MY BACK HURT and the lights were too bright.

I rubbed my face, grittiness scratching along my skin, like I had something on my fingers. The movement was stiff and halting – my entire body was so sore. What happened last night? I'd never woken up hungover like this – Wait. Did I even drink last night?

More brightness flooded my eyes when I tried to open them. I turned to the side, my body protesting with dull shocks of pain. The side of my face pressed into something cool and... earthy?

Dirt. My face was pressed in dirt.

My eyes snapped open. Green, brown, yellow, and orange met me, from the moss creeping along the ground, the undergrowth of ferns and sprouting saplings surrounding me like a cocoon, and then there were the fiery leaves on the branches arcing over me, high overhead. I'd never seen trees so tall. They were like those trees in California – the Redwoods, or whatever?

Trees weren't this tall in South Carolina.

They let in dappled rays of coppery sunlight. I blinked past the brightness as panic rocked me into sitting upright. A massive headrush followed, black spots sprouting across my eyes, pressure pounding against the front of my skull. "What the fu –"

Then I saw the other body laying a few feet away. My stomach dropped when I recognized my leather jacket and her dirty white Converse. "Claire." My voice was hoarse as I scrambled to her. "Claire!" I shook her, forcing her into consciousness. Like me, she blinked past the sunlight, and her eyes widened when she sat up and took in our surroundings.

"Jo? Where are we?" Her voice trembled. "What – What happened?"

A whole new kind of dread bloomed within me at the question. I was too afraid to answer. I glanced her over, then myself. Besides what could be expected from being passed out in the woods, I guessed our clothes weren't that rumpled. And our tights weren't... ripped... My stomach roiled as I turned over all the worst-case scenarios that could happen to girls who found themselves in the woods, and the near-dizzying relief that it didn't seem like we were going to be part of those statistics.

"We were at the party..." I said, forcing words out, retracing our steps. I remembered Dustin. Fiery hot rage coursed through me but extinguished itself when I remembered we got away. "We left. Did we... get McDonald's?"

"I think so," Claire murmured. She was also checking her clothes, her face getting red as it always did whenever she was stressed, nervous, or angry. She was panicking.

"We're fine. If... If anything happened, you'd know," I admitted, because I recalled Dustin again, except in a stupid love-struck hazy light at a party where we were not sober and a makeout session turned into something more.

Her shoulders dropped. "Why the hell does this have to be the first thing we worry about?"

"Because men made it that way, and society let it happen," I replied easily. That was what my mom told me when I asked her the same question. It didn't quell the familiar simmering aggression that came with the answer.

Unfortunately, there were more pressing issues to solve. First being how we ended up here. Second, figuring out where here even was.

"So we got McDonald's," I said. "We were upset."

"Because Dustin's an asshole," Claire said, cussing more now than I'd ever heard her in our entire life. "And... And..."

"We were talking –" But the air was ripped out of me when I remembered falling. Screaming. Hitting the ground. Hard.

The space I'd woken up in was a small dent in the ground. Made by a human-sized crater.

"We fell," I said needlessly, as Claire seemed to come to the same conclusion, too.

She studied her own divot left in the earth. The force of us broke the earth, fresh turned dirt mixed with scarlet, orange, and yellow fallen leaves. When she looked back up and around, her brows furrowed closer together. "Why is it so... warm?"

Honestly, I hadn't even noticed until she said it. But it was warm. Even as a crisp breeze filtered through the trees, the sun baked me through my denim jacket. Birds were singing in the trees, which were changing colors.

Back home, it was winter.

Claire suddenly gasped, and my eyes widened when we both realized she still had her purse. She yanked out her phone, and we let out a relieved sigh. But then she tapped the screen, and it didn't light up. She tried to turn it on. Nothing happened. "I..." She continued to mess with the buttons, desperately tapped at the screen. Hopelessness crashed into me again. "I always have it charged. I never let it get even close to dying –"

Claire stood up, swaying on her feet, catching herself by bracing her hands on her knees. "We need to get out of here," she said. "There has to be something around here. Like a park ranger station, or something."

I followed her, getting to my feet slower to avoid the headrush. "Do you think we have concussions?" I asked.

She messaged her temples. "I don't know. Aren't concussions supposed to make you nauseous?"

We were in a completely different place with no explanation as to how we got here. Of course that would make my stomach churn. But other than that... "I think we're okay."

Claire nodded. "I think so too. We'll take a lot of breaks, even if we feel like we might not need them. I read that if you're lost in the woods, you should look for running water and follow it downstream."

I frowned. "I thought we were supposed to stay put? Like... hug a tree?"

"That's if anyone knows we're here."

A chill ran down my spine. She had a point.

"We can also try to find higher ground," Claire went on. "See if we could find people from a hill or... a tree..."

I wanted to ask how she was going to manage that, when the lowest branches of these trees seemed like they were still a hundred feet from the ground, but now wasn't the time to be sarcastic. Especially when she looked like she was asking herself the same question. She turned around again, studying the forest like she was taking a mental picture, then she froze. "What?" I asked.

She started walking. I had no choice but to follow her. "Claire, what?"

She didn't walk far, carefully stepping past the ferns, toward a massive mound. It was a decaying tree stump. But that wasn't what she was looking at. She leaned down toward a patch of... mushrooms? Soft white ones that were –

"Are those glowing?" I demanded. Because they were awfully bright under the shade of the tall trees.

"Oh my God," Claire whispered. Even more chills stuttered through me, forming goosebumps over my skin. She straightened up, her eyes wide. "Jo, we're not in South Carolina –"

"No way," I retorted, because now was the time to be sarcastic when she hurled out a statement like that.

"No, you don't get it," she said quickly. "We're – We're in Velein –"

"Vuh-what?"

"Velein!" she exclaimed. "It - It's the place in my book. The mushrooms don't grow anywhere else. I looked them up one time..."

Leave it to Claire to look up mushrooms, but that still didn't make things any clearer. "Um, Claire... maybe you hit your head -"

"Oh my God," she gasped again. She reached into her purse and pulled out the book in question. "The book! Right before we fell, don't you remember it lighting up and - and holy crap, Jo -"

Snap.

Claire froze. I spun toward the sound. It was only then that I realized it was easy to pinpoint, because the birds stopped singing. It was dead silent.

Something moved from behind the trees.

"Jo," Claire uttered again. She grappled onto my arm as I stepped into her, never turning my back on the sound. "Jo –"

A long limb planted itself out from behind a tree. It settled in the ground with a thud. I stopped breathing. Then it swayed out from behind the tree, like long grass blowing in the wind.

It was tall, towering over us, with veined skin covering a skeletal body. Moss draped from it in scraggly patches. Pale, unseeing eyes leered at us from a massive, triangular head.

I'd never seen anything like it before, but it didn't stop me from trying to figure it out. Maybe it looked closest to a deer, if its back wasn't arched so high, like a scared cat. And if its head wasn't so big, or lopsided, and —

Claire gripped my arm tight, nails digging into me through my jacket. "Stay quiet," she hissed. The... thing shuddered, making both of us jump. Its focus settled on us.

Then it moved.

Like a predator, it tipped forward and down into a crouch, all its long limbs compacting and groaning with the effort. A raspy breath shuddered out of it, laced with something pitched higher, reminding me of my own lungs. They burned with the need to breathe – breathe! – that I had to loose my breath. It tore out of me raggedly. The... thing let out another airy breath. I realized it was supposed to be a hiss.

We were going to die.

The monster charged.

But someone else did, too.

They swept in front of us with a whole freaking cape billowing after them with their speed. They waved something in the air that caught the sunlight – a massive sword. A sword?! – that they stabbed into the monster – because what else could it even be? – right through its head, then yanked back. Dark liquid flew out everywhere. The monster let out a rattly growl as it spasmed to a halt.

Now I was nauseous. I grabbed Claire. "Run!" I shouted, turning both of us in the opposite direction. But someone else stopped us.

He was tall with curly brown hair falling over his forehead. "It's all right," he said. I bristled. "You're safe now –"

"Like hell!" I hauled back and let my fist fly. Pain radiated through my knuckles and up my wrist, but it was worth it to land a blow on that guy's face. He rocked back from the force of my hit, and maybe a little bit more from surprise, before falling to the ground.

"Jo!" Claire screamed. Ever the humanitarian, she was madder at me for punching a random man who snuck up on us, and reached out to help him up. "I'm so sorry –"

"Elric?" a low voice called from across the clearing. It came from the person who killed that – that thing. He strode toward us, his hood falling back and revealing his face: dark brown hair long enough to be tied back, tan skin, stubble lining his sharp jaw, and fierce dark eyes. The sight of him made a guitar riff furl out in the back of my mind, something dark and heavy, reminiscent of the White Stripes. The notes tore out like a warning. Like danger. "Are you all right –"

"Are you hurt?" The man I punched asked Claire from his seat on the ground. He stared up at her like... like he'd never seen another person before. Did I punch him that hard?

Pink splotched up Claire's face. "You're the one bleeding."

The other man, the one who killed a monster and looked completely unfazed by it, scoffed. "He's fine."

I grabbed Claire by the arm and hauled her back, taking huge steps away from them both. "Who are you?" I snapped.

"Your rescuers," the monster-killer replied. He wiped his sword with the end of his cloak, clearing away the dark liquid spattered across the blade. Then he put it away, stowing it in a case hanging off a belt around his waist. "At least, we were trying to be. Are you well, Your Highness?"

Wait – did he say Your Highness?

He helped the other man – whose name was Your Highness, I guessed – up, who still only had eyes for Claire. I tensed. If either of them took another step closer, I'd figure out a way to wrestle that sword off one of their hips.

My stare must've given me away, because the monster-killer frowned. "But since there is no quarry here, I suggest you stand down, maidens."