The Collector's hand reached for them—long fingers trailing shadow that ate the light around it—and Baba Yaga materialized between them like a wall made of fury and outdated fashion. Purple fire erupted from her palms. The Collector's reaching hand recoiled. Not in pain. In surprise.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Hazel didn't wait to hear more. She hauled Nate through the staff door, down the narrow stairs, past the water heater, to a section of basement wall that looked like every other section of basement wall except the Codex was screaming at her to touch it.
She pressed both palms flat against cold stone. Gold light split the mortar lines. The wall folded open like a mouth.
They fell through.
Behind them, before the portal sealed shut, she heard The Collector laugh. Not angry. Delighted. The sound of a hunter who'd just watched his quarry break from cover.
The portal spatthem out sideways.
Hazel hit soft earth, rolled, and came up with pine needles in her hair and the taste of ozone thick on her tongue. Trees surrounded them—not Assjacket's familiar oaks and maples but something ancient and wrong, trunks twisted into spirals that climbed past any visible canopy, bark the color of dried blood. The air smelled of sap and static electricity. Two moons hung in a violet sky, one cracked down the middle and leaking pale light.
Nate landed beside her, already on his feet, scanning. "Where?—"
"Forest dimension." The Codex fed her fragments: a realm of lost growth, where magic composted into something fertile and dangerous. "One of the emergency waypoints. We can't stay."
"We can't keep running blind either."
He was right, and she hated it. The Codex pulsed against her ribs, showing her the next portal—half a mile north, between two trees growing into each other's trunks. She grabbed his hand and ran.
The forest moved around them. Not the trees—the spaces between them, shifting like shuffled cards, rearranging distances so that paths doubled back and clearings appeared where none had been. Hazel's golden magic flared at their joined hands, burning a true line through the deception. Every step cost her. She felt the drain like sand pouring from a cracked hourglass.
They reached the twin trees. She tore the portal open.
Crystal caves. Stalactites like frozen chandeliers, every surface reflecting their faces back at them in fractured multiples. The silence hit like a physical weight after the forest's rustling chaos. Their footsteps echoed sharp and brittle.
"This way." Hazel pointed toward a formation that pulsed with residual portal energy.
The crystals around them began to darken. One by one, their reflections changed—not following their movements anymore but showing other things. Hazel saw herself cataloging books in the library, months ago. Saw Nate arriving for the first time, running a hand through his hair while studying the grimoire's magical residue.
"The mirrors—they're showing our past!" Nate had stopped, staring at a crystal face where he held a dying woman in his arms. His previous partner. His face went white.
"Don't look! Keep moving!"
She pulled him past it. The crystals rippled, hungry for attention, feeding on emotional resonance and broadcasting it like a signal fire.
Too late.
"I can see your bond's energy signature across all dimensions." The Collector's voice slid through the cave's acoustics, multiplied by every reflective surface into a chorus of patient malice. "Every emotion you share is a beacon. Every touch, a flare."
The crystal behind them shattered. Shadow poured through the gap.
Hazel ripped the next portal open with both hands. The effort buckled her knees. Nate caught her waist, held her upright, and they fell together into open sky.
Floating islands. Chunks of earth suspended in amber light, connected by bridges of solidified wind that groaned under their weight.
"He's gaining on us!"
Nate's arm tightened around her. "Every portal's weaker than the last."
She knew. She could feel the Codex's power thinning, her own reserves guttering like a candle in a draft. Each dimensional tear cost more than the one before, and their bond—the very thing keeping them alive—was painting a trail across realities that The Collector followed like a wolf tracking blood.
The island beneath them cracked. Shadow curled at its edges.
Hazel looked at Nate. His green eyes held fear, determination, and something fierce that made her chest hurt.
