Josh sat against the carvings on the wall. Across the room, Nadia laid with her back on a mat. A light sheet draped her body. Her feet remained bare, as she was in shorts and a sleeping gown. Her sword laid next to her sleeping mat. The daytime heat had become stifling even in the shady stone carved room. She pressed a hand to her forehead.

“So, are we heading out at dusk? Do you really think it’s a good idea to try an sneak away from everyone. You know what happens when people split up like this in horror movies, right?”

“Are you saying I’m stupid again? Well, I’m not stupid.”

“Not at all. What I’m saying is you’re going about trying to protect them the wrong way. You’ve been lying awake and sighing for the past hour. It sounds to me like you’re out of ideas but don’t want to take back what you said earlier.”

“Dew’s resourceful and the boat can still sail. I’m sure it can hold together to get them home.”

“You honestly think they can sail out of that strait themselves without wrecking?”

Her head pressed the pillow down as she sighed, “No. The poison might still be in him too, plus his leg might never heal right if I don’t help. I damaged it more than healed it the first time. But I didn’t know how else to get the venom out. I should have thought about the venom before I closed the wound. I actually am stupid.”

“It’s not like gigantic centipedes bite one of your friends every day.”

“The shortcut goes through a place called the sleepless desert. Apparently, it’s cursed. The place causes any living thing to enter it to have extreme insomnia, and if you manage to sleep, you’ll die.”

“And you want to drag Awlena, your school friend, an injured man, and a kid through that?”

“No, I want them to go home.”

“So, you want the four of them to drown or get eaten by monsters, okay, got it.”

Nadia sat up. Her loose sleeveless night shirt hung loosely around her torso. Hair hung straight down her back. Her bangs had grown a bit too long but she hadn’t noticed it until now.

“You’re not helping.”

“Why don’t you take the safe path Dew suggested?”

“We’re talking 300 extra miles. It goes around a canyon. Can you blame me for wanting to travel fifty miles instead of 350? So, only thirty miles passes through a section of sleepless desert. We can travel thirty miles in a day. When we flew on the bike we were going hundreds of miles a day. If we leave them behind, we can do just that! We can get to the temple tomorrow!”

“You and I both know you can’t leave them in good conscious. And you can’t race ahead of them. Plus, this isn’t like the other place. It’s dead here. Way more dangerous. I think we should travel together. Besides, the kid is pretty smart and I’ve seen Dew fight, he’s still an asset. And I’m pretty sure his sister can at least pull her own weight. I’ll make sure nothing happens to her or your friend.”

Nadia put her fists on her lap, “Fine, but we’re going the short way. We’ll push through the sleepless desert nonstop so fast it’ll be like we’ve never been there. Dew can ride in the cart, which we’ll take turns pushing. I can use my power to make it lighter but don’t expect me to make it fly like I did with my bike.”

“Yeah, kind of figured that many people and all the supplies would be a stretch. Besides, you seem pretty tapped out. Are you worried they might attack as soon as it gets dark?”

Nadia nodded, “We’ll be more ready for them. But I’m not sure how much more of them we can take before something really bad happens. We came pretty close to being food. So we should leave at dusk.”

She laid back and returned to staring at the ceiling as her head rested on a round pillow. The flat stone stretched to the corners of the room with only the occasional divot or crack. This city carved from the canyon was like an ancient fortress, but they didn’t have the high ground. Maybe it was built around the ocean.

“Didn’t your old man say this would be no certain thing? You don’t seem to be doing too bad. Why risk your life over it?”

Nadia frowned, “That’s my decision. I’d be here alone if it wasn’t for you.”

“I don’t think your dad would’ve let you come alone. Wasn’t that stone monster supposed to help or something?”

“Yeah, but I got Darrell instead.”

Josh laughed, “If it wasn’t for the mess at Reeds, we’d have the three mercenaries backing us up. Though you did ditch them earlier anyway.”

“That was my dad making decisions without me. I know he’s trying to protect me, but I want to do this on my own.”

“And that’s where you messed up. No man- person, is an island. The chances of you winding up dead are higher if you don’t have anybody to back you up.”

“You worked alone.”

Josh leaned back, “Don’t remind me. It was miserable. You know, for all the trouble you put me through, I had more fun here than the rest of my life combined.”

Nadia couldn’t help but smile as she stared at the ceiling.

“So,” Josh said, “About this guardian blood line, are you really the last one?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, how big is this world? There’s bound to be someone who is part of a guardian bloodline. And there’s tons of people in my world. I can’t think that I would be the last. It doesn’t make sense. And even if I am, what about all the other people in this world who can do magic? Can’t they make a new blood line to guard the portals? I’m sure the idea is that if I have two daughters, and then they have two daughters, and so on, and so on, eventually my line is restored. But isn’t that just like my family trying to hold on to power. Why should I let my entire life be upside down over that?”

“I think, no, what are your plans? Once you get back to normal.”

“I’m going to marry Jody Fischer. We’re going to have a big family, lots of children.”

Josh laughed, “I heard her name a few times but never met her. So, your girlfriend?”

“Kind of, sort of, she doesn’t know yet. At least I’m not sure if she knows it yet. But she put up with me when I was a guy. In fact, we’ve always hung out for years. Until this happened. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else is moving in, considering my guy self up and left without so much as a goodbye. I wrote a bunch of letters, but even my handwriting changed,” she put her hands over her face, “I couldn’t send many of them! I couldn’t call her because my voice changed. We were essentially a couple and now it’s all slipping away! I didn’t even realize how close we actually were until all this happened and now, I might lose her.”

“Why didn’t you just tell her the truth?”

“Are you an idiot, you think she’d believe any of this? She’d run and never look back! And even if she did jump into my arms, what exactly can I offer her like this? She’s not into dating girls.”

“Didn’t you go to her place three times? If it’s you she likes, maybe she’ll see past all that. Or is this about you?”

“When did you become a counsellor?”

“I saw your nightmares. If you saw everyone’s nightmares for ten years, you’d have a lot to process too.”

“Fair enough. But nightmares are nightmares, they aren’t real. It’s just fear. Anyway, my dad doesn’t think birth lines are all that special. He thinks anyone can gains powers if they work hard enough. And the thing is, I think he increases his strength with magic when he shouldn’t be able to use any. He might have a point.”

“But you’re way stronger than your old man!”

“He’s not my ‘old man’”

“Sorry, force of habit, your father.”

“Yeah. I try not to let on when we practice but I think he knows. Still, his idea, it’s a good idea. Why should a single blood line control something so important?”

“Well, what is, is. If you are the last, and your death means no portals, and that means a slow death for this world and then ours, I think that means something. Sure, could be bull, but are you willing to take the chance that it’s true?”

“If it’s true, then Ambrosia won’t change me back. She’ll either ignore me and not appear or refuse my request. Then I go home like this and deal with it. I sacrifice myself to save the worlds. It’s not like I don’t ever think about things.”

“You did lose the book.”

Nadia blushed, “That too, I did lose the book. But if my chances of success are so low and I’m still going through all this, then maybe you can understand how important it is to me? I want to date Jody. I want to marry her. I want to be the father of her children someday. If I can’t do that… guess we’ll just be best friends or something lame like that.”

“You know, this is the first time you op-!”

Josh flinched as a finger sized centipede came out of a nearby ceramic jar. He took the jar and smashed the small creature by slamming it until the vessel shattered. Nadia sat up on her mat with her bandaged hands pressing the floor, as she was ready to jump.

“No worries,” Josh said, “I’m with you. Let’s get you changed back so you can ask out your crush.”

Nadia sniffed as she wiped her eyes, “And let’s get you healed so you’re not exploding anymore.”