SAGE

My mouth parted in shock.

For a heartbeat, the words Diana had just spoken didn’t register. They hovered in the air, unreal, absurd—like the last echo of a nightmare that refused to fade.

Then I laughed.

The sound tore out of me, loud, almost violent. It startled even me. The laughter scraped my throat as it spilled, sharp enough to shake loose the remnants of the gray void, the dust, the phantom thirst that still clung to my senses.

I could almost taste it—the dryness, the static, the echo of that strange in-between place. And I laughed harder, as though I could dislodge the dream entirely if I just...