Janine Luscher’s spell hit Atticus square in the chest just as the magic Marga was weaving fused around them. The air shimmered, charged with power that seeped into his bones and changed the fabric of his being. For the span of a heartbeat lasting an eternity, every fiber in his body, down to the faintest pulse of his energy, merged with the age-old magic this world breathed. If not for the death grip Marga had on his hand, he would have dissolved into the power holding together the layers of time, space, and beyond.

  But she never let him go.

  When everything around him shifted and the world itself split into a thousand shards of untapped possibilities, Marga’s hand pulled him through, rooted him. The air fused back together, and all around him, the dizzying kaleidoscope of colors, sounds and scents dimmed as one reality took over and solidified.

  He only had a brief moment to blink at their new surroundings—a quiet street sw