Arthur ducked under low-hanging limbs and tore through vines. Thorns ripped through his shirt and into his skin, adding to the dozens of tiny cuts from the shattered glass door. He ran faster than he had ever run before — so fast he finally outpaced the shadow men tailing him. But at that pace, he soon lost track of exactly where he was.

Arthur burst from the woods into a narrow clearing that overlooked the hollow. A familiar, black-haired girl stood at the edge of the steep slope that led down toward a stream in the hollow’s basin.

Morgan Apple was staring at her phone, with her back turned to him and a pair of designer headphones clamped over her ears. She couldn’t see or hear him thundering through the woods and heading straight toward her.

Out of control and sprinting full-tilt, Arthur didn’t have enough time to stop or change course. All he could manage was to slow down a little.

“Look out!”

That got her attention — but it was too late. She turned around and shrieked as Arthur crashed into her. Together they tumbled down the slope, banged over rocks and tree limbs, and skidded through leaves and debris. Finally, they slid to a stop in a shallow puddle of mud just short of the stream.

Arthur sat up with a groan, and then fell back and rolled around as a sharp pain spiked through his chest. At first, he thought he’d cracked a rib, but no. A piece of the broken plate over his heart had been jammed back into his ribs, and now the wound was bleeding again.

Morgan pulled herself up. Her clothes — even on a Sunday she was wearing the same monochrome school uniform — were mud-splattered, and one sleeve was torn and bloodstained. A trickle of blood seeped from a scratch on her cheek. Nearby lay a busted pair of headphones and her iPhone — the sunlight glittering off its face revealing a spidery web of cracks.

Her fierce storm-blue eyes were wide with shock … until they glanced up and focused on him — sparked with recognition — then narrowed in anger.

Oh crap.

Tears streamed from her eyes as she leapt to her feet and slapped him. “YOU JERK!”

She reared back — he scooted away — she pursued. She attacked again. He threw his hands up to block, and she slapped him on the arm.

“Ow!”

Her slap wasn’t that hard, but his arms were already bruised and cut up.

She tensed up and was about to attack again.

“Stop it, Morgan!”

She made her hands into fists and held them at her side. She stared at him, fuming — a cobra ready to strike.

He stood and took a step back. “Morgan, I’m really sorry.” He glanced at the ridge above — no sign of the shades … yet. “I didn’t mean to run into you.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Morgan snapped. She rifled through her muddy backpack, muttering something about magnesium roll-cages and foam padding.

“Do you really think I wanted to charge off that bluff?” he said.

She shrugged. “I dunno. You are a —”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm a moron. You hate me, blah blah … I’ve got it. We don't have time for this. We can’t stay here. We have to leave.”

She didn't budge. With a stunned expression, she stammered, “I — I don't hate you, Arthur. Why would you think that?”

“You really have to ask that?”

“Arthur, I sit beside you in every class.”

“Yeah, what's up with that? Who sits beside someone they hate?”

“No one, you idiot.”

“Then why do you sit beside me?”

“Because we're friends … duh.”

“Since when?!”

“Since you told me we had a lot in common, being freaks and all.”

“Morgan, that was last year!”

“I’m aware of that.”

“You told me I was a moron and … and that's about it.”

“I started sitting beside you in class after that. Don’t you remember? And across the table at lunch …”

“You've never said a word to me at lunch.” She shrugged in response. “If you think that makes us friends, then … then you really need to work on your social skills.”

“I do,” she said gravely. “Two hours, every Thursday afternoon. It’s the worst.”

“Wait, what?! No, don't answer. We don't have time for you to explain it.”

Morgan flipped open her laptop and sighed with relief. “Not a total loss. Guess I’ll let you live.” She returned it to the backpack. “Why are you in such a hurry? And why were you running like an idiot?”

He glanced up — still no sign of the shades. Had they lost the trail? He doubted it. They had been right behind him. What was taking them so long?

“Look, you’re not going to believe me …”

“Yeah, I probably won’t,” Morgan responded.

“But there are these … shadow men … demons, I guess. They're chasing me and … look, we've got to get out of here. I’m certain they’ll be back any minute. I can explain it all later.”

Morgan snorted. “Demons? Okay, short bus. Sure thing.”

“Hey!” he retorted. He struggled for a comeback … but gave up. And then he realized something remarkable: Morgan had struck him, and all he’d done was defend himself calmly — without going crazy-mad-angry like normal … without striking back. This had never happened to him before. Was it because she was a girl?

She examined the cut on her arm and shrugged. Then she really, finally looked at him. “Ugh, Arthur, you’re covered in blood.” She cocked her head to the side and crinkled her face into a worried frown. “You know, you’re really messed up.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Are you okay?”

He nodded. “Nothing’s broken. Just a bunch of little cuts and scrapes.” He didn’t mention the broken plate that went over his heart. That would just lead to questions he couldn’t answer. “Hurts like crazy all over, though.”

“You didn’t get all those injuries in that tumble.” He shook his head. “What happened?”

“Really, there’s no time to explain. We have to go. You need to trust —”

His eyes locked onto the ridge. The nightmare wasn’t over. He pointed up at the slope. Eleven shades stood in a line at the top. The setting sun's light was full against them, and yet they were still shadows.

“What … what are those?” she asked in horror.

“I don't know, but like I said, they’re after me, and we've got to run.”

“This can't be real,” she muttered, staring up at the shadow men. “This has to be a trick.”

“It's not,” Arthur replied. “Can't you feel them? The emptiness …”

Morgan shivered. “Yeah, I can feel it.”

“We have to get away. They've already …” Arthur took a deep breath and choked back his emotions. “They caught my cousin Derek a few minutes ago — he screamed and …”

Morgan threw a hand over her mouth. “Is he …”

Arthur shook his head. “I — I don’t know. I couldn’t help him, so I just kept running.”

“We need to go get help.”

“Yes, I agree,” he said with frustration.

But still she didn’t budge. “Why aren’t they moving?”

“I have no idea,” Arthur said. “But we need to start running now, Morgan. Come on. They’re slow, but they’re also relentless.”

She picked up her backpack and took a lurching step toward him, favoring one foot.

“You’re limping.”

A note of fear trailed through her voice. “Just tweaked my ankle during the fall. It’s not bad.”

“It’s enough to get you killed,” Arthur stated bluntly. Running wasn’t going to be an option for them. “Change of plans.” He thought about the angel’s words. “We need to find a small house … a cottage. It should be nearby.”

Her eyes went wide, and she pointed a shaking finger toward something behind Arthur. “Like — like that one?”

Arthur whipped around and spotted an ivy-webbed stone cottage tucked back into the trees about fifty yards beyond the stream. A warm glow poured from the windows and from the front door, which was cracked open. A thin wisp of smoke drifted out of the chimney.

“Um, yeah.” This had to be the cottage Ylliara had told him about. “Come on, we’ll be safe inside.” He hoped.

“Arthur …” Morgan was still staring at the house. She seemed to have completely forgotten about the shades. “I’ve been down in this hollow a dozen times. There's never been an old house here before.”

“I know,” Arthur replied.

“You knew it was going to be here, didn’t you?”

“No … well, sort of. I — I’ll explain later. We need to go. Now!”

The shades finally spotted them and charged downhill. After a few seconds of sprinting, Morgan fell behind, her limp worsening with each step.

Arthur slowed and held out his arm. “Here, you can lean on me.”

She glanced at his hand, and then back at the shades. Grimacing, she picked up her pace. “I’ll manage.”

It was a good thing the house was so close.

Arthur would have sworn that he’d actually seen this cottage before. But then, there were loads of little houses like it in travel brochures for European villages. Grandma Nelson was a travel agent; she kept old brochures stacked everywhere. That had to be why it seemed so familiar.

Together, they splashed across the knee-deep stream and trudged up onto the opposite bank.

“You know,” Morgan said, “I did ask you if you wanted to chat at lunch one day.”

At first he thought she was insane, trying to talk while they were fleeing the shades. But maybe it was better to talk than think about the demonic shadow men chasing him. Or maybe she was crazy enough to think that this was a good time to talk.

“Oh, I remember that,” he replied. “I said that I’d like to chat, but you didn’t say anything. After several minutes of you staring at your screen, I asked you if you liked Ms. Casey's class, and you shot me a look and never said anything else.”

“I meant chatting online, doofus. But when you didn't pull out a phone or a computer, I figured you were just dumb … or you weren’t interested.” She sighed. “I hate small talk, especially in person. Can’t do it. Messaging, on the other hand, is the perfect form of communication.

Arthur filed that one away in the Morgan-sure-is-strange folder. No one likes small talk, but who couldn’t do it? Especially with someone they consider a friend? On the other hand, this was the most he’d ever heard Morgan speak.

He glanced back at the shades and nervously kept talking. “Well, I can’t chat online anyway. I don't own a computer.”

She stopped. “Wait — you what?!”

He waved her on, and she started jogging forward again. “All I've got is a drug-dealer phone that's out of minutes … again. So I can’t really text, either.”

“A drug-dealer phone?”

“Yeah, that's what my cousin Derek calls it. You know, a cheap pay-as-you-go phone? You pick one up at Wal-Mart, and it already has minutes on it, and the number’s not attached to your name, so if you’re a criminal you can be anonymous and —”

“Yes, I know what the term means … it’s just … well, you’re not a drug dealer.”

“Obviously. Not everyone that uses one is.”

Morgan eyed him suspiciously.

“I live with my grandma,” he said, panting. It was hard to run and talk at the same time. “We don’t have a lot of money, and she's cheap. She thinks computers and mobile phones are a fad, that people will go back to typewriters and landlines.”

Morgan’s eyes went wide and her brow furrowed. “That’s — that’s —”

“Insane?”

“Criminally. How can she believe something that ridiculous?”

“Because she’s old-fashioned, and she wants to believe it.”

“Well, your technological status is unacceptable.”

“Um … okay … thanks.”

“When we get back, you're getting some of my hand-me-down tech. I’ve got an aging MacBook Air you can have.” Slowing for a few awkward, limping steps, she gasped for breath. “I upgraded to a Pro. And you can have this iPhone after I get the screen repaired.”

A MacBook and an iPhone?! Holy crap, that was generous. “Morgan … that's really super nice of you. Seriously. It’s awesome.”

“Nice has nothing to do with it — it just ain't right. And I’ve got four laptops. Besides, we’re friends. That’s what friends do, right?”

“Yeah.” Sure. Whatever. Actually … no, not really. Geez, Morgan was without a doubt the weirdest person he knew.

They reached the house. He looked back at the shades. They were already crossing the stream, and it wasn’t slowing them down at all.

Morgan heaved the door open and ducked inside.

Arthur was right behind her, but when he neared the doorway, a new shade leapt up out of the ground and reached for him. He tried to spin away, but the shade grasped his arm. Its touch — like ice and fire — burned through Arthur’s shirtsleeve and seared deep into his skin. He should have screamed, but he didn’t have the will for it. His emotions drained away … his mind went blank … the shade reached its other hand toward his throat … he couldn’t even make himself try to stop it.

Morgan grabbed him by his belt and yanked him toward the cottage. Her touch brought him back to his senses. He wrenched his arm away from the shade, and flung himself inside.

Morgan shouldered into the door. It closed with a thundering BOOM! — just as the dark form surged into the doorway. They clicked all five deadbolts into the locked position and stepped back.

Without even looking around at the inside of the house — if something jumped out and attacked him now, he’d just have to die — Arthur breathed a sigh of relief and clutched at his arm. A blister was already puckering where the shadow had touched him, though it didn’t hurt as much as he would’ve thought.

“If a burn doesn’t hurt at first, that means it’s bad, right? Because the nerves have been damaged …”

Morgan didn’t answer; she was staring into the cottage with a dumbfounded expression. “It — it was so small outside.”

Great, what now? Arthur spun around — oh! This was now officially the most ridiculous day ever. Shadow men … an angelic girl asking him to become the Multiversal Paladin … a cottage that appeared out of nowhere … and now … and now this. What had looked like a quaint cottage from the outside was actually an enormous mansion on the inside. It was easily four times the size of Aunt Carolyn’s house, and that was just based off what he could see. There was probably more to it, maybe much more. Strangely, the windows they had seen from outside weren’t visible from the inside; there were no windows at all.

“This … this just can’t be happening,” Morgan whispered. “It violates every law of physics.”

“Well, then it must be magic,” Arthur replied numbly.

Morgan shook her head. “There’s no such thing. There’s a logical explanation. There has to be.”

As Arthur looked around the room, a chill ran across his skin, triggered by a sense of déjà vu. This place seemed familiar, but in a hazy way, as if he'd dreamed about it many times … only it was too real to have been a dream. “You know, I think I've been here before. A long time ago.”

The main room had giant fireplaces as tall as a man to either side, with unlit firewood piled inside. Tapestries draped the stone walls. An enormous, multicolored rug covered the wood floor. High-backed chairs, ottomans, frumpy couches, and coffee tables were spread around the room. Dust coated the furniture; cobwebs were everywhere. A massive chandelier hung from the incredibly high ceiling, like a cloud of raindrops suspended in midair, reflecting the flames from the gas lanterns on the walls. Only about half of the lanterns were lit, which made the enormous room gloomy. Shadows seemed to lurk in every corner. Arthur's eyes darted around; he expected a shadow man to come out of one of the pools of darkness at any moment.

Staircases, one to each side, led to a loft above the back of the room. Centered beneath the loft was an arched set of double doors twelve feet across. A weird, white-glowing symbol with a round middle and three arms that curled off of it floated in front of the doorway.

“Check that out,” Arthur said, pointing at the foot-wide symbol. “Looks like a magic rune.”

“It’s shaped like a triskelion,” Morgan replied. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for why it’s — ugh, what is that?” Her eyes had drifted to the left. Arthur followed her gaze …

The giant head of a strange creature that looked like an emerald green insect with blazing yellow eyes and fur-covered antlers stuck out horrifically above the mantel over the right fireplace. That image triggered Arthur’s memory.

“I have been here before,” he said.

The shadow men screeched and beat against the door outside. The hinges rattled — the deadbolts groaned — the timbers bulged and creaked.

“That door's not going to hold them for long,” Morgan said. “We've got to get out of here. Maybe there's a back door and we can slip away without —”

“No,” Arthur said with certainty. “We'll be safe here.”

“But the door,” Morgan argued.

“It'll hold. The house came here for me.”

The shrieks grew louder; the door quivered.

“What makes you say that?” Morgan asked. “And how do you know it’s safe?”

“I know this place,” he replied.

There was a picture he kept in a drawer at home. In it, his parents were standing together with him, no older than two or three, perched on his dad's shoulder. A huge smile was plastered on his face. He had always thought the insect head over them was a trick of the light, because the picture was blurry and the colors were off, with everything a bit too green. He had been certain it was a deer's head, nothing more.

Faint memories bubbled up, scenes that were little more than impressions: the giant fireplaces, the couches, the insect head on the wall, a shield embossed with a sunburst — the same one from the picture with his mother — a library packed with books, a room with toy guns and gleaming swords, a cat so big he could ride it, and a big wolf, too. He turned to the mantel on the right side. Sure enough, there was the shield, and a long, thin sword was mounted beneath it. Was there a room with toy weapons? Was there actually a cat and a wolf here that were so big someone could ride them?

“I was here when I was little, before I was old enough to start school,” he said, “when my mom was still alive … before my dad left me with my grandparents. I didn't remember it before, but I do now. I think … I think this is my home.”

A strong pulse thumped three times in his chest, like suddenly an extra heart was beating, a heart three times bigger than normal. The house began to vibrate and hum, as if the earth quaked beneath them. Bright colors swirled throughout the house. A wave of dizziness hit Arthur. He felt as if he were yanked upward, outward, sideward, and every-which-wayward — even into directions that he hadn't known existed until now.