After several rounds of arguing and debating and arguing once more, Avery convinced Ada to fetch Amy, so they could talk. Ada grumbled and groaned, complained, and would have stomped a foot to the ground if she could, but she eventually relented, and zoomed off to locate Amy's ghost.

She returned fifteen minutes later, and a blurry, white orb followed her closely, hovering at her side as she stopped in front of Avery.

"This is her. Amy. She's here, but she can't fully manifest in our realm at this time." Ada cracked her knuckles. "What do you want from her?"

"That," Avery pointed at the white sphere as it bobbed up and down excitedly, "is her? This is Amy?" He squinted, as if expecting it to suddenly expand and shape into Amy's distinguishable figure. "I saw her, in a more human-like form, before. Why is she this blob of white?"

Ada's face grew stern. "It's her, I swear. Look, this is the best I could do, okay? Ghosts... they're complicated. Sometimes they're visible, sometimes they can't find enough energy in Limbo to show themselves. I don't regulate it, and neither do they. You wanted her here, so she's here, okay? She's not supposed to be, and this could mess up a lot of things, so make it quick." Her voice was annoyed, but almost in a childish way; like a kid bantering and bickering about not getting the toy they wanted at the toy store.

"Whatever." Avery pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Can she hear me? Understand me?"

As if in response, the sphere bobbed faster up and down.

"She can, but you can't hear or understand her, not in her current state. This," Ada sucked in a deep breath, "never happens, Avery, I want you to be aware of it. There's never a translator for ghosts. Ghosts aren't meant to be translated; those humans who happen to meet them, hear them, is coincidental. We Guides are not here for that, though we can indeed travel into Limbo. We can be in Limbo and here at the same time. No one is to ever know this, and if you survive this whole ordeal I expect you to leave that out of your detailed exposé to the world, understood?"

Avery snorted. "If I survive this? Wow, super enthusiastic, I see." Ada glared, and he waved her off. "Fine, fine, I won't tell anyone that Guides can be in two worlds at once, or that ghosts aren't supposed to be around here. How does this work?"

"You speak," Ada motioned at Amy's blurry blob of a body, "and she'll answer me, and I'll reiterate what she says for you."

"And you'll tell me everything she says?" Avery arched an eyebrow; he knew better than to put all his trust in Ada. "I know your tendency to keep things for yourself, and I don't believe that you'll relate everything to me properly."

The orb bounced side-to-side, its energy jamming against Ada—and not going through her.

Ada rolled her eyes. "She can nudge into me, as you can see," she huffed, "so if I'm not telling you the truth, she'll let you know." She steepled her fingers and closed her eyes. "I'm making this exception because the world is still, in my opinion, in peril. Amy might have knowledge from within Limbo, and though it'd go faster if I simply spoke to her alone, within her realm... I'll indulge you. Once."

Avery refrained from saying that Ada owed him for bringing him to Nevada and getting his best friend killed. But they'd wasted enough time with this back and forth, and he needed to assure himself that Amy was okay. Then he could resume scolding Ada until she told him what was actually going on.

He glanced at the ghost, trying to picture Amy standing there, in her leggings and tank top, the way he'd last seen her. With her luscious locks of brown hair flowing over her shoulders, her dark eyes narrowed at him as if to yell at him. She used to yell at him a lot—to control his urges, to be more polite, to stop bothering people with questions about ghosts. Or, as she had at their last get-together, to figure out what the fuck he wanted from her.

"Are you all right?" He watched her as she seemed to bob up and down again. "I know our last talk was... bad." She bobbed only lightly, this time, as if it was harder to answer him.

Ada's silhouette grew more transparent than usual and she concentrated, staring at Amy. She must have been dipping into Limbo; as if her present form was halfway disconnected from this realm, and shifting into another.

She was gone for a while, detached from Avery and the house and the clearing. When her blue shade returned to normal, she was frowning.

"She said there's no time to discuss past mistakes. You need to leave. Now. And never look back. Her words." Ada side-glanced at Amy, who was agitated, zooming side to side. "Pack your things and move abroad."

"Huh? What, no happy reunion? No giving me a chance to apologize? Don't you need me to do that for your unfinished business or some shit?" The blob shot side to side again, but with an urgency that destabilized Avery. He rubbed over his head, fingers touching his growing out curls. "Fine, none of that, then. But leave California? The country? To go where? Jeez, that escalated quite a bit."

Ada fizzed out of focus again, and returned with an even deeper frown. "She's insistent that there's no time for happy reunions, and says you have nothing to apologize for. Limbo, the Afterlife, ghosts—it's nothing like she expected." Ada winced, but Amy jolted into her, knocking her sideways. "I'm going to tell him, sheesh! There are ways to announce things, Amy. Unlike you, I have certain manners." The blob emitted a strange, hissing sound, and Ada straightened up, squaring her shoulders. "She says staying near this portal is perilous, and you should get away."

Avery crossed his arms. "We already knew that. Can you tell me why it's so perilous now, compared to before, with the demons on the loose?"

Ada completely vanished this time, and so did Amy; both their forms were fully within Limbo, no longer there with him in what he considered the real world.

He waited, watching the space where they'd both been seconds before, eager to know what had transpired. Amy was upset, that much was clear; but why did Ada disappear into Limbo with her?

When they popped back up, Ada's frown had transformed into panic. Her eyes were so wide they were unreal, and her arms shook at her sides.

"What happened?" He'd widened his stance without realizing, preparing to be attacked, bracing for bad news.

"She said it's corrupted. Limbo. It's messed up, and there's something in there. I—" Ada gulped, then disappeared again into Limbo, followed closely by Amy.

"Hey!" Avery snapped, then clapped, then stomped his feet, hoping to draw their attention. "Hey, don't exclude me! I called this freaking meeting, shouldn't I get to know what's going on?"

They were gone for much longer, this time. Avery was jittery, pacing to and fro as he waited. And when his legs were too sore, he toppled onto the ground and drew his knees to his chest. He glowered at the area where Ada had been floating, desperate for her to re-appear, to explain herself.

His initial question had never truly been answered—was Amy okay? She'd appeared to say yes, but with all she'd been babbling about, the dangers and the warnings for Avery to leave, he wasn't certain she was telling the truth. And if he had to leave, he wasn't going anywhere until he knew for sure that she'd be all right without him.

Ada resurfaced, but without Amy, this time. Avery gave her a questioning look, and she beckoned him away from the area, off towards the trees.

Ada shook out her arms. "She's staying in Limbo, for now. I told her to... never mind what I told her, she—"

"—Ada!" Avery wished he could grab her and force the truth out of her. He cut his eyes at her, hoping they were flashing with impatient fury. "What the fuck is going on? I want to know everything you told her, and what she told you, down to the last detail."

Ada deflated, slowly shaking her head. "She was right about things happening. The world is shifting. Something's up in Limbo, and I hadn't sensed until now, as I manifested in that dimension in my entirety. I usually dip in and out, not quite showing myself, just to check that things are in order... and I'm warning you, things are not in order."

"The world is shifting?" Avery rubbed the back of his neck. "That sounds strangely like what you were saying in Nevada, before we left."

"Because we're talking about the same thing, Amy and I, but it's occurring in different places." Ada approached him, her eyes level with his, bursting with questions, confusion. "But contrary to what she said about leaving, I think you should stay here, with me."

Avery balked, backing away from Ada's icy aura. "Stay here? But I—" He snarled. "No, I have to go, regardless. I need sustenance, a five-day nap, and to start making phone calls about Jamie and Amy. And Jessamine, too—" He lowered his gaze to the ground. "I don't have any of her contacts, but her phone is still in the car, and if I can unlock it—"

Ada's hands wrapped over Avery's shoulders, infusing power into them. It was as if she were gripping him tight, but since she couldn't touch him, she'd chosen to shock him into thinking so. "Please," she said, such pleading in her voice it tightened something in Avery's stomach. "I still need your help. The world needs your help."

Avery smacked a hand to his chest. "I did my duty, Ada." His nose bunched up and he shook his head. "What else can I do? I lost one best friend to you, watched the other one be murdered, then shoved his murderers into a realm of oblivion where the woman I love will rot forever. If the world needs saving, I'm not up for it this time. I'm done."

"You have to be up for it, please. You can't be done." Ada poked her chest out, her visage that of a stubborn woman about to beg, about to bargain. "Your destiny isn't done, Avery. The prophecy is completed, but I fear it unearthed a whole new array of problems, a network of unresolved issues that you're a part of, whether or not you like it. You threw Jessamine into that hell-hole, and... it did something to this world. To all worlds, all dimensions."

There it was—the truth. That it was Avery's fault, that he'd chosen the incorrect option. Tossing Jessamine—alive—into the demon realm wasn't the right solution, and now they'd unleashed something else upon the world? Was that what Ada was implying?

"Something is wrong, very wrong," she said, dropping her chin, covering her head with her hands. "I felt it the instant that door shut. Our world rattled, it shook; a sort of earthquake that only myself and my Guides could detect, since we are not really of this world. I never hid this from you, but until now... well, I didn't know how to explain it. But Amy could, because Amy, and other ghosts in Limbo, they felt it too."

"An earthquake?" Avery's eyelashes batted too fast and he grew dizzy at the flickering image of Ada in front of him. Like an old black-and-white movie, flashing and flashing, getting to the end of the film roll. "Those can happen in other dimensions? In Limbo?"

Ada shrugged. "Anything can happen in any dimension. They have their own sets of rules. Limbo mirrors our world, but it's empty, with no living souls. It looks like this place, but dark, dreary."

"I guess that makes sense. The demon world was," Avery flinched, "a sepia-toned wasteland."

"Limbo is a human wasteland, yes. But otherwise, it's more or less the same as this realm." Ada clasped her hands under her chin, lifting it up. "And if specters are feeling abnormal energy down there, ominous occurrences that usually don't happen... something is wrong, very wrong."

"Yeah, you mentioned that part." Avery's knees were weak, and he bent down to massage them. "But what do you want me to do about it? You're asking me to stay—why? What could I possibly do to help you this time? I'm only a human."

"Yes," Ada elevated herself, towering over Avery, "and I have a sinister feeling that we'll need a human in all this. And you," she pointed down at Avery, her fingertip inches from his head as he straightened up, "are the only one I have."

A whoosh of cold air swept through the clearance, knocking Avery back, and forcing Ada to lower herself closer to the ground. A pop sound echoed, and a blue being appeared at Ada's side, out of nowhere.

Avery gasped, falling into a fighting stance, fists raised as if to punch the new arrival. Ada remained unfazed, despite the surprise drawing over her face.

"Yes?" She stared at the being, whose silhouette progressively took on that of a bearded man, eerily reminiscent of Jamie.

"Ada? Are you Ada?" The voice was higher-pitched than Jamie's, breaking off any ideas that Avery might have had about Jamie becoming a Guide.

No, he'd never accept that, not after what we went through.

"I am." Ada looked the blue man up and down and set her hands on her hips. "And you are?"

"From the Arizona portal," he bowed his head, "and I don't have much time."

"Arizona?" Avery fixed on the individual, narrowing his gaze. "You flew here?"

"He's a manifestation," said Ada, not looking at Avery, but addressing him. "This is a communication, like what I did with our ghost portal, with Jamie's help. Let him speak."

The being nodded in thanks, then cleared his throat. "A message was relayed to my portal, from the east coast of the United States. It's been traveling from state to state, and it's urgent." He paused, and Ada urged him to continue. "From what we understand, there are portals opening across the world."

"Portals?" Avery gulped.

"Portals, yes." The blue man grimaced. "Portals that shouldn't be opened, ever."

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