray didn’t know. So far, all she’d seen was the palace from outside and the gardens. They definitely didn’t have tourists in the palace, the way this world had.
“Not like that.” He gestured at the blur of headlights that was passing them and the streetlamp-lit crossing. “Our vehicles are fueled by a special salt. That, together with a magic key, makes them move. They’ll probably remind you of your Renaissance, though.” A smile flashed across his face, making him seem more human for a moment. He started walking. “Traveling between major locations is done by portals.”
“Portals?” Maray wondered aloud and followed. “My dad said that you couldn’t portal to a different location when going from dimension to dimension.”
“Exactly,” he confirmed. “Portals only work within Allinan. And you need a ma—”
“A magic key,” Maray finished for him. He nodded, face back to serious. “Is there anything I don’t need a magic key for?”
Heck laughed. “Don’t worry about keys,” he reassured her and laid his arm over her shoulders.
Maray shrugged out from under his arm and raised an eyebrow as Jemin led them past a tram, toward a small iron gate she hadn’t noticed the first time she’d walked down here. It was set in the yellow wall that protected the gardens from the street and thousands of tourists rolling in at the main gate every day.
“In here,” he said and reached for the gate with one quick movement.
It opened swiftly despite the weight it had to have, and Maray glimpsed at Jemin’s arm, wondering if she asked, he’d also say that it was part of being a soldier. She didn’t ask. Instead, she squeezed past him after Heck, and her heart pounded in her chest as he grabbed her by the arm on the threshold.
“We are entering the palace grounds now,” he murmured almost as if telling her a secret. “There could be Yutu anywhere.”
Maray nodded, mouth dry from the warmth of his breath on her cheek, before she stepped into the shadows of the trees behind the wall.
As they snuck through the dark paths of the park, everything was quiet except for the rustling of the dead leaves on the ground as the wind moved them along with its angry gusts. In this world, around this time of the day, the gardens were supposed to be closed for visitors. They had decided it was safest to walk to Cardrick Langley’s hideout in this dimension before they portaled into Allinan.
“Could you slow down a little bit, please?” Maray whispered as Jemin sped up the second they were away from the wall, Heck at his heels.
Both their heads turned at her request, and Heck rolled his eyes. “Honestly, what do teenagers do in this world? Don’t you have training plans for stamina, dexterity, and versatility?”
Jemin, however, gave her a troubled look and slowed down. “I apologize,” he said and decelerated until she fell into step beside him. “I keep forgetting how much different your upbringing is from a typical Allinan child.”
Maray suppressed a grin. “Hey, I’m not a child,” she protested half-seriously and earned another look from Jemin. This time his eyes ran over her chest up to her lips before they locked on her eyes, dark shadows making it hard for her to read them. “I know.” And then so low Maray couldn’t be certain he had really spoken, he said, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Heck had moved a bit further into the darker regions of the park, away from the main paths. “There is something in the bushes.” He waved them over, impatient. Maray’s stomach tightened. Had a Yutu noticed them? She didn’t even know if they found people by smell or sound or if they had some extra sense that was unique to Allinan that she had never heard of.
/> Jemin’s hand automatically reached for his sword, eyes on the direction Heck was staring.
Maray followed his lead and let him guide her as he reached his free arm backward, fencing her behind him. “Stay close behind me,” he hushed over his shoulder, eyes fixed on the darkness in front of them.
Everything about the way his body moved, the steel of his arms, the tension in his back, the springiness of his legs—she could sense all of it through the small gap between her and him and whatever layers of clothes were between them—screamed danger. Maray felt the urgency in his words, and with Heck’s sideways glance at her, she was certain it was time to get ready to draw her own weapon.
She struggled to pull the cloak aside, a gust of wind blowing it across her front so she couldn’t access her belt. It fanned out to her side, and Jemin lifted his arm in sync with Heck as a growl ripped the silence of the night, and something caught the seam of her cloak. She lost balance and face-planted into Jemin’s back. He staggered and fell forward, Maray landing on him, hands on his waist.
For a second, she considered dissolving into thin air, but as that wasn’t exactly doable, she gingerly lifted her head an inch. “I’m sorry,” she said into his shoulders.
Jemin propped himself up on his elbows, lifting her like a stranded fish, and Maray, surprisingly reluctant to trade his warm, silken shirt for the cold November air, could peek over his shoulder. His left hand was buried in a twitching mountain of fur.
“No need to be sorry,” he said with a voice that didn’t give away that Maray’s weight was crushing him, if that was the case. “It would be helpful, though, if you could get off of me.”
Maray blushed and hesitantly crept off his back, sliding to her knees beside him, and Jemin jumped to his feet, pulling his sword out of the ginormous heap of fur.
“That was close,” Heck said to Jemin. “The Yutu almost got her.” He extracted his sword from the other side of the beast and wiped it clean on his shirt.
Maray looked up at both of them, intending to get to her feet but was held back by a weight on her cloak. She stumbled and landed back on the ground.
Before she could see what had happened, the boys were both by her side, Heck holding out his hand while Jemin reached behind her, working on something with his sword. When she glanced over her shoulder to see what was happening, she was surprised to find him forcing open the mouth of the dying beast with his blade, causing dark liquid to ooze all over his hands as he worked to free Maray’s cloak.
“Really close,” she agreed with Heck and noticed that she was shivering all over, not because of the temperature, but because it was only now that she realized just how much danger they had been in. The Yutu could have gotten Jemin easily. Had he been a fraction of a second later with his strike… she didn’t even want to think what could have happened.
Heck was smiling down at her, hand still open for her to take, and she reached up, letting him pull her to her feet.
She thanked him with a weary smile and waited a moment to see if she would be able to remain on her feet before she let go.
“You don’t look so good,” he noted, and at first she thought Heck was talking to her, but he was glancing over her shoulder at Jemin.
Grasped by a new type of fear—the fear that something could happen to Jemin—she turned around and looked into his normally bright blue eyes, which were now little more than a grey shadow in the moonlight. His sword-hand was resting on his chest where his shirt had been torn open by what Maray guessed had been the Yutu. Blood was seeping into the fabric.
“It’s nothing,” he said, followed by a cough. “Nothing that a healing spell can’t take care of in a minute or two.”
“At least now we know I’m the better fighter,” Heck teased and got gritted teeth from Jemin.
“I took that beast down while being tackled from behind,” he objected.
As they discussed why, or why not, credit for the death of the beast should go to Jemin, Maray stepped closer to examine the wound. Reminded of that first encounter with him when he’d lain motionless on the ground, her heart missed a beat. She had grown up in a world where something like this meant weeks of recovery, maybe months if the bone had been affected. And it took her all the effort she had in her to not panic and push for an ambulance. She absently placed her hand on the unscathed part of his chest and hoped he was right.
No one in her world could stand to wait for a wound like this to just heal in the next moment. Most certainly, no one in her world would do it so gracefully and smile at her while doing it. She swallowed a lump in her throat.
“Did you get hurt?” he asked, and it took Maray a second to understand what he was asking. “When you fell… we fell,” he corrected. “Did you hurt yourself?”
She shook her head, and that simple gesture was enough to bring an expression of honest relief to his features.
“Thank you,” she managed as she watched the flesh on his chest slowly knit itself back together. “Both of you.” She turned around to face Heck, pulling her hand away from Jemin’s warm skin.
“At your service, ma’am.” Heck bowed comically and walked around to the now motionless Yutu. “What should we do with this?”
“Send it back to Allinan,” Jemin decided. Maray could see him from the corner of her eye as he stepped closer. “I will always protect you,” he said in a murmur, and she wasn’t sure he had meant to say what he had actually said.
While she was still listening to the echo of his words in her mind, Jemin and Heck had sent the dead Yutu into the other dimension with a simple touch of their bracelets. She didn’t want to ask how exactly they had done it. She didn’t want to do anything to delay them on their way to Langley’s hideout.
After a couple of minutes, Jemin’s wound had disappeared completely, and he and Heck had urged her to continue on their journey as quickly as possible. Now they were running through the park, ignoring all paved roads but taking the quickest route to that fountain Heck had mentioned. She didn’t complain again about the pace, or that she could hardly see where she was setting her feet, but let Jemin drag her along as she stumbled after him.
“Not far,” Heck reassured her with a glance over his shoulder while he ran ahead.
Every noise in the bushes and trees, every snapping twig as a night-bird landed on it or took off, made her shrink closer to Jemin, and every time, his hand tightened around hers. Her breath was heavy and almost as loud as her feet as they dug into gravel, dead grass, or bare soil.
By the time Heck slowed, her lungs were burning, and her mouth was tasting of metal.
“Down there.” He pointed at an ancient Roman arch that curved in front of a little hill. She had seen it online when she had searched her new hometown for sights and curiosities. Back then, she’d thought it looked majestic. Now, it appeared intimidating even with the statue of a naked lady pouring water from a jar.
Heck stopped at the fountain and looked around before he nodded at Jemin, and fog surrounded him. Then he disappeared.
“Ready?” Jemin stopped them both right where Heck had stood, and before Maray had a chance to answer, they, too, were swallowed by a white haze.
When they rematerialized in Allinan, Jemin’s hand was still wrapped around hers. Somehow, that was soothing and exciting at the same time.
“About time,” Heck remarked and gestured for Jemin to come join him at the bottom of the stairs.
“Is that the entrance?” Maray asked, voice cut off by her still ragged breathing, and though she wasn’t sure either of them would understand her, both boys nodded, Jemin pulling her with him as he walked over to Heck.
By the time they got there, Heck had opened a small trapdoor that seemed to be integrated into the stairs leading up the hill. A soft, orange glow brightened his face, making his olive skin seem darker and his chocolate eyes black.
“I go first,” Jemin claimed and squeezed past Heck, sword still in hand and stringing Maray along. She shrugged as she followed hi
m down into the torch-lit tunnel. “You go last,” he ordered Heck, who was at her heels in an instant.
Maray’s breathing gradually slowed as they cautiously made their way into the tunnel. Jemin was still holding on to her hand, or was it the other way around? She couldn’t tell for certain.
“Cardrick doesn’t know we’re coming so early.” Heck interrupted the rhythm of their feet, repeating something he had said several times before they had agreed on a plan. “He thinks you’re coming tomorrow.”
“He’ll be happy to see her,” Jemin said over his shoulder, an emotion ghosting over his face she couldn’t quite place.
“Do you think my dad has gotten in touch with him?” Maray asked what was really burning on her tongue. The whole reason they’d gone to Allinan was to make sure her father would come home safe and then, of course, to take down the evil queen.
“We will know in a couple of minutes.” Jemin led her around a corner and into a small space with two wooden doors. He let go of Maray’s hand and opened the right one. “Not far.”
His eyes were ahead on their path as he spoke.
Maray was half-expecting that he would take her hand again, but when he stepped through the door and continued walking without reaching for her, she swallowed a hint of disappointment and followed.
“He is in soldier-mode,” Heck explained in a whisper as if he was reading her thoughts.
Whatever that meant, it somehow lightened her heart as she trotted behind Jemin, watching his hair, tinted in fire orange, bounce with every step he made.
For a while, it was all she could focus on. Any other thought that tried to steal itself into her mind was banished—for now. The monotonous rhythm of their footsteps was a welcome change to stumbling through the underbrush in the gardens. It was also warmer down there.
As she had almost managed to tune out all worries about what may happen, Jemin abruptly stopped, letting her run into him. Heck chuckled behind her.
“This is becoming a habit,” he noted.
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