“Are you ready, Blaine?” A man stands in the middle of a darkened lab, staring at a metal platform rising from the concrete ground. With dark, beady eyes he looks to the woman who just spoke, before averting his gaze back to the contraption welded to the floor. “Are you ready?” she repeats. The large bird skull adorning her head obscures her face. “Perhaps he’s having second thoughts,” another woman sneers, from the lab stool she sits on. Her silver curls cascade past her face, barely allowing her emerald eyes to sparkle through. “What’s wrong, Blaine?” she says. “Is the mighty Magician afraid?” “If you’re more confident in this working, Valkryn, then why don’t you volunteer to do it yourself?” Blaine continues gazing at the platform, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his orange trench coat. “Of the few occasions I have constructed makeshift portals without connecting to a specific endpoint, the results have been…less than desirable.” “You sent the orphan through without issue last time.” Valkryn’s black amethyst latex suit squeaks as she crosses her legs. “How do you account for that?” “Dumb luck.” He pulls at his black goatee, the gears in his mind churning. “Perhaps there’s a better way.” “I don’t have time for any more foolishness,” says the woman with the bird skull. “The boy has already informed us that Sadie Hawthorne and Jensen Saint Clair are in town, ready to protect the girl. With every moment we waste, there is less of a chance we can capture her.” She points to the platform. “Get on there now, or the only thing going through that portal will be your lifeless body.” Blaine grunts, adjusting the orange, pointed hat atop his head, before stepping onto the metal. His black boots clang, echoing through the room. “I’m ready,” he says. The woman with the bird skull nods and picks up an octahedral-shaped crystal from the lab bench nearby. “Do not fail me.” She moves forward as her purple cloak glides against the floor. “The girl is the only key we have to breaking the spell.” “If she’s even what you say she is,” Blaine says. The woman turns the crystal in her hand, and he vanishes. “You really think this will work?” Valkryn looks at where Blaine stood just moments before. “Addisyn DeWinter never told us about the existence of her daughter,” says the woman with the bird skull. “The Holy Guardian’s bloodline has always been passed on through the female lineage. The next paladin would have to be her.” “But she’s not from this world.” Valkryn frowns. “She was born outside of Banewind.” “That makes no difference.” The woman with the bird skull turns toward the lab’s exit. “You cannot escape destiny, Valkryn.” She pauses at the door. “I have learned that all too well.” She leaves Valkryn alone, in silence, as she disappears into the darkened corridor.

The evening sky above the forest is splotched with stars, reawakening to blanket the world in their beauty once again. The faint breeze in the midsummer night’s air carries with it the woodland’s melody—a cacophony of chirping crickets and singing nighthawks. In the trees’ hollows, the majestic owls arise from their slumber, ready to cast their watchful gaze over the land. And there, in the center of the forest, stands Blaine. Alive. Relief washes over his mind. He looks around at the trees and shrubbery, taking a hesitant step as if testing the muddy ground. When he seems content with his surroundings, he steps through the foliage, pushing the branches and twigs out of his way. Within minutes, he has broken through the forest’s edge and finds himself at the top of a hill. From there, he sees the quaint cityscape that lies below, dotted with specks of light from the streetlamps and car headlights that speed through the dark. Blaine treks down the hill and continues toward the city’s outskirts. He finds himself outside of an abandoned church. As he approaches the wooden doors, he sees a plaque adorning the nineteenth-century brick wall, the remnants of its founding date having rusted away with time. A thick metal chain is wrapped around the handles, preventing him from entering. He clears his throat and grips the padlock in his calloused hands. An orange glow radiates from his fingertips, evolving into flames that dance until they are chewing through the metal lock. The fire reflects off his face, illuminating his worn, pock-marked skin. Soon the metal glows molten red as it melts into a mound of gelatinous goo, dripping through the cracks between his fingers. Hisssssssssssssss! Snap! The chain unravels through the handles as it clangs to the ground. He forces open the doors, shielding his face as a thick cloud of dust billows out into the night air. His footsteps echo through the church’s vaulted ceilings as he treads across the marble floor with his black boots. He pauses at the altar, slowly turning in a circle to take in his surroundings. He removes his orange, pointed hat and clutches at its brim, rubbing it between his fingers while grunting. “Hmm. This could work.” He taps his foot against the marble floor. “Yes, this could work.” As he stands there thinking about the project ahead of him, his memory stirs back to the first time he ever created a portal. “You’re never going to amount to anything, Blaine,” his father had jeered, taking a hammer to the metal structure he’d worked so hard on. “The opportunity to study at the Academy, and you waste it on meaningless projects like this? You’re no engineer. I’m disappointed to even call you my son.” Blaine shakes the image from his head. If he could only see me now. A sardonic grin spreads across his face. The feared Magician, chief tinkerer to the Voidweavers’ army. He pulls out a cell phone and dials a number. “Hello?” a young man answers. “I’m here, Scythe. Do you have the girl?” Outside, a murder of crows soar into the night sky, startled awake by the church bell’s thunderous roar resonating from the belfry tower.