The world lurched sideways, and Cade Merrick hit cobblestone hard enough to taste copper.
For a moment—maybe longer, he couldn't tell—he just lay there, cheek pressed against cold stone that smelled like rain and something else, something wrong. His stomach twisted itself into knots, threatening to empty itself right there on the street. The shimmer that had swallowed him whole still clung to his skin like static electricity, making his hair stand on end and his teeth ache.
What the hell just happened?
He pushed himself up on shaking arms, spat blood, and looked around.
This wasn't home.
The street stretched out before him, lined with buildings that looked like they'd been pulled from some steampunk fever dream—brick and iron and glass all jumbled together in ways that made his eyes hurt. Airships. There were actual airships floating in the sky above him, their propellers churning through clouds that looked too perfect, too painted. People walked past in clothes that belonged in a history book or a costume shop, and not one of them seemed to notice the fifteen-year-old kid who'd just appeared out of thin air in the middle of their sidewalk.
Cade's breath came fast and shallow. His hands were still shaking.
Emma. Lily.
The names hit him like a punch to the gut, and suddenly he was back there—three days ago, maybe four, time had stopped meaning much—standing in their bedroom doorway and staring at empty beds. The window had been open. The curtains had been moving in the breeze. And his sisters had been gone.
No signs of struggle. No broken glass. Just... gone.
And the note.
He'd found it on Emma's pillow, written in handwriting he didn't recognize. Two words in black ink that had somehow burned themselves into his brain: GO FORWARD.
That was it. No explanation. No signature. Just those two words that had made something in his chest twist tight with an emotion he couldn't name. Not hope, exactly. More like the last gasp of a drowning man reaching for anything that might keep him afloat.
So he'd done it. He'd stood in that empty bedroom, closed his eyes, and thought about moving forward. About finding them. About not stopping until he brought them home.
And then the world had turned inside out.
The shimmer had started as a feeling—like the air pressure changing before a storm—and then it had become visible, a ripple in reality itself that had spread out from his chest like rings on water. He'd had just enough time to think what the hell before it swallowed him whole and spat him out here.
Wherever here was.
"You gonna move, or you planning to make a career out of blocking traffic?"
Cade's head snapped up. A man stood over him, middle-aged and thick around the middle, wearing what looked like a shopkeeper's apron. His expression was somewhere between annoyed and concerned, weighted heavily toward the former.
"I—" Cade's voice came out rough. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Where am I?"
The man's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. "You hit your head or something, kid? You're in Vale. Now move before you get trampled."
Vale. The name meant nothing to him.
Cade climbed to his feet, ignoring the way his legs wanted to buckle. His jeans were torn at the knee—that was new—and his t-shirt was soaked with sweat despite the cool air. He looked around again, really looked this time, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
The architecture was wrong. The clothes were wrong. The airships were definitely wrong. And there was something else, something that made his skin crawl even though he couldn't put his finger on what it was. The light, maybe. Or the way the shadows fell. Everything felt slightly off, like a photograph that had been doctored just enough to trigger some primal unease in the back of his brain.
"This isn't real," he said, and his voice sounded very small.
"Kid, you need help?" The shopkeeper's annoyance had shifted more toward concern now. "You got someone I can call?"
Emma. Lily.
The grief hit him again, fresh and raw as an open wound. They'd been gone for days and he'd been useless, completely useless, tearing apart the house looking for clues that didn't exist while his parents called the police and filed reports and did all the things you're supposed to do when your children disappear. And then he'd found the note, and he'd followed its instruction, and now he was here, in some impossible place that couldn't exist, and his sisters were still gone.
"No," Cade said. The word came out harder than he'd intended. "I don't need help. I need—"
He stopped. What did he need? To understand what had happened? To find a way back? To find his sisters?
Yes. That. Find them.
But how? He didn't even know where to start. Didn't know where he was or how he'd gotten here or what the hell that shimmer had been. The note had said GO FORWARD, and he'd gone forward, and now he was standing on a street that shouldn't exist in a city he'd never heard of while airships drifted overhead like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"You need to get off the street," the shopkeeper said, and this time there was an edge to his voice. "Look, I don't know what your deal is, but you're drawing attention, and trust me, that's not something you want around here."
Cade followed the man's gaze and felt his stomach drop. Three people were walking toward them—no, not walking. Moving with purpose. They wore uniforms, black and white with armor plating that caught the light, and they had weapons. Actual weapons, not concealed handguns but full-on rifles or something like them, held with the casual confidence of people who knew how to use them.
"Security," the shopkeeper muttered. "Great. Listen, kid, I don't know what you did, but—"
"I didn't do anything," Cade snapped. The fear that had been coiling in his gut was transforming into something else now, something hotter. Anger. It was easier than fear, more familiar. He'd been angry for days, angry at whoever had taken his sisters, angry at himself for not protecting them, angry at the universe for being so fundamentally unfair. "I'm just trying to figure out where I am."
"Well, figure it out somewhere else." The shopkeeper was already backing away, hands raised like he wanted no part of whatever was about to happen. "I got a business to run."
The security officers—guards? soldiers?—were closer now. Close enough that Cade could see their faces, hard and suspicious. One of them, a woman with her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun, raised a hand.
"You," she called out. "Stay where you are."
Every instinct Cade had screamed at him to run. But run where? He didn't know this place. Didn't know the streets or the rules or anything. And more than that, some stubborn part of him—the same part that had gotten him into fights at school, that had made his parents sigh and shake their heads more times than he could count—refused to back down.
"I'm not doing anything wrong," he said, and he was proud of how steady his voice sounded.
The woman stopped a few feet away. Up close, she looked tired, like she'd been on shift too long. Her eyes swept over him, taking in his torn jeans and sweat-soaked shirt and the way he was standing—weight on the balls of his feet, hands loose at his sides, ready for trouble even if he didn't know what form it would take.
"You're not from around here," she said. It wasn't a question.
"No."
"Where are you from?"
Earth. Home. Reality. "Does it matter?"
Her expression hardened. "It matters when someone appears out of nowhere in the middle of Vale without any identification, looking like they just went three rounds with a Beowolf. So I'll ask again: where are you from?"
Cade's mind raced. He could tell the truth—I'm from a place where airships don't exist and I got here by following instructions on a mysterious note and I have no idea what's happening—but that sounded insane even to him. He could lie, make something up, but he didn't know enough about this place to lie convincingly.
Or he could do what he always did when he was backed into a corner: push back.
"I'm looking for someone," he said. "Two people. My sisters. They were taken, and I'm going to find them."
Something flickered across the woman's face. Sympathy, maybe, or recognition. But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by professional neutrality.
"That's not an answer to my question."
"It's the only answer I've got."
One of the other guards, a younger man with a scar across his jaw, shifted his weight. His hand moved toward his weapon—not threatening, not yet, but the message was clear.
The hot anger in Cade's chest flared brighter. He was tired. He was scared. He was so far out of his depth that he couldn't even see the surface anymore. And these people, whoever they were, were treating him like a criminal when all he wanted was to find Emma and Lily and bring them home.
"Look," he said, and he could hear the edge in his own voice, sharp enough to cut. "I don't know what your problem is, but I'm not your enemy. I'm just a kid trying to find his family. So either help me or get out of my way."
The woman's eyes narrowed. "That's not how this works."
"Then how does it work?" Cade took a step forward, and immediately all three guards tensed. He didn't care. The fear was still there, coiled tight in his gut, but the anger was bigger now, burning hot enough to drown everything else out. "Because from where I'm standing, I followed a note that told me to go forward, and I ended up here, in this impossible place with airships and people in armor, and my sisters are still missing. So forgive me if I'm not in the mood to play twenty questions with the local cops."
"A note?" The woman's tone had changed, sharpened. "What kind of note?"
"The kind that said GO FORWARD. That's it. Two words." Cade's hands were shaking again, but not from fear this time. "And when I did what it said, I ended up here. So if you know something about that, if you know what's happening, then tell me. Otherwise, I'm leaving."
He didn't know where he'd go. Didn't have a plan beyond putting one foot in front of the other until he found something, anything, that made sense. But he couldn't just stand here while his sisters were out there somewhere, lost or scared or worse.
The woman studied him for a long moment. Then she glanced at her companions, some unspoken communication passing between them.
"You're coming with us," she said finally.
"Like hell I am."
"It's not a request." Her hand moved to her weapon now, and the message was crystal clear. "You can come voluntarily, or we can make it involuntary. Your choice."
Cade's jaw clenched. He wanted to fight. Every fiber of his being wanted to throw a punch and run and keep running until he found his sisters or collapsed trying. But he wasn't stupid. Three armed guards against one exhausted fifteen-year-old? The math didn't work in his favor.
And maybe—maybe—they knew something. Maybe this note, this shimmer, this impossible city, maybe it was all connected. Maybe someone here had answers.
"Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "But I want answers. I want to know what's happening and how I get home."
The woman's expression softened, just slightly. "We'll see what we can do."
They led him through streets that twisted and turned in ways that made his head spin, past shops and cafes and people who stared at him with open curiosity. The buildings grew taller, more imposing, until they stopped in front of one that looked like it might be official—all stone and glass and flags he didn't recognize.
As they climbed the steps, Cade looked back at the city spread out behind him. Vale, the shopkeeper had called it. A place that shouldn't exist, full of people who didn't know him and didn't care about his sisters.
But somewhere, in this impossible world or another one, Emma and Lily were waiting. And he'd made them a promise, even if they couldn't hear it.
He was going to find them.
No matter what it took.