Dr. Sage Whitmore's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Sage followed Aldric out of the shelter at first light. The old scholar walked ahead of her in his gossamer robe, brown eyes fixed on the moss. He had said little since dawn. He had said one thing that mattered. Something else had come through the seam behind her, and if they did not find it soon, the tear would open past mending. "How do you know something crossed?" Sage asked. She had to jog to match him. "The moss." He pointed without stopping. "Two sets of prints from where you landed. One is yours. The other is not." She looked down. Her boot prints ran clear. Beside them, a second track pressed deeper, four-toed, wider than her hand. "What is it?" "I will know when I see it. Walk quieter." A blue-haired fairy dropped down from the branches ahead and landed on a stump. Her hands were bandaged. Sage recognized her from the shelter last night, though they had not spoken. The weaver. Celestia. "It went east," Celestia said. "Toward the chasm. I saw the bracken bent." "How far?" Aldric asked. "Close. It is slow. It bleeds." Lysander came behind her on foot, wings folded. He nodded at Sage once. "You should stay back." "I brought it here," Sage said. "I'm coming." He did not argue. He turned and led them through the ferns. They found the creature at the lip of the chasm. It was the size of a large dog, grey, hunched, its skin wet where the boundary had scraped it raw. It was digging at the moss with those four-toed hands, and every scrape made the air behind it shimmer. Sage felt her stomach drop. She had read about residue. She was looking at it. "It is trying to open the way back," Aldric said. "It cannot. It will keep trying until the seam gives." "Can you kill it?" Sage asked. "No. Killing it here tears the seam wider." He looked at her. "It has to be walked back through." "By who?" "By the one who came with it." Her mouth went dry. "I can't cross back. You said the boundary won't hold me." "Not you. Your scent. Your shape in the world." He pulled a thread from his robe, silver, and held it out. "Celestia will bind this to it. It will follow the pull toward where you fell. When it reaches the soft spot, the seam will close behind it." Celestia was already unspooling thread from her palm. Her bandages darkened as she worked. She did not complain. She stepped close to the creature, looped the silver line around its foreleg, and jumped back before it could turn. The creature lifted its head. It sniffed. Then it went, dragging the thread west through the ferns. They watched until the shimmer in the air blinked shut. "The seam held," Aldric said. "That one. There will be others." Sage looked at her hands. They were empty. She was still here.