The moment Rhea finished speaking, her wide eyes, a mirror of River’s, fell shut. Suddenly, as if she had never woken, she began to fall back into the mattress, only for River to gently catch her and lower her down against her plush pillow.

“It happened again,” he absently muttered, his heart beating out of his chest. Cerys dropped her jaw, stunned silent by a feat not even her magic could accomplish, and slowly stepped over to River’s side.

“Again?” She asked in disbelief, her alarmed gaze switching between River and Rhea. “This has happened before?”

River smoothed his mother’s hair out, tucking her back into bed before he stood and pushed past Cerys. “Three times,” he stated as he dropped down to his duffle bag, tearing open the zipper to pull out a small tattered notebook. A pen was stuffed in between the pages, bookmarking a page he immediately flipped past.

“This shouldn't be possible...”

“It started three years ago,” he explained roughly and scribbled furiously into his book. His brow knotted tight together as he muttered his recollection of what his mother had said. “She turned from the window, stared at me and said to leave, don’t look back, endure.”

“She couldn’t have…” Cerys knelt beside River, though she remained invisible to him. He couldn’t spare her any more of his attention. He mumbled what he had written, the beginning of his mother’s words, and struggled to recall the rest. “River,” Cerys implored, “look at me—”

“ —what did she say at the end, about embracing fate?” He shot his wild gaze to Cerys, letting her look at his messily scrawled writing.

“You’re taking notes?”

“Cerys!”

She let go of her breath as she did her fight, despite the concern wrought across her face, and took the book and pen from him. As she wrote down what he missed, she recited, “‘retreat, quickly, to her embrace, where tears break and fate awaits.’”

“Thank you,” River exhaled softly and took the book back to stare at the writing as if they held the answers to everything they needed. Part of him believed they did, but only once had he been able to decipher his mother’s sudden spiels.

The very end of her message stuck out to him—‘where fate awaits’—and he recalled his crossword from earlier—a five letter word for ‘fate.’ It seemed like such a minute detail, but twice fate had been mentioned to him within the same morning. He wondered if there was more to the crossworld than just a puzzle, and more to his mother than just a disorder.

A touch on his arm brought him back from his thoughts, Cerys’ hand urging for his attention. “Has this really happened before?” She asked and in turn, he nodded.

“It has, three times. I told the nurses but it was as if she never said or moved or did anything, and they didn’t believe me.”

“Truthfully, I don’t think I’d believe you either…” Cerys turned her head back towards the bed, troubled by the occurrence. “Her catatonia is severe, Rivs, even magic is helpless to fix it. But having witnessed this myself,” she met River with a firm nod, “I believe you.”

“Do you think these have been a warning?” River asked, leaning over towards Cerys to show her his notebook, flicking through the pages of prior messages. “Like a psychic warning or something?”

She shook her head. “Rhea isn’t a Sensitive, she’s mundane.”

“A Sensitive?”

“A person who has dormant magical attributes, like your psychic and mediums,” Cerys explained and River perked at the idea.

“What if her attributes have been dormant all this time but are now appearing?”

“That’s a first for me,” she doubted.

“Well, I’m mundane yet I have a gift, or so you say,” he pointedly said, “my intuition.”

“That’s different, extenuating circumstances caused that.”

“That’s what Dad said, but what if—”

“River, stop,” Cerys interjected and firmly held River’s gaze. “I know you want an answer for this, but nothing I know makes sense of this. With my magic I’ve seen what’s inside her mind and it’s scattered, disconnected thoughts that make no sense nor lead anywhere. Even if she is a Sensitive, or has a gift like yours, she still couldn’t act on it like this.”

“That you know of,” he mumbled under his breath and continued to go over the words he wrote down just before. He let Cerys peer at them as well, but then she quickly looked up towards his mother and then back at the words. “What?”

She huffed a breath and stood, returning back to the window to inspect the world outside. “The streets are dangerous and we can’t stay here.”

“I’m not going back to my grandparents.”

“I’m not saying that!” She snapped, facing him as she crossed her arms and leaned against the window sill. “What your mum said, about returning to ‘her embrace’ and ‘tears break’... I know what she’s referring to.”

“What?” River shot up, his hazel eyes wide as he bent his notebook in his hard grip. His stomach flipped with nervous excitement, his mind racing through possibilities. “What is it?”

“Astera’s Embrace,” Cerys stated, though seemed more annoyed than pleased by its mention. “A realm created and safeguarded by magic. It’s a sanctuary, protected by the most powerful ward I’ve ever seen, and home to many, many refugee Mythics.”

A smile twitched across on River’s face, confusion mixing with his joy. It sounded perfect for them, yet Cerys’ demeanour said otherwise. “Why do you not seem happy? We’d be welcomed as refugees too, right? What, with your evil cult on our asses.”

“Yeah, we’d be welcomed by the wards, but…” Cerys kissed her teeth and kicked her boot against the floor. “I’m not exactly on good terms with the Coven Heads in charge of the realm.”

River’s smile dropped, replaced by a displeased frown.

“Of course you aren’t,” he muttered under his breath. “Can we do anything to turn their favour?”

“Well, we can convince their children,” Cerys smiled stiffly. “Easy, since I’m friends with one. Difficult, since the other despises me almost as much as his father.”

Hope bloomed in River’s chest. He grabbed his denim jacket and shook it out, before quickly slipping into it. “So let’s get your friend to convince him, and with both of them, we might be able to turn those in charge to be more in our favour, yeah?”

She gave a breathy chuckle. “You’re deeply underestimating how displeased people tend to be with me.”

“Considering I’m one of those people, no. No, I’m not.” River stuffed his notebook back into his duffle bag and picked up the bundle of letters Cerys had dropped earlier, but when he went to tuck them away, she reached out for them instead.

“I’ll make things up to you, River. I promise.”

If his intuition didn’t tell him she was telling the truth, he might not have believed her, . Part of him still doubted she would even stick around to keep the promise, but the sincerity behind her eyes weakened him enough to believe in her, just a bit. He sighed, replying, “just don’t leave me behind again.”

He let go of the bundle and light engulfed Cerys’ hand, swallowing up the letters in a flash before they were gone without a trace. All that remained was her empty palm and the black starburst crack in the centre. Curiosity gnawed at River for an answer about the scars and cracks and despite Cerys’ discomfort towards them, he wanted to ask. He parted his lips but quickly, she closed her fist and pocketed her hands.

“I have to summon Clem,” she said.

“Clem?”

“The friend I mentioned, her name is Clementine,” Cerys answered and faced the window once more. River’s hand twitched to latch onto her arm, her gaze outside reaching places he feared he wouldn’t be able to follow her to. “I can’t summon her here, so we have to leave.”

“What about the cult?” River swallowed and turned his head back to his sleeping mother. He chewed the inside of his cheek, worried whether she’d be safer waiting outside with them or not. “You can’t just summon Clem from here?”

“Let me worry about the Everlasting Servants, and no. Wards reject any magical interference, it’s the self-preservation measure to stop other Mythics from simply undoing them. However, because of that measure, Aether Jumping is only going to lead to Clem getting bounced back and trust me, that shit hurts.”

“Aether Jumping?” River furrowed his brow, unable to recall the term, before a realisation dawned on him. “Your teleporting thing? Like when you showed up on the bike and got to my place before I did?”

Cerys snorted a laugh and nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. Aether is the energy behind our magic, the fuel to our magically inclined attributes. To disappear from one place to another, we envision where we want to go or focus on our connection to an object—like your amulet—and we just… Jump across. It can be draining though, especially the further away places are. Having an object to jump through uses less aether, opening a gate uses even less.”

“A gate?”

“You’ll see,” she winked and River narrowed his gaze, unsettled by the lack of knowledge he had in comparison. He knew, without access to magic, he’d always be stuck in a different world than her, but listening to her explain abilities far beyond his reach… He felt left behind again.

In a blink, the golden hole reopened in the window and River swallowed the itch in the back of his throat. Cerys poked her head outside before dipping back inside to report, “it’s clear.”

“What about my mum?” River asked and Cerys’ furrowed her brow, glancing over at Rhea. His gut dropped and he shook his head, crossing over to his mother’s side. “We’re not leaving her behind, are we?”

“I… I can’t protect us all, River. It’s hard enough ensuring your safety, and once we have Clementine, that’s two I have to keep a guard up for.”

“She can’t help?”

“She isn’t as powerful as I, or the Everlasting Servants are.”

“But the Servants came after me to get to you,” River snapped his eyes to Cerys’, guilt and fear ransacking his stomach and nerves. He recalled what the Mythics did to him, before Cerys’ rescue, what more they might have done if she never came.

“They’ll come after her too, take her hostage and torture her to get to you!”

“They can’t cross my wards, River, and if they did, I would know and be here in a heartbeat,” Cerys argued. “Besides, they won’t go after her.”

Bullshit, River thought.

“What do you know? You left me and they found me!” He bit back. He pulled back his mother’s blankets to pick her up, but immediately they folded back onto her and tucked themselves in. “Cerys!”

With her hand, she had channelled her magic to control the blankets. River shot her a scathing glare and she huffed before dropping her arm.

“Morana took a binding oath…” Cerys said, her tone begrudging. “Not to harm or cause harm upon your mother. The Everlasting Servants don’t act without order so they can’t do anything either. Trust me, River, your mum is safer here, especially with the round the clock care she has.”

“Why would Morana take an oath like that?” River scrunched his face up, more questions arising with every piece of information Cerys gave him. He hated how he couldn’t sit her down and hear it all from the beginning, and he hated it even more how unwilling his sister was to share anything more in depth.

“River, I promise, I’ll explain everything later. I’ll answer you honestly and openly, but only when we are safe,” Cerys pleaded, the truth in every word she said. River swallowed, unable to deny the temptation even if he knew it was a lure for him.

His racing heart was wrought with anxiety for his mother’s wellbeing and as he caressed her face, he asked, “you will really know if anything happens?”

“The very moment someone touches my wards, I’ll know and I’ll be here,” she assured with a silent promise. He allowed himself a second to breathe and then his anxiety eased out, still present but not as harsh, a warmth slowly ebbing into its place.

“Come on,” she motioned her head towards the outside, “let’s get Clem.”

River bent down and kissed his mother’s forehead, whispering his love to her before he faced his sister with a settled nod. He grabbed his duffle bag and swung it over his shoulder, following Cerys outside with only one last look back.

Once through the threshold of the golden exit, pins and needles spread across his skin and reignited his burning itch. He scratched at his neck and met Cerys right outside, where she flicked her wrist and the hole sealed back up, leaving behind an ordinary window.

“So how do we summon Clem?” River asked, curious if Cerys carried another necklace like his. Instead, Cerys snapped her fingers and a chunk of rose quartz appeared in her hand, black smoke dissipating around it.

“With this,” Cerys replied and smiled fondly at it. “When I left Astera’s Embrace, she forced me to take this.” She forced her eyes shut, brow knitted tight together in concentration, and called out, “Clementine! I need you.”

A blast shook the ground, a great force tripping several car alarms. Both Cerys and River stumbled to regain their balance, eyes wide on each other. Something sinister crawled up River’s spine, his intuition warning a threat his gut screamed for him to run from.

He already knew the answer, yet asked anyway, “was that her?”

“Absolutely not.”