Eliza grimaced but didn’t argue. Since they were going to relocate to Eliza’s house anyways, they all left the motel shortly after. They piled into Mallory’s car for the drive. As they pulled into the driveway, Eliza turned to look at the three of them pressed into the backseat. “I’m not sure how I’m going to explain this to my parents,” she said, looking mildly distressed.

“The best part is you won’t have to,” Sampson said, flashing an impish grin as he vanished.

Samanda laughed at the expression on Eliza’s face. She met Mallory’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Sorry for scaring you the other day,” she said. “You’re fast on your feet for a mortal.” And she disappeared as well.

Isaac sat in the middle of the backseat, smiling warmly at Eliza. “We’ll do our best to respect your privacy, and won’t enter your home unless you invite us or unless we think you’re in danger. If you need me, open your window and say my name. I’ll be there in a heartbeat.” And then he disappeared as well. Eliza was still twisted in her seat, her lips thinned as she stared at the now empty back seat.

“Do you want me to stay the night again?” Mallory offered.

Eliza sighed. “No, I suppose I’m safer than I have been all summer.” She turned to face Mallory and smiled, lowering her voice. “I’m glad they’re not bad after all.”

Mallory wasn’t sure that she felt like they weren’t bad, but they at least seemed a hell of a lot less threatening than they had the previous day. “Me too.”

Eliza leaned forward and whispered, “He took me to the moon and kissed me.”

“Oh? Way to go, Isaac,” Mallory grinned, but inwardly she was a little shocked. Even despite what they had said about the properties of their alternate dimension, she hadn’t thought that they could travel off world. For a moment, she jealously wondered what the Earth looked like from space, in person – even with the color leached, she felt that it must have been an amazing sight. Perhaps she should have let Sampson pull them along after all. Eliza grinned and reached for the car door handle. “Hey, Eliza,” Mallory said as she started to exit the vehicle. Eliza paused, glancing back at her. “I know you’re in good hands. But be careful.”

Eliza smiled reassuringly at her and nodded. Mallory watched as she went into the house, practically bouncing up the front steps to her door. Mallory wondered how long she’d wait before calling for Isaac from the window.

With a sigh, Mallory backed out of the driveway and drove back home.

Samanda chuckled. “Our society has been a little separated from yours. Modern mortals and their lives are a bit of a mystery, so this has been an indulgence.”

Mallory sighed. Imagine enrolling in high school for fun. Where did they live that they were so out of touch with “modern mortals?” Mallory didn’t want to touch that line of questioning yet, so she went with something much more mundane. “Are the two of you twins or not?” she asked the Sams.

“Not,” they replied in unison.

Sampson grinned at Mallory’s doubting expression. “We’re very close in age, and come from the same… I suppose you’d say tribe? But we’re not family. She’s only about a week older than I am. We’ve spent our entire lives being raised together, for one mission.” He nodded toward Isaac. Samanda’s expression remained carefully neutral as Sampson explained.

“So what now?” Eliza asked.

“Well,” Isaac paused, considering. “We know that you’re the target of this shadow hunter, or at least that it’s very interested in you. I think instead of trying to track it down, we’ll have better luck spending our time watching you.”

“All the time?” Eliza seemed a little alarmed at the thought. Mallory didn’t blame her – they could go invisible. How closely were they planning to watch her?

“Most of the time. We can stay in greyspace and set up a parameter near your home, and we know when you go to school,” Isaac said, not entirely picking up on Eliza’s embarrassment.

“We won’t have to operate out of this dingy motel room at least,” Samanda said.

“Or drive that shitty car,” Sampson added.

“I quite like the car. It has character,” Samanda said.

Sampson groaned. “You weren’t the one driving. That thing barely functions. I was holding it together with magic.”

“If you guys are magical otherworldly beings, how were you even paying for a motel room? Or a car? Or gas?” Eliza asked.

Isaac looked a bit sheepish. “Magic,” he said simply.

“Magic?” Eliza frowned.

Sampson and Samanda exchanged an amused look. “The motel owner keeps the room open for us, acknowledges us when he sees us, and then conveniently forgets to record the room as occupied or collect payment. When we’re gone, he won’t remember us, and it will be like we were never here,” Samanda explained.

“And we just spirited away the car from some hoarder’s yard. It was packed with other vehicles. They probably don’t even know it’s gone,” Sampson said.

“As for gas, technology is a bit difficult to trick with magic. But we can always find a kind person to pay for us,” Samanda said.

“So you’re stealing?” Eliza said, very nearly clicking her tongue in distaste. Mallory grinned.

“Borrowing. Harmlessly,” Samanda said smoothly, grinning.

Isaac had been leaned in close to Eliza, speaking to her softly as the rest of them talked. He gripped her by the elbow gently, and they suddenly seemed to float, drifting just off the ground before flickering like an afterimage, a lingering trail of light indicating their absence. Mallory pointed at where they had been standing. “What the fuck?” she asked, a bit flabbergasted.

“He was demonstrating a little more of what we can do. Since we’re not bound to your dimension’s physics, traveling can be done quickly. Not instantaneous, but fast – further distances take a little longer.” Sampson reached for her again, and she pulled back slightly. He smiled and offered his hand. “If we’re quick, I can grip the trail of his magic and we can follow them.”

Mallory hesitated a moment and then shook her head. “I think they wanted to be alone.”

Sampson glanced at Samanda, looking a little agitated. “We’re not really supposed to leave him alone for long.”

Mallory frowned. “Why, are you his bodyguards or something?” Samanda raised an amused eyebrow. Mallory paused as they stared at her and then nodded, catching on. Of course. He was a prince.

The point was quickly moot as Eliza and Isaac reappeared, almost as quickly as they had disappeared. Eliza was staring directly into his eyes, looking completely enamored. “You’re not supposed to go far from us, Isaac,” Samanda said softly. He shrugged, grinning a bit sheepishly, flushing faintly. Mallory wondered for a moment what they had done in the moment they had stolen alone, and stared hard at her friend. She refused to make eye contact, but was smiling softly, obviously pleased.

Sampson patted Mallory softly on the back, and the world came back in full color. She noted that she did feel somehow heavier here as well. The others also blinked into existence into the room. “I have so many questions I don’t know where to start,” Eliza said as she settled on the edge of one of the beds.

“I’m willing to answer whatever you want to ask,” Isaac said.

“I know where I want to start,” Mallory said, still standing. Isaac glanced up at her, almost like she had been a second thought to him. He smiled accommodatingly, waiting for her question. “Why are you here? What brings a fairy prince to the middle of bumfuck nowhere?”

Isaac’s expression darkened slightly. “I was following the figure you spotted in the abandoned house. We knew it had taken up residence somewhere around here.”

“It,” Mallory quoted, frowning. “What is it? Why is it important for you to find it?”

“A shadow hunter. A golem.” Isaac glanced at Eliza briefly, but then met Mallory’s gaze levelly. “They’re usually created as assassins. The magic required to create one is significant, so whenever one is about, something bad will happen. Guaranteed.” He frowned slightly, thoughtfully studying Eliza. “I don’t know why it would be following a human so obsessively, but if you’re important in some way, we’ll have to protect you.”

Eliza shivered, shifting closer to Isaac so that their shoulders were touching. “How did you know it was here?” Mallory felt mildly jealous that she was seeking protection from Isaac instead of her. She frowned, uncertain why she felt that way.

“As I mentioned… they require a significant amount of magic to create. Back home, there is a moirai that advises our ruler…”

“Moirai?” Mallory asked.

“A… wise woman? A fate watcher. They’re creatures with a significant amount of magic imbued in their very beings, magic that allows them to see the threads of fate, the many possible futures. She sent me on this mission, and gave me this,” Isaac lifted his hand as he spoke, flashing a ring that looked like a simple silver band. “It allows me to sense when I am close to the creature.”

“So you followed it here to hunt it down. Why enroll in the school?”

Isaac flushed faintly. “Well, we could sense that it had been lingering around the school. Perhaps following your friend.”

Mallory studied his slightly embarrassed expression and realized that wasn’t entirely the case. Finally, Sampson added, “And because it seemed fun.”

“Well, that too,” Isaac admitted, the tips of his ears going red.

“School. Fun.” Mallory’s tone was completely deadpan. “Okay.”

Sampson’s hand came down suddenly on Mallory’s shoulder, and before she could react the world shifted.

The room looked very much like it had moments before, but it was as though the colors had leached out of everything. It wasn’t that color was absent altogether, but muted somehow. Less vibrant. The lines of everything appeared wavy and insubstantial, blurry. Mallory pulled away from Sampson, scowling at him for not warning her what was going to happen. She stumbled slightly and stepped through the bed.

Frowning, she looked down. The bed from the motel room was still visible, but now she was occupying the same space. She stepped away, a little perturbed. She had the strange sensation that she could feel it, sense its form and outline and presence, even as she was able to step through it. She noticed that Eliza and Isaac were both there, mostly because they were the only things present that were in full color. They appeared more vibrant than anything else around them. She could see Samanda as well, but Samanda also appeared indistinct and blurry, greyed out.  Isaac was gesturing as he spoke to Eliza, clearly pleased to have her paying such rapt attention to him. “This is what I was talking about. It’s another dimension, from which your world can be viewed, but doesn’t have to be interacted with.” To demonstrate, he reached out a hand and waved it easily through Samanda’s head. Eliza gasped, and then tentatively did the same, although she pulled her hand back quickly, likely sensing the same there-not-there feel that Mallory had experienced with the bed.

Then she turned and walked through the wall.

Seconds later, she walked back in, blushing furiously. “There is someone very naked in the next room,” she said.

Sampson laughed.

“You said it doesn’t have to be interacted with… can you interact with things back in our world? If you wanted to?” Mallory asked.

Sampson grinned and smacked Samanda in the back of the head. She scowled, and moments later her outline shifted, becoming more material, more present. “What was that for?” she grumbled at Sampson.

“A demonstration.” Sampson gestured toward the ground. “Realistically, the earth itself doesn’t have to hold you. You remain standing on the surface because you firmly believe in it, and because it is, for the most part, ever present. If you hadn’t stumbled when you stepped into the bed, you may have been able to sit on it, or stand on it. But a bed hasn’t always occupied this space, so it’s a little less… firm.” As he spoke, he allowed himself to sink slowly into the ground up to his knees. As he finished speaking, he took a step forward, placing his feet on the floor again.

Mallory nodded, contemplating. “So could I flip the blanket back on the bed?”

“It’s not impossible. But it would require a little bit of magical ability. Even slapping Samanda upside the head required a little magic.” Sampson smiled apologetically at Samanda, who stood with her arms crossed, listening to the magic lesson indifferently.

“How often do people like you pretend to be ghosts to fuck with people?”

Sampson smirked, but didn’t respond to that particularly question.