Page 3

First, I’d lost my online Quinnverse crafts and tees store due to a copyright infringement claim from Clara Quinn’s publishing company, even though I’d paid the small business licensing fees.

It had been a crushing loss. I didn’t earn much in terms of profits from the store, but making crafts for it was pretty much the only thing that had brought me joy since I separated from the Army over a year ago and moved in with my still-reluctant-to-get-married boyfriend of five years, Vance.

Then, the next week, I’d gotten fired from my low-paying academic translation day job at D.C. University due to department cuts.

That had been the only gig I could find right away after I got out of the Army, where I’d been a Foreign Language Specialist. I’d hoped it would give me some runway until my Quinnverse store found more customers. But now I didn’t have a day job or a side hustle with the potential to become a full-time passion.

When I came home early after my second setback of the month, I’d found my boyfriend Vance in bed with my best friend, Lisa.

Which not only left me with no one to talk to about the heartbreak of their betrayal, but also forced me to move into my chain-smoking Aunt Vernetta’s basement, since solo rent in D.C. was impossible for me as a civilian, even before my employment status became “in between jobs.”

I was grateful to my aunt for a roof over my head—despite her making me pay four figures out of my rapidly dwindling savings for the privilege of sleeping on a fold-out couch in her basement—at least until the sale of her townhouse went through.

Her uncannily hot Australian online boyfriend wanted her to fly halfway around the world to be with him. But first, he’d need her to wire him a couple hundred thousand dollars so he could buy a house in Melbourne for them to live in.

He was so obviously an AI catfish scam. But there’d been no making my aunt see reason. At the age of sixty-two, Aunt Vernetta’s hope for love continued to burn eternal.

At the age of twenty-seven, I’d pretty much given up on love after Vance told me that the only reason he’d invited me to move in with him in the first place was because he needed someone to go halfsies with after his rent went up. Now my ex-bestie Lisa was paying my half of my ex-boyfriend’s rent, and I was pretty much convinced that all men were users who were only nice to you when they needed something.

I’d also given up on my crafting dreams and recently applied for and gotten a job as a civilian linguist for the Department of Defense—pending my passing the notoriously difficult language proficiency exam, which I was scheduled to take the next morning.

That exam became even more urgent on Halloween night. When I came home from a long day of studying at the local library, Aunt Vernetta announced the house was in escrow.

But you know what? My life wasn’t a complete dumpster fire. All I had to do was pass that test in the morning, and then I’d have enough stability and money to get back on my feet and put a deposit down on a studio apartment of my own.

So instead of partying like most people my age would be doing on Halloween night, I decided to take a nice, relaxing bubble bath before heading to bed early for a good night of sleep. I poured a glass of wine, opened up a tin of Trader Joe’s Peppermint Bark way too early in the season, and grabbed my signed hardcover of the only Clara Quinn novel I hadn’t already read at least fifty times.

It had been a pretty nice low-key night until the tap refused to give me any more hot water.

Unlike in the Middle Realm, where everyone bathed in the plentiful system of hot springs, real-world baths got cold.

As I stood up, with the book still open, to reach for the towel I’d left folded on the lip of the tub, I mumbled to myself, “Wish I could soak all night in one of those Middle Realm hot springs.”

Big mistake.

The next thing I knew, the signed hardcover floated out of my hands, and a golden portal opened up above it.

I barely had time to grab hold of the towel before it sucked me into…

Chapter 3

Choices

…wherever here is.

“You’re currently at a way station between your dimension and the Middle Realm,” the spider clerk informs me.

“The Middle Realm? Like the Fae Lands in the Clara Quinn books?” The warm wine buzz I was enjoying earlier in the night is long gone, replaced by a rapidly rising panic.

It feels like I’m on a bad trip. I’ve never been on a bad trip, or even taken anything stronger than an edible. But maybe that peppermint bark had crack in it? Honestly, that would explain a lot about its addictive nature.

“How can that even be?” I choke out to the spider I’m hoping is a laced-peppermint-bark fever dream. “That place is made up.”

“Oh, our lands, which include many more races than those insufferable Fae, are quite real,” the spider clerk assures me with a chittering humph. “Though if you prefer Choice A, I can route you there.”

She raises a bejeweled stamp above the glowing passport.

“Wait, wait!” I wave my hands to keep her from slamming her stamp down. “What were my choices again?”