Hiss and Tell

“Secrets don’t rattle. They hiss—soft enough that you pretend you didn’t hear them the first time.”

The main street of New Norfolk unspooled ahead of us like a postcard someone kept meaning to send but never quite did. Every storefront posed in quiet tableau: the butcher leaning in mock-serious over his counter, an elderly man hunched contentedly over his flat white outside the café, a pair of teenagers loitering near the bakery as though loitering were an extracurricular. Everything moved with the measured certainty of a place that hadn’t been invited to chaos, and politely wouldn’t attend even if it had.

I eased the car to a halt at the kerb, the low hum of the engine dying away like it, too, was settling in for a nap. Beside me, Leigh leaned forward, surveying the street like someone looking for the catch. His gaze snagged on the antique store to our left.

“Is that where we’re going?” he asked, his tone walking the line between bemused and genuinely intrigued.

“No, not quite.” I let the words drawl out with just enough smugness to make it clear I was enjoying this. A little mystery was a rare luxury these days—mine to dole out as I pleased. “We’re headed to a little shop just over here,” I added, tipping my head toward a narrow gap between the laundromat and the newsagency.

It didn’t look like much. Blink and you’d miss it. Hell, stare at it and you still might. The sign above the door was sun-faded and peeling at the edges, and the window display hadn’t been curated so much as vaguely surrendered to. A single hand-painted ‘OPEN’ sign swung lazily in the breeze like it had given up on convincing anyone.

But I knew better.

Places like this never advertised what they really sold. The good stuff— the useful stuff—rarely came tagged and labelled. You had to know where to look. Or more accurately, you had to know who stocked it behind the front-facing veneer of doilies and dead-stock novelties.

I stepped out of the car, gravel grinding beneath my boots, and felt that strange little current buzz along my skin—anticipation with a side of dread. I didn’t know exactly how this meeting was going to land, but for once, the chaos hadn’t entirely picked the direction. I had. And in a week like this, that was practically a revolution.

---

Stepping into the pet shop was like slipping into an alternate dimension—one that hadn’t got the memo about the outside world imploding. It hit all the senses at once: the warm, damp air laced with the pungent tang of sawdust and pellet feed, the damp musk of fur and feather, the sugary chemical tinge of fish tanks. It wasn’t pleasant, exactly, but it was familiar. Safe in the way only a place that never changes can be.

Noise enveloped us instantly. The soft, aquatic burble of the aquarium filters played counterpoint to the erratic chorus of mewling, chirping, and excited barking. The place had a pulse all its own—wild and messy, but alive.

The aisles were tight, flanked by stacked cages and tanks, each a tiny, self-contained universe. Cats watched from their shelves like mild gods, draped in apathy and judging everything. Puppies, completely unaware of the concept of dignity, flung themselves at the gates of their pens in manic delight. Guinea pigs skittered like wind-up toys under straw, while rabbits gave us a twitch-nosed once-over like they were weighing our intentions. And in the far corner, past the general cacophony, the aquariums cast their strange, aquatic hush—tanks glowing like portals, fish darting through ribbons of weed like they knew something we didn’t.

I paused and breathed it in—the scent, the static of motion, the strange calm of it. This place had always been a kind of anchor. It didn’t ask anything of me except to remember what aisle the lizard pellets were in.

Then, breaking through the ambient noise came the voice I’d been waiting for.

“Beatrix, I haven’t seen you here for a while.”

Johnny’s tone was its usual brand of mild amusement, pitched somewhere between warm familiarity and ‘I’ve probably clocked what you’re up to but won’t say it aloud.’ I heard the soft rustle of his apron before I turned to face him.

“I know, I’ve been busy,” I said, offering him a smile that tried not to look too weighted. It wasn’t the carefree kind—it was quieter, thinner, but real. It said, Yes, things have gone sideways, without dragging him through the specifics.

“But I needed to pick up a few things for my reptiles, so I figured I’d stop by.”

There. The code word. Neatly dropped in like an afterthought. ‘Reptiles’—our not-so-secret signal for not-quite-legal—related errands. Not the kind that came in plastic tubs or needed heating lamps.

Johnny didn’t miss a beat. His gaze flicked over to Leigh with the briefest flare of calculation—cataloguing, assessing—and then slid back to me with a barely-there nod.

“Ah, of course,” he said, calm and casual, but the phrasing landed with intention. “You’re wanting to see the other stuff?”

It was phrased like a question, but it wasn’t. It was a door being opened—figuratively and, in a moment, literally.

He tilted his head toward the back, where a nondescript door blended almost seamlessly into the wall, dull grey paint disguising its purpose. No signage. Just quiet intent.

“Please,” I replied, voice steady, though my heart had picked up pace—each beat echoing with the weight of necessity. Our eyes met for a beat too long, the way people do when they’re saying something they don’t want on record. Thank you. This matters. You still trust me.

Johnny didn’t say anything further. He didn’t need to. He simply turned, and the door creaked open on its hinges, revealing the next move in a game we’d both been playing for longer than either of us cared to admit.

We navigated past the final row of tanks, their aquatic residents blissfully unaware—or wilfully indifferent—to the quiet theatre of human secrecy unfolding nearby. Neon tetras zipped behind tiny, sunken castles as though caught in some elaborate court dance. A pair of turtles basked in reptilian serenity under their heat lamp, legs splayed like sunbathers with no deadlines. A parrot in a hanging cage gave a sharp tilt of its head as we passed, its beady eyes tracking us with eerie attentiveness. Of all the creatures in that shop, it was the only one that looked like it knew something. Typical.

The cheerful chaos of the storefront dimmed behind us, sound thinning until even the bubbling aquariums faded to silence. In its place came the kind of quiet that wasn’t just absence of noise—it was intentional. The quiet of places not meant to be overheard.

Johnny opened the door with a kind of careful reverence, as though he was peeling back the edge of something that might bite. The room beyond was small and low-ceilinged, a converted storeroom that had long outlived its official use. It was bare, but not empty. The walls were dull, the air cooler, and the stillness had that particular weight—the kind that settles in spaces where knowledge is hoarded like gold.

At the centre of the floor, the hatch yawned open like a held breath. The timber edges had been worn smooth, softened by repetition. A secret, well-used. The faint draft that slipped from its depths was cold and damp, tinged with concrete and the ghost of oil and earth.

I stepped closer, and the hush in the room deepened.

Turning to Johnny, I offered a single, wordless nod. It was enough. Our language didn’t need anything more—a shared understanding bound by old dealings and silent favours. He gave a faint dip of his chin in return, then stepped back.

I looked to Leigh. His gaze was fixed on the open hatch, eyes wide but steady. There was something stirring behind them—not fear exactly, but a kind of reverent wariness. The awareness that you were about to step into something real and irreversible.

I gave him a glance that said with me, and then turned to the staircase.

The steps were steep and narrow, hemmed in by close walls that made it feel more like a tunnel than a stairwell. Each tread groaned beneath our weight with a tired kind of protest, the sound rising around us like old voices that hadn’t forgotten how to disapprove. Every step down felt like a deeper investment—not just in secrecy, but in everything we’d refused to say out loud.

By the time my foot hit the concrete at the bottom, the world above felt like a distant rumour. This was the kind of space where rules warped slightly, like heat over asphalt. Where the familiar ended, and the strange began.

Leigh stayed close behind, his footsteps careful, deliberate. I could hear the shift in his breathing—quieter now, but uneven, like the anticipation in his chest hadn’t quite decided whether to thrill him or warn him off.

And still, I didn’t look back.

At the staircase's end, the subterranean room unfolded like a hidden sanctuary—unassuming, but dense with a kind of charged stillness. The air was thick with warmth, the kind that didn't just come from heat lamps, but from presence. From memory. From quiet purpose. Concrete walls bore no decoration, but the glow from terrarium bulbs softened their austerity, casting amber halos across surfaces and breathing life into shadows. It smelled of warm terrarium moss and sun-baked sand—earthy, dry, comforting. A scent that belonged to another version of myself, tucked in the folds of nights spent beneath fluorescent glow, chasing things no one else believed in.

And there he was—Jarod.

Standing at the centre like he’d never left. Or perhaps like he’d never stopped waiting.

But it was Maggie who caught my eye first—draped across his shoulders with the kind of elegant indifference only a serpent could master. Her scales shimmered like old coins in the terrarium light—emerald and copper, alive and ancient. She shifted slightly, a languid ripple down her spine that caught the glow in delicate waves.

"Maggie!" The word tumbled out before I could temper it. Sharp with fondness. It startled me, that sound—so raw, so unguarded.

I moved without thinking, pulled forward by instinct. My hand lifted, fingers brushing across her flank. The contact sent a shiver up my arm—not from fear, but recognition. Her body was cool beneath my touch, her texture like river stones: smooth, dry, weighty with something old and unspoken. The world narrowed to the cadence of her breathing, the measured flick of her tongue in the air. She remembered me. I felt it in the pause, in the way she didn’t retreat.

The ache of it—the familiarity, the steadiness of her—was almost enough to undo me.

"Hey, Beatrix."

Jarod’s voice broke through like the scrape of gravel against silence—wry and unmistakable. He didn’t need to be seen to be felt. The grin wrapped around his words even before I looked at him properly.

"Glad you could finally show up."

I winced, because of course he’d say that. Of course he’d poke the bruise just enough to make me feel it. "Sorry I'm late," I said, trying to make it sound like more than it was. I pushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear—a useless gesture I never seemed to outgrow. “I had to finish up a job before I could come.” Vague. Clean. An excuse that wouldn’t unravel if tugged. Because how exactly was I meant to explain the last twenty-four hours? I couldn’t even explain them to myself yet.

He shrugged, easy as ever. That was the thing about Jarod—nothing ever stuck to him. Trouble slid right off, like rain on wax. “No problem,” he said, sweeping a hand toward the room like a man welcoming someone back into a life she’d fled. “We’ve got all the time in the world down here.”

A beat passed.

The moment should’ve dissipated—but it didn’t. It lingered, suspended in the filtered glow, as if the air was waiting too.

Then he looked at me properly. His tone shifted—not harsh, but edged. The teasing pulled back just enough to let something sharper through. “So, you’ve changed your mind about us working together again?”

There it was. Dangled like bait—or a challenge.

My pulse ticked in my neck, slow and deliberate. Of course he’d ask. And of course he’d wait for me to flinch.

It was a simple question, and yet everything in it was complicated. History clung to it. Guilt, too. Not just for what happened between us, but for everything I hadn’t managed to fix. Everything I’d walked away from.

My mind spun—through the casino debacle, through Leigh’s wide eyes and Paul’s uncertainty, through shadow panthers and settlers.

His voice was casual. But we both knew it wasn’t small talk.

I met his gaze. Held it. And let the silence stretch—not to buy time, but to let the answer gather weight. Because it would. It already had.

Introducing Leigh to Jarod felt like threading a needle between two distinctly incompatible fibres—one stitched with recklessness, adrenaline, and half-shared secrets; the other newer, frayed at the edges, still finding its shape in the weighty role of Guardian. It wasn’t just two people meeting. It was two timelines colliding. Two versions of me brushing shoulders. And it made my skin feel too tight.

"I wanted to introduce Leigh to you properly," I said. There was no neat category to slot Leigh into—no tidy label to hand over. "You remember him from the casino the other night, don't you?” I gestured toward him—not theatrical, not casual. Just deliberate. A subtle placing of him in our shared field of view. This one matters. That was the subtext.

"Yeah, I remember," Jarod replied. His tone was steady, clipped—but not unkind. Just measured, like someone sharpening a knife not to use it, but to show that he could. His hand reached out, slow and steady. The handshake that followed had a stiffness to it. Professional. Polite. But it carried an undertow. A quiet contest layered in courtesy.

The kind of thing that would go unnoticed by someone less accustomed to reading subtext. Unfortunately, that was not a skill I lacked.

Leigh, to his credit, didn’t flinch. His grip was solid. But I saw it—a flicker. Barely there. A sliver of caution tucked into the corner of his expression before he smoothed it over.

His gaze moved around the basement, eyes flicking between enclosures and shadows, noting every strange glint of glass, every reptilian blink. His curiosity was real, but it was guarded—like a tourist in an unfamiliar temple, respectful but alert to the fact that he didn’t yet know the rules.

"So, what do you have down here?" Leigh asked, his voice light but edged with genuine interest, threaded through with the kind of wariness people save for dark corners and strange rituals.

Jarod, naturally, couldn’t resist. “Oh, all sorts of things,” he replied, a sly grin colouring the words. He threw in a wink—because of course he did—and leaned back into the theatrics like he was hosting a late-night talk show. "You never know what you might find in the secret basement of a pet shop."

I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself. It was reflex at this point. Like breathing. The part of me that had spent too many hours picking locks and dodging alarms with him was alive and well, and she was already exasperated.

But under the veneer of familiar banter, something heavier stirred.

The room was a theatre, yes—but the play had changed. The audience had changed. And the stakes were no longer measured in stolen goods or clever schemes. Now, there were settlers, shadow creatures, and a world full of danger hanging off every decision we made.

The air felt thick. Not tense, exactly. But weighted. Like the moment before a storm, when the pressure in your chest tells you what the sky hasn’t yet revealed.

No more half-steps. No more polite introductions or masked intentions.

There were things to be said. And I could feel them rising.

"Jarod, we need to talk to you about something of the utmost importance," I said, my voice shifting—losing its earlier warmth, gaining an edge that made the air feel sharper. Even to my own ears, it sounded like the door had clicked shut on something easier, something safer.

The effect on Jarod was instant. A flicker—not fear exactly, but alertness—passed through his eyes. His posture shifted subtly, the slouch in his shoulders straightening by degrees, the smirk dissolving into something closer to scrutiny. He took a single step forward, a predator scenting the wind for change. "What is it?" he asked, and this time there was no drawl, no performance. Just curiosity. Taut. Unblinking.

Beside me, Leigh hesitated just long enough to catch my eye—searching for something in my expression. Permission? Encouragement? An exit strategy?

But it was already too late. The moment had peeled itself open, and the truth had decided it wanted out. His voice rose into it, crisp with adrenaline and sincerity. "Beatrix and I are Guardians."

The words clanged against the walls—loud despite the even tone—and for a second, the room just held its breath.

Jarod blinked.

And then, of course, he laughed.

Short, sharp, disbelieving. The sound pinged off the concrete like a coin tossed in an empty well. "Come again?" he said, eyebrow rising with theatrical incredulity. As though Leigh had just announced we'd joined a travelling cabaret and were about to perform a juggling duet.

I didn’t flinch. Just watched him, closely, the way you might watch someone staring at a cliff’s edge without realising there’s nothing beneath their feet.

Because this wasn’t a joke.

And the time for clever remarks and evasions had run out.

Leigh opened his mouth to speak again—too eager, too soon—and I stepped in, cutting across his good intentions before he got tangled in his own honesty. Jarod needed to be guided. Not steamrolled.

"Do you know why you were released from police custody so easily?" I asked, calm, even. A deliberate recalibration. If Leigh’s approach was fire, mine would be ice.

Jarod’s hand moved up—unthinking—to the cut above his brow. His fingers skimmed the bruised skin, and I watched the flicker darken in his gaze, like storm clouds gathering at the edge of memory.

"I wouldn't say it was that easy," he muttered, and there it was—the crack in the veneer. The shadow beneath the smirk. His voice held the scrape of fluorescent lights and stale breath and too-tight cuffs. I could hear it. I could feel it.

And with it, the heat inside me surged. Graeme’s name surfaced like a bad taste, dragging with it the memory of his leering smile, the weight of his hand on my arm, the cold metal of control masquerading as protocol. He hadn’t just overstepped. He’d relished it. And I hadn’t forgotten.

Jarod’s voice found shape again. Sharper now. "I was told they had made an error of judgment and that all charges had been dropped."

I stepped forward. This was the moment. The door cracking open.

"They were going to bring you down, Jarod, but Leigh put a stop to it. He has—"

Leigh’s glance snapped toward me. Swift. Sharp. Not hostile, but firm. A wordless warning. Enough.

My words faltered mid-air. The rest of the sentence curled back into my throat and stayed there, bitter and unfinished. His eyes—usually reserved, composed—held a new edge now. Not fear. Not anger. But something heavier. Caution laced with weight I didn’t yet understand.

So I swallowed the rest.

Because this wasn’t just about telling the truth anymore.

It was about how much of it the room could handle.

"Beatrix," he said softly, and though the word was little more than breath, it landed like a hand at my elbow. A gentle restraint. A warning.

I met his gaze. That careful tension behind his eyes. Leigh wasn’t chastising me—he was reminding me that truth, in the wrong shape, becomes a weapon. And we were trying not to wound.

I drew a slow breath in through my nose, cooling the edge of my frustration. He was right, of course. We couldn’t throw it all at Jarod like a confession scrawled on the back of a serviette. Not when the world we were describing had no map, no logic. Not when belief had to be coaxed like a skittish animal.

Still, silence wasn’t an option either.

I turned back to Jarod and lowered my voice, letting it settle into something stripped-back and unvarnished. "It's okay," I said, nodding slightly towards Leigh, offering him my concession. "Leigh has connections in the police department. Connections that can only protect us for so long."

That did it. The faint gleam of disbelief in Jarod’s eyes dulled, replaced by something more pragmatic. His posture adjusted—shoulders squaring subtly, like someone preparing to step into an unfamiliar current. This was the version of him I knew best. Not the joker or the flirt or the provocateur. But the strategist. The risk assessor. Jarod didn’t need convincing with mysticism or metaphors—he needed data. Leverage. Stakes.

"Hang on a minute. Let's go back to this Guardian thing," he said, voice no longer dismissive, but clipped, level. His gaze moved between us with a new gravity, like he was trying to calculate the weight of what we were asking him to believe. The lightness had gone from his tone, replaced with a steadiness I hadn’t realised I’d been waiting for. He was taking us seriously. Which meant things were about to get significantly more complicated.

The air in the basement thickened—not just with dust and old heat lamp breath, but with that fragile membrane of disbelief starting to stretch. The pause held—longer than it should’ve. Jarod’s brow creased, his mouth twitching in contemplation. The room felt muffled, like we were all listening for something we couldn’t name.

And then, Maggie moved.

A sinuous ripple across Jarod’s back. Her body shifted like smoke and silk, slow, deliberate. She lifted her head—just slightly—tongue flicking once, twice, tasting the tension in the room. Her gaze found mine, unblinking. There was something ancient in her stillness, like she understood far more than any of us did.

I stepped forward before I could talk myself out of it. My arm rose automatically, muscle memory forged over years. Maggie flowed onto me with a quiet grace, her weight settling against my shoulders like a prayer. Her scales, cool and whisper-smooth, slid across my collarbone and reminded me that some things—despite everything—still made sense.

She grounded me.

She always had.

Behind me, the light above the stairs gave a single twitch. A flicker. Just enough to catch on the edge of something metallic in Leigh’s open palm.

The Portal Key.

It glinted—innocuous at first glance. But even from where I stood, I could feel the pulse of it. A frequency too low for sound. A heartbeat that didn’t belong to any of us. Its surface caught the light, smooth and unremarkable, but its hum pressed against the walls like a secret demanding to be spoken aloud.

Our proof. Our burden.

And soon, Jarod’s.

"We have devices, called Portal Keys," Leigh said, his voice carefully modulated, deliberate. He held it out just far enough for the light to catch its polished edges. The metal gleamed like something ancient and sacred, though it weighed almost nothing. It looked like it belonged in a museum—or an evidence locker. Not in the hands of two people standing in a basement beneath a pet shop, trying to convince a man that reality was far more complicated than he thought.

"An alternate reality," I added. My voice had dropped, lower and closer to breath than speech. The words weren’t for effect. They carried the gravity of lived experience. Of dunes soaked in sunlight and blood that wouldn’t scrub out. Of a small settlement clinging to hope, and a woman learning to carry the weight of other people’s lives on her shoulders.

Jarod didn’t move. His expression held steady, but something in his stance had changed—less swagger, more bracing.

Leigh shifted beside me. I felt the subtle shift in his weight, the way his fingers curled protectively around the device again, as though the truth might try to slip through the cracks of our delivery if he wasn’t careful enough. "We're not really sure what it is," he confessed, and I heard the soft thrum of discomfort in his honesty. That kind of vulnerability from Leigh always caught me off guard. He looked at me then—not for permission, but for steadiness. A pulse check. Are we okay?

We didn’t have the luxury of ambiguity.

"It doesn't really matter what it is," I said, more firmly now. My eyes locked with Jarod’s, trying to transmit not just conviction, but urgency. The kind that kept people up at night. The kind that didn't have time for disbelief.

"This is where Jamie is."

There. That landed.

Jarod flinched—but only slightly, a minute twitch in the muscles around his eyes. A crack in the mask. The mention of Jamie always did that. It was like his sarcasm had a pressure point, and Jamie’s name found it every time.

"Can he get back?" he asked.

Leigh didn’t miss a beat. “No. Anybody that passes through the Portal that isn't a Guardian becomes trapped in that new world forever.”

I stepped into the silence. Anchoring it. Giving it context. "Clivilius." The name emerged like a spell—or a warning. "The world is called Clivilius."

The air itself seemed to brace as Leigh extended the Portal Key towards Jarod. His arm was steady, his face set in that quiet, intent way he had when he knew he was asking for something big.

"Beatrix and Jamie could really use your help," Leigh said. He held out the device like an offering. A tiny object that held within it something vast. "We want you to take this device and become a Guardian like us."

Silence again—but this time it wasn’t blank. It was crowded. Tense with the weight of the decision hovering in front of us like a drawn bow.

Jarod’s laugh came, abrupt and dissonant. It wasn’t cruel—but it didn’t belong. It was disbelief wrapped in a thin veil of humour, and it unravelled fast. His face twisted into something uncertain, something almost sympathetic.

"You've both lost your minds," he said. Not mockery. Worry. I could hear it. For me. For both of us.

The words struck harder than I expected. Maybe because I knew they weren’t unfair.

But I couldn’t let them stand. Not now.

"It's true," I said, and though my voice was quiet, it held. A thread of steel through silk. "We need all the help we can get."

Jarod's brow furrowed again, the groove deepening between his eyes. His hands flexed unconsciously at his sides before curling into loose fists. He paced—a tight loop, like he was trying to shake off the impossible.

"I see," he said eventually. The words clipped, shaped by hesitation. Then, his gaze pinned me again. Direct. Personal. "Look, Beatrix, you know that I'll do anything I can to help you, but this all sounds so unbelievable. How can I trust that this is true?"

I didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. I just met his eyes and stood in it. "I know it's hard to believe," I said, remembering vividly the night Leigh first told me. My doubt. My fury. "I was just as skeptical the first time I heard about Clivilius, Guardians, and Portal Keys. But it really is all true."

His expression shifted, tightening around the edges. The tension coiled up in his body now had nowhere to go. Not until we broke it.

"Okay, prove it," he said.

Arms crossed. Jaw set. Not cruel—just bracing himself against the idea that he might actually start to believe us.

And that, maybe, terrified him more than anything.

I reached into my pocket, fingers seeking the familiar anchor of cool metal nestled against fabric. The Portal Key met my touch—solid, unassuming, but charged with a kind of quiet consequence. It was strange, how something so small could contain an entire world’s worth of weight.

Drawing it out, I extended it toward Jarod, the dull light catching on its smooth edges, making it shimmer faintly in the half-dark. It looked out of place here—like a relic from a future not yet written. A glimmer of the surreal against the rust-stained concrete and reptile heat.

"This is my Portal Key," I said, letting the words settle like dust on old stone. "There are five in total for every Guardian group, and they are the only way to open the Portal."

I held it there—between us. Not just proof. Not just an object. It was a question. A plea. A line drawn in the sand between disbelief and decision.

Jarod didn’t reach for it. His eyes, narrowed, stayed fixed on the Portal Key, but his body gave nothing away. I watched the familiar micro-movements in his face—the twitch at his temple, the minute shift in his jaw, the subtle inhale he probably didn’t realise he’d taken. Beneath all that cool detachment was something raw. Not awe. Not yet. But something closer to wariness. Or betrayal’s quieter cousin—hurt.

"How do I know I can trust you?" he asked.

The question landed with more force than it had any right to. Quiet, yes, but razor-edged. He hadn’t raised his voice. He didn’t need to. The damage came from implication alone.

I froze.

Not outwardly—but inside, something cinched tight. The breath caught in my chest. I hadn’t expected that from him. From anyone else, maybe—but not Jarod.

After everything?

All the wild nights, the half-baked plans pulled off with stubborn luck and sheer audacity? All the secrets passed in the backseat of moving cars, whispered confessions behind locked doors, our lives stitched together by survival and some strange, unspoken loyalty?

"You have to trust your instincts, Jarod," I said, trying to keep the words from fraying at the edges. But the tremor in my voice wasn’t entirely contained. Wounded pride had a way of surfacing, even when you tried to drown it. "I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise you it’s all real. And anyway, since when have you ever doubted trusting me before?"

There was a beat.

His gaze drifted, unfocused for a moment, like he was watching something only he could see. Then came the chin rub—the tell he didn’t realise was a tell. Jarod, when the thinking went deeper than he'd admit. I’d seen it too many times to miss it now.

A shared flicker passed between us. A memory, maybe. Something just outside the present moment, brushing past like a shadow slipping through the door.

"I suppose that’s true," he murmured. The corners of his mouth twitched, reluctant and unmistakably Jarod. "And we’ve done some pretty crazy shit before."

The laugh that burst from me wasn’t planned. It cracked out, real and immediate, before I could think to catch it. A short, sharp breath of something like relief. It wasn’t everything—but it was a crack in the armour.

"Exactly!" I leaned in, riding the sudden slipstream of remembered chaos, heart lifting just enough to catch a beat of hope. "Just think of this as another one of those times."

But I knew—even as I said it—that this wasn’t one of those times. Not really. This wasn’t a casino heist or a snake smuggling job gone sideways.

This was Clivilius. This was life and death. Portals and power. Burdens we hadn't even begun to understand.

But if he was going to come with us... I needed him to believe in it the way we used to believe in each other. With the kind of reckless trust that had always gotten us through.

I gave Leigh a nod—small, deliberate, laced with more than it seemed. He caught it instantly. No questions, no fanfare. Just the slight shift of his weight.

There was something reverent in the way he held his Portal Key—no flourish, no drama, just a quiet understanding of what this object could do. What it had already done. The air changed the moment he activated it. Thickened. Densified. Like the room had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.

Then came the light.

A sudden eruption of colour—violent in its beauty, blinding in its precision. Not just bright, but alive. The sort of brilliance that bypasses your eyes and goes straight for your bones. The cabinet beside us, dull and water-stained moments ago, was now drenched in colour so vivid it felt unholy. Amber bled into sapphire. Emerald writhed through ribbons of indigo that pulsed like veins, each hue moving as if stirred by soundless music.

It was like staring into something sacred. Something you weren't supposed to see and could never unsee.

"Shit," Jarod muttered, not like a curse—more like a confession. The word slipped from him without thought, breathless and raw. He stepped forward, instinctively, like something magnetic had taken hold of his spine. Eyes wide. Shoulders slack. The part of him that usually cracked jokes and cocked his head with dry sarcasm? Gone.

I watched him, watched awe take root. "It’s incredible, isn’t it?" I said, voice low, reverent. Not because I needed him to be impressed—but because I knew he already was. You don’t look at a heartbeat and call it a trick of the light.

"The Portal is a gateway to other worlds," I continued, keeping my words steady. Truth tethered in wonder. "And the Portal Keys are the only way to access it. Each one is linked to a Guardian—like a fingerprint. Leigh can’t use mine, and I can’t use his."

Jarod didn’t speak. He just stood there, bathed in that impossible light, his face lit in streaks of colour like someone mid-baptism. The look in his eyes wasn’t just belief forming—it was surrender. The kind of surrender that comes when the world shifts beneath your feet and doesn’t ask for permission.

Then Leigh stepped through.

It happened so seamlessly it felt like a trick of the eye—like he’d slipped between frames in a film. One second he was beside us, solid, breathing. The next… gone. Swallowed by light. As if the cabinet wasn’t wood and metal anymore but a mouth.

The Portal sealed shut with a soundless pull of air. A silence so final it echoed.

"Holy shit," Jarod whispered. This time, reverence folded into disbelief. "He just walked through the side of a fucking cabinet."

"Well, technically he’s now in Clivilius," I said, voice calm but threaded with something quieter—almost tender. There was awe in me too, still. Even now. Even after all we’d lost to that place. Even knowing how much more it would ask.

Jarod didn’t reply. His gaze was locked on the cabinet, like he was waiting for it to breathe again. His hands flexed slightly, the tension in them betraying how close he was to reaching out. To touching the thing he’d just watched swallow a man whole.

I saw it then—the crack beginning to form.

Not in him, exactly. But in the scaffolding. The mental construct he’d built to keep the impossible at arm’s length. It was splintering now, bit by bit, the way glass bends under heat before it finally gives.

And in that thick, humming silence, I remembered my own first time. The colours. The light. The certainty that nothing would ever be the same again.

Jarod was standing on the edge of that moment now.

Not falling. Not yet.

But the wind was shifting.

Then, just as suddenly, the cabinet came alive once more—its surface splitting open in a wash of iridescent brilliance, as though reality had momentarily forgotten to behave itself. The light flared, fluid and vivid, and then there Leigh was: stepping out like it was the most ordinary thing in the world, like he hadn’t just broken every known law of physics. No dramatic flourish, no grand gesture. Just Leigh, casually re-entering our reality as though he'd gone to fetch a snack from the next room.

But the air still shimmered behind him, refusing to let the moment pass unnoticed. That glow—it didn’t just illuminate the room. It whispered. Promised. Dared.

"That's fucking insane," Jarod muttered, barely containing the awe fizzing beneath his words. I saw the way he leaned in, like gravity had shifted around the Portal and he was no longer entirely tethered to this side of the threshold. The pull of the unknown had him by the collar now.

The Portal folded in on itself with a quiet finality, the cabinet reverting to its unremarkable state so quickly it was almost insulting. The magic was gone, tucked neatly back into its hiding place, leaving behind only the smell of warm dust and the echo of what we’d just seen.

"So, are you in?" Leigh asked. His voice wasn’t pushy, just precise—cutting through the spell Jarod was still wrapped in.

There it was. The question that carried every implication. Not just about belief, but allegiance. Identity. Risk.

And I saw it—the flicker in Jarod’s expression. A light catching in his eyes, the twitch of his mouth. That particular brand of mischief that used to land us in trouble we didn’t have time to regret. I knew that look. I’d spent years trying to keep up with it. And for a brief, shining moment, my chest lifted with something dangerously close to hope.

"Come on, Jarod. You know we make a great team," I said, stepping in, letting my voice dip—gentle, coaxing, but not pleading. He hated pleading. "Imagine what you could do with power like this." I didn’t mean magic, not really. I meant purpose. A place in something that mattered. A chance to put the sharp edge of his chaos to good use.

He looked at me, held my gaze. The smirk stayed, but it didn’t reach his eyes the way it used to. There was a weight there now. Something measured. Something real.

“I need some time to let it sink in and consider,” he said finally, the words calm but careful. “And I have a few loose ends I need to tie up before I can fully commit to anything.”

His voice wasn’t flippant—it was honest. And maybe that’s what made it land heavier than I expected. There was no mockery in it, no veiled jab. Just truth. He was caught between the person I’d once run scams with and the man who’d just watched the rules of the universe bend in front of him.

Leigh nodded, the kind of nod that didn’t demand anything in return. “That’s a reasonable request,” he said, and the gravity in his voice surprised even me. “Take all the time you need to think things through. We’ll be here when you’re ready.”

I crossed my arms—not defensively, not dismissively. Just to keep something in. The pull to grab Jarod by the sleeve and drag him across that invisible line was strong, almost physical. But I didn’t.

So I just gave a nod. Measured. Unassuming. Letting the silence between us say what I couldn’t.

The Portal had cracked open a new world. A new war. And he’d glimpsed it.

Now, the choice was his.

The room stilled, the air dense with crossroads and half-made decisions. Possibility hung heavy, but I didn’t fill the silence. For once, I let it breathe.

The shift in conversation—from awe-inspiring Portals and Guardian revelations to the mundane yet urgent matter of finances—was jarring. Like plunging your hand into icy water after drifting through a dream. The snap back to reality was sharp, grounding. But necessary. The caravan mission Paul had entrusted to me hadn’t stopped looming just because my worldview had shifted—it was still there, pressing against my conscience like a stone in a shoe. Constant. Irritating. Unignorable.

"In the meantime, I need to borrow some of your cash," I said, my voice pared back to its practical bones. No ornamentation, no apologies. We were back in the realm of favours and necessity. Deals made in the shadow of something larger.

Jarod didn’t flinch. Didn’t raise an eyebrow or ask for details. And gods, the sheer relief of that—of not having to explain myself, justify every desperate pivot—was more comforting than I’d admit aloud.

"I'll pay you back as soon as I can." The words came too fast, half-shaped before they reached my lips. A habit more than a promise. But as they hung in the air, they pricked at something inside me. Because truthfully? I didn’t know when I could repay him. Or even if I ever would. The world we were building wasn’t one where debts could be tracked with tidy ledgers and IOUs. Still, I offered the line like a handrail—something to grip onto, even if it wobbled.

He nodded once. No fanfare. No conditions. Then moved with the kind of casual efficiency you only earn through living close to the line. The safe was hidden behind a clutter of half-forgotten terrarium supplies—boxes of outdated flea treatments, dusty tubs of mealworms, and one impressively sun-bleached iguana lamp. It was so mundane it almost went unnoticed. Typical Jarod. Hide the important stuff where no one’s actually looking.

The click of the lock disengaging cut through the stillness like the slow exhale of a secret being let out.

"Take what you need," he said, handing over the folded stack without ceremony. No lecture. No guilt-trip. Just an offering—quiet and deliberate. But beneath it, I felt the weight of something more. Not just generosity. Not even loyalty. It was investment. Not into a plan. Into me.

I pocketed the money, but it sat heavy. Not from its bulk, but from what it represented. These notes would buy more than fuel or tarps or spare batteries. They’d buy time. Options. The brief, brittle illusion of control. And in this life—our life—that was a currency rarer than gold.

"Do you need some too, Leigh?" Jarod asked, the question light, almost joking, but I caught the shadow in his eyes. Testing. Feeling out the shape of the other man in the room, still gauging whether he was ally or wildcard.

Leigh blinked, momentarily wrong-footed. "If you're going to be handing it out like that, sure," he said, recovering with a lopsided grin that didn’t quite hit its mark. Too smooth. Too easy.

I stared at him. Hard.

It was instinctive. Reflexive. The tension uncoiling in me wasn’t just about the money—it was the familiarity he stepped into, unearned. Jarod and I had history. Baggage. Blood on our shared past. Leigh was still a newcomer. And yet here he was, slipping so easily into the inner circle, into the transaction, into the trust.

He caught the edge of my glare. Felt it. And instead of flinching or deflecting, he met it with a quiet steadiness. A shrug that said: This is how it works now. Don’t pretend you didn’t know.

"Funding our Guardian activities is a never-ending battle," he said, voice cool, unruffled. Practical, almost detached. "I've learned never to turn down an opportunity when it's presented."

I didn’t doubt that the was wrong. But that didn’t mean I liked hearing it.

His pragmatism echoed too loudly in the corners of my own mind. It scratched against something raw—because maybe, deep down, I recognised it. Recognised what I could become if I let survival and strategy run too far ahead of conscience.

I didn’t answer. Not right away. My eyes lingered on Leigh, holding longer than they should’ve. Long enough for something to pass between us—something neither of us dared put words to.

He was right. But being right wasn’t always the same as being good.

And I couldn’t help wondering: if I kept walking beside him… Would I end up stronger? Or just harder to recognise?

Maggie’s hiss sliced through the thickening quiet. Perched across my shoulders, her muscles coiled tight as cable, her eyes narrowing with that unsettling, ancient intelligence that always made her feel more oracle than animal. Her tongue flicked once, testing the air, reading whatever fault line had formed in the space between us.

Leigh froze. His hand, half-raised towards my shoulder, hung there in the limbo between comfort and intrusion. Then, slowly, with the kind of grace reserved for those who understood they’d overstepped, he let it fall back to his side. Maggie hadn't moved much, but the message had landed with certainty: Not too close.

It wasn’t an act of violence—at least, not one of hers. It was a reflection. Of me. Of what churned beneath the surface. She’d caught something I hadn’t even fully acknowledged—how tightly wound I’d become, how near the edge I still was. The dissonance between trust and doubt, loyalty and wariness. Maggie had simply mirrored it back.

"I'll leave the two of you to discuss things," Leigh said, his tone carefully balanced. Neutral, but with a thread of something else woven through—perhaps restraint, perhaps quiet surrender. Whatever it was, it told me he knew the rest of this wasn’t his to intrude upon. He didn’t need the whole story to understand the shape of it.

Then came the familiar shimmer—the light of the Portal Key, subtle at first, then blooming outward in an iridescent wash. The basement filled once more with that otherworldly brilliance, warping the corners of the room, painting the glass tanks and dull metal shelves in shifting colours. Beauty, borrowed from somewhere else entirely.

"It was good to see you again, Jarod," Leigh added, his voice echoing faintly. It was a statement offered like a bridge, but with no expectation of crossing. A bookmark in a conversation left open-ended.

Jarod gave a single nod, arms folded, weight leaned into one hip. I couldn’t read his expression—if he was relieved to see Leigh go, or if he saw it as one more thread tangled into the already knotted mess between us.

And then Leigh stepped through.

The kaleidoscope snapped shut behind him, the light vanishing in reverse—first softening, then contracting, then gone. The room, once saturated with impossible colour, dimmed into its natural state again. Grey concrete. Dull air. Terrarium hums. Reality, stripped bare. And in its place: quiet. Not peace—just the absence of noise.

The kind of quiet that presses at your temples, demanding that you think.

I stood there, hands at my sides, pulse steady but mind anything but. The cash nestled in my pocket like a live ember. The after-image of the Portal still burned faintly in the air, like a memory you couldn’t blink away. And Jarod—no longer the backdrop to a larger conversation—now stood fully in the foreground.

There was no one else here to filter the tension. No buffer of explanations or shared responsibility. Just us. The weight of our history. The question of our future.

This was what Guardianhood really looked like, when stripped of mystique and spectacle. Not noble speeches or glowing devices. But this: uncertainty. Moral fog. The ache of too many decisions made on too little sleep, with too much at stake.

And yet—I didn’t falter.

Not because I had the answers. Not because I was fearless. But because every path that had once offered a way back was long gone. I'd stepped too far in to retreat now. And somewhere in all the murk, I’d found the shape of something I could still believe in.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even stable.

But it was mine.

Even if, sometimes, I had to remind myself of that fact like a mantra. Even if conviction was just the quiet art of lying to yourself until the truth caught up.