Natalia

Tír na what? Realm of the Faeries? What is this place?

For a moment, I wonder if I’m still dreaming. If maybe I fell off that log while I was giving my speech at the party and hit my head a little too hard.

Because none of this makes sense.

“You want me to believe I’ve…left Earth?” I ask.

“No, you haven’t left Earth at all,” the woman replies. “But you did shift to a different layer of it, if you will.”

“You said my realm.”

The woman nods her head firmly. “Correct.”

“So you want me to believe I’m in another realm?”

“What you choose to believe is entirely up to you,” the woman says. “But it will make this entire situation a lot easier for you if you’re a little open-minded about it. After all, this doesn’t look like your world to you, does it?”

The woman gestures around the room, and for the first time, I take in all the inexplicable details of the place. There doesn’t seem to be any electrical devices—a strange thing for a hospital to lack. In fact, even the lights above don’t look electric. They flicker and dance instead, like little balls of fire trapped inside of glass domes.

I look at the woman, taking in her features. I hadn’t noticed it before—kind of focused on those ears—but she’s…stunning.

I glance around, noticing it’s a common trait among all the nurses. They’re absolutely beautiful. They all move about so gracefully, it’s almost like they’re floating. And though they look different from one another, they share similar, lovely features.

For example, their necks are long and slender. Their hair silky, sometimes long, sometimes short. The colors vary wildly, too—ranging from black to pink. Their angular faces are model-esque, and they all have different skin tones ranging from the palest whites to the deepest browns.

I don’t miss their pointed ears either.

None of this seems possible.

And where is Ash?

What happened to her and that creep in the forest?

“Where’s my friend?” I demand. “Whatever this place is, I don’t care. Where’s Ash?”

The woman glances away from me to look once again at the nurse by her side. “I don’t see why she can’t join the others who are awake.”

She reaches forward with her hand, and I watch that strange blue light once again as she waves it over my body. Suddenly, the binds around my wrist and ankles are lifted. I raise my hands to look at them, not a mark on my wrists, and not a strap in sight.

***

Moments later, I’m being escorted by a nurse to a cloister overlooking a small courtyard. The walls are made of a glittering stone that shimmers like opal in the sunlight. We pass by a thick patch of wild, flowering brush, and I can’t tear my eyes from the strange blooming flora.

They are some of the strangest plants I’ve ever seen. Probably some kind of exotic wildflower, I think, watching a gaggle of bizarre little bugs fly about the petals.

Everything here is so different. So…new. Even the sky takes on a remarkable hue—not quite the usual blue, but a milky dusk of purple and yellow and orange. The clouds above are sheer, like whirls of chiffon, colliding in the sky.

I find myself so distracted by it, I lose pace with my guide. I quicken my feet to catch up to her. “Wow,” I admit, breathless at the sight of everything around me. “This place is beautiful. You get to live here?”

“I’m just a nurse,” the woman admits, looking over her shoulder at me with a smile. “I don’t live in the palace. I just work here.”

Palace? Say what?

I hesitate, stumbling as I race to keep up with her again. “Whose palace, exactly?”

Before the nurse can explain, a sudden flurry of bodies floods the corridor. They’re moving quickly toward us, with purpose. And before I can ask what’s happening, the nurse pushes me up against the wall.

“It’s him,” she says.

“Who?” I ask, but she quickly shushes me.

Then I spot him. The man at the head of the group. He strides toward us, his eyes narrowed and set straight ahead, his perfectly coiffed hair slicked back on his head. The nurse bows, and suddenly urges me to do the same. But why?

I ignore her, watching his quick approach.

His gaze flickers to me. It’s brief, but there’s a slight flash of something written on his face. Then, two paces past me, he stops abruptly. The rest of his group stops with him.

Several stunning faces and glittering eyes turn to me. A voice blurts from the crowd, “A human?”