Keiran and Jarek were moving at sprinter’s pace. I was trailing far behind while Martin kept up, his unrelenting stride driven by worry for his sister.

Far ahead, a bright light illuminated the trees. The light intensified and faded, then shone brighter again. It wasn’t constant, but it was bright enough that I could see without my flashlight.

I persisted uphill with them, panting, puffing, and gasping for air. Then, I heard the flapping of wings overhead. As soon as I heard the loud cawing, my hands started to shake. A wave of terror engulfed me.

I threw myself onto the ground, a muffled scream escaping my lips. For a moment, I cowered with my hands over my head. When no attack came, I pushed myself up from the mud and looked around, ashamed of my cowardly instincts. Though it was obscured by the heavy rain, there was an unmistakable dark-winged figure in the sky.

In a matter of seconds, the winged figure grew in size and took the shape of a woman before falling from the sky. She landed perfectly on her feet in front of Martin, Keiran, and Jarek, blocking their way.

“Where do you all think you’re going?” the woman said in a sleek, alluring voice. She was tall, ghostly pale with fiery red hair, and dressed in black. Although she was beautiful, something about her terrified me.

Jarek rushed at her, knocking her onto her back and pinning her down. Keiran pulled out a long, sword-like object before rushing to Jarek’s aid. Before he could reach them, he was interrupted by another silver voice.

“Don’t you worry, Anmus. We only want one of them really.” It was almost the same voice as that of the woman pinned down by Jarek, but the voice didn’t come from her.

I spun around and saw a beautiful blond woman dressed identically to the first.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” Keiran yelled at the blond woman behind us.

The blond looked at me with such intensity in her eyes that I was frozen in her icy gaze.

Something’s not right.

She sauntered toward me gracefully, brushing her hair from her face. She almost looked like she was gliding across the terrain, like a swan skimming across a lake.

I was captivated by her movement and her beauty—until I caught a glimpse of her wrists. They were covered in thick, black lines that ran up her arms and under her sleeves like vines.

“No!” Keiran screamed. I glanced back to see him running in my direction.

“Embrace your destiny, oh chosen one.” The woman charged at me with one hand above her head, holding a twisted dagger.

“Radevin, what are you doing?” the redhead shrieked.

The screaming, the sounds, the bright light—I was left stupefied by it all. By now, the blond stood merely a few feet from me. The right side of her face had a slanted scar that started from her eye and traveled down to the jaw. Her right eye appeared to be blind, but the other eye burned at me with a deep hatred.

I knew I should run. I wanted to. But before I could react, the woman’s face changed instantly, from that of smug vengeance to a look of pure horror and agony.

An arrowhead protruded from her stomach.

She stumbled slightly and grabbed my shoulders as she struggled for breath. She was trembling, fighting against the pain to remain on her feet. She opened her mouth to say something, but there were only painful gasps.

I was afraid—but I felt pain as well. Had I been struck, too?

Impossible.

A tear flowed down the woman’s scarred cheek, and she finally opened her mouth again.

“I hate you.” The malevolent words flowed beautifully off her delicate lips.

“No! No!” The redheaded woman screeched.

The blond finally released her grip on my shoulders and fell limply onto the muddy grass.

At a distance I saw Ilta, the blond who was at the restaurant. She was holding a bow out in front of her.

“Ilta!” Keiran was now at my side, and Ilta darted forward to us.

“What did you just do?” Martin exclaimed, holding his hands over his soaking wet hair. “Did you just… kill her?”

“We don’t have time for this right now,” Ilta muttered.

I stared at the body that lay in front of me, in utter disbelief of what I had just witnessed. Inexplicably, the body began shrinking, and the pale skin of the blond woman almost immediately turned an ashen gray—then, it blackened. As the body shrunk, feathers slowly grew from her skin until the body was entirely covered, and all that remained was the carcass of a crow.

“This is insane!” I said with a quivering voice. Martin was hysterical—screaming profanities.

Our panic was interrupted by a high-pitched shriek that only a little girl could make.

“Katie!” Martin yelled.

In the distraction, the redhead freed herself from Jarek and ran toward the light ahead.

“Come on!” Keiran picked me up, putting me into a piggyback position.

Everyone ran toward the light, and finally we could see it up close. It was a spherical, swirling whirlpool of white light that hovered above the barren patch of dirt. This could only be the vortex that Keiran spoke of. It was clamorous with an immense roaring sound, and wind blew furiously at us seemingly from all directions.

I immediately recognized that we were in the same odd-looking patch we’d come across, and on the edge of the clearing was the redhead and a black-haired woman who were hauling a blindfolded Katie closer toward it.

“Let go of her!” Martin demanded.

“Ankin, you took our sister, and now we will take his!” yelled the black-haired woman, then the two women dragged Katie into the vortex with them.

“No!” Martin shouted and started running toward the vortex, but Jarek pulled him back.

Ilta gripped Martin’s bicep firmly. “Stop. You can’t enter.”

“I don’t care—I have to stop them!”

“If you enter now as you are, without Ilta’s directions, we won’t know where you’ll end up. You’ll be lost just like Ellis was,” said Keiran.

“What?” I asked.

“You don’t have an Ora map, which means that you could be trapped there.”

Ilta pointed to the watch-like contraption on her wrist.

“Ellis entered a vortex similar to this one but without a map,” Keiran explained.

“How do you know?” I asked. “Where was I going? Did I know I was supposed to use a map?”

“Of course you knew.” He looked at the vortex with a frown. “We don’t know where you were going or why you would enter a vortex without a map.”

“You could have been lost there forever,” Jarek said gently.

“Perhaps the circumstances you were in forced you to do it,” Keiran added.

Martin was still resisting Jarek. “But my sister and those women, they just went in,” he said through gritted teeth.

“They must have a map with them, or their attempt at escape would be futile,” Ilta said.

“Can’t we just follow them?”

“No, we’d have to enter at the same time as they did, unless we had the coordinates to where they are going, which we do not.”

“Why do they want Katie anyway?” I asked.

“They don’t,” Keiran answered.

“What?” Martin shook his head. “Are you crazy? They just abducted her!”

“They don’t want your sister.”

“Well then, who do they want?” Martin blared. Everyone was silent. At that moment, I felt my heart sink.

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Keiran

“I don’t even know them!”

“You don’t know that for sure, Ell.” Martin cut in.

“I’m quite certain that she does not,” said Keiran. “but that is beside the point.”

“Why would strangers make such an effort to kidnap me anyway?” I asked.

“You have something they want, and it is irrelevant whether you are acquainted with the Ras or not,” said Ilta.

“Why would they take Katie if they wanted Ellis?” Martin was insistent on finding out more.

“As a lure,” Keiran answered. “Perhaps she was easier to get to.”

“Anmus, the Ora.” Ilta said, placing an urgent hand on his shoulder. “We don’t have time to explain every little detail now.”

Everyone was speaking so loudly so that we could be heard over the roaring vortex. It appeared to be growing louder and larger.

“All right, no more questions until we’re somewhere safe.”

“Hold the hand of the person next to you so we’re all linked together. Then on my orders, we jump in, but only when I instruct us to,” Ilta said.

“Got it,” said Martin.

“And do not open your eyes. Understand? They must remain shut.” Ilta’s voice was serious, as if we’d be sentenced to death if we didn’t follow her instructions exactly. Then again, she was yelling loud enough that even something pleasant could sound harsh.

“Why? Why do we have to keep our eyes…?” I said, but Ilta could no longer hear me over the ever-increasing volume of the vortex.

“Jarek, tie them.”

“What?”

“No questions,” she reminded me.

I didn’t want to be tied. In fact, I didn’t want to enter this screeching whirlpool of doom, but it was the only way to get Katie back.

“Fine.”

To my right, Jarek tied me by the wrist to Keiran, Keiran to Martin, and Martin to Ilta.

“What about you?” I asked Jarek.

“I’m tied to you. Don’t worry—I won’t lose grip.” He smiled awkwardly. It wasn’t hard to believe him since his hands were massive.

“In ten seconds,” Ilta warned. Jarek quickly tied the two of us together and finished the knot with his mouth.

“Hold on to each other’s hands,” Ilta barked out.

“Aren’t we already tied together?” I asked.

“Just do it!” she shouted.

The five of us held hands tightly and formed a circle. Ilta started counting down as the vortex grew and screeched. I could feel the ground rumbling beneath us as if we were about to be swallowed whole. I glanced over at Martin, who had his eyes shut tightly.

“Close your eyes, Ellis!” Keiran yelled.

I barely heard Ilta’s cry over the roaring of the vortex. Then there was a tug on my hand and the faint cry of Go!

And the five of us jumped into uncertainty.