Chapters
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He fell.Jacob couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. He could feel though, feel his friends close to him in that void, passing through to the same destination. His lungs burned—he hadn’t been able to exhale the way Harley had suggested, and so they burned.He tried to move, struggle, scream, anything. Nothing worked. It was almost as though he didn’t have a body at all. Is this where I die?It should be. How many lives have you stolen already?Jacob stumbled to his feet on the pavement of a familiar…-
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Something moved inside, and he leaned to one side to try and peek through the window. Cardboard had been taped up, covering up all but a silver. Jacob thought he saw a pair of eyes squinting down at him for a second, even as something rustled inside.He knocked again, then listened closely. Maybe pony hearing was that much better, or maybe the people inside just weren’t as quiet as they thought they were. “The kid isn’t leaving.”“We can’t just leave her out there.” His insides twisted at that,…-
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Harley pulled up in a car so quiet Jacob didn’t realize she was there until she rolled down the window and called out from a street over. “Hey guys, let’s go.”They hurried over, Jacob bringing up the rear (as was always the case) as the slowest and least-coordinated. “How did you get here so quietly?”“Prius. They’re pretty much silent if you’re under 25.” Katie opened the side door to the back, and they all piled inside. He introduced Michelle, and they set off.Jacob found himself…-
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Their jet had no parachutes, nor any way of landing in the Arctic wasteland below them.“This is really stupid.” Michelle was dressed in cold-weather clothes, along with everyone else. How she had changed while monitoring the plane, Jacob was too afraid to ask. “There’s a research station a hundred miles from here we could land safely and not trash a 65 million dollar plane.”“Yes, let’s add creating an international incident to our list of crimes,” Jackie muttered, flexing her wings. They…-
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“This can’t exist.” Eric slung his satchel in front of him, flipping it open. He lifted out a tablet and started scrolling through its contents with one hand. “It defies everything we understand about archeology. This is late Roman construction, on an island they never knew existed. If there were colonies in Greenland, we would’ve known. Their ships never could have crossed the ocean.”Jacob made his way over to one of the pillars, inspecting the writing. They were unfamiliar shapes, like sticks…-
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Metal ground on stone above them, an ominous, sustained rattle. None of them spoke: there were no plans to formulate, nothing to do but hide and wait. Eventually something whined and scraped on stone, and something rattled down the shaft. A steel cage of sorts, apparently winched down by cable. There were two soldiers inside, both in something like riot gear, massive weapons over each shoulder. Jacob had never actually seen the ECU in action, but he recognized the patches on their shoulders. They hopped…-
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Something exploded. The ceiling shook above them, raining down small pebbles. Something heavy and metallic clanked and rattled down the opening, landing only a foot away from the cage. It was some kind of winch assembly, half-melted and warped by the force of something massive.Jacob didn’t stare up into the opening with shock as the guards did, but took Elise and Katie by their shoulders and concentrated. The teleport came far easier than when he was screwing around jumping onto buildings. A flash, and…-
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They didn’t have far to go to reach the portal. A little crawling for the humans, and they found themselves in a much smaller cavern, quite warm and comfortable despite the chill of the temple behind them. There was a great deal more cuneiform writing on the walls they couldn’t read. Eric still had his working tablet and took pictures of each one. He didn’t really want to—nothing seemed to matter right now, but he forced himself to move. Danni wouldn’t want me to give up. She’d want us to be…-
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Time blurred. Elise couldn’t say how long it took for Harley to return, flanked by a squadron of guards in gold uniforms. They brought stretchers, one for each pony, and forced even her to lie down. They passed through a dark temple, through twisting caverns lit only by flashlights in the gloom. Mesmerizing lights flickered in front of her eyes. An hour or two of uneasy sleep on the Temple floor had done very little to overcome the fatigue of battle. Eventually, she slept.For most of her life, Special…-
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Someone knocked loudly at his door. Jacob looked up, and reluctantly lowered the book he had been holding in his magic. Marble Epitaph the Lesser’s Exhaustive Equestrian History, Volume 3 of 16. Jacob pulled the blanket a little higher over his body, covering everything worth covering. In some ways Sunset had been right—adjusting to being smaller and differently shaped had not taken very long. Jacob didn’t stumble when he walked, and didn’t feel like he was ever craning his neck.That did not…-
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