Prologue  

She stood poised at the entrance, her gaze fixed intently on the milky white haze in front of her.  Out there, on the other side of the mystical curtain that surrounded her home, forty years had passed. Forty years since her world had fallen apart; fallen to cold hard concrete with barely a sound.  She had made her way down to stand at the edge of her world, staring at the form that had once contained her sister.  Her world was gone.  

Gone!  

Well most of it anyway, one small piece of her world remained. That piece had pulled himself from his own grief and gathered her to him.  Together they had taken her world home, gently laying her on her bed one last time. The piece had called for help while the ‘others’ crawled inside their own grief and lamented the loss of the world.  The piece had held her to him as they had taken the mortal embodiment of her world away; the piece had comforted her as her world was placed into the earth, and the piece had heard her cry for answers and decided then that they would leave.  Together they stole away in the dead of night, the piece and the key—leaving behind the ‘others’ and her shattered world.  

For five years they had wandered, searching for something—answers to questions or perhaps the key to a new world.  During that time she had changed, no longer a teenager she became an adult, a young woman, floating silently through a world that was no longer hers.  

When they had found this place they had known, this was home, a place where the answers could be found.  The piece had explained it all to her, time was suspended within their home—this refuge was not a part of her shattered world.  The key had liked this idea; she knew that eventually they would find a way to restore her world.  

She turned her gaze back towards her home, memorizing the look and feel of the place where she was the most loved.  There had been another place like this but that had died with her world.  She smiled as she watched the piece move around their home, everything lay in its perfect place as they prepared to leave.  

She leant into his side as he came to stand beside her, for forty years they had sought a way to restore her world and now they had found it.  They both knew there would be a price; they were both prepared to pay it.  She shuddered at the thought of what was to come, turning she smiled into cool blue eyes.  

“So Nib you ready for this?” the piece brushed a stray hair from her face.  

She nodded, “Yeah, Spike, I’m ready.”  

Clutching his hand firmly in hers they stepped through the curtain together.  The key and the piece strode purposefully through a shattered world as they moved to answer the call.

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