Strangers were never good in the Edge. It wasn’t wise to linger.

Jack sniffed the air, wrinkling his nose the way he did when he looked for a scent trail. “Let’s find him.”

“Let’s not.”

“Rose . . .”

“You’re on thin ice already.” She climbed into the truck and shut the door. “We’re not chasing after some knucklehead who thinks he’s too important to walk on the shoulder.” She snorted, trying to get her heart rate under control.

Georgie opened his mouth.

“Not another word.”

A couple of minutes later, they reached the boundary, the point where the Edge ended and the Broken began. Rose always recognized the precise moment when she passed into the Broken. First, anxiety stabbed right through her chest, followed by an instant of intense vertigo, and then pain. It was as if the shiver of magic, the warm spark that existed somewhere inside her, died during the crossing. The pain lasted only a blink, but she always dreaded it. It left her feeling incomplete. Broken. That’s how the name for the magic-less dimension had come about.

There was an identical boundary on the opposite end of the Edge, the one that guarded the passage to the Weird. She never tried to cross it. She wasn’t sure her magic would be strong enough for her to survive.

They entered the Broken without any trouble. The Wood ended with the Edge. Mundane Georgia oaks and pines replaced the ancient dark trees. The dirt became pavement.

The narrow two-lane road brought them past the twin gas stations to the parkway. Rose checked the parkway for oncoming traffic, took a right, and headed toward the town of Pine Barren.

Above them an airplane thundered, fixing to land at the Savannah airport only a couple of miles away.