“Fine.” She watched it with renewed obsession. “Show me.”

Leopold reached into the heart of the Orrery and tugged at the knot of threads which connected all life to it. When he felt fondness for a thread, he pulled at it until the sphere shoo to life and began to spin rapidly. A hum of power swelled out from within. Time seemed to slow, then stop, before the smoking room melted from view leaving the duo suspended in an infinite abyss. Ruby peered over her knees into the dead drop and shivered.

“That was unsettling…”

“Don’t worry. You’re quite safe.” Leopold sent his power back into the Orrerry, fighting against the resistance until he overwhelmed its defences.

“I’m not reassured.” She leant back into the chair and held on tight to the arms.

The cracks widened, forcing light into the shadow as the orrerry broke apart and formed a fantastical melee of silver shards. They rotated in a pattern so complex it was mesmerising. Leopold looked away. Ruby, entranced by the motion, found herself enthralled.

“Whatever you see, and whatever happens in that vision you must not in any way try to interfere.”

“How can I interfere in a vision?”

“Promise me, Ruby. On the sanctity of our marriage.” Leopold’s tone soured.

Ruby shook her head. “I promise.”

With a rush of blood to the head, the black abyss erupted into life as the orrerry projected a vision of a man’s end all around them. In an instant, they were no longer in their home; whisked away through time and space to an ancient temple hidden deep beneath the earth.

“Where are we?” Ruby turned on the spot, her feet leaving no footprints and her steps making no sound.

“Three weeks from the present day. Lysander will gather allies to his side and march on the last bastion of the Forgotten Ones.” Leopold points to the gaping maw in the rock ahead, leading down into the underworld.

“So we actually find him…”

Leopold clicks his fingers and they bolt through the vision and re-appear in a vast ante chamber. Beneath them, a long cavalcade of crumbling pillars guides a familial band of friends towards imposing, demonised doors to the north. The iron wreaths with life, molten metal contorting into terrifying visages as though possessed.

“I see them. I don’t recognise all but there’s Lysander.”

“Duffy, Lysander, Shinsou, and the last Mystic find the temple and approach the Anchorage unsuspecting…”

“Unsuspecting of what?”

The party below march towards the door, and when they arrive, Leopold brings ruby closer so she can see what happens next. Lysander climbs the stairs and asks his friends to prepare themselves. As he reaches the top of the altar, the doors contort and writhe free of the wall; the molten metal gathering into a hideous mass.

“For centuries, Apotheosis has lain trapped beneath the earth. Watching the world become that which he abhors, the playground of the Thayne. His wrath at the sight of the very Thayne that killed some of his kin breaks his chains.”

The metal shrinks, writhes, and contorts into the outline of a man. Leopold brings them closer and Ruby picks out the detail. Slender ears. Elegant, spiked mail. A blade in each hand.

“…an Illar.”