The last time Lina had crossed between realms, it had been like slipping through a shadowed doorway—instant, quiet, and unsettling, but still smooth. This time, the Hollowed Garden did not let her go so easily.
Light fractured like glass around her.
Sound warped into a single low hum, thrumming through her bones.
The air grew so thick she could hardly breathe.
Then came the drop.
She stumbled forward onto something hard and unyielding—pavement. A rush of cold city air slapped her face. For a moment, she couldn't process it.
She was standing in the middle of Westfield Avenue.
Cars zipped by, headlights glaring. A bus roared past, its brakes screeching, and somewhere a vendor's bell jingled. She blinked at the familiar storefronts—the corner bakery with its blue awning, the laundromat with flickering neon letters.
Home.
She was home.
Almost.
Her chest tightened. She wanted to believe she'd imagined everything: the bone trees, the whispering shadow-self, the shimmering crystals. Maybe she'd fallen asleep in the library again and dreamed up a fantasy adventure.
But the truth was in the details.
The crystal in her pocket was still warm, its faint hum matching her heartbeat.
The starlit mark on her wrist pulsed softly, like a living thing under her skin.
And the butterfly—impossibly real, impossibly here—sat on the rusted rim of a bus-stop sign, wings shimmering with a light that didn't belong to this world.
She stepped closer. "Why here?"
Its voice slid into her thoughts like a silver thread. The third key has roots in both worlds. Here, in your city, its bloom has gone unchecked. If you do not find it before nightfall, the crack between realms will widen, and what dwells in the Hollow will spill through.
Nightfall. She glanced at the sun—it was already tipping toward the horizon, bleeding gold across the glass towers downtown.
Her stomach dropped. "How much time?"
Less than you think.
The butterfly lifted from the sign, the air shimmering in its wake. Follow.
They moved quickly, cutting through crowded sidewalks. Lina's sneakers pounded the concrete, dodging businessmen on phones, mothers dragging toddlers, and teens laughing with ice cream cones in hand.
But beneath the noise, Lina began to hear something else—low, rhythmic, almost like a second pulse threaded through the city's heartbeat. It came and went, but each time it returned, it was stronger.
The butterfly led her into a side street painted with sprawling murals. Faces stared out from the walls—saints, monsters, gods—but the colors were faded, leeched of life.
At the far end loomed a chain-link fence, beyond which stood a building she recognized instantly: the old city library. Its windows were shattered, its walls scarred by graffiti, the front doors boarded tight.
A warning prickled down her spine. "We're going in there, aren't we?"
Inside, the butterfly confirmed.
She gave a shaky laugh. "Of course we are. Why would the magical key be in a nice, well-lit coffee shop?"
She found a gap in the fence and slipped through. The smell hit her first—dust and damp paper, tinged with something sour, like rot hiding under the floorboards.
The front doors resisted her at first, but one was loose enough to force open just enough to squeeze through.
Inside was a tomb of forgotten stories. Shelves sagged under the weight of books left to die, their pages curling with mildew. Broken glass crunched under her shoes. Somewhere above, something skittered across the ceiling.
And then she saw them—footprints.
They weren't made of dust.
They were made of shadow.
Thin black smears, like oil, led deeper into the building.
She followed, each step louder than she liked, the air growing colder as she went. The trail wound past toppled reading tables, past a half-collapsed globe whose cracked continents spun when she touched it.
It ended at a heavy door marked Archives.
When she pushed it open, the temperature dropped like a stone. Her breath clouded in the air.
The room beyond was vast, lined with floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets and stacks of boxes, their labels faded. But in the center stood a figure—tall, draped in a coat that shimmered like oil slick on water.
It turned.
The face was hidden behind a mask of carved black wood. Strange symbols were etched into its surface, moving when she tried to focus on them.
The voice, when it came, was smooth and precise.
"You've brought me two keys."
Her pulse stuttered. "Who are you?"
"A collector." It took a slow step forward. "I take what others cannot keep."
The butterfly's voice was tight. Hollow-kin.
Lina's grip tightened on the strap of her bag. "You're not getting them."
"You think you have a choice," the figure said. Its head tilted, the mask's symbols rippling. "Child, there is no choice. Give them to me, and I will let you leave this place alive."
"No deal."
The figure didn't sigh, but its stillness shifted. The shadows at its feet began to writhe. From them rose creatures—thin, spindly, their limbs too long for their frames, eyes like dull coins pressed into tar. They surrounded her, silent as breath.
The butterfly's voice was urgent now. The third key is bound to him. Break the binding, and it is yours.
"How?"
Strike the mask.
The nearest creature lunged. She ducked, the rush of its movement brushing her hair. She grabbed a broken chair leg from the floor, its surface splintered and sharp.
She swung. The wood connected with the thing's chest. It stumbled back, but did not fall.
Another lunged from behind. She twisted, bringing the chair leg up just in time. The creature hissed, its skin rippling like liquid before melting back into the shadows.
The Hollow-kin watched, unmoving.
A third came at her from the left, its long fingers reaching for her throat. She dropped to one knee, swung hard, and felt the crunch of contact. The creature reeled, vanishing into smoke.
The path to the figure opened.
"Now!" the butterfly urged.
Lina charged. Black tendrils burst from the figure's sleeve, coiling around her wrist. Cold fire raced up her arm. She cried out, but pushed forward, lifting the chair leg high—
And smashed it into the mask.
The crack was instant, deafening. Light poured from the fracture, white-gold and blinding. The shadow creatures screamed, their bodies unraveling into nothing.
The Hollow-kin staggered, clutching its face. Beneath the splintered mask was no human skin—only swirling starlight and endless dark.
"You should not have done that," it whispered.
Something small and metallic slipped from its coat—a pendant shaped like a teardrop, clear crystal cradling a swirl of dawnlight.
Lina dove for it. The instant her fingers touched the crystal, the mark on her wrist blazed gold. The other two keys in her bag thrummed in answer, locking into a single steady pulse.
The Hollow-kin retreated into the dark. "Three keys," it said, its voice fading. "But the door you open will not be the one you expect." Then it was gone.
The room was silent.
The butterfly alighted on her shoulder. We must move. The Hollow will not wait for nightfall now.
When they stepped outside, the city was wrong.
The streets were empty, streetlamps flickering. The air felt heavy, as if something vast and unseen was passing overhead. Somewhere far off, thunder rumbled—not from the sky, but from beneath the earth.
Lina gripped the pendant. "Then we finish this tonight.