The dining room’s ceiling had to be twenty-five feet high.  

How do they light it? Is it electric? Where is the light coming from? 

Jim blinked at the heavy wooden rafters that supported an intricately painted ceiling. Not quite the Sistine Chapel, but not far off either. Soft silver-blue light poured down from the ceiling, the source seeming to be the intricately carved crown molding around the perimeter of the room.  

It had two massive leaded glass windows, but not much light came in that way.  

Nothing in this strange place made sense.  

Jim gulped and clutched the arms of the heavy wooden chair where he’d been deposited and yelped as the cactus sting flared with sharp pain. He sat alone in the huge room with nothing but the extensive decoration and the deep brown trestle table to keep him company.  

The woman with the pointed ears had kept her distance while Meg’s brother and sister barraged him with questions about rubber ducks and vague threats about arm wrestling. At least, she’d kept her distance until Meg returned, grim faced and silent. Then the alien woman—Alien? Really? But what else could he call her? Because she wasn’t human—dragged him out of Meg’s bedroom and through so many corridors he lost track of his surroundings.  

The woman dropped him in the chair at the head of the table in the large, creepy dining room and locked him inside alone.  

Outside the windows, green hills rolled in all directions. Darker forest encroached on the plains, and the purple mountains loomed far away on the horizon.  

Were Barb and Reena out there somewhere? What had happened to them? This wasn’t what he’d planned. Not at all.  

He took a steadying breath.  

Just get through this. Ask questions. Get answers. He glanced around the room again. If they’d meant to hurt you, they probably would have already.  

Besides, if the worst they were going to do was nag him with questions about fuzzy slippers and rubber ducks, he could manage. The arm wrestling threat was a bit more concerning, but he’d faced worse than that in basic Peregrine training.  

The door banged and swung open. He clutched the arm rests of the chair again and craned his neck to look.  

The woman in the doorway wasn’t the woman who’d brought him here, but they looked almost identical. The same green eyes and high cheekbones, olive-toned skin and pointed ears that protruded from long black hair.  

But this woman was older.  

Much older.  

The chill in her gaze raised warning flags at the back of his mind. Meg and her siblings weren’t a threat. Even the first alien woman, the one Jenny had called Tzaitel, hadn’t seemed threatening.  

This woman was in a different class altogether. She was more than threatening; she was dangerous.  

She’s as dangerous as Barb is. Jim’s stomach turned over with the certainty of it.  

He’d seen his sister take down opponents three times her size with nothing but her fists and a well-placed Tae Kwon Do kick. The way this woman moved—the expression in her eyes—she wouldn’t hesitate to kill. Only people who had killed before had eyes like that.  

The woman strode into the room with the grace of a dancer, her cold gaze never leaving him. The door didn’t shut, and Jim glanced Meg standing outside it with her arms folded and chin lowered.  

The woman paused at the middle of the table, her eyes still on him.  

Jim gulped and held her gaze, no matter how cold it made him feel. He lifted his head and squared his shoulders, reminding himself to breathe. He ignored the panicked thumping of his heart.  

What’s she going to do? How do I get out of this? He forced his breathing to slow down. If I don’t convince them to help me, I won’t ever find Barb and Reena. 

“What is your name?” 

The woman spoke with an accent, light but noticeable. Arabic maybe? Persian? 

“Jim.” He forced his dry mouth to comply. “Jim Taylor.” 

“Why are you here, Jim Taylor?” 

He inhaled deeply, his mind noting the scent of cumin and cloves surrounding the woman with the pointed ears.  

“I don’t know.” Jim held her gaze.  

The woman narrowed her eyes. “Where are you from?” 

“San Francisco.” 

Her green eyes were like slits, glaring at him. “This means nothing to me.” 

“It’s in California.” Jim shrugged.  

Her expression didn’t change.  

“In the U.S.?” He grimaced. “That probably doesn’t mean anything either. Uh—America?” 

One eyebrow twitched. It was the minutest expression Jim had ever seen on a woman’s face, but it was enough that he noticed it. Thank God that Barb made him practice reading faces. 

“You know America?” Jim asked. 

Meg had crept into the room, arms still folded but eyes alert and watching. She really was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Not that he needed to be thinking about that at the moment, but the thought kept intruding no matter how many times he tried to stop it.  

“I know many things.” The alien woman strode away from him and took a seat at the opposite end of the table. “I know you have come from the Terran Dimension. I do not know why.” 

Jim licked his lips and glanced at Meg.  

She’s human. She’s obviously human. He looked back to the alien woman. Did she grow up here? Did this woman raise her? 

He swallowed again. “What’s your name?”  

The woman’s expression soured instantly, and Meg’s eyes grew wide with shock. Jim clutched the armrests until his knuckles turned white and he remembered the cactus sting.  

“I generally don’t have conversations like this with people I don’t know,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “I told you my name.” 

The woman regarded him with annoyance.  

Jim allowed himself a moment of triumph. Sometimes annoying people was the best course of action when you needed information.  

The door to the dining room banged again, and Jim turned to see a man entering, carrying a copper tray with a teapot and several cups on it. Against the wall, Meg shifted her weight, looking as nervous as before.  

That probably wasn’t a good sign.  

The man was the same race as the woman—alien. Olive skin tone, black hair shot with silver. Eyes that were too green.  

“Forgive my intrusion,” the man said pleasantly as he walked to the table and set down the tray. “Did not mean to spoil the mood.” He set out four teacups and poured them full of tea from the pot.  

“Eshgham.” The woman at the head of the table raised a single eyebrow at the man.  

The man flashed a bright smile at her and continued pouring tea. “I sense this will be a long conversation, azizam. Thus—tea!” He turned and held out a cup and saucer of steaming liquid to Jim. 

Jim blinked at him in surprise. “Uh–I like tea.” 

“A point in your favor.” The man bowed his head and set the cup and saucer in front of Jim.  

“Thank you.” Jim pulled the saucer closer. “That’s thoughtful. Very welcoming.” 

“Oh, do not misunderstand, young man; you are not welcome.” The man kept smiling, although the sparkle in his eyes took on an edge. “Not yet. But tea is always appropriate.”  

The man picked up the tray and walked to the end of the table to pour tea for the woman, humming softly under his breath.  

Jim drummed his fingers on the armrests, eying the cup of tea suspiciously. Surely they wouldn’t poison him. Not that he knew anything about their characters, really. They might be willing to poison him just because they could. 

Barb would strangle me if I drink this. He eyed the man, calmly pouring tea for the scowling woman. But maybe they’ll kill me if I’m rude. 

The man and the woman locked eyes as they stood next to each other, and something unspoken passed between them. 

Married. Jim frowned. They have to be.  

Body language was a powerful communication tool. He wasn’t as skilled at reading it as Barb was, but he could get along well enough. The man and the woman were husband and wife, which likely meant the first alien from Meg’s room was their daughter. So Meg and her siblings were—what? Adopted? How did that work? 

“We will begin again.” The woman folded her hands on the tabletop. 

The man took up the spot at her elbow and sipped his tea, his eyes still sparkling.  

“You will kindly inform us as to your intentions in this place,” the woman said.  

Jim sighed. “I don’t even know where this place is.” He pointed out the window. “Meg already told me that this isn’t my world.” 

The woman cast a sidelong glance at Meg, who tightened against the wall.  

“So, if you want to know my intentions?” Jim shrugged. “I guess my intentions are to get back home. To my world.” 

The woman nodded slowly. “How did you come to be here?” 

Jim looked at Meg, who had started chewing on her lip. He met her gaze. She folded her arms across her chest and offered him a half smile.  

“I think it was an accident,” Jim said, not looking at the woman and holding Meg’s eyes. 

“Explain.” 

Jim leaned back in the chair. “It’s a long story.” 

“We have time.” The woman glared at him. 

The man saluted with his cup of tea. “Plenty of tea.” He scowled. “Which you are not drinking. Does he think it poisoned?” The man looked down at his wife. 

“I don’t know you,” Jim said. “I don’t know any of you. Why would I drink anything you give me when you’ve told me I’m unwelcome here?” 

The man clicked his tongue. “Terraners. No sense of hospitality.” The man gestured at Meg.  

She pushed off the wall and walked to the table, lifting Jim’s tea to her mouth and taking a drink. She set it down in front of him with a flourish and marched back to the wall.  

Jim shifted uncomfortably. “So. Not poison.” 

“Not poison,” the man said.  

“Back to the matter at hand, please?” The woman cast a fierce glare at her husband, who smirked back at her.  

“The group I work for,” Jim started slowly, “we’re tasked with apprehending a criminal. She shows up all over the world unpredictably, and by the time a sighting is reported, we can’t get there in time before she’s gone again.” 

The woman lifted her chin slightly, steepling her fingers.  

“I’ve been operating with a working hypothesis for years,” Jim held the woman’s stare, “derived from the concepts of Einsten-Rosen bridges and the writings of Morris, Thorne, and Buchdahl.” Jim leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “Traversable wormholes, basically.”  

The man had raised both his eyebrows. Meg gaped at him. The woman, however, remained icily silent, her expression like granite.  

“But I couldn’t get the math to work.” Jim shook himself. “The calculus behind generating a traversable wormhole is—above my paygrade. I’m not stellar at quantum mechanics. But my theory focuses on bending real-space to generate a portal that allows instantaneous transportation from one place on earth to another.” 

The woman’s gaze had grown colder, although Jim didn’t know how that was even possible.  

“So my lab assistant and I ran the numbers, and we started working on an experiment.” Jim let out a pent-up breath. “We’d been at it for hours, and then suddenly—it just—worked.” 

The woman sat forward. “Define worked, Mr. Taylor.” 

“A giant portal opened up in my lab.” Jim sank back against the chair. “It sucked everything in sight down its throat and—I guess—ejected me in Meg’s cactus garden.” 

Meg blushed.  

The woman scowled, the angular shape of her face growing even sharper. “You expect me to believe that you—a Terran boy—accidentally pierced the interdimensional barrier in a few hours? As an experiment?” 

Jim grimaced. “Is that what I did?” 

The woman sat up. “I would request that you share your computations, but as you are human, it is highly unlikely that you—” 

“You want to check my work?” Jim scoffed. “I can give you the numbers.” 

The woman blinked. “You can recall your theorem? From memory?” 

Jim shrugged. “I’m good with numbers, real and imaginary.” 

The woman glanced at her husband again, who turned to the cabinet against the far wall and retrieved a pad of paper and a stylus with a graphite tip. Jim accepted it with a smile and quickly scribbled down the hypothesis he’d been polishing since he earned his first doctorate. He handed it back to the man, who took it to the woman.  

She regarded it with a cool eye for a long while.  

Then, she set it on the table and pressed her hands together under her chin. “Fascinating.” 

“Have I impressed you yet?” 

Her eyebrow twitched again. “For a Terraner, you are perhaps not completely useless.” 

“Thanks?” 

The woman sighed. “This is troubling.” 

The man set his hand on her shoulder. “What is it?” 

She looked up at him in silence, and Meg moved to stand at the table.  

“He isn’t here to hurt anyone,” Meg said, her voice confident in the quiet of the room. “I know that much.” 

The woman regarded her cooly. “And how do you know it, Margaret? You feel it?” She didn’t quite scoff, but the flare of her nostrils indicated her disdain. “This is not a moment for instincts or emotion but for facts.” The woman turned her attention back to Jim. “Your theorem is impressive for a Terraner—moreso than I expected—but it is inaccurate and incomplete.” 

Jim frowned. “But it worked. It got me here.” 

“No.” The woman shook her head. “If you used that theorem to generate a portal, it would not have resulted in anything—neither interdimensional or intradimensional.” She gestured to him. “Yet–here you are. Why?” 

Jim sat up. “I don’t know. I told you. I think it was an accident.” 

“Accidents of this magnitude are not possible,” the woman said. “Not with the levels of power generation required to pierce the barrier.” She took a steadying breath. “Therefore, you are lying.” 

Jim started to protest.  

“Or.” The woman held up her hand. “There is more at work here than what is immediately perceivable.” Her gaze drifted to Meg. “I do agree with you, Margaret. I do not believe this young man presents a threat, especially wielding such abysmal computations.” 

Jim laughed half-heartedly. “Thanks for that. Thanks very much.” 

“But if he did not bring himself here,” the man frowned, “how is it possible that he arrived?” 

“I shall endeavor to solve this mystery,” the woman said.  

Jim raised his hand hesitantly. 

“In the meantime, we shall find a way to return you to your world,” the woman said, pushing her chair back and standing up. “It may take a few days to generate the needed energy requirements, but I am familiar enough with the process to—” 

“I’m really sorry to interrupt you again.” Jim stood up. “But I’ve got a really important question.” 

The woman glowered.  

Jim ignored her. “So–whatever this portal is—brought me here. Maybe it had something to do with my experiments. Maybe not. But we know I’m here. So—where are the others?” 

The woman’s irritated expression went blank. “Others?” 

Jim took a shaking breath. “There were two other people in my lab, and they were consumed by the portal as well. So why didn’t they exit when I did?” 

The man closed his eyes and looked down.  

Jim’s heart dropped as the woman’s face tightened.  

“If the portal that brought you here did not possess sufficient energy to remain cohesive,” she said, “it is likely it collapsed upon itself before all entrants were able to complete traverse the event horizon.” 

Jim squeezed his eyes shut, processing the lengthy statement. “I don’t–I don’t understand that. What are you saying?” He gripped the table. “The portal didn’t have enough energy to maintain its solvency long enough for all three of us?” 

The woman’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Yes. The energy requirements for one mature adult to safely traverse an interdimensional rip is enormous.” 

“And what happens when—when that happens?” 

“When an interdimensional portal collapses before all travelers are able to exit the interstitial space,” the woman said with a shrug, “they are lost.” 

Meg covered her mouth with her hand.  

“What do you mean?” Jim braced his arms on the table. “What do you mean they’re lost?” He scoffed. “They’re not lost. They can’t be.” 

“Nothing carbon-based can survive in interstitial space,” the woman said. “The void between the barrier is lifeless, much like the exosphere of a planet. A complete lack of pressure, oxygen—it is the ether.” 

The tremor started somewhere deep inside, and Jim fought to conceal it. But he couldn’t stop his voice from shaking. “They’re dead?” He whispered. “You’re saying they’re dead?” 

The woman folded her arms. “That is normally the result when a carbon-based life form is exposed to hard vacuum.” 

The man beside her took hold of her elbow and said something inaudible before he turned his gentle gaze toward Jim. “Who were they?” 

Jim straightened, clenching his fists at his side. The sting of the injury from the cactus burned, but he didn’t stop squeezing.  

“My lab assistant,” Jim said. “Reena Ellis.” His voice broke. “And my sister. Barb.” 

Meg looked down, still holding her hand over her mouth.  

The woman took a long breath and released it slowly. “My condolences on your loss, Mr. Taylor. Perhaps in future this will discourage your pursuit of sciences you can not understand.” 

Jim gaped at her.  

Is she serious? That’s all she has to say? Rage blossomed in his chest, white-hot fury blurring the tears in his vision. Calm down. Think. This can’t be the answer. There has to be another solution.  

“You said something else is at work here,” Jim started, his tone lower and heavier with emotion than he’d prefer.  

“I did,” the woman said.  

“Then isn’t it possible they—exited somewhere else?” 

The woman’s eyebrow lifted all the way this time. “You would challenge my knowledge of interdimensional theory and application?” 

“Not challenge,” Jim said between clenched teeth. “But question, yes.” He fought to keep the acid out of his voice. “Or do you do science differently in your world?” 

The woman adjusted the headscarf that draped over her shoulders, her expression perturbed. The first real expression he’d seen on her face.  

Must have touched a nerve.  

“In the accepted canon of interdimensional science,” the woman said, “none can survive a rip that has collapsed in the midst of travel.”  

Jim straightened. “And does your accepted canon of interdimensional science say it’s possible for an inaccurate, incomplete theorem of portal generation to open a passageway between two worlds?” 

The woman regarded him in silence.  

At her side, the man’s expression shifted, his mouth almost turning up at the corner. Was he—smiling?  

Slowly, quietly, the woman unfolded her arms to let them drape at her sides as she eyed Jim with a calculating gaze. “No,” she said. “The accepted canon does not incorporate an instance such as what we have here observed.” 

Jim nodded. “So, maybe you don’t have all the answers.” 

The woman smiled. “No, Mr. Taylor. I do not.” She bowed her head, the smile in place. “And yes, I am impressed.” 

Jim scowled in confusion.  

The door to the dining room banged again, and the woman from Meg’s room appeared in the doorway. Breathless and wide-eyed.  

“Jennifer has called from Palayta Village,” she said and glanced at Jim. “They have found a Terran woman.” 

Jim sagged in relief and lowered himself into the chair with shaking legs. “Who is it? Barb or Reena?” 

The woman, Tzaitel, grimaced. “I do not know her name, but—reports are that she is quite unpleasant. And violent.” 

Jim choked on a laugh. “That’s Barb.” 

“Your sister?” Meg asked. 

“Yeah.” Jim pulled himself back up again. “We need to get there. Now.” He looked at the man and woman at the other end of the table. “She won’t calm down until she sees me.” 

The woman nodded to Meg. “Margaret, you and Tzaitel take Mr. Taylor to see his sister. I shall remain and begin my research into these events.”  

“Thank you.” Jim bowed his head. “I don’t–just thank you.” 

The woman smiled. “Velanna.” 

Jim frowned.  

“My name is Velanna Ittai.” She gestured to herself and then to her husband. “This is my husband, Tolan. My daughter, Tzaitel. And, Margaret, you have already met.” 

Jim chuckled. “Yeah. I have.” He stopped and took the cup of tea from the table and chugged it in a single gulp, saluting Tolan with the empty cup. “Good tea.” 

Tolan’s green eyes sparkled. “Mr. Taylor, you are most welcome.”