It was a long drive from the airport at Kathmandu to the border of Mage Country. She was happy the long drive gave her a chance to finish a podcast episode, and the wait still continued as she fell into the long line to the gated entrance. Between the slopes of a steep grassy valley, two six foot mages in black cloaks stood on either side of an ornate gate, turning away non-mage travelers at the door.

Some turned their cars around, some were allowed through, and some floated or teleported themselves through the gate, but they all had to step out to be checked before they could go in. The Bureau knew Mage Country had a history of being strict with visitors, but since when was it this strict? Maya checked the date.

Today was West Gale’s funeral.

When it was Maya’s turn, she parked her car and made her way towards the gate. The black-cloaked mage on the right bowed. “Greetings. Your familiarity makes me believe you’re also not from here.”

“Not at all. I’m Agent Wolfe, with the international Supernatural Regulatory Bureau. I need to meet Avanti Mirage.”

He tensed the wrinkles in his dark face at the mention of the bureau. “I do not mean to obstruct your arrest, but I would request that you delay your visit, for now. Today is a day of sacred mourning.”

“I know. West Gale is why I’m here. I’m not here to arrest anyone.” Maya made a show of pulling out her pistol. Though the second guard turned his body towards her in concern, she handed it over immediately. “This is my only weapon. I don’t have powers. I’m here on a peaceful visit.”

The polite guard eyed her for a moment. He whispered underneath his breath and tapped Maya’s pistol, and it shimmered from his hands, disappearing in thin air. “So be it. May the ancestors guide our path. Please, follow me.”

With that, he nodded to the other guard and the gates swung open, closing behind them as the singular guard took position in the middle of the gate. He led her to the nearly-full boat down the river into Mage Country, standing guard beside her as the trip began.

Maya was the only suit on a boat full of cloaks speaking in different tongues, each donning specific colors and symbols, huddling and whispering among themselves. As the boat rocked back and forth down the river, she only earned more suspicious looks and glances. She wasn’t just an outsider; she was an outsider in such modern, official clothing that everyone must’ve wondered if she would arrest them, first. Maya saw it coming. She twiddled her thumbs and kept her head down.

Only figuratively, though. She couldn’t hide her astonishment deep in the forest, a mage hunted by shooting fire from his bare hands to catch a deer unaffected by the dim shadows of trees thicker than buildings. Supernatural powers and side effects from the System didn’t faze her, but this was just magic — real magic! The air hummed around every mage she laid eyes on, like the anticipation during a baseball game before the first swing.

Before long, the boat slowed down at the dock of Sorcellyn, the capital village. The black cloaked guard led her down the dock while the boat continued without them, but Maya’s head was on a swivel. The SRB had always tried to watch Mage Country, but satellites never picked up the locations of any of their villages. Maya theorized they had magical jamming spells to hide from their sensors.

Not anymore. The mundane reality was still astonishing; satellites could never find wooden homes and treehouses with grass roofs, hidden in plain sight within nature’s palm. Larger buildings were carved directly into the skyscraper trees, and mages strolled along flat dirt paths, not a road in sight.

The most they could pick up was the magical signature, and that was certain. Fire lurched from a treehouse window far above her head, igniting a nearby branch until a mage extended a hand and sucked the fire back into their palm like a vacuum. A trio of mages whizzed overhead with a gust of wind, cloaks flapping behind them. Maya’s mind almost short circuited when a door opened in reality itself, and a man stepped out from the darkness, waving at the guard leading Maya.

He brought her to a place that almost looked like a community center, wide with open windows to the spacious interiors. A set of stairs led to the engraved double doors and the balcony on the other side, overlooking the river below.

A balcony where a woman in a black cloak gazed at Maya between emerald bangs green dyed hair, a scar above her eye and piercings in her lips.

The guard gestured forward. “Avanti Mirage, you have a visitor from the outside.”

Maya cleared her throat. “I’m Agent Wolfe, from the International Supernatural Regulatory Bureau, and—”

Avanti teleported.

One moment, she was twenty feet away, standing at the top of the stairs. The next, she appeared two feet away, and her illusion by the stairs dissolved into steam.

“I could tell when I watched you walk up here. Don’t tell me I left a rune at that McDonald’s in Columbia. The cashier deserved it.”

“I—” Maya cleared her throat.

“What? Surprised to meet someone here with such an American accent?”

“Yeah, but relieved, too. I’m not here for that, but you’re probably right about who deserved what. I need to talk to you about West Gale.

Avanti turned up her nose. “Let me guess. You’ve come on the day of his funeral to see if he was really working with Apex.”

“No.” Maya lowered her tone. “Between you and me, they didn’t tell the full story on TV, and Mindgame sent me here to get the rest. You were the last person West spoke to.”

Her expression shifted from disgust to intrigue. “The psychic boy?”

Maya nodded. “Before he came to you, Mindgame read Apex’s mind to give West Gale the location of his mother. Can you tell me how your last meeting with West went? Did he give you any information regarding Apex?”

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“I can, but you have to come with me, first. The ceremony is beginning.”

Maya only noticed the harsh silence once they stopped talking. Mother Nature herself had closed her lips as mages left their homes and headed for the river. Avanti led Maya back to the balcony to watch.

In the time it took her and the guard to reach Avanti, hundreds of mages lined up at the edge of the river, like a thousand legos scattered on a floor. A large boat edged down the river, sailing to a song of harp strings — yet, no one played any visible instruments. A white-cloaked mage on the head of the boat waved his hands, guiding the song playing directly to Maya’s mind.

Behind him, two murals faced the crowds. One was of an older woman, her wise smile still shining through wrinkles weighing her face down. But, the other was West Gale himself. His features were painted in full display, down to his dark skin, his unshaved jaw line, and the guilty yet tired look in his green eyes.

Avanti formed a triangle with her fingers. Maya squinted; sure enough, all of the mages in the crowd along the river bank were doing the same, even the hundreds more perched in the trees and standing on air.

The harps paused as the mage on the head of the boat stopped waving his hands and made the same gesture. “Welcome. We make this sign to represent connection, a direct line to our ancestors, those that West Gale will soon joins,” he said. His lip flaps didn’t match what he was saying, but just like the music, magic streamed every word into Maya’s head, possibly translating, too.

“My fellow mages, under their eyes, we gather today to witness his passing to the great beyond. It is a fate we must all endure one day. Yet, he has done so at such an early age of twenty one. West was the greatest wind mage Fighter in history, and the only one to become one of the Fifty. For his achievement and devotion to our craft, we can only hope that the Spiritfarers can guarantee a safe journey to the beyond.”

A pair of mages descended from the trees, cloaks shimmering ethereal purples and blues, as if donning the universe itself. They landed on either side of a square coffin at the center of the boat.

The mage in white chanted in another language as the Spiritfarers raised their gleaming hands. Maya watched with wide eyes as a trail of pine-green light lifted from the face of the coffin, rising to the sky. They tugged their fingers and pulled their open hands, and it was like the northern lights themselves returned to the stars.

Maya never would’ve thought there were thousands of mages watching. Her head spun as she scanned the crowd, finding more mages holding the same gesture under bowed heads. No sensor could determine how many mages had converged on this singular river, but in the mourning eyes of death — under the threat of the next life — it sounded like there were none.

A red-cloaked mage on the boat stepped closer to the coffin. He started a small fire in the air in front of him and grasped it with his hands like it was cloth, pulling and tugging until he drew back an arrow of flames, firing at the coffin. The smoke mixed in with the green trail of West’s spirit, rising into the morning sky as West’s coffin burned. Before long, the green trail faded, and the Spiritfarers collapsed into a kneel.

Avanti dropped the gesture, but still hung her head and leaned against the railing, sighing. “That wasn’t really his spirit.”

“It wasn’t?”

She shook her head. “We believe that the spirit truly leaves the body at the moment of death. Rather, the Spiritfarers imbue the coffin and the body inside with pieces of their own souls, and they exorcize them into the sky, to represent his true passing.”

“But, will giving pieces of their own soul kill them? Is that how it works?”

Avanti nodded. “Eventually. But when one of us dies, we all must feel the loss.”

The ship continued down the river as the fire burned, though the crowd stayed to mourn as the harp strings continued.

“West showed up to my apartment back in America a few months ago,” Avanti said. “He needed my help to get into the basement of Arise Health, where his mother was being held.”

Maya pulled out her notepad.

“At first, I didn't want anything to do with him, no matter how desperate he looked. He didn’t do anything when our village burned down. I hated him for it. But, once he told me who it was for, and how she got there…” Avanti pursed her lips.

“Who captured his mother? Was it Apex?”

“Possibly. He never told me her name. Years back, a young woman did come with promises to turn him into a Fighter. I was there during their first meeting. She described it to him like an opportunity, but when he came to my apartment this time, he said it was really slavery. The first time he tried fighting back against whatever she ordered him to do, our village burned. My grandfather and our best friends died. We couldn’t find his mother, either, and thought she died, too, but…apparently not.”

“I see. When I scanned the records we had on West Gale, one mentioned his home village having burned down. We theorized it was a magic accident.”

Avanti shook her head. “If that’s her name…Apex burned it down. Apex killed our best friends. My grandfather died saving me from the fires Apex started,” Avanti spat. “And then she locked up West’s mother in the North Arise Health HQ, and threatened to kill her, too, if he ever stepped out of line.”

Maya’s heart burned cold. She knew that hatred, that tone that Avanti said her name with. Apex had killed both of their grandfathers — she couldn’t go much longer unpunished.

“I couldn’t forgive him, but I couldn’t be mad at him for any longer,” Avanti continued. “So, I inscribed a gauntlet to grant him temporary invisibility. I think he made it inside. All I know after that is, when I woke up the next morning, they had announced his death on the news.”

Maya nodded slowly, recording it all.

“Do you know why he really died?”

“It wasn’t an accident while making a movie. Apex killed him in cold blood,” Maya said. “At the last moment, he gave a chip with data on her to a young boy, and helped him get away safely. For that, she gave him a hand through the heart.”

“And now she’s taken the love of my life from me, too.” Avanti clenched the railing. “Is there anything else specific you need to know?”

“What would you do if Apex was in front of you, right now?”

“Excuse me?”

Maya nodded. “Exactly that. I ask because Apex killed my grandfather, too. Silk Music. He was the first to die in her scheme to replace everyone in the Ultimate Versus with her loyalists. I’ve thought about it.”

“And?”

“The SRB has a strict policy not to kill incarcerated rogue supernaturals. So, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that this’ll be my last investigation. Either I die on the trail, or I get face to face with her alone in a cell, and…”

Maya squinted as the nightmarish dream flashed through her eyes.

“Apply pressure to the arteries to the side of her neck to cut off circulation to her brain until she blacks out?” Avanti finished. “I would do the same, while forcing her through an illusion of drowning.”

“To maximize the helplessness before death?”

“Because she deserves every second of it.” Avanti nodded. “We aren’t too different. Is that why you’re collecting evidence on her?”

“I tell myself it’s so that she can get the justice she deserves, but…yeah. It’s to do that. I’m sorry for your losses, but I could use your help, too. I don’t have powers, myself, and I don’t need them, but your Illusion magic could sneak West into the north Arise HQ. You can help me bring her to justice.”

Down below, the mages finally started to dissipate from the crowd of mourning.

Avanti straightened her stance, nodding. “I couldn’t ask for anything better, Maya. I’ll need you to fill me in on what you know about her so far.”