Page 137 of Marked By His Hunger
“When you accepted your invitation,” she said, ignoring my tone entirely, “you agreed to the Institute’s terms. One of those terms required you to cross through a threshold hidden in the forests of New Jersey.”
Right.
The portal.
The nausea.
The sky folding wrong.
“That crossing,” she continued, “brought you into Asgarheim—a parallel realm built atop ancient ley lines. Magic is not a rarity here. It is the foundation of existence.”
“Another world,” I murmured.
“Yes.”
She paused.
“You should have read the agreements more carefully, Miss Notte.”
I grimaced.
Okay, fair.
“So, yes, magic is common here,” she went on. “But your particular brand of magic is not.”
There it was again.
That focus.
That weight.
“Necromancy,” she said. “That is what you weave with your powers. Ghost walker. Wraith whisperer. That is what you are.”
The words settled over me like a cloak.
Heavy.
Dark.
Powerful.
I’d spent my whole life calling it a curse.
Hearing her call it something else?
It shifted something inside me.
“Am I the only one?” I asked quietly.
Her lips twitched.
“In the multiverse? Hardly. But you are the only one at the Institute at present. And your potential is great”
She didn’t elaborate.
Of course she didn’t.
Lightning cracked outside.
