The world did not snap back.

It wavered—as if deciding whether it wanted to exist at all.

The last thing Elaria remembered was the sensation of fingers—her own fingers, but wrong—closing around her wrist, dragging her toward a tear in the air that screamed without sound. The light had been too bright, too white, too sharp to belong to any sky she knew.

Now that same light beat against her eyelids.

When she opened them, the glow had cooled, settling into a pale luminescence that painted ...