In a quiet neighbourhood in Generasi—in the wee hours of the morning—all was still. Golem crafting carried on in Shale’s workshop as it always did at all hours of the night, while late night wanderers strolled down the magically lit street. Most windows were shuttered for the night, very few lights burned within the homes and small businesses in this part of the city.

Even in the Roth Family Bakery—where Troy and the other staff would soon arrive to make preparations for the day—nearly every room was in darkness.

All was still quiet.

Alex Roth, Theresa Lu, Claygon and Brutus—accompanied by Birger and Bjorgrund—materialised in the dark dining area on the first floor. Aeld blooms glowed, giving off dim light from Alex’s staff, until he conjured forceballs and Wizard’s Hands, illuminating the space.

Crimson light deepened shadows on his face, making him appear like a grim gargoyle carved of shimmering red stone.

“Dammit,” he swore quietly.

“What’s wrong?” Theresa whispered, not wanting to awaken Selina.

He shook his head. “That power…the connection I had with Hannah when I was so close to death, is gone. The Mark ‘helped’ me—” The word tasted bitter, knowing how Uldar’s brand had nearly caused them to die. “—learn a bit about Hannah’s power from how we teleported to Merzhin.” Alex shook his head.

He bit the inside of his cheek. “And I’m going to need a lot more power fast. Real fast. Anyway, let’s leave that for now, I’m just wasting time.”

Alex looked at Bjorgrund. “Could you do me a favour?”

“What is it?” the giant asked, his eyes lingering on his surroundings in curiosity.

“Could you take Claygon’s bag for me? It has the books we pilfered from Brightfire in it, and I’ll want them when we find Kelda’s sanctum. And…I’ll also need to bring more supplies with us, and that bag’ll be too full for me to carry along with my other ones. Would you mind carrying that one?”

“Of course,” the young giant said, turning to the shorter golem.

Claygon looked at the giant for a long moment; Alex sensed a storm of emotions rushing through their link. Anger, confusion, resolve, guilt, grief, frustration, reluctance…all struggled against each other, one consuming the next.

Slowly, he removed the bag of spellguides from his shoulder and handed it to the young giant, without a word.

“Claygon…” Alex started.

“Father…you won’t take me with you? To…protect you?” Claygon turned to him.

“If I do—and I want to, buddy—who’s going to protect Selina?” the young wizard asked.

A white hot spike of rage and guilt stabbed through their link, so strong that Alex actually winced.

“I—” he started.

“We had better hurry…” the golem said, in a voice that was ancient and stiff. “...if you’re going to go…like you said, father…time is limited.”

Alex shut his mouth.

Claygon was right, and nothing he could say would make him feel any better. Not now, anyway.

“Alright, I have to get some supplies from the lab,” Alex said.

“What about Selina?” Theresa asked.

The wizard cringed, glancing at the ceiling. “Let’s…let her sleep for a bit longer.”

Without another word, he turned and walked toward his lab.

Emotions took over, each step was heavier than the last. Rage and sadness were his companions, bringing to mind a stomach churning familiarity.

Alex quickly moved through the lab, deciding what to take to the Empire, remembering a very similar time in his life. He saw himself in his room in the Lu Family Inn—his home for most of his life—going through his possessions, trying to decide what he’d need when he left for Generasi to attend wizard school...and escape the church.

Just as he’d done before, he was doing the same thing again, looking through his belongings, wanting to not bring anything that would be dead weight.

Here he was again, escaping the church, leaving his home at a time not of his own choosing, and, against his will, sorting through his belongings—the physical symbols of his life and his place in the world—trying to figure out what he would need.

Being forced, once again, to leave the life he’d built…

…and, once again, the fault lay solely with a filthy, selfish deity and his dogged servants.

It made Alex’s desire to smash Uldar’s corpse, his sanctum, the First Apostle and the rest of the secret church’s fanatics explode. He had no idea how long he’d be away from his home. There was no way of knowing, no inkling of how long it would be: days, weeks, months…even longer.

The young wizard tried not to think about it, using his meditation techniques to let those thoughts pass as he acknowledged them. He tried not to let those techniques remind him of his peaceful meditation sessions in his rooftop garden, or on Generasi’s green campus.

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…places he might not see for a long time…or maybe ever again.

‘I hate this.’

‘The faster I find Kelda’s sanctum,’ he thought. ‘The faster I can get started on fixing the Mark, and the faster I can start trying to fix the Mark, the better chance I have of killing those rat bastards, and the faster I can kill them, the quicker I can come home. Then, we can concentrate on finding the Ravener, destroying it for good, and getting our lives back.’

Keeping those thoughts in mind, Alex selected everything he wanted to take with great care.

The first thing he chose was—surprisingly—a weapon.

Hannah’s sword.

‘I didn’t take it with me before, but it could be useful in Kelda’s sanctum. And…’ He glanced at the aeld staff. ‘Even if I change the Mark from Fool to General, I’ll still need to be ready if the church shows up again. What else do I need…?’

‘My alchemy tools; anything portable and sturdy should be coming with me. Then some potion making materials, probably enough to last a month or so if I use them regularly, and supplies for other alchemical creations.’

Specifically…

‘Chaos essence and dungeon core remains,’ he thought, carefully removing two small, magically-reinforced jars of powder from a warded cabinet in the back of the lab. ‘I’ll need enough for a bomb—’ He paused, reconsidering, then taking enough for more chaos bombs. ‘I can’t use them yet, but if I fix the Mark, then I could bomb the ever-loving hells out of them. They’d die the same way Carey did; I’m no poet, but there’s gotta be something poetic in that.’

Once the chaos essence and dungeon core remains were safely packed away, he went through his supply bag, checking its contents.

“Waterproof sleeping roll, check. Magical fire producer, check. Back up flint and tinder, check. Magical water purifier, check. Self-erecting tent, check. Potions, check. Enchanted rope, check. Week’s worth of rations, check…no, I’ll need a lot more of those. Hmmm, alright, well that should be about a month’s worth. Bathing supplies, check. Portable timekeeper, check. Mapping kit, check. Snow Blindness-Reduction goggles, check.”

He paused, then. “Seems that’s just about everything, except for the Irtyshenan coin in my chest, which should be enough to last me for a good while. Alright. Then I’ll just—”

“Alex!” Theresa called from upstairs, her voice loud enough to make the young wizard flinch.

“Yes?” he called back, his stomach sinking.

“Selina’s awake,” she said.

“Oh, Hells,” he muttered. “Where are you?”

“In the dining room, the upstairs dining room!”

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath to steady himself and throwing the bag over his shoulder, teleported up to their dining room.

Theresa, Claygon and Selina were waiting there.

The golem and the huntress seemed to have been packing a bag for him, filling it with rations, fresh food, water, canteens and other supplies. Selina stood at the bottom of the stairs, her hair mussed and nightdress rumpled from sleep.

Her eyes were completely alert, while her posture was stiff and her head darted from side to side.

“W-what’s going on?” she asked, looking from one of them to the next. “Why are you all packing, you just got back?”

Tension gripped her voice.

It was clear she knew something was wrong.

“Wait…what happened to your clothes?” she suddenly cried. “What happened to you, Claygon, you’re all scratched up!”

Alex winced; with everything that had happened, he’d forgotten the ragged state of their clothing. Merzhin had healed their injuries, but their clothes were still ripped and burnt. Theresa had changed her shirt since they’d arrived home, but her trousers were now a series of burn holes, where cloth should have been. Alex’s shirt was bloodstained and frayed from top to bottom.

“Selina, you’ll understand soon, because I have something important to tell you and I need you to listen carefully,” he said slowly, trying to sound completely calm and in control. “Okay?”

“Alright,” she sounded sceptical.

“Do you want to sit down?”

“No, I’m okay.” Her fingers tightened on the railing. “I thought you were doing everything you needed to last night…the stuff for those people Kelda worked with? Did something go wrong?”

“Well…just listen.”

He told her of the mission in Brightfire, of the four places that Warder had directed them to in the Empire and—finally, about the attack in the wilderness. Alex stayed calm, trying not to frighten her, avoiding details that might scar her. He ended his story with them teleporting to Merzhin for healing.

“...and that’s why I’m going to have to go away for a while,” he said. “They have some way of tracking me, and I don't know what that is, so until they’re defeated, there’s no way I can stay at home. I have to leave because I have to finish this.”

“No.”

An uncomfortable silence hung over them.

“What?” Alex asked.

“You’re not going anywhere, this is our home.” She looked at him with fire in her eyes.

“Selina…there’s a chance that they’ll come here looking for me, then they’ll attack—”

“It’s okay.” She nodded. “We’re safe here. You’ll be safer here, and we can fight them together.”

“Selina, you’ve never fought anyone before,” Theresa said gently.

“It’s okay. Alex can teach me more fire magic, and—”

“Selina.” Alex cut in. “I can’t. We nearly died; I’ll be honest with you, I think the only people we know who could comfortably defeat them—without any risk to themselves—are Baelin…or Hobb, probably. Even if we had the entire cabal together, I don’t think we could win that fight right now. If they come here looking for me, then they could hurt you, they could hurt Toraka, your friends…so many people we love. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Then I’ll come with you. We’ll all go together.”

She forced a smile. “It’ll be like when we went into the Cave of the Traveller together, Alex. Just like then, I’ll come with you. I’ll go get my—”

“Not this time,” Theresa said. “When we were leaving Alric I told Alex you’d follow him if he went into the Cave by himself.”

“Good.” Selina’s smile remained. “Then I’ll get my—”

“But this is different.”

The forced smile wavered. Slightly. “How’s it different?” Her tone was tense.

“Because you’re older now,” Theresa said. “Because we know what’s waiting for us in the Empire. Because Alex isn’t going to a city of wizards this time. Because we don’t know when he’ll be able to come back.”

“What do you mean because I’m older now? I can handle it, that’s why I should—” Selina started.

Theresa was shaking her head. “Selina, you’re older now; you’re mature enough to know why you need to stay here. We can trust that you understand and know you won’t try to follow Alex now. That’s why you can stay here. That’s why this is different from before.”

“I don’t want it to be different, then!” the young girl cried. “I want to come with you I…” Her voice rose. “I don’t want you to die!” She faced Alex, tears running down her face. “You’re my only brother! Mom and dad are dead, and now you want to go off by yourself? Alex, you could die, then what will I do?”

The young wizard forced down a surge of emotion. He had to be strong. He had to be. “You’ll live, Selina,” he said. “You’ll live, and that could be very, very hard, but I did it. I had to do it, after mother and father died, and you’re smarter than I was at your age. You’re stronger, you’re braver, you’re more determined. You’ll do it, Selina. Please, I have to do this.”

“But…what about our life?” she asked, tears dropping on the floor. “We’re happy here! When are you coming back?”

“I…” He paused. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Trembling, Selina suddenly ran from the stairs, throwing her arms around her brother. “No…don’t leave me…not like this…”

Alex wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. “It’s the best way for now, Selina. It’s the only thing we can do.”

Silence fell between them.

She buried her head against his torso; a torso that—mere hours ago—was mangled and bloodied. “Promise you’ll be back. Promise.”