Below the illustration, in handwriting she recognized as a previous Guardian's:Retrieve the Wayfinder. The Collector already knows it's here.
The portal held steady. Patient. Waiting.
Hazel pulled out her phone and texted Nate.
Archives. Now. Bring your neutralization kit.
And comfortable shoes.
Nate arrivedin four minutes flat, which meant he'd either been in the building already or broken several traffic laws. His kit bag hung from one shoulder, and he'd rolled his sleeves to the elbows in that way that suggested he'd been working with detection equipment. He stopped three feet inside the restricted section and stared at the portal.
"That wasn't there yesterday."
"Keen observation."
His jaw tightened, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him. He set the bag down and circled the Codex, scanning the portal with a handheld detection crystal that glowed amber in proximity to the dimensional rift. His green eyes tracked the shifting corridors beyond.
"Stable aperture. Self-sustaining energy source." He crouched to examine the base of the portal where it met the Codex's pages. "The grimoire is powering this directly?"
"The Codex is requesting we use it." She showed him the illustration of the Wayfinder. The previous Guardian's handwritten warning.
He read it twice, then ran a hand through his hair.
"The Collector knows about an artifact hidden in an unstable pocket dimension, and the Codex wants us to go fetch it before he does."
"That's the gist."
"Through a portal into a reality that—" He consulted his detection crystal again. "—appears to reconfigure based on psychic input from whoever's inside it."
"Great-grandmother called it 'thought-reactive architecture.'"
"Great-grandmother had a gift for understatement."
The portal pulsed. Impatient now.
Mrs. Shufflewick materialized at the archive entrance, silver hair immaculate, reading glasses perched at the tip of her nose. Her outfit flickered—tweed librarian to khaki expedition leader and back again—before settling on something that looked like a Victorian mountaineer's kit complete with coiled rope slung across one shoulder.
"The dimensional frequency matches records from 1847." She clutched a leather portfolio against her chest. "The last Guardian pair who entered that repository returned with knowledge that held The Collector at bay for a century." Her voice shifted, deeper, clipped with military precision. "Fortune favors the bold, soldiers. Move out before the window closes."
She blinked, smoothed her lapels, and added in her own voice, "What I mean to say is—you should go. Both of you. Together."
Hazel looked at Nate. He'd already shouldered his kit bag.
"If the Codex says we need this Wayfinder?—"
"Then we get the Wayfinder." He extended his hand toward her. Not a romantic gesture. Practical. Their magic stabilized through contact, and they both knew what waited on the other side of that portal would require every advantage.
She took his hand. Golden warmth flooded up her arm.
They stepped through.
The corridors shiftedthe moment Mrs. Shufflewick sneezed.
One second they were navigating a passage lined with luminous spell-text that rearranged itself like a slow screensaver. The next, the walls contracted. The ceiling dropped six inches. The spells on every surface flickered from gold to a deep, arterial red.
"My sinuses," Mrs. Shufflewick said, dabbing her nose with a handkerchief that had been linen a moment ago and was now olive drab canvas. "The dimensional particulate is—oh."
She looked down at herself. The sensible tweed skirt suit had vanished. In its place: cargo pants with fourteen visible pockets, a khaki vest bristling with carabiners and utility hooks, and boots that laced to the knee. A compass dangled from a lanyard around her neck. Her silver bun remained flawless beneath a wide-brimmed bush hat.
