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Fox reached over me and give Cowboy a hard shake. “Wake up, we’re here.”

My head snapped to Fox. “Where is here?”

“The Passageway,” Tom snapped and I lowered my head. I didn’t like the demeanor and vibe that was emanating off of him. I knew that whoever Tom was, he didn’t like me at all.

“Don’t worry about Tom,” Fox spoke softly. “He’s like that around everyone.” She winked which made me smile. I liked the rat. I could tell that she was a really good fighter and for some reason used to be this team’s leader. I really wanted to know why she wasn’t the leader anymore.

Tom looked around fast before he opened the old creaking white door to the lighthouse.

“After you,” Fox said and I took a deep breath. I had no idea how an entire Passageway was going to fit into a lighthouse that looked as if it was held together by termites holding hands, but I followed Tom and Henry none the less. We climbed the wooden stairs that looked as if they were going to snap in two at any second.

I tried to sidestep every hole and crack I could see inside the steps, and hated how much noise they were making.

“Phil,” Tom said softly and Henry’s laughter came out in a mocking tone right in front of me.

As I mounted the last couple of steps three men appeared. A man in his mid-forties with a huge stomach and bushy eyebrows shook Tom’s hand and gave Henry a slap shake.

“And who is this?” he asked as he looked at me.

“This is Chastity Blake,” Fox said and winked at me.

“Chas, meet Phil. He is the Tector, the guardian of many entries that lead to the Outer and Revera.”

The Outer? I had no clue what she was talking about but I smiled. Still, a bit unsure about all of this as my mind couldn’t comprehend how on earth the Passageway, whatever that was, fit into this old lighthouse, but then again, I still struggled to accept that whenever I was angry or scared, gold sand sprouted from my hands which could actually make other humans sleep or hurt ones that weren’t from this world.

“By that cut on your face, I would say this wasn’t as easy as you thought, hey John?”

Cowboy chuckled. “We managed fine, old man.”

Phil smiled, stared at the door he was guarding and pulled a huge bundle of keys from his pocket.

“Is it true that Vinicola is back?” Phil asked softly but I couldn’t hear Tom’s reply. I only knew that he spoke about me as Phil’s eyes lingered on me for a couple of seconds. He finally went back to his task and the keys rattled again until he found the right one.

He opened the door and we all stepped inside and started to cough at the dust that had accumulated over each and every object that was in the small room. From what it looked like there was a couch with a dirty old garment covering it, a cupboard and a mirror. I gave Fox a look that was filled with questions, the most important one was what the hell were we doing here?

“Think it would kill you to dust now and then?” Tom asked and Henry laughed.

Tom shot him a look. “I can’t wait for you to hoot again.”

Henry slapped Tom on the shoulder and I thought that maybe this dude really had some sort of death wish or something. “You love me, admit it.”

But Tom just shook his head and cleared his throat. He walked up to the mirror, picked a rag up from the floor and wiped it sort of clean.

Tom took out a marker and started drawing signs on the mirror. Plenty of squares, circles and odd triangle shapes. When he finish drawing in a circle shape around the mirror, he tapped softly in the middle. A soft buzz came from the mirror and then it seemed as if the mirror shuddered slightly. The dust fell off the mirror and it cleaned itself. I had to open and close my eyes, because I thought I was dreaming. Yet, after everything I’d learned the past few days, I knew dreams were as real as you and me.

We all stood back waiting for the process to finish and when the shapes Tom drew on the mirror started to move around and formed a huge symbol in the middle of the mirror, the substance turned from glass to a jelly, watery substance.

“Ready Chas?” Fox asked me.

I gave her the look. The one that screamed that I would never be ready for this shit, but I guessed I didn’t have a choice so I nodded.

Phil slapped Henry hard on the back which made me jump. “Time to squawk again my boy.”

“I don’t squawk,” Henry said in a slightly dull tone and turned to look at me. His smile reached his eyes again. “See you later Chas.” He winked and ran straight for the mirror.

The minute he dove through, all sorts of colors came sprawling out. It was simply stunning and I couldn’t help myself as I watched in awe as bright yellows, pinks, purples, blues and slight reds flashed past me.

“Don’t take too long, Fox,” Tom said before he disappeared through the mirror too.

“You want to go next?” John asked us, and Fox nodded, before she looked at me.

“Chas, it’s the only way to enter through to the Outer.”

“What is the…”

“Shush, I’ll explain later. Right now, you need to pay attention. Just hold your breath as you go through the mirror. Close your eyes. Although it may feel like you are going to suffocate, know that you are perfectly fine. Tom and Henry are waiting on the other side. The fog is cold, so brace yourself. But only for a little while.”

I just stared at her.

“It’s the only way.”

“Fox?” John asked.

“John,” Fox cut him off.

“Now close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

I did as she said, while looking at John.
What did he want to say, when she cut him off like that
?

I didn’t look, although I was dying too, but my fear of losing my eyes or whatever was way too big to peek.

My finger touched the mirror. It felt cold as my arm reached further inside. The freezing temperature almost felt as if it was burning into my arm, into my bones and when pain started to emerged, I grunted and pulled back.

A hand connected hard with my back which made me fall into the mirror. A horrible, excruciating pain tore through my flesh, and everything I was.

My heart beat so fast as I crunched down on my teeth. A deep grunt from within made this feeling seem ten thousand times worse.

Then the same stabbing pain I had only experienced once before, inside my Initiation dream when I was standing before that mirror, made my skull want to snap in two.

I couldn’t take it anymore and clutched my head and screamed. The freezing fog immediately engulfed my screams and ran its course down my throat and into my lungs. Pain and a fright I’d never experienced before overwhelmed my entire existence and nothing I did, made any of it easier.

I couldn’t cough, even though I tried with all my might. It felt as if the fog just pushed itself inside of me, and we weren’t a match at all.

Then the pull came and my body connected hard with the surface. I coughed, gasped for air, and screamed one last time before all the pain just disappeared. Like none of it had happened at all.

Tears were close by, even though I felt that they were a sign of weakness. Maybe I was weak, but at that moment I didn’t care.

I couldn’t open my eyes to find out where I was, and I just lay on the cold hard floor.

My hair and clothes were wet, I didn’t jnow why because I couldn’t feel any water, just a freezing pain. My heart beat so fast it was the only thing I could hear.

“Chastity,” Tom’s voice finally got through and I could sense a figure kneeling beside me.

“Open your eyes!”

I did and saw a pale white hand touching mine. Even though I was staring at his hand right on top of mine, I couldn’t feel it and it was a very strange sensation.

I lifted up my stuffy head, looked up at him and stared with knitted eyebrows at his huge figure.

A big, grey owl flew past him which caught my eye and I looked at the hopeless bird trying to find a resting spot.

What was an owl doing here?

I thought it was strange that after what I’d just gone through, that was the number one question on my mind.

Forcing my gaze from the owl, I found us stranded inside a cave, with no openings, only walls and walls, with this gooey substance pooling at my feet. The bright light from the substance made my eyes hurt and I looked away, but not before I saw half my body still drenched in it. I couldn’t feel its cold or the wet anymore, only the cold of the hard surface.

I slowly pulled my legs from the liquid that surrounded us inside the cave.

I looked again, looked back at Tom, while my heart started to beat faster again.
This couldn’t be happening.
My eyes had been closed, I was a thousand percent sure of it.

Then why cant I see color?

FOX AND TOM CAME WALKING OUT OF THE BRIGHT lake a couple of minutes later. Both their coats were drenched and judging by the grunts coming from John, he didn’t like being wet.

“Is she okay?” Fox asked as she passed Tom and walked to where I’d stationed myself against the wall of the cave.

“You should’ve mention the Clencing to her, Fox.”

“She wouldn’t have gone through that mirror, Tom. I did what I had to do.”

Tom shook his head. It was the only compassion he’d shown me since we met.

“Chastity,” Fox said and kneeled before me. “I’m sorry. I…”

“You should’ve mentioned something. I could’ve prepared myself for pain. I thought I was going to die.”

Fox closed her eyes. “Would you truly have gone through if you knew what waited for you Chas?” She asked and opened her eyes again. Her hand touched my arm, yet I still couldn’t feel it. I just stared at her hand.
What did they do to me?

“What is this place, why through the mirror? What is the Clencing he spoke about?”

She looked over her shoulder at Tom, who glanced down at his watch. “We have time,” he said and she nodded.

“The Clencing is a process that all Dream Casters must go through. It doesn’t matter whether you are light or dark. It strips you of your human DNA, the thing that makes your body yours, and reprints another, and that is why there is pain. We can only be seen by other Casters inside the Domain, Chastity. Humans aren’t able to see us. They don’t see our dust, they only experience what we wield for them. The Clencing is a must, and one I’m not very fond of.”

“So my body is no longer human?”

“It is, it’s just not human to the Nomads.”

“So what am I back in my world?”

“Inside the Domain, you are invisible.”

That hit me quite hard, and I don’t know why I felt as if I’d fallen asleep and woken up inside one of my novels. “So what, next you are going to tell me that Jace, Clary and Edward Cullen are real?”

She squinted slightly. “I don’t know who you are referring too.”

“Of course you don’t,” I said and got up from the cold floor. I huffed slightly. The funny part of not being able to feel was that I could still feel the cold, not on my skin, but deep inside of me, as if it had made a home in my bones and organs. It was the only thing I could feel and I wondered if there was any warmth that would make me feel human again. Scratch that, I wasn’t human anymore, well not to humans that is.

This really sucked so much.

“Look, I had no choice.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” I sort of snapped at her and wiped my hands on my wet soggy jeans.

I found John hitting his hat a couple of times against his leg.

“You okay?” he asked without looking at me, as I stationed myself near him.

“I’ll live,” I huffed again. Still making jokes, and not knowing if any of it was real or not. “So what now, we tap our heels or something and say Revera three times real fast and poof, we’re out of here?”

John smiled.

“It’s not the Wizard of Oz, Chas. It’s Revera and we are not going to Revera just yet, we need to make a stop at one of the Compounds in the Outer.”

Again that name, what was the Outer?

I knew I wouldn’t get the answer from him. “Then how do we get out of here?” I looked at the ceiling which was still pretty dark, but the bright light from the mirror liquid made the cave wall slightly visible. “Cause I hate to break it to you, Cowboy, but there is no sign of a door or anything.”

“We don’t use doors to get into the Outer.” Fox walked toward us. “But you are going to have to experience a bit more pain, Chas.”

PAIN…AS IF IT WAS MY BEST FRIEND ALL OF A
sudden. Pain that Clare had caused me for four weeks, pain of losing my mother and lying about it, pain. It was constantly around me and I hated the existence of it so much that I wanted to puke.

What pain, Fox didn’t say. I guessed she didn’t have the stomach to explain it to me.

The only thing I figured out was that the cave worked like a clock as Tom kept gazing at his watch, an action that was really tugging on my nerves.

Then a slight rumble came. The cave shuddered slightly but not to the extend where loose rocks fell to the floor. When it stopped, Tom walked into the other side of the lake, held out his arm and whistled. The owl came and landed on his arm.

For some reason I’d forgotten about Henry. He’d disappeared through the mirror with us, but the only person that had made it out was Tom and this owl.

Then what Phil had said jumped into my mind.
It’s time to squawk again…I don’t squawk, I hoot.

“Henry is an owl!” I yelled which made all of them look at me as if I was crazy. Tom shook his head, the owl hooted while Fox and John laughed.

“He’s an Anitule, which mean that in the Domain he transforms into a human. Anitules are very sacred to Light Casters.”

The name I’d heard before but I pretended it was foreign. I remembered what Mom had said about her Shadow Hound, or what they called Nimgolians.

“Fox, we have to go,” Tom ordered and Fox pulled me by the arm. A grip I still couldn’t feel.

We walked into the lake again. “Take a deep breath, Chas.”

“How big? How long are we going to be under?”

She sighed, “See this is what I was talking about. We don’t have much time, Chastity, now take a deep breath.”

I took a couple of deep breaths and watched how Tom and the owl disappeared into the water. How could an owl swim? It didn’t make any sense.

“We need to go, now.” She gave me a motherly look and I nodded. I shook off the fear of going through excruciating pain again, and walked into the lake as fast as I could. My jeans instantly became heavy as they connected with the wet of the substance.

I dove in and swam a little with my head above the water. The bright light from the water made me close my eyes. Then I took a mother of a breath and dove down.

I didn’t open my eyes but felt a current guiding me to where I needed to go.

Then I started to turn in the water like Leigh’s arrow had that night in the dream where we’d met.

I turned so fast that I didn’t know what was up or down anymore.

I connected with something hard, and I felt the dull pound inside my head just before an excruciating pain jolted though my mind, but for some reason I didn’t lose consciousness. I couldn’t feel the pain on the outside, but inside my skull it was burning like fire.

The silent grunt didn’t help, I lost my breath and twirled into the water for a long time.

No end was in sight and I knew for sure that this time I was going to die. My lungs started to burn, in need of air that would never come. My muscles ached from twirling around like a piece of crap flushed down the drain. I felt like crap, the worst kind.

Memories of my entire life flashed through my mind. Mom was constantly in them. Clare too, the Clare who used to be my friend. We laughed at something funny. Then other memories, one of me as an adult, the future of what could’ve been. I was happy, I’d found someone and we walked hand in hand. I couldn’t see his face but I knew I was extremely happy.

The pain wasn’t that hard to deal with anymore, now that I knew I wasn’t going to make it.

My mind started to shut down, memories disappeared until there was nothing but the dark.

VOICES IN THE DISTANCE SPOKE. I COULDN’T HEAR what they were saying, they were so far away.

Then I heard my name.

“Chastity?” I heard it again.

Water spilled out of my mouth and I coughed. “She’s coming to,” Fox said. “Give her space, John.”

An owl hooted, and for some reason it sounded relieved.

“Chastity?” Fox voice was softer. She didn’t yell it anymore.

I opened my eyes. They burned, and I closed them again. I’d never felt so tired in my entire life.

“Don’t sleep, wake up,” Fox said a bit harder this time and I opened my eyes partially.

“I can’t,” I croaked out. “So tired.”

“I know, baby, but you need to wake up.”

“Fox, she almost drowned, she must be exhausted,” John tried.

“She needs to stay awake, just until we reach the Compound then she can sleep as much as she wants,” she said to John. I could swear there was a cuss word in-between that sentence but I didn’t care anymore. Heck, ever since I came to this world, a part of me just wanted to cuss the whole time.

“Now, wake up.” A hard slap connected with my face. It brought back pain with a snap of a finger.

“I’m awake,” I said, my eyes still burning like hell. Both their figures were blurry, but to my surprise color came through.

John picked me up.

“John, she needs to stay awake,” Fox grunted at him.

“I heard you the first time, she’ll stay awake. I’ll make sure of it. But she is exhausted Fox, she’s been through hell and back. A little compassion won’t hurt anyone.”

Fox mumbled something and it felt so good in John’s arms that I really just wished I could sleep.

“Chastity,” he shook me and my eyes flew open again. Tom mumbled something from the front and I could see small lights mounted to the ceiling passing us every five seconds.

John’s eyes looked down at me every five seconds too as he walked extremely fast.

A door opened and I closed my eyes again as a cold breeze rushed over my body.

“Chastity, wake up.”

“I’m awake,” I grunted.

“Then open your eyes. I know you are tired, but you need to stay awake just a couple more minutes.”

Voices, loads of voices, like we were in a crowd appeared. Then cars made it in there too. Curiosity of where we were now grew and I opened my eyes again. We were in some sort of city. The people were minding their own business and the city sounds lingered in the back.

No one asked if we needed help. I knew that it must have looked strange seeing the four of us with a wet owl on a man’s arm, drenched in wet clothes. I knew we were wet, I could hear the slof, slof, as we walked, still, nobody offered to help.

I opened my eyes again as John shook me like I was a rag doll.

“If you close your eyes one more time, I swear I will make you walk the rest of the way.”

“I’m awake, I promise,” I croaked softly again.

The bright lights of the building that we walked under didn’t help much with my burning eyes, but I had no choice, as I knew the minute John would put me down, I would fall flat on my face and snore.

Hooves galloping on the turf made me turn my head and I saw a horse with one of those carriages couples like to take.

A park was on the opposite street.

It didn’t make much sense as I could swear this was the Domain. It looked like a city back home.

“Where are we?”

“The Domain, but it’s part of the Outer too.”

I shook my head slightly, which brought on a horrible ringing sound. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t have to now. Just concentrate on staying awake. We are almost there.”

“Where?” I asked.

“The Compound. There is a healer and he will take care of you, Chas, but you need to stay awake.”

“I’m awake,” I whispered again and felt the urge to close my eyes once more.

I did, and to my surprise, opened them again five seconds later.

We were past the city lights now. Most of the sounds of cars and galloping hooves with strangers just walking by were gone.

I kept staring at the stars. They were so bright and I wondered why I never stared at their beauty before now.

We passed through a big old steel gate that made a horrible squeaking sound and trees blocked my view from the stars.

A hard knock on a door came from in front and then a woman’s voice acknowledged Tom as she opened the door.

“We’ve got her, but she almost drowned in the Lining,” Tom spoke fast.

“Come in, come in.” The woman’s voice was full of alarm but still sweet.