A bead of sweat dripped down the back of Jim’s neck. How had it gotten so hot in the lab? Was the air conditioner off? And why did it smell like dirt?

The side of his face knocked against a metal wall.

Was the ground shaking too? Was it an earthquake? The data backups weren’t on a networked drive. He’d need to download them manually.

He blinked.

Where’s the lab?

Dim light filtered through a cotton sheet over his head. The left side of his face had smushed against a sun-warmed metal surface that smelled like earth.

Wasn’t I in the lab?

He blinked again and lifted his arm to scrub the dirt off his face. At least, he tried to lift his arm. He peered through the dimness at the arm that looked like his arm, but it wasn’t interested in moving.

The world rocked back and forth. Something heavy on top of his body tipped over and blocked out what little light he could see. A distant voice murmured something.

Jim squeezed his eyes shut, hard enough that colored lights exploded behind his eyelids. Then, he opened them again.

No lab.

Just dirt.

Even in the dark, murky light beneath the sheet, the world felt like the spin cycle of a dryer. Like his eyeballs were rolling in their sockets.

Concussion? Feels like a concussion. Why do I have a concussion this time? He’d had so many head injuries over the years it was a wonder his brain still worked at all. Where did the lab go?

He focused his attention on the barely visible fingers laying on his thigh.

Move.

His thumb twitched, but he couldn’t feel it. Trying to lift your arm when all your nerves are asleep makes it look like you’re dancing at a rave. It didn’t help that the world was still rocking back and forth. And where was he?

Whatever was sitting on top of him shifted again, and some of the light returned. Not enough to see well, but enough that he wasn’t in complete darkness.

White-hot needles of sensation stabbed down his arm as the feeling slowly trickled back into his fingers. He scrunched his face up and held his breath, but once the wave of discomfort passed he could open and close his fist again.

A violent jolt shook him as his body rocked back and forth with no warning, and the heavy objects on top of him shifted again.

“Sorry,” the distant voice said, apologetic but muffled.

Jim scanned the dark. Where was his other hand? Did he still have it? He couldn’t feel it, but apparently that didn’t mean anything. Slowly, the pain from the lump on the back of his head was beginning to creep into his senses, and the bunched up muscles in his legs and knees were beginning to complain.

I think—I’m in a wheelbarrow. He blinked again. Somebody stuffed me in a wheelbarrow.

Another bump sent one of the objects on top of him toppling over. He lifted his hand to keep the object from landing on his face, and he yelped in surprise as something sharp stabbed through the sheet.

Whoever was pushing the wheelbarrow hadn’t heard him—or didn’t care—because they didn’t stop. But another bump sent the object tumbling off him again.

In the dimness, Jim stared at his palm where three long needles had punctured his skin.

A cactus? He gawked. I’m in a wheelbarrow full of cactuses? Or—cacti? Cactuses. Cacti. Ugh. Why is my life like this?

He took a calming breath and pretended the world didn’t smell like rancid cotton and dirt and rust. This wasn’t the worst situation he’d ever been in.

You don’t actually know that.

Jim forced himself to be limp. No need to alert his captors that he was awake. He had the element of surprise on his side.

What’s the last thing you remember? He squeezed his eyes shut again. I was in the lab. I know I was in the lab. He scowled. With Reena—and Barb brought lunch. His breath caught in his throat. Oh no.

Jim fought the instinctive urge to thrash as full awareness crashed over him in a rush of adrenaline.

The test. Reena’s calculations. His mind blanked briefly, remembering the sound the very fabric of reality made as it tore itself apart and swallowed him whole. It worked.

He glanced at the dimness of his wheelbarrow prison.

I think it worked. He scowled.

Although, if the experiment had worked, this wasn’t what was supposed to be on the other side. He should be standing in the surf at Long Beach—not stuffed in a wheelbarrow being attacked by a cactus.

But then, there were a lot of odd people in Long Beach. It wouldn’t be unheard of for someone to have kidnapped him. But why a wheelbarrow? And why a cactus assassin?

No, something else was going on.

The creaking hinges of a door opening made him hold his breath. If they were close to their destination, maybe whoever had captured him would let down their guard. All they’d have to do is turn away for a few minutes, and he could escape.

He wiggled his toes in his tennis shoes.

At least, he thought he did. He couldn’t feel them either.

Maybe he needed more than a few minutes.

The wheelbarrow stopped, and the door shut. Footsteps thwacked hollowly on a carpeted floor. Boots maybe? The stride length was short, so whoever had captured him wasn’t very tall.

That same muttering voice returned as each cactus plant lifted off his body one at a time. Jim forced himself to hold as still as possible, barely daring to breathe.

He might only have feeling in one arm and half a foot, but if he could surprise his kidnapper—well, that would be something. More than nothing at least.

Where is Barb when I need her? His stomach turned over.

No way had she avoided being drawn into the portal. His sister could do a lot of impressive things, but that portal had been gigantic and powerful.

How had they even managed to open it? Reena’s calculations hadn’t been that much different from his own.

The weight of the last potted plant came off his knee, and the sheet over him shifted.

Here we go. Time to kick somebody in the face!

The sheet flapped as his kidnapper peeled it off the wheelbarrow, followed by a gasp of surprise.

Jim’s eyes adjusted to the brightness in the room and stared up into the face of a girl about his age. Giant dark eyes. Hair like spun gold, coiled and braided in a crown on her head. Skin like ivory, flawless and smooth.

Whoa.

He stared at her until he realized he hadn’t blinked in a while.

Easy, Boy Wonder. Jim scowled. Don’t get distracted just because she’s pretty.

But she was. Very pretty. She was the prettiest girl who had ever kidnapped him and shoved him in a wheelbarrow and tried to stab him with a cactus.

The girl hadn’t spoken.

And she was staring too.

Jim cleared his throat. “Hi?”

The girl kept staring and didn’t speak. She glanced at something behind Jim’s head.

Jim ignored how the room was spinning and shifted, praying that more sensation would trickle into his other arm and his legs. He stretched out his legs so that they dangled out of the wheelbarrow.

She didn’t move.

“Do you talk?” Jim raised his eyebrows at her.

The girl’s expression hardened. “You’re bleeding.”

Jim glanced at his hand and held it up. “You’re the one who tried to kill me with a cactus.”

The girl sagged, her shoulders sloping in an exhausted way. “I’m sorry.”

Jim scowled at her. “You’re not very good at kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping?”

Jim gestured to the wheelbarrow.

“No, there’s been a misunderstanding.” The girl shook herself and turned away from him, dashing through a door in the far wall.

Jim started to call after her, but the words died on his lips as he noted the room itself.

The ceiling towered twenty feet high with wood paneling at six feet that spanned the perimeter of the room. The rest of the walls and ceiling had been intricately painted the color of the sky in gradients of pale blue to deepest midnight, studded with star constellations and the orbits of the planets.

In the back corner, a bed frame had been built into the wall. A massive bookshelf lined the other wall, broken only by a huge picture window that opened to a sunshine-filled world of green grassy plains and expansive blue skies.

Where am I? His heart thudded in his ears. This isn’t San Francisco. And it’s not Long Beach.

A gentle hand on his shoulder jolted him back to the girl, who stood at his side offering her hand.

“Here. Let me help.”

Jim eyed her suspiciously.

This is bad. This is really, really bad. Where is Reena? Where is Barb? His stomach turned over, but he forced a smile and took the girl’s hand.

His hand dwarfed her, but the strength in her arm and grip surprised him. She pulled him up and out of the wheelbarrow. Jim stumbled the instant his feet hit the floor, his legs too numb to hold him. But the girl caught him around the chest, and he braced himself on her shoulders.

“Sorry,” he grunted.

“It’s okay.” She gazed up at him, a slight blush staining her cheeks. “I got you.”

Her hair smelled like lilac, her skin like ginger. Her eyes weren’t black, like he’d thought before. They were blue—blue as the deepest part of the midnight sky.

Oh, man, she is really pretty.

The girl smiled up at him shyly. “Do you—want to sit down?”

Jim blushed furiously. “Yes. Sitting. That’s good. I should. Yes.”

She nodded and helped him limp to a solid oak chair against the bookshelf. Jim winced as he sat down, feeling beginning to flood back into his feet and calves. He hissed at the sensations.

“Can I see your hand?” She knelt at his feet.

Jim obediently turned his palm over to her, and she gently dabbed some ointment on the puncture wounds.

“I’m Meg,” she said softly, glancing up at him, her cheeks still a bit pink.

“I’m Jim.” He cleared his throat. “Jim Taylor.”

Meg blushed deeper but said nothing as she bandaged his hand. Jim glanced at her shoulder where her embroidered blouse now bore a blood stain from his wound.

“I bled on you.”

Meg glanced at the stain with a frown. “I’ve had worse.”

Jim shut his eyes and refused to focus on what she meant by that. “Where is this place?”

Meg looked up at him, biting her lower lip. “Why?”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Seriously?”

Meg tilted her head.

“I was in my lab, and then I just woke up in a wheelbarrow,” Jim said. “And I don’t know you. I don’t recognize that.” He nodded out the window. “I don’t know where I am, and I don’t like not knowing.”

Meg tied off the bandage on his hand and rocked back on her heels. “This is Prism Castle in Rainbow Valley.”

Jim’s scowl deepened. “Okay. That doesn’t help me.”

“You’re from California,” Meg said slowly. “San Francisco? I found your wallet.”

Jim patted his pocket. “Yes.”

“This isn’t California.” Meg folded her arms across her chest. “You’re–a very long away from home.”

Jim leaned forward in the chair and ran his hands through his hair. He stood up and walked to the window, gazing out as far as he could.

To the right, out Meg’s window, a stone turret blocked most of the view northward. But from this vantage point, he could still see for miles and miles. Far to the north, a thick forest turned the horizon dark. Farther still, a distant line of foreboding mountains pierced the low-hanging clouds with peaks in shades of purple and gray.

Southward, the view was even more limited, but he could make out a solitary peak in the distance. Around the base of the castle were scattered villages with thatched roofs. People milled around in the streets of the villages, but they didn’t exactly look like—people.

They had tails. Some had wings.

Jim pressed against the window. I am seeing what I think I’m seeing?

“This is Rainbow Valley.” Meg repeated herself. “It’s a special place, a hidden place. Not many people know it exists.”

Jim turned back to her. The more she talked, the more uncomfortable she looked.

“I need to know,” Meg started, “how you got here. How did you open the rip?”

Jim shifted his weight as feeling rushed back into his feet. “The rip?” He frowned. “You mean—the portal?”

“We call them rips,” Meg said. “How did you open it?”

Jim swallowed.

How valuable was the truth in this situation? If he told her that everything had happened exactly the way he’d planned, would she need him to do it again?

Honesty is the best policy. He smiled to himself. “I have no idea.”

Meg drew back in surprise.

Jim shrugged. “It was an experiment I was running with my assistant. We were trying to find a way to travel several hundred miles instantaneously.” He offered a sheepish grin. “I don’t think it worked.”

Meg grimaced. “Or it worked better than you expected.”

Jim took a slow breath. “Meg,” he said, “tell me where I am.”

“You’re not in California.”

“We’ve established that. Anything else?”

Meg wrung her hands anxiously. “This isn’t–your world at all, Jim. This is a different world entirely.”

Jim gave himself a minute to process what she’d said. A different world entirely? How was that even possible? Unless—

His stomach clenched and dropped to his toes. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Meg lifted her eyebrows.

“Oh, man.” Jim looked out the window again. “There goes my thesis.”

Meg flashed a confused look at him, but then she went rigid and whirled around as her bedroom door flung open.