Chapter 1: A Wish Gone Wrong
The espresso machine hissed like a dying animal, which felt appropriate. Katie stared into the dregs of her cold latte, watching the bubbles collapse one by one. A perfect metaphor for her evening. For her life, really.
“I just feel like you’re not open to the cosmic journey,” Mark-from-the-app had said, five minutes before he’d knocked his chai latte all over her sketchbook. The ink had bled, ruining two days of work for a client who thought “whimsical but corporate” was a coherent direction. She’d mopped it up with napkins, her fingers staining blue, while he’d philosophized about energetic blockages.
Now, the Chicago alley behind the coffee shop was a canyon of brick and damp. A flickering streetlamp cast long, wavering shadows. The air smelled of wet pavement, garbage, and the ghost of roasted beans from Last Chance Coffee, the neon sign buzzing a sickly pink above the back door.
“Cosmic journey,” she muttered, kicking at a puddle.
It wasn’t a gentle nudge. It was a full-bodied, frustration-fueled stomp. Water splashed up her shin, soaking through her sneaker. “Fantastic. Just perfect. I wish I could just… vanish. Poof. Anywhere but here.”
The puddle shimmered.
Not a normal, light-catching shimmer. This was a deep, internal luminance, as if a submerged projector had flicked on. The neon pink from the sign didn’t just reflect on the surface; it swirled within the water, morphing into colors that didn’t exist—violet-golds and searing ambers. The ripples froze, then flowed upward, defying gravity.
“What the—”
The world didn’t so much disappear as it inverted. The alley stretched, the bricks melting into long streaks of dark green and brown. The scent of garbage was replaced by the overwhelming, sweet-rot smell of damp earth and unknown flowers. A soundless roar filled her ears. There was a sensation of being pulled through a keyhole, compacted and stretched at once.
Then, release.
She landed face-first in something cold and wet and infinitely softer than asphalt.
Gasping, she pushed herself up on her elbows, spitting out a mouthful of moss and something that tasted like bitter clover. Her hands sank into spongy, damp turf. She was kneeling in a meadow under a twilight sky streaked with two wavering, opalescent moons. The air was cool and thick, carrying the chirrup of insects that sounded slightly off, their rhythms syncopated. In the distance, jagged, impossible mountains speared a lavender sky.
“Oh, no,” she breathed. “Oh, nononono. This is a stress-induced psychotic break. This is what happens when you skip lunch and your blind date quotes The Secret at you.”
“Well, you’re not screaming. That’s novel.”
The voice came from her left—a rich, masculine baritone, laced with amusement and a touch of boredom. She scrambled to her feet, her wet clothes clinging unpleasantly.
A man—a knight—stood leaning against the gnarled trunk of a tree that looked like a weeping willow crossed with an octopus. He was huge, easily six and a half feet tall in battered silver armor that was all elegant, functional plates. A stylized raven was etched into the chestplate. His helmet was the stuff of dark fairy tales: a sleek, beak-nosed visor of blackened metal, seamless, with no eye-holes at all. It was turned directly at her.
“Generally, when things fall out of the Sky Tears, they’re either screaming, on fire, or both,” he continued, pushing off the tree. He moved with a predatory grace that the heavy armor shouldn’t allow. “You’re just… damp. And scowling. Are you a new breed of swamp creature? A particularly vexed mud-sprite?”
Katie’s brain, still scrambling for the file labeled ‘REALITY,’ latched onto the familiar sensation of annoyance. “I’m a particularly vexed graphic designer from Rogers Park. Where the hell is this?”
The helmet tilted. “Rogers Park. Sounds dreary. You’re in the Glimmerglen, darling. Western edge of Eldergrove. And you’re lucky I was here. The Glimmerglen is lovely at dusk, but the things that come out after dark have a lot of teeth and very little patience for inter-dimensional travelers.”
He said it all so casually, as if discussing a problematic subway line.
“Inter-dimensional.” Katie repeated the words flatly. She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the familiar smudge of ink on her fingers. It was still there. A tiny piece of Chicago. “Okay. Okay. I made a wish at a puddle. I’m having a breakdown. This is a very detailed, very olfactory hallucination.”
“Do hallucinations usually smell this bad?” the knight asked. He took a step closer, and she caught a scent of oiled metal, cold steel, and something else—like cedar and distant rain. “You’ve got portal-residue all over you. Smells like static and regret.”
“I kicked a puddle,” she said, her voice weak. “I just kicked it.”
“Ah. A classic summoning ritual. Often performed by toddlers and the profoundly frustrated.” He crossed his arms. The raven on his chest seemed to shift in the low light. “The question is, why did it work? The Sky Tears haven’t opened in a century. And they certainly don’t open for just anyone.” His helmet scanned her up and down. “You don’t look like a chosen one. You look like you’ve had a very bad night.”
That struck a chord. The absurdity of it all—Mark’s spilled drink, her ruined work, the wish, the falling—coalesced into a sharp, defiant spike of energy.
“You know what? Yeah. I have had a bad night. And now I’m hallucinating a tin-can flirt in a weird forest. So, hallucination or not, I need to find a way to un-hallucinate myself back to my apartment, my shower, and my very expensive, non-magical conditioner.”
The knight laughed. It was a warm, unexpected sound from that fearsome helmet. “I like you. You’ve got fire. Even if you do smell like a wet dog and despair. Name’s Calcharo. Sir Calcharo the Veiled, if you’re feeling formal.”
“Katie. Katie Calihara. And I’m feeling like I want to go home.”
“That,” Calcharo said, his tone shifting into something slightly less mocking, “is a complicated request. The Sky Tear that spat you out is already closed. They’re one-way, unpredictable, and frankly, a pain in my ass.” He gestured vaguely toward the shimmering air where she’d arrived. There was nothing there now but ordinary twilight.
Panic, cold and sharp, finally began to pierce through the shock. “You’re saying I’m stuck.”
“I’m saying your travel options are currently limited to this realm. Look on the bright side! The mud here is far more fragrant.”
She hugged herself, the chill of her wet clothes finally registering. “What do I do?”
“Well, you can’t stay here. The toothy things, remember?” He sighed, a metallic rasp. “I was on my way to the capital. You can trail along, if you promise not to whine. The Court of Sighs has scholars who might have a passing interest in a woman who fell from a puddle. They love obscure trivia. Might even find a way to poke a hole back to your… Rogers Park.”
“The capital.” It was a direction. A goal. It was better than standing in a sentient-smelling meadow. “How far?”
“A week on foot. Through the Howling Moors, past the Silent Woods, and across the Grief-Locked River.” He said it like he was listing stops on a commuter train.
“That sounds… awful.”
“It is! It’s dreadful. I’ll be miserable the whole time. But a knight’s duty is to protect helpless, pungent damsels, isn’t it?” He placed a hand on the ornate hilt of the longsword at his hip. “So, what’s it going to be, Katie-from-the-Puddle? Take your chance with the nocturnal nibblers, or suffer my charming company for a week?”
She looked at the impossible moons, at the twisted trees, at the faceless knight who was her only tether to anything resembling survival. Her pragmatic mind, the part that dealt with difficult clients and impossible deadlines, kicked in. This was just another impossible project. The goal was getting home. He was the only resource available.
“Fine,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “But I’m not a damsel. And if you call me pungent one more time, I’ll find a way to get your helmet stuck.”
His laugh echoed through the glen. “See? Fire. This might be fun after all. Follow me, graphic designer. Try to step where I step. The moors are clever. They like to swallow things that don’t pay attention.”
He turned and began walking toward a break in the twisted trees, his armor barely making a sound against the thick turf. Katie took one last look at the spot where her old life had vanished. Then, with a squelch of her wet sneakers, she followed the mysterious knight deeper into the whispering, moonlit dark.