Shane did not know how to establish a connection to open another portal. However, he did not need to. Felix and himself were both yanked back into the Plane of Spirits by some unseen force. Elvira stood upon a precipice overlooking the three mounds of Black River, but no city could be found under that sunless magenta sky. Her curly purple hair and silvery robes were tinged with dull gold. The High Daughter, a twenty-foot monster of an Elemental, loomed nearby, her face impassive.

"Thank you," Elvira said. She waved her hand, and the Elemental vanished.

"You are invited to return," Brigid said. She was standing behind them, with the purple crystal spire towering beyond. She created a portal to the other side, but Shane felt nothing. No sorcery, no connections. When they reached the other side, Brigid said: "You have need of instruction in sorcery, which I will furnish when I return. Wait here."

When Brigid returned she was flanked by two animated armor constructs. One carried a tall bronze rod with a tripod at one end and a goblet at the other end. The second carried two containers of some bright blue liquid. Together they set the goblet upright and filled it with the strange liquid.

"The fastest way to learn how to connect to one of the Realms is to do so while already connected. By far the easiest way to coerce a Fire Elemental to establish the connection on your behalf is to give it something it likes." Brigid pointed to the goblet. "It turns out that Fire Elementals really, really like kerosene."

What the hell is kerosene? Shane wondered.

"Shane, you are more attuned to using sorcery already. Prepare to establish a connection, prepare to sacrifice some of your spiritual energy, and then think to yourself that this liquid should catch fire, that it should be consumed."

It was not how his old master would have taught sorcery. Then again, Shane's old master was not able to establish connections to the Realm of Fire. He looked at the strange blue liquid, and then said: "Daughter of Fire! This liquid should be consumed with flame!"

That did the trick. The goblet burst into flames, and Shane felt the unmistakable feeling of a connection being opened. He felt something being siphoned from him. His spiritual energy was being drained away slowly. And then, for the first time ever as a sorcerer, he heard the voice of an Elemental at the other end of the connection. BURN, she said. Her voice was a torrent of crackling flame. CONSUME! CONSUME!

Shane made note of the feeling. The direction of the connection, in the space that most people could not experience, the space of sorcery. Like describing color to a blind person, this feeling would be difficult to describe to Felix. He turned away, and let the goblet of kerosene burn. Then he established a new connection to the Realm of Fire, and cast flames high into the air. A feather-like plume of flames, as tall as a High Daughter, shot out into the sky.

"That was correct," Brigid said. "I will leave Felix to you then." She retired into the spire and said no more.

Shane created a barrier using wind sorcery, preventing new air from entering the goblet. The flame quickly died out. Then, he established a connection to the Realm of Water, and used ice magic to cool the liquid and the surface of the goblet. "You try it," he said. "Tell the Elemental that you want to burn the liquid here."

Felix looked determined. "Daughter of Fire!" he repeated, in a harsh bark that could be heard from across a battlefield. "Consume it! Burn it!"

Remarkably, the liquid in the goblet caught fire. Felix, who no doubt experienced a connection for the first time, reeled back as if struck. He quickly recovered, and his eyes narrowed. "Why don't we try that again?" Shane asked. He repeated the procedure to put out the flame and cool the liquid. The construct, still standing faithfully nearby, topped off the goblet with more of the strange blue liquid.

Again and Felix lit the flame, and again Shane put it out. Over and over. Felix seemed to be more bewildered with the experience with each new attempt. "I have been working with you for a while," Shane said, "but you have said very little about yourself."

"What is there to say?" Felix growled.

He was an enormous beast of a man. Not as tall as the Purple Dragon, but still imposing. Made almost entirely from pure muscle, he always walked, talked, and stood like a soldier. Now, his face was contorted with focus.

"Why did you join the Paladins?" Shane asked.

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"My father was a Paladin. He broke his oath and founded his own army of mobsters. I wanted to do something to redeem my family. Also, I wanted to fly."

"And they let you in?"

"Yeah. I was surprised as well. Me and Neasa were the only people accepted that year, out of hundreds of applicants. Neasa is the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Even though she is highly qualified, her family likely bribed the Lord Paladin somehow." He gripped his hand into a fist and lit the goblet on fire with just his mind. "I do not know why I was chosen. My family was disgraced."

"Keep your enemies close," Shane said, as he quelled the flame.

Felix nodded. "That is plausible. Anyway, my mother tried to sacrifice my soul to Ashe. I think both of my parents worship that thing."

Shane was astonished at this remark. "And, that violence the other day. When you killed that Heritage Militia commander?"

"I think I am beginning to piece it together," Felix said. "Why the Purple Dragon chose me and you. What this is all about."

"Have you asked Astrid?"

"What's the point? She knows everything that I think. If she wanted to bring it up, she would." The goblet burst alight once more.

"So what have you surmised?" Shane suffocated the flame.

"Words, so many strange words. You were asking why I killed that man. The answer is simple. My father does not want me to fly. Some creature called Titania is to blame. Some enemy of Ashe maybe. I have no idea. Either way, my father sent those men to destroy the prototype. So I killed them."

"I remember when we went to the realms the Elementals mentioned Titania by name," Shane said. "We should ask Alice."

"Yeah. I think I understand." He punched the air with his fist, and then a plume of flame shot out into the sky. "This 'spiritual energy' thing the Elementals were talking about. I think I should be able to feed the thing without help from this liquid."

"Then we should start working on the other two elements. We can start with the Realm of Wind."

Shane began to repeat the instructions that he had learned as an apprentice, the basic invocations and phrases that would aid in connecting to the Realm of Wind. Felix began to repeat them, but it did not help. Shane would have felt a connection from the man if he had succeeded, but he felt... nothing.

"I told you about myself," Felix said. "Your turn."

"Sure. I was born in Needlewood. Both of my parents were Rilnese workers. My mother always told me, over and over again, that I was the Chosen One. I was the first Rilnese person born north of the border in history. I was going to lead the armies of the Blue Dragon to glory in exterminating the evil red-bloods."

Felix muttered something to himself, no doubt trying to connect to the Realm of Wind.

"I believed all of it. I really wanted to be the Chosen One that they said I would be. They smuggled me south across the border, to a small monastery in the mountains. I was trained in sorcery by powerful Draconic Paladins from Riln, servants of the Blue Dragon himself. I was a child then, maybe seven years old. I remember the whitish-yellow rocks, pocked from erosion. I remember the roosters at dawn, I remember the stars at night, I remember the windows that were open to the air, and I remember the bells. The bells! They would ring every hour.

"Every morning they would take me to the chapel to pray to the Blue Dragon. I was very good at praying, and I loved the Blue Dragon very much. After the masters had taught me what I needed to know about sorcery, they smuggled me back north across the border to await my command as the leader of the Blue Dragon's armies. But something went wrong."

"Titania," Felix said.

Shane nodded. "Probably. I became acutely aware of the changes that were made to my soul. At fist, I was obsessed with flying. I would use my storm sorcery to fly whenever I could. I told my mother about my dream of flight and she became concerned. Then both my father and my mother abandoned me and fled across the border. I was alone in the north, an orphan more or less, but my sorcery helped me take care of myself. It was very easy to steal from the wealthy. I am certain that I read every rare book in the Viscount's library. I snuck into the finest wardrobes and stole clothes. I paid the local thieves guild protection money.

"I remember that I would go out of the city at night into the forest and I would just fly. I would skim the ground, just a few feet above the roots, and I would roam for hours and hours. I had no sense of time, only the illumination of my lightning magic reflecting off a few dark tree trunks ahead. One night I happened upon a Quarian family. They were lost and they had run out of water. I summoned some water and I am certain I saved their lives. Then I carried them back to the city with my storm sorcery.

"It took months of research to discover what had happened to my soul. But there are tools, imported from far away lands, contraband on this continent. I was able to gain access to them through some local connections. I offered passage to the Realm of Water, Lighting, and Wind. In return, I was given information, and access to these contraband tools. I discovered that I was not the Chosen One, that my body was the Chosen One. I would be destroyed, and my body would be reanimated with necromancy. I would indeed lead armies, undead armies, as an undead abomination. I was going to help the Blue Dragon with his long-planned genocide of your people.

"Then, I became the man you know. The Doomsayer. I stood in the town square in Needlewood and I used my wind magic to amplify my voice. People across the city could hear me. The Heritage Militia were unlikely allies. They defended me from the local constabulary. They did not like me, but ultimately they liked what I was saying. It helped them with their own goals, whatever they were at the time. Perhaps if your father had been in the city, things would have been different."

Felix sucked in, as if he was about to shout. Then Shane felt an unmistakable connection to the Realm of Wind. With a voice amplified by magic, Felix screamed: "I am not an oathbreaker!" The force of his voice nearly knocked Shane to the ground. The magic subsided, and Felix smiled. "I am beginning to think I understand how to make these connections."