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away, but the shade grasped his arm. Its touch — like ice and fire — burned through Arthur’s shirtsleeve and seared deep into his skin. He should have screamed, but he didn’t have the will for it. His emotions drained away … his mind went blank … the shade reached its other hand toward his throat … he couldn’t even make himself try to stop it.
    Morgan grabbed him by his belt and yanked him toward the cottage. Her touch brought him back to his senses. He wrenched his arm away from the shade, and flung himself inside.
    Morgan shouldered into the door. It closed with a thundering BOOM! — just as the dark form surged into the doorway. They clicked all five deadbolts into the locked position and stepped back.
    Without even looking around at the inside of the house — if something jumped out and attacked him now, he’d just have to die — Arthur breathed a sigh of relief and clutched at his arm. A blister was already puckering where the shadow had touched him, though it didn’t hurt as much as he would’ve thought.
    “If a burn doesn’t hurt at first, that means it’s bad, right? Because the nerves have been damaged …”
    Morgan didn’t answer; she was staring into the cottage with a dumbfounded expression. “It — it was so small outside.”
    Great, what now? Arthur spun around — oh! This was now officially the most ridiculous day ever. Shadow men … an angelic girl asking him to become the Multiversal Paladin … a cottage that appeared out of nowhere … and now … and now this. What had looked like a quaint cottage from the outside was actually an enormous mansion on the inside. It was easily four times the size of Aunt Carolyn’s house, and that was just based off what he could see. There was probably more to it, maybe much more. Strangely, the windows they had seen from outside weren’t visible from the inside; there were no windows at all.
    “This … this just can’t be happening,” Morgan whispered. “It violates every law of physics.”
    “Well, then it must be magic,” Arthur replied numbly.
    Morgan shook her head. “There’s no such thing. There’s a logical explanation. There has to be.”
    As Arthur looked around the room, a chill ran across his skin, triggered by a sense of déjà vu. This place seemed familiar, but in a hazy way, as if he'd dreamed about it many times … only it was too real to have been a dream. “You know, I think I've been here before. A long time ago.”
    The main room had giant fireplaces as tall as a man to either side, with unlit firewood piled inside. Tapestries draped the stone walls. An enormous, multicolored rug covered the wood floor. High-backed chairs, ottomans, frumpy couches, and coffee tables were spread around the room. Dust coated the furniture; cobwebs were everywhere. A massive chandelier hung from the incredibly high ceiling, like a cloud of raindrops suspended in midair, reflecting the flames from the gas lanterns on the walls. Only about half of the lanterns were lit, which made the enormous room gloomy. Shadows seemed to lurk in every corner. Arthur's eyes darted around; he expected a shadow man to come out of one of the pools of darkness at any moment.
    Staircases, one to each side, led to a loft above the back of the room. Centered beneath the loft was an arched set of double doors twelve feet across. A weird, white-glowing symbol with a round middle and three arms that curled off of it floated in front of the doorway.
    “Check that out,” Arthur said, pointing at the foot-wide symbol. “Looks like a magic rune.”
    “It’s shaped like a triskelion,” Morgan replied. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for why it’s — ugh, what is that?” Her eyes had drifted to the left. Arthur followed her gaze …
    The giant head of a strange creature that looked like an emerald green insect with blazing yellow eyes and fur-covered antlers stuck out horrifically above the mantel over the right fireplace. That image