“You understand why I invited you here,” Humphrey said to him.

Wesley barely heard him, the man’s voice like a distant echo. His mind was in so many different places he felt as though he might fall over. He took a deep breath, steadying himself, his vision a blurr.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” the Minister said uneasily.

Still, his mind was distant. Stuck in his childhood. Of memories in long hallways and vast lawns. Swimming in fountains. Running through tall mazes.

Of a night in late June, when his world was rent apart.

“Wesley…Wesley, are you hearing me?” Humphrey was asking. .

“The symbol,” Wesley said. “It’s…”

“The Nocturne,” the Minister snapped. “We know. Humphrey, look at him. He’s not ready. The boy is pale as a ghost.”

“Give him a moment,” Humphrey said, raising a hand. “He very well may be seeing ghosts. But we need him.”

“What can he do that Mangold can’t? Or Theroux? The others are going to want in on this.”

Wesley blinked up at him.

“Would you like to enlighten him, Doctor?” Humphrey asked, referring to the bespectacled man.

Some color had returned to the man’s face but he was still whitened. “Magic like this wizard uses leaves traces. It's old magic. Ancient, even.” He straightened his glasses, peering eerily at the blood symbol. “Part of it is blood magic. Because of how he attempts to fundamentally change the nature of the body with magic. It seeps everywhere.”

The Minister was staring at him like he was crazy. But he said, “So, you’re telling me it’s on him because his mother was killed by this freak? What does that have to do with anything?”

The doctor grimaced. “It may be nothing but the traces of this…” he drew a long, brass monocular out of his pocket and put it up to his eye. The lens was dark red and glowing. “The runoff from these spells just drifts towards him.”

Humphrey was looking at Wes with a concerned expression. “What does it mean?”

“I…don’t know,” the doctor said, his brow furrowed. “I could run some…”

The world suddenly changed a deep red, as if the brightness had been turned up. A piercing whistle shattered all the glass in the room. Vases, cups and mirrors simply broke, spilling to the floor. Spiderweb cracks splintered the thicker glass of the surrounding windows. The stuff that was supposed to be magically imbued.

Wesley had his wand out in a second, drawing his sword too. He stared down at the long, silver blade. It was…glowing.

Dimly but still. A dull light blue.

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It was absorbing magic. Taking on so much it was growing warm.

And the sound…

It was as though someone had dropped a thunderclap in the room.

“Pro–”

His shield charm died in the air.

A bolt of red lighting punched straight through the roof and exploded between them. Wesley was thrown into a wall. His world darkened a moment until he found himself climbing to his feet, somewhat unconsciously. When he opened his eyes, he found a tall figure, draped in maroon robes, standing at the edge of the tower.

In one hand, he held a translucent, blue and yellow glowing orb. In the other, a bone-white wand.

The face was hidden and the air around him crackled.

Wesley raised his wand, his mouth trying for a sound.

The figure flicked his own and Wesely felt his wand fly from his hand.

“Enough of that, I think,” came a voice, baritone and thunderous.

Wesley noticed two still forms on the ground. The Minister and the Captain. He did not see their chests rising. The doctor was nowhere to be found.

“Who are you?” Wesley asked stupidly.

His ears were still ringing.

“I think you know.”

“The Nocturne.”

“The Nocturne…” the man repeated, nodding pensively. “I haven’t gone by that name in a long time.”

Wes moved, going for his wand.

“Tardus,” said the being simply.

Wes’s world slowed to a terrifying crawl. A goddamn sludge spell. The cheeky bastard.

“You have been chosen, Wesley Barstow,” the Nocturne said. “Chosen to bear a great burden. If you survive.”

Wesley was getting angrier, moving as if through jelly. A decade of rage was catching up to him. His flexing fingers were reaching ever closer to the wand on the glass shattered floor. His mind wandered to which curse he would use.

Something that would render oblivion to the monster.

“Now, I know you will not want to do what I say but I’m afraid you have no choice. This…game…is bigger than you and me.”

Wes felt the voice playing tricks on his mind. Lulling him into some kind of trance.

“So much to do…so little time…” the Nocturne mused.

He had come closer now and Wesley could see beneath the hood. Utter darkness was all that was there. A pit like a black hole. Consuming.

It pissed Wesley off.

He fought the spell, consciously forcing his heart to beat faster. Sending his blood through his magically constrained body. It broke in an instant and Wes stumbled forward, his hand closing around the wand, shattered glass digging into the side of his hand.

“Incredible!” the Nocturne said. “What spirit you have!”

Wesley knew he was not fast enough. By the time he rose the Nocturne was on him, a big hand placed on his chest, sending ripples of cold pain through his body, rendering him a lump of useless meat.

“You will resist, that is fine. But you will submit. I chose you for a reason. There is much to overcome. You will see, my child. You will see.”

Wesley screamed but it never left his mouth. He felt something like a fire poker searing his ribs.

“Marked again,” the Nocturne said, raising a gloved hand. A silver watch materialized out of the air. “Take this, my champion. May I meet you in the Shallow Halls.” Something twinkled in that soul sucking pit of a face. “If you survive.”

The watch seared itself onto Wesley’s wrist, pain breaking the numbing spell and he went for his sword, drawing it in a flash but he was somehow seconds too slow. Bewildered, he looked around and found the Nocturne on the edge of the tower again, hand outstretched, the orb glowing like a miniature sun.

“So it begins,” thundered that taunting voice.

The orb hissed and the world seemed to shatter.