Dirt clouds my nose with a rich, earthy scent. I open my eyes to dark spindly branches forming a spiderweb-like canopy overhead. They spin round and round, spin like the dizzy thoughts in my mind. Pain throbs in my temples.

W-where am I?

I push myself upright, despite the pain throbbing in my sides and arms, propping myself up on my elbows. Slowly my eyes take in the scene around me, while horror slowly fills me more and more.

Why am I in a forest? How did I get here?

Images flash through my mind. My parents. My home. My shoulders start to shake, and I draw my knees in to my chest, tears leaking down my cheeks.

What on Earth happened?

I tilt my head downward about to burry my face in my hands. That's when I see my skin. It's covered in dirt and dark red splotches. My gaze travels along the red streaks on my arms to my hands, where the red forms large mosaics on my knuckles. I open my palms. Only a few patches of skin remain visible. The rest is dark, dried patches of rusted red.

Blood. It has to be.

I clench my fingers together, moving my hands to the ground to support me. Another pang of pain shoots through them when I do so.

Why am I covered in blood and dirt?

There's a crackle nearby. My gaze whips to the side, scanning the dark trees. I fumble around me for a weapon of some kind, but draw up short.

A silhouette appears amidst the trees. The moonlight glows just to the side of where they approach, cloaking the figure in shadow.

This must be the end.

"Are you alright?" a voice calls.

I clamp my jaw shut. The voice doesn't sound unfriendly, but isn't that how it always goes?

"Leave her. We have to go before Her Ladyship finds us," a higher-pitched voice counters.

"We need to make sure she's alright."

I scoff in spite of myself. I've been dropped into a random forest in the middle of nowhere. Of course I'm not alright.

Two silhouettes emerge from the trees. In the moonlight, I squint up at a boy and a girl.

The boy crouches down so that he's eye level, though he does not come closer.

"Hello. Are you feeling alright? Any dizziness? Pain?"

"I..." It would be a yes to all three, but I'm not sure I should be telling him that information.

"I'm Oliver," he says. "This is Sophronia."

"Oliver," Sophronia grits out. "We have to go. Now."

The girls fingers twitch impatiently around the candelabra, which she has her arms wrapped around like a prescious artefact. Perhaps it is. If I didn't know better, I'd say that some of the rusted spots on the bronze metal are from blood, rather than age.

"It only takes a moment to be kind. She probably isn't even from this world." Oliver faces me again. "What's your name?"

"I..." A name resurfaces in my mind. With the dizziness in my head, I can't even tell if it's mine. I blurt it out anyway. Who cares if it isn't? I'm still unsure if they are trustworthy, though the adrenaline does seem to be slowly waning from my veins. "Jade."

"Nice to meet you, Jade. Where are you from?"

Oh no. He's not getting my personal information that easily.

"Earth," I say sarcastically.

Oliver shoots Sophronia a worried glance. The fact that she seems to hesitate as well sends a fresh wave of fear through me.

"You're a long way from home then. How did you get here?" Oliver shakes his head. "Nevermind."

"I can't remember."

Oliver nods. "Yeah, I realized as soon as I said it."

"Hold on." My brow creases. "How could you possibly know?"

Oliver and Sophronia exchange another look.

"Look, I'm stuck here, covered in dirt and blood with no recollection of what happened. The least you can do is explain anything you know that could help me."

Sophronia exhales a long breath, and with it, seems to expel the last of her reservations toward talking to me. "Fine. We can explain very quickly. Then we must get going."

"You must have been infected with the madness," Oliver says. "It's a potion Her Ladyship created, in an attempt to turn as well people in the world against each other. It's basically anarchy in all four realms."

"Four realms?" My headache worsens.

"There are four interconnected worlds. See that candelabra Sophronia is holding? Those are the key to traveling between them. When you want to travel to another realm, you must light the candelabra. When you want to go back, you blow out the flame and the smoke carries you back to your original realm."

"So I got here through a candelabra?"

"You must have. Now, Her Ladyship, every year on the night of the orange moon, sends out people she has kidnapped and placed under her influence to distribute pastries to the people of the four realms. When they consume the tainted food, it's every person for themselves. Everyone is killing everyone."

"And when the survivors wake up, no one has any memory of what they did," Sophronia adds.

"Why on Earth would this 'Her Ladyship' do this?" I exclaim.

"She needs people dead," Sophronia says flatly. My eyes widen.

"Sophronia!" Oliver says.

"It's true. She's trying to combine all four realms into one, so that she can be the sole ruler of all."

"But she's killing off all her subjects," I say, horrified.

"There's a prophecy," Oliver explains. "'When the sky is burnt and the streets are bathed in blood the worlds will meld into one.' That's why she keeps doing this every year, on the night of the orange moon. Every year, she performs the same rite, which fails. And so the next year, she expands her reach. More bakers passing out tainted baked goods. More people being infected. More deaths." Oliver shakes his head. "This year has been by far the worst for bloodshed. There's a chance she may actually succeed."

"But we're not going to let her," Sophronia jumps in. "There are four main candelabras, each one specific to each of the four realms. We have one. Her Ladyship has the other three. She needs all four in order to perform the rite. But we're going to destroy this one so that she fails, which is why we really must get going."

Oliver glances back at me. "But we can't just leave her here. She's likely to be killed."

Sophronia sighs. I can see the war on her face. Does she allow another innocent life to be lost?

"I can help you," I say. I shrink back the moment I say it. "I mean, I'll try to. And I certainly won't get in your way."

Sophronia sighs. "How fast can you run?"

"As fast as I need to."

"Come on." She rolls her eyes, though beneath her annoyance, I can't help but detect a fragment of relief.

I wish I could keep my promise to Sophronia, to run as fast as needed. But my pace lags behind the others, exhaustion weighing down my limbs. Who knows the last time I had eaten.

Our footsteps patter against the leaves in a steady crunch, crunch, crunch. But after several minutes have passed, the sound of leaves seems to grow louder.

We aren't the only ones in these woods.

Oliver glances around with panicked eyes. "This way!" He drifts to the left, ducking through a narrow gap between a cluster of tree trunks. I slow the slightest bit to navigate the space without running into anything. I end up in a slight clearing, where Oliver and Sophronia have stopped.

Shoot.

A line of guards stand opposite us, with spears leveled at our hearts. In the center, a woman stands in a dark purple robe that shrouds a long velvet black gown underneath.

She steps forward, each movement measured, her blue eyes cold enough to freeze us in place.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't my disappointment son and daughter, once against foolishly thinking they can undermine me. Are you so desperate to return to the dungeons so soon? You needed only to ask."

My gaze drifts to Sophronia and Oliver against my will. Now that my dizziness has subsided, I can see the resemblance between them, their light brown hair and blue eyes that could resemble their mother's if they decayed into malice.

The Queen stops in front of me. I swallow and tentatively lift my eyes to meet hers. A slow smile spreads on her face.

"What do we have here? One of my vendors?" She tsks, though her voice is soft. "You weren't supposed to eat the pastries, my sweet."

Her face transforms into steel, and her hand darts forward, gripping my chin. Long fingernails bite into my skin until blood wells to the surface.

She wrenches me forward so that my face is inches from hers.

"I needed every vendor distributing the pastries. A few good customers got away, when I needed every under my spell." She shoves me backward, nails ripping free from my jaw. I whimper in pain while red droplets fall to the forest floor.

"Prepare the decagon," her Ladyship commands. "We don't have any more time to waste. The orange moons are at their brightest in the other realms. And soon, we will all be united under the same one." She spins around, her cape fanning around her. "As for you three, bind them. I want them to witness their failure before they die."