The interior of the elevator hasn't changed. It's still got the same four gun-metal walls. The same dark carpeted floor. And yet it's transformed. Everything has. I can feel it, even still trapped in this little metal box. The gray of the walls is still gray, but it's more alive, more vibrant than it had been previously. What had seemed drab and colorless before is now just so many colors at once that I can't name them all.

It's as though reality's been layered over with an iridescent, shimmering veil that's both visible and not. 

The elevator slows to a stop and the doors open. Taking a deep breath, I step out into the first day of my life as Erin Blackwood. 

It's a little bit crowded here too. I'm not the only traveler still lingering at the top level of the Aether side's Nova Needle. Finding my own little spot near the window, I stand and stare out at the ever-changing vista below as the ring rotates.

I've seen pictures from this side of course, and absolutely devoured every bit of media I could find pertaining to my future home. But nothing ever prepared me for the actual beauty of it. And how could it have? On that side of the portal, it'd be physically impossible.

My eyes catch on the ocean first. Dark teal decked with froth. Even from here, I can see animals swimming just beneath the churning surface, cresting the waves. Enormous creatures, both familiar and very much not. 

Then, there's the sky. Somehow, it seems bigger here. Full of towering clouds, dark with the promise of a storm. Ravening upward from the horizon, the mountains are steep and green, with fir trees taller than half the buildings in Seattle. And then, immediately around us—where the mountains meet the rocky shoreline—is the city itself. 

Port Evergreen. 

Most of its buildings, even the very tall ones, are built of intricately interlocking logs and mountain stone. The one exception being those made of earth, which are indistinguishable from ordinary hilltops but for the colorful glyphic poles flanking their entrances. The clouded light of the sun gleams off thousands of stained glass windows, a muted rainbow. 

I'm not sure how long I stand there. I have three hours to adjust in the glyph-conditioned environment of the aetherport before I'm allowed to step out into the wider world. Deciding to spend most of it up here, I dig out my sketchbook and set to work. There's no way I'm leaving a view like this behind. 

When the three hours are up and I ride the ordinary elevator down to the ground floor, it finally occurs to me to worry about my appearance. First impressions are supposed to be important, after all. I don't want to seem disrespectful by going to greet them looking like, well…like I'd gotten too anxious and completely forgotten to care how I look.

It's really just my hair and face I have to worry about, though. I'd planned my outfit obsessively and well in advance, so I know that's fine. Hard to go wrong with a black, off-the-shoulder fitted tunic top edged in lace and black leggings. The leather boots and long jacket over the top of it all are a uniform for me at this point. 

And of course, I remembered my Token. They'd sent it through to me as soon as I'd accepted their offer, with instructions to wear it the day I crossed over. A pendant bearing the Blackwood family crest, embossed in the silver at the back of a cabochon of evergreen opal, a stone found only in the mountains of my future home. Etched beneath the crest are my initials: E.B. 

With the pendant around my neck, the "B" now stands for Blackwood. I left the Bianchi name behind me in the Uther realm, as they call Earth over here, and I hope I never hear it again. 

Stepping out onto the ground floor, I scan around. Humans and aetheri-folk alike mingle and eat and laugh everywhere I look. Though the signs are written in at least twelve different alphabets—none of which I recognize—I know their meaning. Aetheri languages are amazing like that, every one of them a spell in and of itself, radiating the essence of their own definition for anyone to perceive. 

I make a beeline for the nearest one, crossing my fingers. I've always heard that human skin takes on a subtle shimmer in the Aether Realm, but I'm not sure how that'll manifest in a half-breed like me. 

Once I've got myself in front of a mirror, I'm thrilled to find that my pale, freckled skin has taken on a new sheen. I can even pick out blue and green overtones in the many-hued brown of my hair, probably a gift from my mother's side. I smooth it with my hands, touch up my make-up a bit, and that's it. I have no more excuses. 

It's time to present myself. 

I'm as nervous on the way out of this needle as I was on the way into the other one—but it's a different kind of nerves. The anticipatory-but-still-terrified kind. 

People of all types are milling about in the courtyard and stone gardens outside. Many waiting for arrivals, others in the process of greeting or saying goodbye to loved ones. A few even hold up signs. I smirk a bit at that. I don't know why, but there's something funny to me about fae and others magical creatures holding up signs like they're outside an airport in a nineties movie. At first, my gaze skips right past them. Then something registers, and I look back.

"Erin Blackwood, welcome to Port Evergreen!" reads one, held in the left hand of a man with a five-o-clock shadow, long reddish-brown hair and dark bags under his eyes. A black cigarette sticks out from between his teeth.

"We can't wait to meet you!" Says the other sign he holds, in the same looping, sparkly purple script as the first.

I edge my way over to him. "Um, hello," I say in New Elvari. "I'm Erin." 

"Oh, hey," he sticks one of the signs under his left arm and thrusts his hand out to grasp mine, and I almost yelp in shock—his skin is radiating heat. 

"Ah, sorry about that," he says. "Full moon tomorrow." 

"O-of course." 

"I can take your pack, if you'd like,"

I shake my head. "It's alright." 

"Fair enough. I'm Padraig by the way. The family dog. Er, assistant. Something along those lines." He smells of cloves and sage and fur. 

"Oh, uh. Nice to meet you!" I few drops of rain patter against my cheek, and suddenly it hits me. 

I'm here. 

I'm free! 

I'm grinning like an idiot. 

"Likewise," says Padraig, with a bit of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Pulling a little silver case from his pocket, he puts out the cigarette, drops it in and slides the case back where it came from. "Car's this way." 

Then he turns and leads me off across the courtyard. Zipping my jacket up against the chill, I peer around in awe. Down here, the trees circling the grounds block out all else so that it feels like we're in the middle of the forest. Blue wisp lights flicker in and out of existence amongst the fir needles and ferns. Mossy stone sculptures of beasts peer out from amongst the trees, some of them ten feet tall or more, all of them ancient-looking. The last one I notice before we descend the stair into the underground parking structure is an enormous antlered bear. 

There's just as much to ogle down below. The aetheri have us beat in industrial design, as far as I'm concerned. We lost our flair a long time ago, fallen to the influence of Apple's brand of bland minimalism. Not so here, where the wheel wells are edged in filigree in the shape of wings, where the hood ornaments are dragon's heads or mermaids or swans that breathe cold blue fire. Where everything's a different color depending on what angle you look at it from. 

But when Padraig pulls his keys from his pocket, the car that trills back in response, headlights flashing, is comparatively modest. A glossy stormcloud shade with darkened windows, it has few flourishes. The most notable exception is the hood ornament—the Blackwood family crest of winged stag and sword-pierced heart, wrought in silver.

The doors open for us of their own accord, and I drop my bag in the back before sliding onto the gray leather of the front passenger seat. 

The car purrs to life, warming to a comfortable temperature within seconds. I shrug out of my jacket while Padraig drives us to the exit. 

Outside, it's begun to rain. 

"I'm glad you're here," says Padraig after a moment. "Thought they'd never find another donor that was good enough for them." He snorts. "Damn snobs almost bled me dry."

"Oh, you're a donor too?" I regret the question immediately. Of course he is. Nearly anyone with any amount of human blood living in service of vampires will be. And shifters, in their own odd way, are both human and beast at once. Like selkies. 

"Mhm. Can't say it's my favorite part of the job, but some people love it." 

"And uh, are you planning to—" 

"No," he shakes his head, laughing. "I like what I am, and I'd miss steak too much." 

I nod along. He'll be a rarity in that, then. Most donors that join a household do so with the hope of eventually turning. I mean, that's what I want. 

For a long time after that, my attention belongs to the view. We've turned off the main road leading away from the needle onto another one that winds through the bluffs and ridges along the coast. To my right and just outside my own window, the lowering sun pierces the clouds, painting a slash of glittering gold across the blue-green sea. The sky and clouds have darkened to indigo. 

To the other side, moss and ferns drench every rock and tree-branch of the dense forest, and the wisp lights seem to multiply by the minute. Occasionally we pass a house or manor just visible among the trees or along the coast. No two are much alike. There are some that resemble small castles, cobbled together from mountain stone. Others rambling, many-leveled lodges. A few peak out from high in the trees themselves, green-stained windows flashing as they reflect our headlights. 

"How far to the house?" I ask after almost thirty minutes of comfortable silence.

"Should be there in another twenty minutes or so."

I look back towards the sun. By then, it will have set. My new family will be able to greet me the moment I arrive. They must have planned it that way. 

My nerves kick back in full force. 

The remainder of the ride flies by. Before I know it, we're turning off onto a long, black-paved drive that winds upward through the moss-drenched trees. Slowing, we approach a rough stone wall bisected by a wrought-iron gate, which opens for us automatically. We round another tree-lined bend, and then we're there.

Home.

I hadn't realized just how high up we were until now. We're in the foothills of the Wolf's Teeth, situated on a verdant plateau. The trees part to the forefront of the property, where a huge moss lawn dotted with jutting stones and edged in joyously overgrown gardens gives way to a cliff, and then the sea. The sun's turned a vivid shade of fuchsia, bleeding into the water as it dips below the horizon's edge. As we veer left, the house itself dominates my view, backed by majestic firs and even more majestic mountain peaks. 

For the first time in all of this, I'm compelled to pinch myself.

If I wake up and this was all a dream, I'm going to be so pissed.

The house itself is surprisingly modern, and yet...not. It’s built mostly of dark concrete, save the pine logs that reinforce the angled rooftop and corners, and made up of two wings hinged together like the points of an arrow. Accents of colored, pitted glass, crystal and mountain stone are set into the walls in corners, over doors, and around windows—depicting wolves, ravens and stags in the hard-edged style particular to this region. 

"Wow."

We dip down into the darkness of another underground parking space, then Padraig twists the key and the car goes silent. I feel his eyes on me in the next moment as I sit, quietly hyperventilating. 

"Are you ready?" 

I shake my head.

"There's nothing to worry about," he assures me—and he sounds sincere enough, if a little bit gruff. "They might be crazy, but they're the nicest vamps you'll ever meet, so long as you're on their side. I've lived with 'em for almost seven years now, and it's the best gig I've ever had." 

Deliberately slowing my breath, I inhale deeply, hold, then exhale. 

"Alright," I say. "Let's go." 

Stepping out of the car and shutting the door, I practically jump out of my skin when it calls after me.

"You forgot your backpack," it says in a flat, low voice. 

"Oh! Um. Right." Whirling around as the back door opens for me, I snatch it up then hurry back over to Padraig, who waits with a smile twitching at the corner of his lips. 

There's both a stair and an elevator leading up to the first above-ground level. I opt for the stairs. Padraig's just a little ahead of me, and there's a small gasp of excitement as he steps up to the top of it. 

A flurry of movement is all I see at first. In the next instant I'm wrapped in the vice-like embrace of someone very cold and very good-smelling. 

"Welcome home! Did you like my signs?" The vampire matriarch steps back, releasing me and taking her wonderful scent of hazelnuts and orange blossom with her. 

I don't remember my mother or how she looked at me, but I like to imagine it would have been something like this. Her big red eyes are so dark they're almost black, and brimming with kindness. Her elegant, aquiline nose is accented by an ornate gold hoop, which jingles as she speaks. The dim lighting of the house's interior brings out blue highlights in the glossy black lengths of her hair.

"We are so happy to finally have you here," she says, turning to me as she places a hand to the larger vampire's shoulder. "I'm Prisha, of course, and this is Gaius." 

Gaius—a tall man with dark but ashen skin and a bounty of coiled locks of silver and black—inclines his head to me, reaching out to grasp my hand. He too, exudes benevolence. It shines through in his smile and the way his amber eyes crinkle at the corners. The fangs don't detract from it one bit. 

"Well met, Erin. Our home is your home," he says, in a voice like an autumn bonfire, big and warm and inviting. 

"Thank you so much," I manage, meeting the patriarch's steady gaze before taking in the foyer beyond, with its vaulted ceiling, open second level, and impressive rocky water feature. 

"Will I not be meeting the rest of the household today?"

Gaius and Prisha exchange a look. But just as Gaius begins to answer, there's a sound like a thunderclap, and a billowing cloud of black smoke appears to his other side. As it dissipates, it reveals a slender figure of medium height, with slate blue hair buzzed short on the sides and tossled at the top, and ears lined in silver rings. 

"Theo's trying to convince Nicholai to come down, but he says he can't meet her till he's fed," they explain, looking to Prisha and Gaius before turning their roguish smile on me. "Hello. I'm Cassius, but it's Cash to you and anyone who matters. Welcome home, sis." 

I grin back. 

Padraig sighs. "I'll take care of Nick," he says, striding off across the foyer to the stair at the far end. 

"Come, let's get you something to eat," suggests Prisha. "You must be starving by now." 

Looping her arm with mine, the matriarch leads me around the corner and to the left, where the foyer opens into the kitchen and dining space. Here again the style favors dark colors, rough stone and knotty wood. It's simultaneously sleek and rustic, modern and timeless. There are plants everywhere. On the countertops, along the window sills, hanging from the ceiling. Accents of amethyst geodes and bits of antler abound. 

"What would you like? We've got all your favorites," says Prisha, going over to the refrigerator. 

"Oh, really?" I think back to my application forms, which had indeed asked which foods I liked best. I'd blanked a bit at the time, and ended up listing mostly special occasion stuff. My sweet tooth gets pretty bad when I'm anxious. Not wanting to seem like I didn't take care of myself, though, I'd made sure to pad it out with every non-disgusting healthy staple I could think of.

And so it is that I find the freezer well stocked with chicken, fish, scallops, mixed fruits for smoothies, and three different kinds of ice cream. The fridge's got eggs in a variety of sizes and colors, cheese, veggies and a giant chocolate cake. The pantry—sweet potatoes, rice, pasta, melon bread, bean cakes, coconut cream, honeycomb—and a hoard of aetheri food I don't recognize. The spice rack is as utterly overwhelming as it is exciting.

While I'm deciding what to eat, Prisha and Gaius bustle about together, making me tea. Cash explodes into a black cloud again and is gone.

"I'm sure Padraig would be happy to cook something for you when he comes back," says Prisha, offering me a steaming mug that smells of cloves and cardamom. I cup it in my hands, drawing its warmth and fragrance into my lungs in one long, appreciative breath. 

"We'd offer to do it, but we've been told our cooking is something best reserved for punishment and torture," says Gaius, eyes crinkling again at the corners. 

"Oh no, it's alright," I say, waving the offer off and laughing nervously. "I just want something simple anyway." I should be hungry, but I'm honestly way too hyped up for any kind of proper meal. Extracting the bread from its rice paper wrapping, I take my first bite of aetheri-made food and immediately freeze. 

If fireworks were made of flower petals, and flower petals were made of melon bread, that would explain the experience of that first bite. Every flavor singing, radiant—the essence of each ingredient shining through in the most ideal way. A taste that's also a feeling. In this case, that of the summer sun warming my skin after an early rain. 

The next thing I know, the bread is gone and I'm wondering if I should go get more. Hearing footsteps, I look up to see three figures approach. The one to the left is Cash. The other two are...well, they're the most heart-breakingly gorgeous men I've ever laid eyes on.