For a moment, I couldn’t move. I was so shaky I wasn’t sure my legs would support me. I was too freaked out to process thought.

Mobility returned on the wings of adrenaline.

I darted forward, snatched my cell phone from the ground, and ran like hell.

Some time later, I sat in a glade of tall grass and white-barked trees, leaning back against a trunk, trying to get a grasp on my situation. It had taken nearly half an hour for me to stop shaking. I’d wanted to run as far away from the terrifying monster as I could, but I needed those damned stones.

This day had not unfolded remotely as I’d planned. I was having a hard time accepting where I was and what was happening to me.

I’d begun this afternoon with a clear agenda: I’d stepped into a Silver with the perfectly reasonable expectation (oh, God, did that sum up how warped my world had gotten or what?) of stepping out on the other side in my own living room, in my own world, where I would either rescue my parents from the LM’s evil clutches, with Barrons’ help, or die trying.

Now here I was on some foreign world inside the network of the Silvers, which were—according to Barrons—a place that was virtually impossible to navigate and where one could stay lost forever, being attacked by one predator after another.

I’d been absurdly, dangerously sidetracked. Things had taken such an unprecedented twist that I felt as if I’d slipped down one of Alice’s rabbit holes.

It was one thing to watch Fae invade Dublin and try to take over my world, to fight them on my turf. It was entirely another to find myself world-hopping via mirrors and mystical stones, forced to do battle on foreign ground. At least back home, I knew where to get the things I needed, and I had allies to help me. Here, I was screwed.

Events were going on without me back in my world, and I needed to be part of them. I had to get out of here! I had to save my parents, question Nana O’Reilly, get into the Forbidden Libraries, figure out where V’lane was, uncover the prophecy … The list was endless.

But I was stuck on one of the worlds in the network of the Silvers, with a terrifying monster between me and stones that I didn’t dare leave behind. Not only were they of use here (though risky), but I had to take them back to my world so I could use them there.

If I needed any proof of how difficult the Silvers were to get out of—and survive in—I only had to think of Christian, who’d been wandering lost for two months, and been on the verge of death when I’d found him.

How would I survive two months? How would I survive two weeks?

What was happening to my parents?

I punched IYD on my cell phone for the hundredth time and, for the hundredth time, nothing happened.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. Barrons had gotten out of here.

How? Why hadn’t he told me he’d been sucked in with Christian? Why so many lies? Or, as he would call them, “omissions.”

I opened my eyes and checked my watch. It was still 1:14. Duh. I took it off and stuffed it into a pocket. The thing was obviously useless here. I was waiting for the monster to finish devouring the boar so I could go get my stones. I thought it had been at least an hour or two, but the sun hadn’t moved in the sky at all since I’d sat down, which meant either my sense of time was badly skewed or the days were much longer here than I was used to.

While I killed time, I sorted through my options. The way I saw it, I had three. Once I had the stones back, I could A: start hunting for IFPs, risk entering one, and hope it wouldn’t trap me in a desert like the one Christian had gotten stuck in; or B: use the stones and hope that I was really far away from the Unseelie prison and they’d send me back to the Hall of All Days or some other place with mirrors to choose from; or C: stay right where I was and hope that, even though IYD didn’t work here, Barrons would still be able to track me by my brand. And that the monster would move on and find something else to terrorize and kill. Otherwise, remaining in this area wouldn’t even be an option.

Barrons was obviously familiar with the worlds inside the network of Silvers, considering how quickly he’d gotten out. Which seemed to indicate he’d been in here at least once prior to having been sucked in with Christian.

Of all my options, staying put and giving Barrons the chance to track me seemed the most sensible. Once before I’d discounted his ability to save me, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake again.

It had taken him four days to get out.

I’d give him five to find me. But five was the max I would allow, because I was afraid I might start thinking, Yeah, but what if today is the day he comes? Then I’d be afraid to ever leave. It was imperative I make firm decisions and stick to them.

That resolved, I stoked my courage, stood up, and moved stealthily to the edge of the glade, to see if I could reclaim my stones.

The monster was still eating. It stopped, raised its head, and sniffed. Was it looking at me through the trees?

I dropped to all fours and retreated inch by inch. After I’d put some distance between us, I got up and ran back to my tree.

Why hadn’t it killed me? Why had it stopped? Was I inedible? I knew sometimes animals were rabid and killed simply to kill. I’d never seen such fury in an animal’s eyes before. One of my friends had been bitten by a rabid dog, and I’d seen it kenneled before it was put down. It had looked more frightened than angry. The gray monster didn’t possess one ounce of fear. It was nothing but savagery.

Two more times I slipped through the glade to check. Both times it was still eating and showed no signs of stopping.