Zethar could not eat or sleep. He needed to know if the portal—and the woman who had appeared to him within it— had been a fleeting aberration or the discovery of a lifetime.


    When the hour arrived, he returned to the same coordinates on X3, electric with anticipation. She had said she would come back at the same time, but what if time flowed differently in Isolde’s dimension? Even the slightest discrepancy could cause them to miss each other entirely.


    In her own world, Isolde lingered at the back gate of the beach house, surveying the landscape to be sure no one was watching. Aurelian still hadn’t forgiven her for disappearing from the engagement party and it had been a particularly difficult day.


    Padding along the sand, she could see far away crackles and pops of light in the same spot where Zethar had begun to materialize the night before. Her heart and her pace quickened as she approached.


    “Ahoy,” she said, greeting the light.


    “You came back,” Zethar said. The outline of him was faint and he sounded far away.


    “I needed to know if you were real,” Isolde said, “Or if I dreamed you.”


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    “Would you have been disappointed? If I were a dream?”


    “I think so, yes.”


    “Why?”


    “It''s hard to explain,” Isolde said. “I still don''t understand it. But I want to. Why did you come back?”


    “Because I''ve spent most of my life trying to prove the existence of an anomaly like this one,” Zethar said. “But nothing had prepared me for finding one. Or finding you. It''s exquisite.”


    Isolde felt herself blush.


    “You said something last night,” she said. “ About us being meant to meet…”


    “Across the impossible,” Zethar finished the sentence, causing Isolde to break into a shy smile. Even through the static waves distorting her image, there was no missing that smile.


    The energy index was climbing, he noted. The edges of the portal seemed to soften and the anomaly’s otherworldly light spilled brighter into the surrounding darkness. Its flicker slowed from a frantic arhythmic pace to a steady, resolute pulse.