Aurelia’s mind churned with turmoil, her heart pounding with uncertainty. Every muscle in her body trembled, from the black hair on her head down to her fingertips. Even the chipped blue polish on her fingernails vibrated. Fiera and Elias had to be delusional.
   This is totally insane.
   Why am I following them?
   This is how girls disappear.
   But she had to go with them—if only to prove to herself that it wasn’t true. There was no rational explanation. Fiera and Elias had to be delusional. The idea that they came from another world was absurd. Preposterous.
   But if they’re crazy… then am I crazy too?
   I watched things happen with my own eyes. I felt them with my own skin.    
   It had been nothing short of surreal. Elias and Fiera finished all of her closing chores without lifting a finger. At first, Aurelia thought her mind was playing tricks on her. But no—Elias flicked his hands and wrists, and the tables and chairs straightened themselves. Dishes on the drying rack floated through the air and stacked neatly onto the shelves. She stood frozen, watching Fiera casually conjure flames from thin air. It wasn’t sleight of hand. Fiera didn’t have a match. Fire just appeared in her palm and flickered across the espresso machine’s surface, incinerating all the coffee grounds and water residue in an instant. Sterilization by fire.
   It would’ve taken me twenty minutes to clean that myself.
   What happened was impossible… but I saw it happen.
   I’m not crazy. It happened. All of it.
   Aurelia had just finished her closing shift, alone, when Elias walked into the coffee shop. She assumed he was just some cute boy grabbing a late-night cup of coffee. He was gorgeous, like a supermodel—tall, muscular build, with short, shaggy black hair. His eyes—bright blue with faint silver spirals—reminded her of waves in the Caribbean Sea. She’d never seen eyes so uniquely beautiful, yet somehow, they seemed familiar.
   Elias was polite at first, but then he did the craziest magic trick with a deck of cards.
   I guess it doesn’t seem so crazy now.
   She’d been so enthralled by him that she sat at his table for the rest of her shift. Conversation flowed easily, like they were meant to meet.
   Fiera was the new girl at school. Aurelia hung out with her in class and at lunch sometimes—when Fiera actually showed up. The moment she saw Aurelia sitting with Elias, she was fuming. She clearly knew him—and clearly loathed him. They argued and insulted each other for nearly five minutes before Aurelia could snap them out of it. It was like they forgot she was even there.
   That’s when things got really weird. Downright creepy.
   Fiera forced Elias to tell Aurelia the truth. He started rambling about how he knew her parents. That set Aurelia off. She thought he was making a sick joke. Huge red flag.
   My parents are dead. They died three years ago in a boating accident.
   Elias immediately backpedaled, saying he only knew her mother. That didn’t calm Aurelia’s fury. Then he stumbled through the creepy fact that he’d been watching her and had planned to meet her that night.
   Obviously, alarms went off in Aurelia’s mind.
   This is exactly how girls disappear.
   She reached for the phone to call the cops. Right then, the impossible happened.
   As soon as her hand touched the receiver, a burst of electricity erupted. It wasn’t a destructive explosion—more like a sudden discharge of lightning. Tiny bolts crackled and snapped against her skin. The energy surged through her hand, up her arm, and out her elbow.
   Fiera had zapped her with her magic. “Fire magic,” she claimed. Enough electricity to stop a human heart. A dog or cat would’ve been crispy critters.
   Yet somehow, Aurelia was perfectly fine. Terrified, fearing for her life—but physically fine.
   Thankfully, I didn’t suffer the fate of the coffee grounds.
   Right after that, Elias revealed the unbelievable truth: they were magical faeries from another planet. Apparently, Aurelia’s mother and aunt came from there too. Why they never told her—or her little sister Elowen—she had no idea.
   Less than thirty minutes later, she found herself trailing behind Fiera and Elias. Elias insisted the best way to convince her was to show her. She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, though she knew it was the dumbest, most irresponsible thing she’d ever done.
   This is definitely how girls disappear.
   But I have to. I need to.
   The coincidences were too glaring to ignore.
   They both had necklaces nearly identical to Aurelia’s. Her aunt gave hers to her on her eighteenth birthday and said it had belonged to her mother. It was an expensive-looking silver chain with a circular amulet—an oak tree covered in multicolored gemstones. In the coffee shop, Elias showed her his nearly identical amulet. Same oak tree, but the gemstones were all green. Fiera had one too, but with a different tree and fiery orange stones.
   And then there was Elias. While he rambled about her parents, Aurelia realized why his eyes were familiar.
   I know why.
   They were the same eyes that locked onto hers three years ago, when he pulled her from the water. He had saved Aurelia and Elowen in the accident that claimed their parents. And yet, he hadn’t aged a single day since then.
   If I want answers—real ones—I have to abandon reason right now… and trust them.
   A little bit.
   Maybe I slipped and hit my head and I’m actually lying on the floor of the coffee shop.
   Nope. The rhythmic slapping of their feet against the concrete and the occasional whoosh of a passing car were too loud for a dream. The crisp autumn air nipping at her skin felt far too real.
   I wish I’d remembered my jacket.
   It was completely dark, with only the glow of scattered street lamps as she followed Elias and Fiera down the sidewalk. Cautiously, she kept her distance. If her gut was right and they were lunatics, staying ten feet behind might give her enough time to run. But after what she’d just witnessed, Aurelia seriously doubted she could escape them.
   Unless this actually is a dream. I could wake up.
   Fiera insisted that Aunt Flora knew all about them. If any of this was true, why hadn’t her aunt ever told her?
   Maybe she doesn’t want me to know.
   She definitely wouldn’t want Aurelia going anywhere at night with strange... faeries.     
   Good thing she believed the lie about an unexpected supply delivery that needed restocking.
   She had one hour to get answers.
   Fiera was no longer the bubbly, carefree girl Aurelia knew from school. Around Elias, she was sharp-edged and unpredictable. “Crazed lunatic” might not be an overstatement. Elias was still hot, but the whole plotting-to-meet-her thing felt a little too creepy to ignore. Aurelia had so many questions but was too terrified to ask. If she opened her mouth, vomit might come out instead of words. Still, the silence was almost unbearable.
   Has he been secretly stalking me?
   Why do they despise each other?
   Why am I following them? OMG, this is so stupid!
   Everything about this was bewildering. Unnerving. And no matter how much she wanted to deny it, the idea of magic being real… was fascinating.
   “Where are we—?” she finally broke the silence after five minutes of walking.
   “To Danu,” Fiera snapped.
   “Gee, Fiera, that isn’t obvious at all. It seems like we’re just walking down the street,” Aurelia replied, mildly annoyed. “How far are we walking to get there?”
   “We need to go to the park,” Elias said, glancing back. “It’s not about how far we walk—it’s about how close the nearest portal is.”
   “Portal?” she repeated. This felt more like a sci-fi novel every minute. “Oh my god, this is so crazy,” she mumbled under her breath with a heavy sigh.
   “I know it sounds absurd, Aurelia, but I just need you to trust me,” Elias said gently, clearly aware that convincing her was a long shot.
   Yup. This is exactly how girls disappear.
   They walked in silence for another five minutes before the cement sidewalk gave way to a gravel path leading into the park. At night, the park felt eerily desolate—silent, shadowed, and unwelcoming. A few dim streetlights lined the path, but they were so far apart they barely cut through the darkness. The vibrant autumn foliage, so striking in daylight, was swallowed by night, leaving the trees as little more than inky silhouettes.
   “Have a seat, Aurelia,” Elias said when they reached an old wooden bench. She sat cautiously, never taking her eyes off either of them—especially Fiera.
   I still can’t believe she electrocuted me.
   “Oh, alright,” Fiera rolled her eyes and took a few steps back. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. I thought my way would work faster—shock some sense into you. You keep scowling at me, but I promise not to do anything else harmful.”
   “My way doesn’t seem so silly now, does it?” Elias teased. “Aurelia, what do you notice about that tree—right ahead of where you’re sitting?”
   A tree? Seriously? Aurelia squinted at the towering old tree about twenty feet away. Its massive trunk was blanketed in thick moss, and the first of many smooth, sprawling branches jutted out about five feet up. Its canopy was sparsely decorated with deep orange and yellow leaves, their colors dulled by the dark. English ivy clung to the silvery gray bark, weaving up the trunk and threading through the branches.
   “Well, it has ivy growing all over it, and it kind of looks like a…” she didn’t finish.
   “A door,” Elias finished for her. “Now, where’s your mother’s necklace?”
   Aurelia pulled the charm from beneath her shirt.
   “Look at the tree now,” Elias said.
   As if on cue, dim lights began to flicker within the ivy leaves.
   “Fireflies will always guide the way for you,” Faith had said.
   More lights appeared—fireflies pulsing in a slow rhythm, like the heartbeat of the tree.
   “But why…” Aurelia stood, still holding the charm. The metal grew warm in her hand as she stepped closer. The gemstones on the amulet flickered in time with the fireflies in the ivy.
   “Your amulet is reacting to the portal,” Elias said cautiously from behind.
   As she stepped even closer, more fireflies gathered. She felt a strange instinct to reach out and touch the tree. When she did, every lightning bug glowed brighter. Then, they rearranged themselves into an organized pattern—highlighting the shape of a door.
   “What in the world…” she gasped, wide-eyed. A few fireflies landed on her skin. It felt a little strange, but they seemed excited to interact with her.
   “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Elias whispered beside her. When he placed his hand on the tree next to hers, the fireflies grew even brighter. “The more of us around them, the more they respond. Fiera?” he called over his shoulder.
   Fiera approached the other side of the tree. When she touched it, the fireflies glowed as brightly as Christmas lights.
   “Watch this,” she said, wiggling the fingers on her free hand. A clump of fireflies began to move, dancing in patterns she directed.
   “It looks like they’re dancing,” Aurelia laughed softly. “How is this possible?”
   “I’m a fire faery. I can influence the bioluminescence in their bodies,” Fiera said.
   “A fire faery?” Aurelia asked, incredulous. She couldn’t be serious.
   “Just wait—this is only the beginning!” Fiera smiled mischievously, then shoved Aurelia forward.
   This is exactly how girls disappear.
   Expecting to smash into bark, Aurelia instead fell straight through the tree. She tumbled to the ground on the other side—and when she looked up, she knew without a doubt…
   She was no longer in the park.
   There was no mistaking it.
   She was in an entirely different world.