The book burst open.

  The pages flipped back and forth as if caught in a windstorm. Nellie clutched a hand to her throat. Unable to look away, her eyes focused on the hand-drawn flickering illustrations as the book settled. Her mind exploded with memory. Her mouth went dry. She trembled at the image of the lake amidst a thicket of trees tumbling with silvery buttercup type flowers reaching and stretching toward the shimmering water. But those woods. How she used to dream of running through the thickets of trees to dip her toes in the glistening water, embracing the creatures that would surround her and envelop her in magic like an animated fairy tale princess.

  “Your sister is waiting for you.” Elya moved around the table. The lights flickered. Darkness descended and blanketed the room in shadow. From a distance Nellie heard Clara’s cell phone ringing its annoying boyband tune.

  Clara. Nellie blinked. Where was Clara?

  “Take my hand,” Elya urged as her claw-like fingers wrapped around Nellie’s wrist. Nellie’s skin burned beneath her touch. “Take me with you.”

  “Take you where?” Nellie forced herself to turn around but felt as if she’d been caught in a tide of sludge. Every movement she made was a struggle, took effort, even as the power of the book, the image before her, drew her in.

  Elya stepped closer, her grip tightening, her protruding belly sinking back into her body as if it had never existed. Before Nellie’s disbelieving eyes, Elya transformed into a hunched old woman that called to mind the Wicked Queen with a bit more glamour. The amulet around Elya’s neck glowed a brilliant, eye-blinding white. Her long painted black nails dug into Nellie’s skin as the odd stench of burning flesh drifted into her nose.

  Nellie blinked again, her eyes watering as she stumbled into the table. She twisted her hand, then her entire arm this way and that, but she couldn’t break free of Elya’s grasp.

  The book trembled as the corners of the pages flickered in the dimming candlelight. A wind kicked up and spun like a tornado around them and blew out the last flames. A roar as loud as a jet engine filled the room.

  “Let me go!” Nellie threw all her weight forward. She planted her free hand on Elya’s chest and shoved. Elya’s grip loosened and Nellie took advantage of the woman’s shock, her self-defense training kicking in. She dropped down, kicked out her leg and caught Elya at the knees.

  The shopkeeper stumbled back, tried to catch her balance, but as she grabbed for a stack of books that created the entrance to the room, Elya sent the entire pile cascading down and around her. Nellie sprang to her feet and reached for Clara’s bag and, at the last second, she reached for the book.

  The second her hand touched the weathered parchment, her feet whipped off the floor. Nellie cried out as the entire storefront shook. A bright light exploded. Nellie fought to keep her balance and braced herself for the impact. But she didn’t land.

  She fell and fell and fell.

  Everything around her spun and vanished from sight, replaced by a jet black, bone-chilling sky. Nellie couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream. Couldn’t do anything but plummet and spin as if she’d been tossed out of a plane at fifty-thousand feet without a parachute.

  A loud wumph rent the air. A spark of heat ignited inside of her, setting her fingers and toes to tingling. She was going to die. For a fraction of a second, she accepted it, didn’t fight it.

  Her head snapped back hard as her body jerked to a stop. She hung there, suspended in the sky, for countless seconds. Countless minutes. Her breath finally returned in sharp pants. She held herself still, felt her heart hammering so hard against her chest she thought her ribs might explode.

  When she gathered the courage to turn her head and open her eyes, she found herself hovering well above the tree tops, like bait dangling from a hook. An invisible vice tightened around her midsection, cutting off her air. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of movement, a group of winged creatures headed right for her. Winged creatures that looked an awful lot like…. Holy crap! Was that a dragon or a really big bird?

  Big bird. She swallowed the bubble of hysteria and squeezed her eyes shut. All that was missing from this crazy dream was an eight-foot yellow Muppet. She’d passed out in the shop, hadn’t she? Or she was still back at the hotel, dreaming in her feather-soft bed while Amber and Clara banged on her door demanding she wake up.

  “Not real,” she whispered. “Wake up. Wake up.” She scrunched her toes in her boots, fisted her hands. She dropped another few feet and screamed. She held her breath, wanting but unable to prepare for whatever came next.

  Voices echoed in the distance, on the wind, deep masculine voices. She couldn’t make out the words, but the vice around her ribs tightened. Her head went light as her air vanished. She choked, coughed.

  And dropped like an anvil.

  Limbs and twigs and branches broke and caught and scraped against her face as she plummeted. She tumbled and somersaulted through the strange, thick trees. Animals screeched and cried out, unfamiliar sounds that only reached her ears as she fell past. Finally, she caught enough air in her lungs to inhale as she heaved her arms and legs up so she could rotate in the air. There! She struggled to shove her body to the side—was she flying?!?—and aimed for the expansive lake below.

  She hit the water feet first. Nellie gasped a quick breath before she went completely under. She kicked and moved every part of her body, spinning back and forth, around and around, unable to find the surface. Her lungs burned. Her skin froze. The energy drained from her entire core as her extremities went heavy as stone. The more she struggled, the harder it became to stay buoyant. This was it. She clawed above her head, determined to find air again, determined not to die without having said good bye to her sisters.

  Her sisters.

  Nellie gasped, water choking her as an image of Amber and Clara floated before her glazed eyes. She stopped fighting. She stopped struggling.

  And sank.

  * * *

  “I’ve lost her!”

  From his seat atop his devoted winged pharenta, Seraphim, Keane twisted to look back at Bowen. His friend’s face glowed pale in the darkness of perpetual night. Defeat shone in Bowen’s glassy eyes as Keane realized Bowen’s newly returned magic wasn’t close to complete strength. He hadn’t been able to stop Clara’s sister’s descent. Which meant Bowen was more liability than a help.

  Astride his own younger pharenta, Bowen slumped forward, his eyes rolling back in his head before he passed out. The creature squawked a warning that something was wrong with its rider and arced its feathered wings up to protect Bowen as it soared through the sky.

  “Get him back to Clara!” Keane ordered two of his men who flew beside him, and a bit below, as flank guards. Keane’s hand fisted in the soft feathers that shimmered in sea-and-sky-camouflaging colors of Sera’s body. The animal knew how to protect itself and a rider, changing colors much like a mood stone did once it connected to its wearer.

  “Erian ordered us to stay with you, sir!” One of the men yelled then backed his creature off when the golden orb of Keane’s sight staff began to glow white.

  “Go!” Keane bellowed. “Seraphim, it’s on you and me. Let’s get her.” The last thing he needed was a distraction; the plan they’d put in place over countless mooncycles had little time for improvisation. His meeting with the resistance was the only chance they had to putting an end to Dracha and his reign of terror over this realm once and for all. But he’d given his word to bring Clara’s sister to her.

  And Keane was nothing if he didn’t keep his word.

  He gave a quick glance back to Bowen, assured that his fellow warrior was on his way to safety before he angled Sera into a dive. This close to Dracha’s stronghold of the Keep, Keane couldn’t take any chances, not with strangers arriving with obscure magic that could be used against Keane and his people. Or worse, aid Dracha in his desire to overtake the world Keane and his fellow warriors and prisoners had left behind. Keane needed to get the woman back to the Citadel as fast as possible. It was the only way to keep plans in place. He’d had sacrificed too much, turned his back on too much, to let even the idea of failure seep in.

  Her scream sliced through Keane’s ears with the force of an arrow shot straight to his heart. He pushed the staff and its glowing light forward in its harness and narrowed his eyes to peer through the foggy mist of grey that had infected his sight the moment he’d arrived in the Forgotten Realm. Without the orb given to him by Miranda, who had a way of conjuring most needed items, he was as blind as a Concavian bat, able only to see faint shadows and outlines. With it, he could see…better.

  The woman was going in. His heart froze in his chest. As Sera soared high above and around the perimeter of the lake, Keane watched helplessly as the woman hit the water and sank out of sight. Keane held his breath. Maybe the cherellean water beast hadn’t heard. Maybe the same hideously spined and slimy water monster that had once dragged Keane to the bottomless depths of the lake would continue to slumber….

  The lake rumbled. The earth quaked. The surrounding trees trembled as animals screeched and scurried deeper into the forest.

  Wrong again.

  Keane swallowed the terror that climbed into his throat. With a squeeze of his knees, he urged Seraphim through his fear. The wind ripped across his face like tiny obsidian blades, stinging its warning he was taking too many chances, tempting fate one too many times. He’d escaped the lake and its master once. Barely and certainly not intact. To challenge both again seemed reckless even to Keane’s radical, impulsive mind. Still he urged Sera on and into a steeper dive.

  Seraphim let out a sharp whine as Keane kicked a leg over the saddle, his other foot still securely in the stirrup as he angled the beast down. “Nice and easy, Sera.” He gripped the soft feathers between his fingers before aiming the orb out over the water with his other hand.

  He blinked fast, able to clear fragments of his vision long enough to see the form of a woman dropping into the depths of the lake. “Head back once I’m gone,” Keane told Sera. “Give Erian the staff. He will know what to do.”

  Sera gave a sharp nod of her head and squawked before she looked at him, the florescent purple of her eyes reminding him of his promise that he would never leave her alone.

  Another promise he needed to keep. Soon there wouldn’t be enough of him left to keep a fraction of them. Of course, he might not survive the next five minutes, so….

  Keane looked down as Sera soared silently around into the clearing above the lake. He locked the staff back into his harness and called on the magic he kept in reserve. He wasn’t nearly as powerful as Bowen on his weakest day; he never had been. What magic he did possess was being used to protect the Citadel from their enemies, leaving Keane’s power weaker than a warrior of his stature should possess. That said, Keane had never relied on his magic to get him through his existence. Magic could let him down. But extreme times called for a change in plans.

  A well-aimed blast of fire energy exposed the section of the lake that held his quarry. And alerted all the creatures within as to his impending invasion. In the distance, a loud rumble echoed as the Citadel’s force of protection fluctuated. With a final goodbye squeeze to Sera, Keane took a deep breath and jumped.

  He went in tight, arms clasped into his chest and his ankles locked. He closed his eyes against the pulsating magic of the water, magic that could deceive as easy as aid. Lessons he’d learned long ago kicked into place the second the water closed over his head.

  He willed time to slow, a feat far beyond his power, and forced himself to calm, waiting for the guiding, glowing light of the shelled and amphibious creatures that called the lake home. Rocky ledges made for dangerous dives but could, when warranted, morph and shift against the elements. Even as the water vibrated below him, he turned his attention to the woman. To her heartbeat. If he could just…pick up….

  There! Thud. Thud thud. Thud. Thud. Th…

  Keane flipped over and dived down, down, down, his lungs tightening as the pressure increased. He couldn’t think about what was rising beneath him; the creature that could pinpoint her location far more easily than he ever could. He stroked his arms out and around, feeling for anything unfamiliar. Feeling for….

  Thud. Thud thud.

  Her heartbeat was slowing. He swept his arms out in wide arcs, squeezing his eyes shut so hard he almost saw stars as he tried to focus.

  Lake kelp, slick and slimy, tangled around his wrists and as he freed one hand, he found her. He kicked to a stop, flipped again and tightened his fingers around the rough fabric encasing her arm. The water quaked.

  Something whipped up and around his torso. A sharp thorn pierced his skin beneath his ribs and tried to drag him down. He opened his mouth to howl as he twisted and fought his way free, ripping the thorn-tipped tentacle away from his body. Nothing but a bubble of silence erupted from his lips. The last of his air gone, Keane felt his head go light.

  Muscles under his grasp tensed and jarred him back to the moment. She was alive. But only barely.

  Thud…thud…thud.

  Keane focused his energy into kicking to the surface, dragging her with him, the pain in his side settling into a slow, steady burn. The odd muted roar from below sent vibrations of terror through him. The cold water was warming, it’s warning against the water beast making its ascent. Tides beneath the surface ran as rough as the ocean at times, tonight being no exception. He’d learned the hard way that a lake as serene as a temple at High Moon was one of the biggest dangers of The Forgotten Realm.

  Out of time, his lungs on fire, the wound below his ribcage stinging, Keane used all his strength to shove her up and over him, pushing her toward the surface. In the silence of the night, he heard the muted sound of her breaking free before he followed.

  Keane gasped in huge gulps of air and locked his arm under her arms, keeping her head above water as he kicked out, guided by the faint florescence of the Farrengold blossoms lining the west side of the lake.

  A loud screech from a Boddinbird on the far end of the bank had Keane kicking double time. The comical looking birds known for tripping over their own webbed feet acted as an early warning system for cherelleans; they could sense when a water beast had awakened and moved within the swirls and fathoms of its watery home.

  It seemed an eternity before Keane’s feet hit solid ground but the second he could walk, Keane twisted to grab hold of the woman to haul her onto the bank just as the water lapped up over his knees. His side screamed in fiery pain, but he blocked it out. Focused on the woman.

  The roar that split the air nearly split Keane’s skull. Nausea rolled through him as his chest and torso throbbed. He’d gotten out alive. Again.

  He pressed a hand against his lower left side, drew away sticky fingers as his warm blood seeped.

  Something told him he would not survive a third attempt.

  The irritated howl of disappointment over lost prey broke the surface before the shadow erupted to hover over the lake. Keane shivered and moved further into to the safety of forest. Cherellean water beasts might be death personified in the water, but on land, they were beyond helpless.

  “Missed me this time, didn’t you?” Keane shoved the woman onto her side and slapped a hand hard against the center of her back. “I’ve given you enough. You can’t have her. Come on. Breathe.” The beast gurgled and sank out of sight.

  Keane slapped harder, gripping her shoulder. She wasn’t dead. He wouldn’t allow it. He would not return to the Citadel and tell Clara he’d failed to save her sister. He’d failed enough for ten lifetimes. He would not fail again.

  She stiffened a second before she gasped and choked for air. He released her, letting her come back to consciousness on her own. The darkness of the night overtook the residual effects of the orb and Keane’s sight vanished once again. Pushing aside the despised helpless feeling, he heard her spitting up water and gagging. He felt her roll away before she retched, and when she collapsed, she nearly knocked him off his knees.

  Keane swept his hair off his face, scrubbed at his eyes in a useless attempt to get a better look at her. But all he could see—all he would ever see—was the faint shadowy outline of her most definite feminine form.

  He kept a steadying hand on shoulder, attributing the odd warmth weaving its way through his fingers and up his arm to her body temperature coming back to normal. His eyes ached. The throbbing in his chest eased. The tightness in his chest relaxed.

  “Th-thank you.” Her voice, while raw, zinged through him like the most cultured of music and sang of times and memories long forgotten. A knot inside of him—wedged into the deepest part of his being—loosened.

  Keane squeezed her hand when she tried to sit up. “Rest,” he ordered gently as his eyes throbbed. “Get your breath.”

  “Get my breath?” The disbelieving tone had him torn between frowning and laughing. “How about my stomach and heart? I think I left them about five hundred feet that way.” He felt her hand shoot past his face as if she gestured to the sky.

  “You fell a long way,” Keane agreed. “But had you landed anywhere else, you would not have survived.” As much as he hated the lake, it had, in essence, saved her life.

  “Guess that’s good news then.” The shadow of her shuffled around him.

  He could feel her looking at him and, not for the first time, Keane cursed his fate in not being able to look back. In this world of perpetual darkness, the one bright light would have been the beauty of a woman, but he’d never found complete solace in that distraction. How he missed appreciating every nuanced movement, exploring every…. Well, some things he’d found a way to manage.

  “Drowning’s always been my second choice for death anyway. Appreciate the save. Got a name, hand—ah, mister?”

  Amused at her discomfort, Keane sat back on his heels. “Of course.”