Hold on, just hold on, I tell myself. Reka's strong grip is an anchor for me, the only thing that makes sense. Somehow, I know she won't let me go, no matter what.

  Dread and a wrongness weigh on my spirit, and I feel like I'm being pulled in all directions. I try to cry out, but some instinct tells me there is no sound in this dimension. It's like I'm underwater, but more than that.

  Reka glances back and smiles reassuringly, giving me a direct view of her necklace. It glows like a beacon, projecting a field around us as we pass through the tunnel of blue nether, the portal, the whatever this is.

  The field is love, I realize, like every hug, every soft word, every tender feeling we've ever shared, concentrated and released in a single moment. I feel it all: our first date, the first time we made love, the first time we exchanged I love yous, two years in a moment. There is no time here, only impressions, eternal or fleeting, perhaps both at once.

  We walk on nothing, but somehow our feet keep plodding along. I'm even dragging a suitcase behind me, stuffed with my computer and everything else electronic I own. How my possessions can survive this primordial chaos, I have no idea. At least I'm not hungry anymore. There is no hunger here.

  At last, the tunnel narrows, and Reka picks up the pace. Just a little longer. We can make it. The protective bubble around us pops as we pass through a membrane, and the tunnel collapses behind us.

  Bright. Everything is so bright.

  Not bright like the tunnel, the blue eternity, but bright like reality, like life. There is a sun in the sky and solid ground beneath our feet. I can breathe again.

  "Hah!" Reka throws up her arms in glee. "I feel it! The power! After so long in a world dead to magic, I'm alive again." She snaps her fingers, and a blue flame sparks up like a torch, making me flinch. The smell of ozone is stronger now. It's in everything here. The world is alive with it. Not my world.

  Not my world.

  Reka notices I'm shaking and pulls me into a crushing embrace. Her necklace is cool to the touch, pale and inert, nothing like before.

  "Never fear, my love," she consoles me, whispering into my ear. "You're safe here, safer than you could ever possibly be. Once I come into my full power, death itself will be unable to touch you."

  Power? Magic? Death?

  "Honey, what's going on?" I ask, my voice surprisingly steady despite the insanity of what just happened. Reka. It's just Reka. As long as we're together, I'm okay. Please let me be okay.

  She pulls back just enough so she can look me in the eye. Her green eyes are even brighter than usual, alive with an inner fire they never had before.

  "I took you back home, dearest." She sweeps a hand along the vista. "My home."

  It's a dry land, but not quite a desert. There is dull brown grass under our feet, and scrub all around. I can even spot some cornfields in the distance. "This isn't Hungary," I state the obvious.

  Reka laughs uproariously. "Indeed not! We are in another world, not unlike those stories you're so fond of."

  Another world? Did my girlfriend isekai me? I want to laugh at the absurdity of it, but we just walked through a tunnel between dimensions. Anything is possible. There is no point in doubting.

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  "So we're not on Earth anymore?" I ask stupidly. Of course, we're not. That ozone smell, that feeling of everything being alive in a way it isn't back home, is answer enough. My girlfriend can snap her fingers and summon flames! This world is magic!

  "No, not on Earth," she answers, taking me by the hand. "These are my lands, our lands. Everything that belongs to me belongs to you, naturally."

  I look around again and notice the farmers in the distance are manually cutting the corn with reaping hooks; no combine harvesters in sight. "What's the, uh, tech level, here?"

  "Medieval, approximately, but we have convenient magic to do a great deal of what your Earth technology can accomplish. Still, there are things we can't duplicate." She gives my suitcase a meaningful look.

  "Is there actually a place to plug in my computer?"

  Before she can answer, Reka stumbles. I rush to catch her, but she catches herself first. "Drat, these heels have seen better days. I'll have to send them to my cobbler for repairs." She takes her shoes off and continues walking barefoot.

  "Is that really okay, babe? I can carry you if you want," I offer.

  Faster than I thought possible, she sweeps my legs out from under me and picks me up. "It is I who should be carrying you, my love. You've had a trying day." She's grinning so widely her teeth look sharper than usual.

  "No, no, that's okay," I say, feeling like a child in her arms. My girlfriend has always been strong, but this is ridiculous.

  "Oh? Too bad." She sets me down gently, and we're walking side by side again. "To answer your question, devising a magical power source for Earth electronics is no great matter. I figured it out over a year ago, in fact. What was difficult was finding enough storage so we could take all Earth media with us. Far be it for me to deprive you of your culture. Within your suitcase, you will find saved copies of every Earth film, television program, book, video game, and piece of music. Gathering it all took some doing, but I supposed it would help ease your transition."

  Transition, huh. I guess I have to ask, just to make sure. "So we can really never go back?"

  Reka stops walking instantly and makes me look at her. "You aren't regretting it, are you?" Silent pressure flows off of her in waves, but I know my girlfriend. She's trying to seem strong right now, but she's actually quite vulnerable. There's doubt there, and insecurity. I know what I have to say.

  "Not at all. I mean it." I really do. She's right. I wasn't happy back home. I'm only happy with her. "I just wish you had explained it to me beforehand."

  "I couldn't!" She sounds stricken. "For the magic to work properly, you had to trust me, not knowing what I intended. Doing magic on Earth is a trial, my love. Every variable must be accounted for, not like here." She waves her hand demonstratively, casually conjuring a path for us through some dense underbrush.

  Her outfit looks ridiculous, dressed for a night on the town while we hike through the wilderness. "Is that why..." I trail off, but she takes my meaning.

  "Just so, dearest. Our first anniversary was the night I decided I couldn't live without you, ever. Life without you by my side would be quite pointless."

  The sincere way she says it makes my skin heat up, and my heartbeat quickens. You can't fake love like that. No one has ever loved me like Reka, not even my own family. I'm feeling better and better about going away with her.

  "Our passage had to be a magical echo of that night, where you took me somewhere I had no notion of. It's why I'm clad in the very garb I wore. The gift you presented me had to be the focus." One hand clutches her diamond necklace, just a diamond now, I think. "Charging it properly was the work of over a year."

  My mind goes back to the portal. "Those memories..."

  Reka nods firmly. "Yes, you understand. I poured it all into the jewel. Love is a power unknown and unlooked for. In this, you were my teacher. It was only with your support that I was able to devise a method to return."

  She presses up against me, radiating gratitude. Peasants in the fields kneel as we walk past. Who the heck was Reka here?

  I don't have to wonder long. The wilderness gives way to a cultivated path, leading to a castle on a hill. Footmen and maids stand in formation, ready to welcome her, us.

  "Ah, faithful Galiban musters the servants for our arrival," Reka says appreciatively.

  "Galiban?"

  "My butler," Reka clarifies. "Here he is now."

  A middle-aged man in a tuxedo approaches, bowing low. Then I notice the horns. This isn't just a medieval world. It's a fantasy world!

  "My lady," he says, his voice low and sonorous, "Malmark Castle is yours."

  Galiban, Reka's butler