I Love You Now

Under the park’s string lights, the air smelled like cut grass and hot asphalt cooling down. Jazim had her back against a concrete pillar, knees drawn up as if she could fold herself small enough to fit inside the night. Taul sat across from her on the curb, close enough that every time she shifted, his shoulder brushed hers-accidental only when he wanted it to be and never quite accidental when she looked at him.

“Stop staring,” she said, but her voice didn’t carry any real bite. It softened on the last word, like she was trying to hide a smile and failing.

Taul swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “I’m not staring.”

Jazim’s gaze flicked to his mouth, then away to the space between them. The space where he wanted to close the distance and didn’t. “You always say that.”

He let out a breath he hadn’t meant to make sound. The night around them held steady-distant traffic, the squeak of a swing someone had left moving, and a laugh from somewhere beyond the trees. But inside his chest, everything was louder. He’d spent months pretending he didn’t want a future with her, months building a private world where she was the only constant. And tonight-tonight he

I meant to tell her to stop hiding behind jokes and half-truths.

Instead, the ground between them shimmered.

It started as a ripple in the air, like heat rising from asphalt, except it didn’t drift upward. It snapped into focus-thin lines of light stitching themselves into a shape that didn’t belong in Los Angeles. The glow spread outward with a sound like glass singing, and then it tightened into a doorway where the darkness looked deeper than night should be.

Jazim went still. Her hand, which had been resting on her knee, curled slowly, protective and ready. “Taul,” she said, and his name came out carefully, like she was bracing him for impact.

His instincts tried to lead before his fear could catch up. "It's... not-" He couldn’t find the word. Not a prank. Not a portal like movies lied about. Not anything sane.

The light pulsed, bright enough to bleach the park’s shadows, then flared again. A gust of cold poured out, carrying a smell like wet stone and something metallic-like rain on old coins. Taul’s hoodie went clammy at his shoulders. The string lights above them flickered once, then steadied, as if the park couldn’t decide whether to witness what was happening.

Jazim scooted closer, shoulder pressing his. “We should run.”

Taul should’ve agreed immediately. He wanted to. His body did the math-danger, unknown, get her out first-but his mind snagged on one thought that felt wrong in the face of everything bright and impossible: if he left her, he’d never forgive himself. If he stayed, maybe he could pull her through whatever came next.

“I’m not leaving you,” he said, and hated how true it felt even as the portal widened.

The doorway shuddered, then split open like a wound.

Armored figures stepped through.

They didn’t move like people who’d entered from somewhere else. They moved as if the portal had poured them out-precise and silent, their armor catching the light in sharp facets. Helmets covered their faces, but Taul could see the way they scanned the space: not panicked, not curious. Trained. Queen’s Guards, his brain supplied with a certainty that didn’t come from any book he’d ever read.

“Off the path,” one of them ordered. The voice was low, clipped, and edged with authority that made Taul’s skin tighten. “Now.”

Jazim stood taller than her fear, her chin lifted. “Who are you?”

The guard’s head tilted toward her as if measuring her by something Taul couldn’t see. “You are in breach of boundaries.”

Taul’s mouth went numb. “We didn’t do anything.”

The guard’s gaze snapped to him. “Your presence here is the breach.”

He opened his mouth to argue-because arguing was what he did when the world turned upside down, because if he could talk fast enough, maybe the universe would get embarrassed and reverse itself. But the second guard stepped forward and raised a hand. The air around it thickened, shimmering like the portal still breathed.

The cold deepened. Jazim’s fingers brushed Taul’s wrist, quick and firm. Not a question. A tether.

“Taul,” she said again, and this time there was urgency under the steadiness. “Get ready.”

He reached for her hand, squeezing once, grounding himself in the heat of her skin. “I’m here.”

The guards moved.

They didn’t grab at first. They closed the distance with the inevitability of a tide, and Taul realized too late that the space around them was changing-like the park was being rearranged to make room for something older. The ground under his shoes felt slightly wrong, as if the asphalt had turned to something softer, less willing to hold him.

Jazim backed toward the portal without taking her eyes off the guards. “We’re not going through.”

One guard’s arm rose, and the air around Jazim tightened-subtly, like pressure against her body from invisible hands. She hissed, a sound of anger more than pain....