"Nile D'Busrel? I've never heard of him." Alex flipped the plain white business card back and forth, trying to get any additional information she could about Crystal's chance encounter.

Crystal finished the glass of red wine in front of her before beginning to contemplate an answer. It seemed she had been thinking about the odd meeting during her entire shift and knowing that her friend would be home with her infant daughter, she showed up on Alex's doorstep just as she had finished putting the baby to bed for the night.

"I have no idea, but I also no longer have a phone so I'm going to need to pay him a visit sooner rather than later."

"You don't think it's a little suspicious? Him walking into you out of nowhere, knocking your phone to the ground, and suddenly he's a phone repair guy who can make everything all better? You said yourself you don't believe in coincidences."

"Maybe. Maybe not. If not, I'll tell you, that's probably the best pickup method I've ever encountered."

"You're not seriously considering taking him up on his offer, are you? He doesn't even have a business address or website on this card."

"A free phone repair with a not-so-bad looking stranger in the city of Boston? I see nothing wrong with this."

"I suppose you may be right," Alex agreed as she took a sip of her own wine. "At least you believe this one has some sort of career."

"Ha. Ha. Ha." Crystal rolled her eyes.

"You know, he probably won't even know who you are when you show up, and then once you flash his business card, he'll only remember you as the moron who was too busy paying attention to her phone than the sidewalk in front of her." Alex smirked. In the years she'd known her, her friend never had good taste in decent men, but then again, Alex never cared enough to have any of her own before she met Treyan. Where Crystal would allow herself to explore the dance floor for eligible bachelors, Alex was always the one content to people-watch from the bar. On the off chance that someone actually did come talk to her, she would be polite, but would never go out of her way to make someone want to take her home, and that never went over well after midnight in a rocking bar in the city of Boston.

"Well, they do say love finds a way, don't they?"

"Who, exactly, is 'they'?"

"Who knows," Crystal continued. "He could actually be The One and then we'd have the most amazing story to tell our children. It would almost be as good as the one you'll tell yours."

Alex choked on her wine.

Crystal watched Alex with a curious glare. "You are going to tell them, aren't you?"

"Tell them what?" Alex coughed.

"Oh, I don't know. How about the whole part where their father came from a different world to steal their mother away, convinced her she was some predestined royal and then got her pregnant to lock her into a life of danger and mayhem?"

"Don't hold back, Crystal. Why don't you tell me how you really feel?" Alex asked sarcastically as she took another much-needed sip.

"Okay, I will." Crystal sat up in her chair and leaned in over the table. "How about how their parents chose to take them from a safe haven back to a world where death and destruction run rampant so that they can find the child that was stolen from them. Stolen, Alex. Why do you want to subject yourself to that kind of hell?"

"I have no choice!" Alex snapped in response.

She didn't know how this conversation had become so heated, but she wasn't about to let Crystal get the better of her. She was silently grateful that her daughter was as heavy of a sleeper as her father.

"You may think you have this all figured out, but you don't. You just don't."

"Alex, I couldn't find you for almost forty-eight hours, and you come back married and with a newborn baby. How else am I supposed to feel?"

Alex's anger was reaching its boiling point, and it wasn't until then she realized how much of her emotions she was keeping within. "How are you supposed to feel? If you had any idea what I've gone through—"

"You mean there's more than having your child taken from you?" Crystal asked incredulously.

"Of course there is!" She slammed her fist on the table as her fury took over and soon tears came to her eyes. She let out a sob that shuddered throughout her entire body. It seemed so long ago, but the wounds still ran so deep, she felt as though they'd never fully heal.

"Alex?" Crystal was out of her chair at Alex's outburst and knelt next to her friend, a supportive hand resting on her shoulder. "Alex, what's wrong? What's happened to you?"

At that, Alex told her. All of it.

Even parts she knew she had told her before, she included again. From the night after her birthday party, bumping into Treyan, and having her apartment broken into. To waking up within the Empire and being thrust into the world she had no idea existed. To the glowing orb that led her to the library, to the convincing visions the Annals showed her beyond her own comprehension. From her lessons, to her coronation, to her engagement, and even the details of her consummation with Treyan.

To Reylor. To the hostage situation until he released her back beyond the Borderlands into the Empire. To everything she felt from the moment of her return, internally and externally, how she treated Treyan, and the wedding she insisted had to go on for the sake of the Empire. To the moment she saw the murdered Mistress Malia and everything finally collapsed in on her to the point where she was ready to give up.

To Saratanya giving her another chance. To her taking that chance and risking it all to bring Reylor to justice. To succeeding, only to find out they had brought him exactly where he wanted to be.

Alex stopped her retelling for a moment, allowing her tale to sink in.

An Emperor had been born—they were all watching as it happened. It was not an Empress as was expected prior to the birth of the Empire's twins, the new sons of the Prophecy that would bring their realm through another alleged time of peace. But instead, born to the Fire and Light were Sarayna and Lexan—a female heir and her younger brother. Because of that, if all was to play out as it had so many times before, there was someone, somewhere in their world, who was meant to be with Sarayna. Which meant—

"Alex? Alex, what's wrong? You're white as a ghost."

Alex looked to her friend as she came out of her haze. "It's Sarayna. She has an Emperor."

Crystal blinked. "You mean like how you were Treyan's Empress?"

"Exactly. Why the genders were reversed, we still don't know for sure, but one way or another, she'll need to eventually come back. To find him."

"What about Lexan?"

"We don't know." Alex sighed. "I do know, though, that something's wrong because he wasn't born female, or Sarayna wasn't male as the royal twins were supposed to be. As much as I hate to admit it, I fear Reylor's spell—or curse—or whatever the hell it was that he did..."

Alex swallowed past the lump in her throat as another thought crossed her mind, and she met her friend's concerned glance. "Dear gods, I don't even know how old Lexan would be now."

"Why wouldn't he be the same age as Sara?"

"You said it yourself. I was only gone for a day or two, right? We've been back here for, what, a month? How much time could have passed in the Empire since then?"

A year and a day.

Crystal chewed her upper lip as she worked out her own mental calculations. Alex could see the mathematics running through her head as clearly as if Crystal had written them down in front of her. "Well, you said it felt like you were gone for about a year, right?"

Alex considered it for a moment. "You know how in a dream, it feels like so much time goes by, but you're never really sure of how much time it actually is? It feels nearly like that. I felt time move differently. Some days it felt as though everything was at a standstill. As if it were though some unseen force controlled how often the suns rose and set according to how much time you needed in a day."

"You really have no idea how much time has passed within the Empire since you've been gone."

Alex shook her head. "None. It could be more; it could be less. But that's why we need to get back. What would I do if I come to find out my son is a grown man, having already lived his life, and I wasn't there to be a part of any of it?"

"Oh, Alex..." Tears were starting to come to Crystal's eyes as she stood and wrapped Alex in a warm hug. The two remained in the embrace as the tears washed over them, one offering the support the other so desperately needed.

"Now do you see why it's so important that Treyan finds a way back?" Alex said as she finally pulled away from her friend. "Even if Bria means to screw us over—which she most likely does—it's a chance we're willing to take to get back to Lexan."

Crystal wiped tears from her cheeks. "What about everything else waiting for you?"

"I will worry about that when I have to."

Standing and moving back to her chair, Crystal stopped and looked over to where the business card from the stranger still lay on the table. "What should I do about him?"

Alex glanced at the small card. "It's only a phone, Crystal."

"I know. Isuppose my menial issues regarding a broken piece of technology areinsignificant in the greater scheme of things. What kind of a name is Nile D'Busrelanyway?"