Gripping the white bird pendant around his neck, Alaric murmurs the Ancient One’s Prayer of Protection. Purify Erthia from the stain of the Evil Ones...

Alaric disembarks along with four cloaked Level Five soldiers, following Priest Vogel’s purposeful stride. Dread rising, he takes in the dark lightning flashing in bizarre loops. He lowers his gaze to the shadows rising around them in otherworldly helices of smoke, the unnerving sense mounting that the smoke is sentient.

Vogel pauses, and Alaric and the soldiers pause, as well.

A forest stands before them, but it’s all wrong. The trees are made of gray mist, their branches twisting like skeletal fingers.

Nothing green. Nothing living.

“‘Lo, the wilds shall be corrupted and cast Shadows across the land,’” Vogel intones. He sets his silvered gaze on the Mages. “Take heart, brethren. The Ancient One walks with us.”

Alaric’s fist tightens around his wand, his courage bolstered, as they all make the five-pointed Blessing Star sign on their chests. Together, they step into the Shadow forest, the landscape unnervingly quiet, as if holding its breath.

After a time, a clearing opens up. Alaric’s gaze finds its center and he startles, a lash of terror flicking through him. A pewter-hued hillock rises from its misty ground, a dark, arching entrance marking its base.

And a Death Fae demon stands before it.

The pale demon is preternaturally still and stretched to an unnatural height, its eyes solid black, no whites, its ears sharply pointed. Obsidian horns curl up from its head and countless arms ray out from its body to encircle the hillock.

Its bottomless eyes narrow as the Mages approach.

Alaric’s legs threaten to give out as he reaches into his pocket and grips his compact version of The Book of the Ancients, murmuring prayers as they draw near Evil itself.

Vogel stops only a few handspans away and the creature straightens. What looks like vast relief spreads across the demon’s face. Its horns retract into its spiked black hair, and the soulless, solid black of its eyes contracts, the whites becoming visible. The countless arms pull in, and the demon’s height swiftly reduces to that of a young man standing before them.

“Dryads,” the demon says, his subterranean voice resonating through Alaric with a disturbing thrum. “I sense your elemental affinity lines. Blessed be the Power of III.” His gaze sweeps over their wands. “I hoped and prayed that Friends of the Balance would come for the Shadow Tool. Are there more? Do you come with a Dryad army to take hold of the Shadow Branch?”

We’re Mages, not filthy Fae, Alaric expects Vogel to mercilessly correct the beast as he slays him, but Vogel remains serene.

“We come with an army,” Vogel simply states and surprise darts through Alaric.

“Then come, Dryadin.” The demon beckons them forward with a wave of his black-taloned hand. “The Tool is straining to rise and is luring the seers of all the lands.” He pauses, a haunted look tensing his eyes. “It wants to do to your continent what it did to ours.”

“We will guard against it,” Vogel states reassuringly, then turns to his soldiers. “Remain here to protect our area.”

And then, heart thudding, Alaric follows Marcus Vogel and the demon into the hill.

Following close behind the Fae demon and Priest Vogel, Alaric descends spiraling stairs, then journeys through a short hall into a small room. Its curving walls are lit by a suspended orb of silvery light, a circular black granite table in its middle, packed bookshelves set into the walls.

And in the table’s center is a gray wand with a spiraling handle.

They pause around the table, the Death Fae’s gaze riveted to the wand.

“Don’t touch it,” he cautions. “I’ll give you cloth and a warded box to place it in.”

“What did it do?” Vogel asks, indicating the world above.

The Death Fae meets Vogel’s gaze and the room darkens. “The Shadow power destroyed everything. Except for me.”

Suspicion bristles through Alaric. You’re a Death Fae, he acidly muses. What happened up there is likely your work, Evil One. That’s why you’re the last thing standing with the cursed Shadow Tool.

“I fought it,” the demon says, that haunted look returning. “But it proved too powerful. Take great heed, Dryadin—the more that people are divided, the more the Shadow Tool grows in power. It feeds on fracture. And then it destroys the Balance.”

“The Balance?” Vogel inquires.

“It upends nature. Corrupts the elements. Draws power from a Void that wants to consume everything. Including us.” He tightens his stare on Vogel, unflinching. “Don’t let it.”

The words of an Evil One, Alaric rails, even as worry pricks at him.