The Silver Mark
Madeline
Somewhere Else
The world didn’t fade back in gently—it slammed into place.
Sound, breath, sensation—all of it hit me like a freight train, like I’d hurled myself through the skin of reality and landed wrong. My knees buckled, and I crumpled to the floor, my palms smacking cold stone etched in unfamiliar runes. Everything was still spinning, and the air was thick and humming, still laced with smoke that clung to me like regret.
My skin burned where the embers had touched me—hot stings blooming along my arms, the backs of my hands, the side of my throat. The light from the amulet still pulsed behind my eyes, white-gold and blinding, like afterimages you can’t blink away.
We weren’t in the motel anymore.
We weren’t even close.
The space around us was vast. Im
