Marcus stared at the object, his mind racing. In military terms, a marker was bad news. It was a laser designator for an airstrike. It was a GPS tracker slap-magnetized to a hull. It meant the enemy could see you through the fog.
Bad news, he thought, gripping the coin so tight the edges dug into his flesh. They know I'm here. If there are Pig Men in these woods, I'm lighting up their radar like a Christmas tree.
But then, the inverse logic of the battlefield kicked in.
If a beacon transmits a signal out, it also creates a connection back to the source. A rope has two ends. If this stone tied him to the Hunters, did it also tie him to the place he had received it?
Good news, he thought, the idea fragile but desperate. If I'm marked, I'm anchored. I'm not just drifting. I have a coordinate.
He remembered the way the vision of the forest had flickered in the diner window. It had come and gone, bleeding through the reality of Texas like a bad signal on an old TV. The barrier was thin. Porous. And he was standing on a fault line.
He didn't know the magic. He didn't know the words Eira used. But he knew about focus. He knew about will.
Slowly, deliberately, Marcus raised his hand. He pressed the coin flat against the center of his chest, right over his sternum, directly over the spot where his heart thudded against his ribs.
The reaction was instantaneous.
The warmth of the coin flared, searing through his thin t-shirt and sinking into his skin. It wasn't a burn; it was a resonance. It felt like the coin was syncing with his heartbeat. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the towering black trees and the hypnotic, drifting gold dust. He needed to be blind to this place to see the other one.
He focused on the heat in the center of his chest. He visualized the coin as a heavy weight, an anchor chain dropping down through the dark water, pulling him taut.
I am not here, he thought, projecting the intent with every ounce of discipline he possessed. I am standing on my front step. I am checking a delivery. I am in Weedfield.
He remembered Eira's hand on his chest the night before, the "sky-bond." My path twists with yours. If she was there, on the other side, then he was tethered to her, too. The coin was the iron, but she was the magnet.
He pushed his awareness toward that heat. He imagined the smell of the diesel exhaust. He summoned the annoying, rhythmic ticking of the truck engine. He tried to feel the humidity of the Texas morning on his face.
For a moment, nothing happened. The cold, wet silence of the forest pressed in, mocking him.
Then, a vibration.
It started in the coin and spread outward, rattling his teeth. The ground beneath his boots seemed to lurch, not sideways, but inward, as if the world was folding over on itself.
The air pressure spiked, popping his ears violently. The cold dampness vanished in a rush of hot, dry wind.
The silence shattered.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK.
The sound of the idling diesel engine roared back into existence, loud and abrasive.
Marcus gasped, his eyes flying open.
The black trees were gone. The golden mist was gone.
He was standing on the concrete step of The Slipgate. The sun was blinding, reflecting off the chrome bumper of the delivery truck. The heat of the day hit him like a physical weight, instantly prickling sweat along his hairline.
He staggered forward a half-step, his equilibrium shot, clutching the doorframe for support. His chest was heaving as if he'd just sprinted a mile in full gear. He looked down at his hand. The coin was still clenched in his fist, hot enough to be uncomfortable, but fading back to inert metal.
He was back.
He whipped his head around, adrenaline still flooding his system.
The delivery driver was sitting in the cab of the truck, looking down at a clipboard, frowning as he tapped a pen against the paper. He hadn't seen. He had looked away for ten seconds to check an invoice, and in those ten seconds, Marcus had traveled to another dimension and back.
Marcus let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sob, and turned toward the open doorway of the diner.
They were there.
Eira and Liri stood just inside the threshold, frozen in place like statues carved from marble and fear.
They hadn't moved a muscle. Not an inch.
Liri's hands were clamped over her mouth, her eyes wide and glassy with terrified tears. She looked like she was holding back a scream that would shatter glass.
Eira stood slightly in front of her, her posture rigid, her hands raised slightly, palms facing outward as if she were pressing against an invisible wall.. or holding a spell she hadn't dared to release. Her face was pale, all the blood drained from it, making her green eyes blaze with intensity.
They stared at him, their chests rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths.
They had seen. They had watched him step out, vanish into thin air, and leave nothing behind but an empty space where a man used to be.
And they had known.
They knew not to run. They knew not to scream and alert the driver. They knew not to chase him, because if they crossed that threshold without an anchor, they might never come back.
They had stood their ground, terrified and helpless, holding the space for him, willing him to return.
Marcus stepped inside, the bell above the door jingling with a mundane, cheerful sound that felt obscenely normal. He kicked the door shut behind him, cutting off the view of the truck and the road.
The moment the latch clicked, Liri broke.
She let out a choked sob and launched herself at him. She didn't care about dignity or rules. She slammed into his waist, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his stomach, shaking violently.
"You were gone," she whimpered, her voice muffled by his shirt. "You were gone, Uncle. You were gone."
Marcus wrapped an arm around her shoulders, holding her tight, feeling the tremors running through her small frame. He looked over the top of her head at Eira.
The older sister hadn't moved, but her hands had dropped to her sides. She was trembling too, a fine, high-frequency vibration in her fingers. She looked at him with a mixture of awe and terrifying relief.
"You came back," Eira whispered, her voice rough. "The Gate took you. And you walked back."
"I had a map," Marcus said, his voice hoarse. He opened his hand, revealing the dull, dark coin in his palm. "Sort of."
Eira stared at the hesh-kel, her eyes widening.
"You used the mark," she said, sounding almost scandalized. "You used the hunter's mark to pull yourself home."
"Any port in a storm," Marcus muttered. He squeezed Liri's shoulder gently, then looked back at the door, his expression hardening. "But we have a problem. A big one."
He gestured toward the glass, where the delivery driver was now climbing out of the cab, looking confused as he walked toward the door again, probably wondering why the owner had disappeared mid-conversation.
"That door isn't just a door," Marcus said, his voice low and deadly serious. "It's a trapdoor. And I just fell through it."
He gently disentangled himself from Liri, though she kept a grip on his belt loop as if afraid he would evaporate again.
"Stay here," he ordered softly. "Stay away from the glass. I have to deal with the driver. If I vanish again..."
He paused, looking at Eira.
"If I vanish again," he said, "don't wait. You run. You take the guns, you take the cash, and you run."
Eira shook her head slowly, her gaze locking onto his with a ferocity that matched the heat of the coin.
"No," she said. "Sky-bond, Marcus. If you vanish, we wait. We pull."
There wasn't time to argue. The driver was reaching for the handle.
Marcus shoved the coin deep into his pocket, took a deep breath to steady his shaking hands, and pasted a smile onto his face that felt like it was made of cracking plaster. He turned and yanked the door open just as the driver was about to knock.
"Sorry about that!" Marcus said, his voice booming a little too loudly. "Realized I left the burner on. Had to sprint."
The driver blinked, looking past Marcus into the dim diner, then back at Marcus's sweating, pale face.
"Right," the driver said slowly, buying it but sensing something was off. "You okay, pal? You look like you saw a ghost."
Marcus let out a sharp, jagged laugh.
"Something like that," he said. "Just the heat. You know how Texas is."
"Yeah," the driver muttered, handing over the invoice. "Heat'll kill ya if you ain't careful."
You have no idea, Marcus thought, signing the paper with a hand that he forced to remain steady. It's not the heat I'm worried about. It's the cold.
As the truck finally rumbled away, Marcus locked the door, flipped the deadbolt, and slid the chain into place. He leaned his forehead against the cool wood for a second, closing his eyes.
He was back. But the rules had changed. The diner wasn't just a shelter anymore. It was sitting on top of a loaded gun, and he had just found out how easy it was to pull the trigger.
The silence in the diner was no longer peaceful; it was fragile. It was the thin layer of ice over a deep, dark lake, and Marcus Hale had just fallen through it and barely scrambled back out.
He stood behind the polished wood of the bar, his hands gripping the edge so hard his knuckles turned the color of old bone. The air conditioner hummed. The refrigerator compressor kicked on with a familiar rattle. Outside, the sun was baking the asphalt of Weedfield, Texas. Everything looked normal. Everything felt like a lie.
Liri had been sent to the back to check the inventory.. a busywork task Marcus had invented just to get her wide, terrified eyes off him. He needed a moment. He needed a drink.
He reached for the bottle of whiskey on the shelf.. cheap stuff, the kind that burned going down and sat heavy in the gut. His hand shook. Just a tremor, barely visible, but to him, it felt like an earthquake. He poured two fingers into a glass, didn't bother with ice, and knocked it back in one swallow. The burn was grounding. It was real.
"That will not fix the shaking," a soft voice said.
Marcus didn't turn. He stared at his reflection in the mirror behind the bottles. He looked pale, sweat drying in streaks on his forehead, his eyes dark and hollow.
"It helps," he rasped.
Eira stepped up beside him. She moved silently, her bare feet making no sound on the rubber mats. She was wearing one of his spare gray t-shirts, which hung loose on her frame, slipping off one shoulder to reveal the smooth, pale curve of her neck. She smelled of the soap he used, but underneath that, there was the scent of the forest he had just escaped.. moss and ozone and wild, green things.
She didn't reach out to him yet. She just stood there, her presence a solid weight in the air, anchoring him.
"I have questions," Marcus said, pouring another splash of whiskey but leaving it on the bar. "And I need real answers. No riddles. No metaphors about rivers and roots."
Eira rested her elbows on the bar, mirroring his stance, looking at their reflections side by side. Human soldier and Elven mage. Two refugees in a roadside diner.
"Ask," she said.
"Is it the same out there every time?" He gestured vaguely toward the front door, toward the glass that currently showed a dusty parking lot. "When I stepped out... it was a forest. Black trees. Gold mist. Is that what's always on the other side of that door?"
Eira shook her head slowly. "No. It is not a fixed room, Marcus. The Slipgate is not a door to a house. It is... a drain."