The air was thin and impossibly bright, as if the world had slunk out onto its fevered hind legs. Margo stumbled as she moved on the mushy, marshmallow softness of the ground, her mind reeling with the sudden change. The sky overhead was pale and color-shifting, like the inner surface of an opal, streaked across with delicate, rippling tendons of pink and blue.
"Where… where are we?" she gasped, her voice forced, as though the room itself was empty and limitless.
Gabriel's fingers trembled a little as he squeezed her hand. "A place between dreams," he said. "A lost corner of my family's world."
They gazed about, surrounded by a meadow of gigantic, colored mushrooms, their caps swinging loosely like the heads of giant sleepers. Trees rose up like arcing bones, their branches draped with winking, wise eyes. Every shadow seemed to breathe, and the air pulsed with a slow, sonorous hum, as if a sleeping god beat in a giant heart.
Eyes tracked them as they moved—a thousand tiny, unflicking eyes hidden in the tree trunks, the rocks, even in the petals of odd, ethereal flowers that whispered past them.
Margo shivered. She gripped Gabriel's arm more firmly. "They're watching us."
"They always watch," he answered, his tone with a ring of fear. "They're the guardians here. The ones who never sleep."
They walked beneath a gnarled arch of bone-white arms, the earth under their feet becoming softer, as though they were walking into warm, living tissue. Margo shuddered as the trees summoned her name, their voices blending in an icy, whispered chant.
"Margoooo… Margo… come nearer… come and look…"
She bobbed her head, heart racing, but didn't pause. They walked to an opening where the air felt thicker, thick with the smell of wet, metallic blood and damp stone.
Mara followed, steps whispered, breathing slow, eyes narrowed. She drew the knife from her belt, its blade flashing the shifting light.
Margo spun around, eyes wide, but too late. Mara sprang forward, her face contorted in a snarling sneer. She shoved the blade deep into Margo's chest, wrenching it around.
Margo's gasp was trapped in her throat, her eyes flying wide as the blade sank deep into her skin.
"I can be the only one," Mara snarled, her voice thick with rage and jealousy.
"Margo!" Gabriel yelled out as his yell boomed across the gnarled trees. He whirled around, burning eyes, and struck Mara with so much strength that she was pinned back against the shining fungi. "What the blazes are you doing?!"
Blood oozed from Margo's wound, her legs trembling. She stretched out to grasp the knife, her eyes welling up with pain and betrayal. Gabriel collapsed next to her, his trembling fingers as he tried to press down over the wound, trying to stop the blood loss.
"Margo, don't leave me," he whispered, crying as his tears streamed freely down his face. "I won't lose you. Never again."
Mara stood upright, the lips contorting into bitter, nasty smile. "Take him," she said, walking over to Gabriel and putting her arms around his neck. He froze, staring in horror, but he could hear her whisper something into his ear—gentle, melodious, the clanking of chains closing together.
His eyes glazed over. His arms hung at his sides. His head dipped forward, as though his brain had been torn loose from his body.
Mara's hand clenched. The air around them wavered, distorting and twisting as if the universe itself flinched at her contact. They disappeared, the earth beneath them cracking like broken porcelain as they ported into the Creation World, the air shattering like glass around them.
Margo's body hit the ground, her blood soaking into the soft, hungry soil. The eyes in the trees blinked, then looked down at her, their gaze on her as she gasped, her body contorting in agony.
Figures stepped out of the shadows—citizens of this perverse dreamworld, their faces stretched and distorted, eyes wide and unblinking. They closed in around her, their whispers sharp and hissing.
"Intruder… stranger… banish her from us… cast her to the seas…"
They seized her before she could scream, their hands hard and chill, their breath smelling of rot and stone. They bore her to the world's end, where land fell away and there was a huge, raging sea of dark water, its waves rimmed with hard, glinting teeth.
"No… no, please," she gagged, her hands scrabbling at the earth as they tossed her over the precipice.
She fell, the gust of wind whipping her hair back from her face, her screams muffled by the crash of waves beneath her.
Gabriel's eyes snapped open in response, jolting him into an instantaneous wakefulness in the Great, silk-draped bed. He lay drenched in sweat, his chest rising and falling, the room heavy with incense and burning flesh.
Mara lay alongside him, cheek on shoulder, a smile dancing on her mouth. She probed with one hand, fingers tracing patterns across his chest.
He flinched, scrambling out of the way, his heart racing. "What the bloody.?"
"Gabriel, oh Gabriel," she panted, leaning down closer. "Don't feign so startled."
He pushed her away, his hands trembling. She stepped back, her laughter echoing in his mind. Without reason, he pushed on, pinning his hands on her shoulders and pushing her out over the open balcony. She fell, her arms flailing as she went over the edge, her scream echoing out into the boundless, sparkling sky of the Creation World.
Gasps rang out of the garden below. Citizens stared upwards, mouths open, eyes wide. Guards stormed in, armored footsteps ringing out as they swept across the room.
"Gabriel!" one of them thundered. "What have you done?!"
They overpowered him, their hands closing around him like metal. He fought, but they pinched his arms up behind his back and dragged him through the halls lined with golden statues and tapestries that seemed to whisper betrayal and lost love.
They led him to his parents. They glared down at him, eyes impenetrable, their own faces darkened by the raised, gilded throne above.
"Gabriel," his father's voice sounded, hard and unyielding. "You have violated the sacred law."
They tied his wrists with strong, coarse ropes, their pressure burrowing into his skin. He felt it all around him falling away, his sight seeping away, as the ropes tightened, pulling him down, down into darkness.
He collapsed into unconsciousness, his mind falling into emptiness as the darkness enveloped him, his final thought of Margo—lost, bleeding, alone.