The world snapped back into focus with no transition at all. One moment the cold sanctum, the weight, her voice from the walls. The next, warmth. A soft, enveloping warmth that soaked into my bones and chased off a chill I hadn't noticed I was carrying.
I was standing in the cottage again. The kitchen. It smelled of old wood and beeswax and the rich stew I had supposedly just eaten. The fire crackled in the next room. Peace and home, poured over me all at once like warm water.
But this time something was badly wrong.
I looked down. The wooden floorboards ran at a steep slant, forty-five degrees at least, and my feet stood on them as if they were flat. The pot of stew sat on the hob, simmering, but the cooker was bolted to the tilted wall, and the stew bubbled sideways, dead level with some private "down" that had nothing to do with the room. Under the cooking smell, faint and cold, was the scent of roses and the metallic bite of the sanctum.
