“Who are these people you speak of?” Lady Elspith asked. Concern tinged her voice.

  “Mrs. MacTaggart is my guardian, Dad’s best friend, and his publisher.” He buried his head in his hands, thinking of the grief he was causing his loved ones. “Susan and Agatha are my little sisters. Mom and Dad just died, and now I’m gone too? They’ll be devastated.”

  “My brother is dead.” Elspith’s face crumbled. “I had hoped. Stupid, I know, but...” her voice trailed off. “And now, except for you, I am the last. When did it happen?” She looked to have aged ten years in a minute at the news. She sat on the ground next to him and wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulders. Silently, she shared his grief.

  “Almost ten months ago now.” Alboim replied mechanically. Surely, this was some sort of dream. He’d had these vivid dreams that had seemed so real before. Father had laughed and hopefully suggested he’d take after him as an author.

  After Mom died, Dad had lost his zest for life. Mom had been his rock, and he seemed to not know what to do without her. Not even the needs of his children, Alboim, Susan, and Agatha, had been enough to keep Wilson Adams from eagerly looking forward to meeting his wife in the next life. He started drinking and smoking away from his children. The girls didn’t notice, but Alboim had found him out a time or two. “I’m weak, Alboim.” Father had apologized to him once, his voice slurred. “She was my everything. I walked away from everything. I gave up my whole life, my family, just to be with her. And I would do it again in a heartbeat just to see her again. You’re so much like her, Al. She was—she was always the strong one.” Now I know exactly how much Dad sacrificed for Mom.

  “So, around the time we finally found your awra, then. That explains much; he must have been shielding you. What of my sister by law, Brigid?”

  Alboim thought back to the data cube and that last happy Christmas. The Christmas tree was brightly lit, his little sisters busy unwrapping their gifts. Dad was sipping coffee from his favorite mug, in a corny Santa hat and fake beard. Alboim, who had thought he’d finished with his unwrapping, looked up at Mom as she handed him a small wrapped box. “You’ll need this in your studies, Al,” she said. “Merry Christmas.” Inside, a brand new data cube, cobalt blue and two inches square. Mom and Dad had had it inscribed with, ‘To our beloved son Alboim. Thank you for being our son and growing into such a fine young man. Love, Mom and Dad. P.S. This is your Christmas AND birthday gift. Christmas, 2154. XOXO’. He’d memorized that message in the year-and-a-half since she’d died.

  “Cancer. Pancreatic cancer. It was late stage four by the time we found it, and there was nothing we could do except keep her comfortable.” A thought occurred to Alboim. “How are we speaking? I doubt you all know English.”

  Elspith pulled him closer to her, hugging him around the shoulders, sharing his grief. “I have cast a spell, a magic circle, onto you, inserting our language into your mind. And please call me Aunt Elspith. The effect of the mage-circle is only temporary, though; you’ll have to practice it if you want to keep Barugalan. Mind-casting is not the best way to learn anything, but it is the best option right now. When we have the chance, I would like to know more about my brother, Brigid, and my nieces since they left Iosa. As for getting you back to your sisters and friends, we cannot simply send you back, or bring them over here. Moara?” Her voice cracked slightly, and Alboim felt her shoulder shaking with sudden grief.

  The other woman took over. Moara stepped before the two sitting against the wall, and took up a lecturing stance. “We can only reach any particular world a few times a year, depending on the alignment of the planets and stars. Your world, you call it Earth?” Alboim nodded, and she continued lecturing. “Earth is very far from here in the string of worlds. You are stuck here for at least a half-year before we will be able to connect to it again, so late spring is the earliest we can hope to re-connect to your world. At least with our current circles. There are a few ideas I had to make it a bit easier…” Moara trailed off as the stern glare from Elspith registered. Her face reddened slightly, as she shifted her feet. “Sorry for rambling.” she muttered toward her feet.

  “Then there is the matter of getting you back to where you were on the planet. It would not do to plop you down in the middle of an ocean, or in one of your nation’s enemies.” Elspith said.

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t want to end up in Greater Libya or Russia, that’s for sure. I’m stuck here for six months though?” Alboim asked. He drew a long, shaky breath through his nose, filling his lungs so full it was painful, then let it go slowly. I will get through this; I just have to endure until I can get back home. This is not the end of the world. He was going to miss Agatha’s eleventh birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s. He would turn eighteen here. A single tear spilled from his eye as he struggled to not break down. Alboim closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing, just like Ma?tre d'Armes Godunov had taught him. He would not give in to despair.

  “Yes,” Moara said. “At least. That depends on a host of other factors, including finding a safe place for you to emerge into that reality, making sure it is your Earth, and not just a closely aligned one, and whether we have the mages to spare, as well as the will of the king. Unfortunately for you, the needs of the nation outweigh the desires of one individual. It takes several mages combining their powers to link to another world, after all.”

  “So you can’t just say some magic spell and make things work? And why can’t you send me back now? It cannot have been more than a couple of hours since your goons whacked me over the head.” Confusion knit Alboim’s brow.

  Harralt shook his head sadly. “Good questions, Alboim. Our magic does not use words of power,” his erstwhile kidnapper answered. “though other worlds’ magic, like the Hero Brigid’s, do. Instead, we draw magic circles. The more complicated ones can take a month or more to complete.”

  It hit him then, that this was The Summoned Mage Cycle’s world. He should already know these things. He slapped his forehead. I’ve read Dad’s books a million times already! He stood, and told them, “Dad, Arnulf, actually wrote a book, well series. I’m pretty sure it was about this world, and Mom and him meeting.” He had to get used to thinking of them as real, but if this was the case, he already knew a lot about this world. It had been a couple of years since he’d read them, but they were on the data cube—Dad had made sure of that.

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  Oswalt asked, “So then, you are familiar with the concept of the existence of many similar, but distinct realities?”

  Alboim nodded. “We call it the multiverse, and have tons of stories set on other worlds.”

  “Excellent!” Oswalt grinned. “This makes the explanation much easier. Earth is one reality, while Iosa is the same world in a separate one. There are thousands of these Iosan copies.”

  “And,” Moara interjected, “because your world differs greatly from ours, so it was especially hard to travel to. It took an especially long time to track your awra down—which we mistook for your father’s—so this is really the first opportunity we had once we found you. Had they missed, Harralt and Oswalt would have been stranded on Earth until the worlds realigned. As it was, they delayed until it was nearly too late to return.” She looked to have recovered from her earlier embarrassment, for she continued to deliver a mini-lecture.

  “The chalk circle was expended when Harralt and Oswalt traveled to Earth. They brought a return circle, a talisman, we call them, with them that they used up when they came back. It would take weeks to redraw the transport circle, and by that time Earth and Iosa will be out of phase.” Mora smiled, clearly enjoying being able to lecture him on this. “Tell me, how well can you draw?”

  “I’m no real artist, but I do know which end of the pencil to hold.” Alboim admitted. Now I know why Dad made us learn so thoroughly; his magic needs it. “Dad taught us.”

  “Well, if you are my brother’s son, Arnulf will have taught you moderately well. It should do.” Elspith said, nodding in approval. She seemed to have gotten a grip on her emotions, for her face was once more calm and regal. “But that is ultimately neither here nor there. Having drawings of landmarks in your world would help us more quickly find your Earth, and your region but are not essential. But it is late, and we should get some rest.” the lady Elspith continued. Rising from the floor, she continued. “Let us revisit this conversation tomorrow once we have had a chance to sleep and assimilate what we’ve learned.”

  A chorus of “Aye, my lady.” from the others.

  “Come, my nephew, I will take you to a guest room and have a servant bring you everything you need.” She arose from the floor and began walking down the hallway.

  As the group split up, Alboim hurried to catch up with his aunt. “I am curious, Lady Elspith-”

  “Aunt Elspith, please. You are my brother’s son, after all.” The countess reached the far end of the corridor, Alboim following closely behind.

  “Yes. Aunt Elspith. My parents never told me anything about being from another world or that I had any family other than them. They always said that they were refugees and left it at that. Why did they run away from here? It sounds like Father, at least, would have had a pretty comfortable life as the son of a count.” The last book only left it as returning to Mom’s world, Aldr.

  Elspith paused, looking up to the ceiling as if gathering her thoughts. “He was Father’s heir.” she replied. “Arnulf was the eldest of the four of us, and I the youngest. Theoban and Orcutt died after Arnulf left.” Shadows crossed Elspith’s face briefly before she continued, guiding Alboim down the hallway.

  “Almost forty years ago now, we faced a great dragon invasion. I was just a girl, but remember the devastation well. After the old king, Mercus IV, died, along with a third of the army, King Elaboim ordered his surviving mages to summon a hero. They did so, and the summoned hero was a peasant girl, Brittany Hannasdotir, your mother. Despite her common blood, she was strongly powerful, and agreed to help. “Arnulf was one of the summoners, and a Hero Companion. During their struggles, they fell in love, but Elaboim forbade their marriage.”

  She scowled at her memories as she continued walking down the hall. “Brigid, the king claimed, was a mere farmer’s daughter, while Arnulf was the heir to one of the most magically powerful families in the world. Their ranks were too far apart to allow a union. But King Elaboim had ulterior motives. He desired the strength of the Hero for his own self. In other words, he planned to force Brittany to marry him, so his heirs could inherit her magical powers.

  “Brittany and Arnulf, however, could not be kept apart. They disobeyed their king and wed in secret. When the king found out, he was furious and tried to arrest the two. King Elaboim has always hated Arnulf, and our family, for that. But Brigid, strong enough to defeat several dragons, easily bested all of the men sent to find them. However, it soon became clear that he would not leave them alone, even if they escaped the country; so they fled to another world. We assumed they went to her world, but you were found on a completely different one, one with almost no active magic.”

  Alboim blinked. “You know, now that I know Dad wrote about his own life, there’s a certain amount of cringiness with some of the scenes. Thank God the publishers never convinced him to add a sex scene. But as I remember it, there was none of that in the books. Elaboim comes out as a pretty decent guy.”

  “Err, yes.” Elspith’s cheeks flushed red for a brief moment. “I can see how reading about one’s parents’ romance could be unnerving. Elaboim has been a mostly praiseworthy king. He truly was a hero during the wars.”

  Another ten feet, and the countess opened an ornately carved and lacquered wooden door. An enormous fireplace ran the length of the entire far wall of the room, where a boy about fifteen or sixteen was feeding a newly built fire. Between the door and the fire was a large canopy bed, with the heavy curtains pulled back and piled high with blankets and pillows. A wardrobe, table, desk, and chair, all ornately carved and polished to the point he could almost see his reflection, completed the furniture.

  The fire’s light gleamed off the boy’s silver choker collar, had yet to take the chill out of the room. “Bennit, once you are done with the fire, bring my nephew night clothes, a change for tomorrow, and a bed warmer.” Elspith turned to Alboim. “Bennit is yours.”

  Bennit bowed low to the pair. “As you wish, Mistress Elspith.” He exited the room quickly.

  Elspith reached out and held Alboim’s head with her left hand. The right traced something, a magic circle, he presumed, on his forehead. After a minute, she kissed him in the middle of the circle, and smiled. “I am most pleased to have met you, my nephew. I will see you in the morning. Sweet dreams; wake well and refreshed.”

  Yawning, Alboim barely bothered to kick off his shoes before falling into bed. Burrowing under the thick quilted covers, his body quickly succumbed to the soft bed and heavy blankets, the gentle crackling of the fire in the background. By the time Bennit returned, his soft snores were filling the room. Bennit did not bother to wake his young master before tiptoeing out.