“So… Father,” I said, then hesitated, the word feeling awkward the moment it left my mouth. “To borrow a term from my world, what are we to do?”

  He shook his head, slow and deliberate. “If you must call me by a title, the proper one is simply Cardinal. I am not your father, and only my children may address me as such.” There was no irritation in his voice, only correction. “I understand the intent behind the gesture, and I take no offense. But I am a humble Host of Elysium. Nothing more.”

  The distinction settled uncomfortably.

  “Then, Cardinal,” I said, adjusting quickly. “I’ll ask again. What are we to do?”

  He let out a small laugh, quiet enough that it felt more like breath than sound. “Frankly, Young Morgan, we do not need to do much at all. I still intend to follow through on the plan Thorn presented to me.” He paused, as if recalling an earlier version of events. “Originally, the idea was to make you into something of a scout. I was told that your world employed weapons that fired small bits of metal, so the compromise was to have you use a crossbow instead.”

  His gaze shifted briefly to Sophitia before he continued.

  “However, you seem to have found a road on your own. Perhaps whatever influence brought you to Stroy rather than to me wanted something different.” He shrugged lightly. “That is not a problem, provided you have not yet had many challengers for your Sphere.”

  I shook my head.

  “Good. Good.” He nodded once. “A Status and a Sphere both present. It almost looks as though you are being pushed toward ascension.”

  “Wait. What?” The words escaped before I could stop them. My calm fractured.

  Cardinal Horatio laughed, this time more openly. “A small joke. Just that.” He waved it away. “Some believe that possessing both a Status and a Sphere is the first step toward divinity. It is not. But it does help one discover who they are, since you are engaging both the Divine and the Profane at once.”

  I blinked. Was I really supposed to understand this already?

  My lord, this information is freely known among the denizens of this world.

  And yet.

  Horatio still had not mentioned my Dia-dron.

  Perhaps because…

  No. That was wrong. He had already seen it.

  “For now,” Horatio said, his tone settling into something lighter, almost indulgent, “you are permitted rest. And tea.” He inclined his head slightly, as though this were a formal allowance rather than a kindness. “I will have one of the younger apprentices of Elysium attend to you.”

  He folded his hands together. “Being an in-between means we receive petitions from all faiths. Many of them plead for their first challenge.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “Much as I suspect you plead for more dice to roll, and perhaps something a touch more exciting than fighting slimes, hmm?”

  I didn’t answer. He hadn’t really asked.

  “The greater concern,” Horatio continued, “is your clock.” He tapped one finger lightly against his palm. “This is your other world. You cannot remain here indefinitely without returning to your own.” His gaze sharpened just slightly. “Do you possess a means of knowing when Rae, Lord of Gates, Time, and Travel, will send you back?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t even know who that was.

  “No matter,” Horatio said easily.

  He snapped his fingers.

  The sound echoed far longer than it should have, and with it the space before us shifted. A door appeared where none had been, tall and unmistakably artificial. Its surface churned slowly, a mass of purple and blue threaded with small veins of yellow, and the faintest flecks of green drifting beneath, like pigment suspended in glass that refused to settle.

  “I would suggest you return to your realm for now, Morgan,” he said.

  I looked up at him, surprise flickering through me, but I knew better than to argue.

  As I stepped forward and crossed the threshold, the colors folding inward around me, I heard his voice one last time.

  “Tell your mother I said hello.”

  ***

  I awoke.

  Not with a jolt. Not with a gasp. Just… awareness, sliding back into place like a chair scraping softly against tile.

  I was sitting at my computer desk.

  The familiar hum of my PC filled the room, a low, comforting whirr that had soundtracked too many late nights to count. My right leg was tucked awkwardly under the chair, already numb. My left foot rested half on the carpet, half on an abandoned sock. Half my monitor was taken up by the medieval clicker game I used to keep my hands busy while pretending I was paying full attention to physics lectures. Tiny pixelated villagers were chopping wood. Numbers were going up. Progress was happening without me needing to think.

  On the other half of the screen, a paused lecture video waited patiently, frozen mid-gesture. The professor’s mouth was open, one hand raised, the other blurred just slightly from motion.

  Normal.

  Painfully, aggressively normal.

  “Hah…” I breathed out, shoulders sagging as relief washed through me so fast it almost made me dizzy. “Makes sense. Just a dream.”

  The words came out thick, like I’d been holding them back all night.

  Of course it was a dream.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Of course it was.

  I leaned back in my chair and laughed quietly to myself, rubbing at my face with one hand. My heart was still racing, but that was fine. Dreams did that sometimes. Stress dreams. Vivid dreams. The kind that borrowed textures and rules and faces from things you’d been thinking about too much.

  Cardinals. Spheres. Other worlds. Ridiculous.

  I exhaled hard, long, like I was trying to empty something poisonous from my lungs.

  Then I looked down.

  The opal was still embedded in my right hand.

  Not sitting on my palm. Not resting against my skin.

  Embedded.

  The gem caught the light from my monitor and fractured it, sending soft rainbows crawling across my desk. It was cool where it met my flesh. Too cool. Real in a way no dream artifact had any right to be.

  For half a second, my brain refused to accept the information.

  There was a strange, hollow pause. Like the moment after missing a step on a staircase, when your body hasn’t decided whether you’re falling yet.

  “…No,” I said quietly.

  I flexed my fingers.

  The opal did not move.

  My stomach dropped so hard it felt like it left an echo behind.

  Slowly, mechanically, I turned my head.

  To my side, standing exactly where my trash can should have been, Sophitia’s stone figure waited.

  She was unchanged. Perfectly still. Hands folded. Expression serene and unreadable. Carved lines catching the dim light of my room as if she belonged there. As if she had always belonged there.

  As if my room had been the intruder.

  “Okay,” I said.

  The word came out thin. Brittle.

  “Okay.”

  My heart slammed against my ribs. Adrenaline flooded my veins all at once, then immediately tripped over itself trying to retreat.

  “Not a dream,” I said, louder now, nodding as if that would make it easier to swallow. “Not a dream at all.”

  I swallowed.

  My mouth was dry.

  “That’s fine,” I added quickly, too quickly. “Everything’s fine.”

  Nothing was fine.

  Everything was wrong.

  No, not wrong. Wrong implied a mistake, something misaligned that could be corrected. This was… layered. Stacked. Reality on top of reality, refusing to decide which one was the impostor.

  I stared at my hand.

  It didn’t hurt.

  That was the first problem.

  Pain would have helped. Pain would have been familiar. Pain would have been something I could file away under injury, under hospital visit, under explainable consequences.

  Instead there was only sensation. Pressure. Presence.

  I pressed my thumb against the opal experimentally.

  It didn’t budge.

  A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest before I could stop it. “Of course,” I muttered. “Why would it.”

  My gaze snapped back to the monitor. The medieval clicker game was still running. Numbers were still ticking upward. Villagers were still chopping imaginary trees, blissfully unaware that my understanding of existence had just been kneecapped.

  Physics lecture still paused.

  Homework still due.

  Mom downstairs, probably watching something on TV. Or cooking. Or doing literally anything that assumed her son had not just been dismissed from another world by a being who casually knew her well enough to say hello.

  My chest tightened.

  “Tell your mother I said hello.”

  The words replayed in my head, suddenly louder, sharper, like they’d been waiting for the right moment to detonate.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  No. No, no, no.

  That didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t. It was probably metaphorical. Or coincidental. Or some kind of manipulation tactic. Powerful beings loved those. Vague familiarity. Psychological pressure.

  I opened my eyes again and immediately regretted it.

  Sophitia was still there.

  I shot to my feet so fast my chair clattered backward, slamming into the wall. The noise sounded absurdly loud in my small room, like I’d fired a gun. My heart leapt into my throat.

  I half-expected her to move.

  She didn’t.

  Good. Bad. I wasn’t sure which.

  I paced once, twice, then stopped, hands shaking. I ran my fingers through my hair, tugging at it hard enough to sting.

  Okay. Okay. Think.

  Dream logic said none of this should be here. Waking logic said it was. That meant one of two things.

  Either I was still dreaming.

  Or everything had followed me back.

  A third option crept in uninvited.

  Or I hadn’t gone back at all.

  The room looked the same. Smelled the same. Felt the same. Posters on the wall. Unmade bed. A faint crack in the ceiling I’d been meaning to tell someone about for months.

  But now it felt… thinner. Like a set. Like if I pressed too hard in the wrong place, something would tear.

  I laughed again, sharp and humorless. “Great,” I said. “Fantastic. Love this for me.”

  I looked at Sophitia, then immediately looked away, guilt flaring for reasons I couldn’t articulate. She wasn’t a person. She was stone. She was—

  She had been someone.

  My chest twisted.

  “No,” I said firmly, pointing at nothing. “Not doing that. Not spiraling.”

  Too late.

  Fear crashed in next, cold and practical. What if someone saw this? What if my mom walked in? What was I supposed to say? Hey, don’t mind the statue of a woman from another world standing next to my desk, also ignore the gemstone fused to my hand?

  Panic followed immediately after, hot and breath-stealing.

  I dragged in air, too fast, then forced myself to slow down. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Basic stuff. Stuff that usually worked.

  It didn’t help much.

  Excitement flickered, traitorous and electric, before I could stamp it out.

  This was real.

  It hadn’t been taken away.

  The world hadn’t snapped shut behind me like a book being closed.

  That thought scared me almost as much as it thrilled me.

  Exhaustion rolled in next, heavy and bone-deep. The kind that made my limbs feel like they were made of damp sand. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to collapse onto my bed and sleep for a week.

  Anger snapped on its heels.

  How dare he.

  How dare Horatio smile like that and then send me back like this was nothing. Like my life here was some minor inconvenience. Like I wasn’t going to be sitting here replaying every word, every pause, every look.

  Confusion tangled everything together until it was hard to tell where one feeling ended and another began.

  I sank back into my chair slowly, staring at my hand again.

  The opal shimmered softly.

  Proof.

  Anchor.

  Threat.

  Promise.

  I didn’t know which yet.

  “Okay,” I whispered again, but this time the word was different. Quieter. Heavier. Less denial, more acceptance.

  Not a dream.

  Not even close.

  Whatever I was now, whatever I had stepped into, whatever had stepped into me, it hadn’t let go.

  And somehow, impossibly, I was back in my room.

  With homework still due. With dinner probably getting cold downstairs. With an entire other world sitting quietly at my side, refusing to be forgotten.