Part I. Not in Domino Anymore

"What pretty lights," Serenity said to herself, or so she thought, "though the siren is dreadful." On cue, a wide throb rolled through her skull, making her stomach quiver. She eased away from her bedside window and lay back down — ever-so-slowly at the behest of her gut — and stared at the blurry ceiling. "It wasn't always that mosaic, you know," she said to no one in particular. Or perhaps to the white ceiling. Who could tell?

She heard her door open yards away from her bed but made no attempt to greet her visitor. 'They'll forgive my rudeness, surely,' she thought.

A man stood at the foot of her bed, though she couldn't say how she knew he was male.

'Maybe they've come to take me away,' she thought, and frantic delight seeped through her head, followed on its heels by more pain. 'Maybe they can fix me!'

And suddenly she was lighter than she was a moment ago and dangerously high off her bed. And suddenly she was heavy again and pressed firmly into a mattress. The instantaneous change and jolt of being put on a gurney rippled through her. With reflexes she doubted she'd had before this whole ordeal, Serenity leaned over the side of the stretcher and heaved up the only two meals she'd had in the past three days.

She wondered why she should bother with righting herself when gravity beckoned her to the floor. Unfortunately, two pairs of impatient hands caught her first. Black dots peppered her vision until black was all she saw, and Serenity was out cold.

Although cold wasn't the proper term, now was it?

"103," the nurse said in what she probably assumed was a whisper. Her grave tone compensated for what the number alone lacked.

Serenity ignored her. Instead, she marveled at the return of her sense of hearing before all other senses. She waited patiently for the others to awake. 'I, for one, will be glad to rid myself of this whole darkness business.''But none of them came. Hearing was her only friend, and as the earnest voices of her worried mother and nurse faded into mumbles, she realized it, too, was fickle.

The hand on her burning forehead felt remarkably cool, and again Serenity wondered at the presence of one sense in the absence of the others. She could not hear the hand's owner, nor would her eyes open to see his or her face. So she willed her Psyche to lean into the touch — for she couldn't do so physically, ensnared in viral tendrils and all — and to spread the coolness to the rest of her body.

But too soon, the hand was being retracted. Feverish warmth swelled tenfold where the delicate fingers had been, as though waiting for the dam to break. Serenity panicked. She could not get any warmer than she already was or she'd melt; Grace had told her that herself!

Again, Serenity awaited the arousal of her other senses. Quickly growing impatient, she decided to awaken them herself. She attempted to clear her throat, but the sound was all wrong, all gurgled and barbaric. She tried again and decided it was close enough. She parted chapped lips and wheezed. Licking her lips, she tried again, this time emitting a low moan.

'Nearly there!' Serenity told herself. 'Keep at it, you'll be fine.'

And she did. Upon the third time, she said her first word: "Hot."

"Speak up," replied a muffled voice.

"I'm hot," Serenity gasped.

"Hot?" Serenity nodded weakly. "And no wonder!" The voice chuckled a little.

The owner of the voice shifted his weight — Serenity could now feel that he was quite close to her. As he moved, light filtered through her eyelids, quickly warming them and turning them orange.

Serenity squinted before attempting to open her eyes. She peeked under lashes and saw endless blue. 'Well,' she thought, 'it's an improvement from the black.' She lifted her lids higher and revealed to herself an expanse of cloudless sky. The sun was above her head, pouring warm light on her without blinding her.

"Miss?" the voice called from beside her.

Slowly, Serenity looked to her left and saw a young man with sharp brown hair and concern sketched on his face kneeling beside her.

Serenity mentally searched for her hands and found them loosely curled in grass. Come to think of it, grass was pricking her back and bare legs, too. She lifted her arms up in a gesture to beckon for help sitting up.

The young man obliged and tugged her left arm firmly but gently to pull her up.

"Easy now," he said.

Serenity put her right hand behind her to steady herself and waited for the impending dizzy and nausea spell to wash over her.

But it never came.

Her eyes widened, and she searched for any and all traces of the urge to purge but nearly laughed when she felt none. Similarly, she checked her head for warmth and felt nothing but skin. Indeed, her resident pain seemed evicted from her skull. It was a miracle.

Serenity tested her newfound health. She jumped to her feet and laughed heartily when she didn't immediately fall over. And when laughing didn't upset her stomach, she laughed more, testing various pitches and trying to find hers. It had been so long since she'd heard it that she had forgotten what it sounded like.

Meanwhile, the boy had had time enough to observe the formerly unconscious girl for some time. While her sudden fits of laughter had taken him quite by surprise, he liked the sound and was almost encouraged to do the same. And she had the brightest eyes that'd ever looked up at him and the reddest hair he'd ever felt and the strangest garb he'd ever seen. At any rate, he stood and smiled.

"You!" Serenity suddenly cried. "Did you heal me?" She didn't wait for an answer. Rather, she flung her arms around the boy's neck and laughed again.

"Actually — I-I…uh," the poor boy stammered. He eventually managed to pry the girl off him and attempted to finish his sentence. "I meant, ahem, I didn't heal you. I found you lying by the road." He nodded to the dirt path behind him. "I feared you were dead, but you're not. Though you were quite warm from lying in the sun for so long."

Serenity just stared at him with a blank look. Then, meaning struck her, and she blinked and looked around her. At every indication that she was indeed outside, her smile retracted more and more until she was pouting.

"I knew it was too good to be true," she said. "I'm not better, I'm just dreaming." She sighed. "I haven't been outside for real in ages."

The boy quirked an eyebrow. "But you are outside. In the middle of nowhere, no less."

"Begone," Serenity said with a hmph. "I have no intention of listening to your dream talk. I'll just sit here and wait to wake up, thank you very much." And with that, she plopped down and crossed her arms, defiantly looking away.

The boy shifted from foot to foot, unsure what to do with himself. The girl merely sat there in silence, convinced that something would change if she did. Though she was extremely outlandish, he couldn't help but feel guilty at the thought of leaving her alone. He glanced up at the horizon: dark was approaching.

Serenity sighed again. "Nothing happened." She looked up at the boy with wide eyes. "Where am I?"

"The Betwixt," he answered. "You know, between the kingdom and the savage lands?"

"Kingdom?" Serenity's ears perked up. Dream or not, she had never seen a king before, let alone a kingdom. Maybe if she played nice with this boy, he would take her.

The boy nodded. "It's where the Black Magician lives." He hesitated. "Y-you're not from around here, are you?"

Serenity shook her head. "Not that I know." She thought for a moment. "I guess I'm lost."

"Well, come on, then," he said, "it's getting late and the king'll be expecting me."

Serenity couldn't help but grin. "You work for the king?"

The boy smiled sheepishly. "Not exactly. I'm his student, one of the Black Acolytes."

"What does he teach you?"

"Magic. Like this." The boy's eyebrows furrowed together in concentration as he focused on the ground. He slowly lifted his hand, and a white flower grew and bloomed in sync with his movements. "There," he said triumphantly. However, his flower didn't stop. It grew until it was up to his hip and as thick as his leg. Then, without warning, it bent in on itself and blackened. The white petals quickly turned brown and fell off, while the stem shriveled and curled. Soon, the flower was no more than mulch and blew away in the wind.

Serenity clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing at the boy's defeated expression, but a snicker escaped. "I'm sorry, Mr. Acolyte sir!" she said, laughing and waving her hands around. "I know I shouldn't laugh."

The boy sighed. "It's okay." He smiled. "And please, call me Tristan."

Serenity extended her hand. "Serenity," she said. "Pleased to meet you."

Tristan looked at her hand. "What're you doing?"

"Shaking hands?"

He looked at first her hands, then his. "No you're not."

Serenity blushed, wishing for the first time that it was from fever and not embarrassment. She supposed they didn't shake hands in this kingdom. (And if this were truly her dream, then they should have.) What, then, was she supposed to do? She waited for Tristan to make a move, but he merely watched her.

After a while, he just shook his head. "You really aren't from around here."

He gestured for Serenity to follow him, and together they walked down the path. They talked the whole way, Tristan about the magician king and the Acolytes and his classes, Serenity about our world and school and the fever that sent her to the Betwixt. Neither minded how the darkness swallowed the sky.