I slept badly.

  What little rest I found came in fragments, flashes of light behind my eyelids, half-heard voices slipping away whenever I tried to listen too closely. By the time morning arrived, I was already awake, staring at the ceiling.

  For a few hopeful seconds, I tried to convince myself it had been a dream.

  The memory of her standing in the field made that impossible.

  Ruth raised his head from the foot of the bed, watching me in that way dogs do when they know something has changed but can’t name it.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “I remember too.”

  I dressed without thinking much about it. Habit took over: jeans, jumper, boots. I paused halfway through packing a bag, unsure what someone brought when visiting another world.

  After a moment I gave up and threw in a few essentials anyway. Doing something felt better than standing still.

  The house seemed smaller this morning. Quieter. As if it were already preparing for my absence.

  I didn’t like that thought.

  I found her in the kitchen.

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  I hadn’t heard the door open. I hadn’t heard anything at all.

  Eithna stood by the window, watching the last of the mist lift from the fields. In daylight she seemed more solid, less like something made of miracle and fear, though not entirely.

  “You came back,” I said.

  “I said I would.”

  Fair enough.

  Ruth padded past me and went straight to her, tail moving cautiously. She rested a hand on his head, and he relaxed almost instantly.

  The little traitor.

  “Do I still have a choice?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  That surprised me.

  “But if you remain,” she continued, “you will remain knowing the truth. You will see things others cannot. And others will see you.”

  I let that thought settle.

  “So, ignoring this isn’t really an option.”

  “No.”

  I looked around the kitchen, the kettle, the worn counter, the muddy paw prints I kept meaning to clean. Ordinary things. Safe things.

  They already felt further away than they should.

  “All right,” I said at last. “I’ll come.”

  She inclined her head, as though I had confirmed something she already knew.

  “Put the dog on the lead,” she said.

  I did as she asked.

  When I turned back, she was holding out her hand.

  The gesture was simple. Human, almost.

  I hesitated only briefly before taking it.

  The moment our skin touched, the air tightened and buzzed. A pressure built in my ears, sharp and rising, like the world drawing breath before a storm.

  “Stay close,” she said.

  The kitchen began to blur at the edges.

  Light pressed through the walls, thin at first, then blinding. Shapes fractured. The familiar geometry of home folded in on itself like paper.

  For an instant, panic clawed its way up my throat.

  Then the floor vanished.

  We were falling.

  Or rising.

  Or neither.

  There was no direction, only motion, and the sense of being carried somewhere that had been waiting long before I understood the invitation.

  I tried to speak but the sound was stolen from me.

  Eithna’s grip never loosened.

  And then… Something solid rushed up to meet us.