We weren’t exactly roughing it.

We stayed to the roads, stopping at inns nightly along the way. We mostly visited smaller towns, some with massive walls and some without. I was under the impression that we were avoiding larger cities. Every time we stayed in one of these places, Raella had a quiet talk with the innkeeper, during which there was an exchange of letters or a bag of coins, and then we had the inn to ourselves the entire night. Even the inns that had bars and served food turned their normal paying customers away.

“Is it to keep us a secret?” Lexie asked quietly on the third night, as we sat together at a table in a barren common room. The barkeep eyed us curiously as she wiped the counter again. Our presence had made for a slow night, but the innkeeper hadn’t dismissed her for the evening. She had cooked a meal for our entire party and now occupied herself with cleaning and tending the bar in case we had any other needs.

Peyton sipped her ale as she leaned back comfortably, one arm over the back of the chair, watching the hushed conversation at the door where another patron was turned away. “This draws too much attention to be a secret,” she said. I glanced up from where I was nursing my own drink, hunched over at the table. I suspected Peyton thought the same thing I did – she was too observant not to.  

We weren’t the secret. The secret was being kept from us.

Not wanting to stare too obviously, I shifted my gaze to the fireplace, watching the low fire that crackled in the hearth.

Lexie stared between the two of us, attempting to read our expressions. Finally with a sigh she decided to change the conversation. “What do you think the dwarves are like?”

“Raella said they don’t live underground,” I said, trying not to sound too mopey.

Peyton chuckled as Lexie nodded sympathetically at my statement. “They’re miners still, at least.”

I hmm’ed in response, taking a drink from my tankard. Then I stood and stretched. “Think I’m gonna turn in.”

“It’s too early,” Lexie griped as Peyton downed the remainder of her drink and stood up as well. She carried her cup to the bar, and I followed suit. The woman smiled at us appreciatively and thanked us with a nod. We then proceeded up the stairs to our rooms for the evening.

This inn had enough rooms available that Lexie, Peyton and I each had our privacy for the night. Raella and Chase also had their own rooms, and only Zolambi and Greyjon had to share. The previous nights we had stayed in inns so small that most of us were sharing rooms, so this was my first night to myself. As soon as I entered the room, I walked over to the window and opened it, and leaned my head out to look around.

The window opened onto the roof of the first floor’s kitchens, which gave me a generous edge to crawl out onto. From there, it was a short drop into an alleyway. I slipped out a bit awkwardly, not really having the teenage experience of sneaking out of a house before, and sat near the edge of the roof, staring down at the drop. I couldn’t see a way back up, and that caused me to hesitate.

“I was wondering what you were up to,” I heard a familiar voice say right at my side. I hadn’t heard anyone approach, and I almost slipped down the shingles in surprise, and felt a hand grab my shoulder to steady me. Turning, I saw that Peyton had exited her own room, which was right next to mine. Her window was wide open, the curtains billowing in a slight breeze.

“Damn, you’re quiet,” I grumbled, returning to looking into the alley below, still trying to find some way to climb back up. The familiar nervousness of being so close to someone ridiculously beautiful and famous returned.

She pulled her knees close to her body and wrapped her arms around them as she watched me, a slight frown creasing her brow between her eyes. “You’re not going to run away from all of this and leave Lexie and me behind, are you?”

I shook my head. “I just wanted to see how closely watched we are. If it would be easy to sneak out and go for a stroll, or if they’d spot us and bring us back immediately.” I sighed and sat back from the ledge. “See if it’d be easy or hard to escape in the future if we need to.” There was no way back up that I could see. Peyton moved beside me, slipping over the edge of the roof and dropping down quietly. “What are you doing?” I hissed at her.

“Going for a walk,” she said, her voice a loud whisper.

“There’s no way back up here!” She shrugged, not concerned in the slightest, and started to make her way down to the alley entrance.

Annoyed, I slipped over the edge of the roof, carefully dropping to the ground. I hurried to catch up to her.

---

Whenever we rode with Raella in the wagon, we were given long lectures on the history of the Empire, starting with Lexie’s first ride immediately after leaving the University campus. Afterwards, Lexie made more of an effort at riding her horse.

Raella had a very no-nonsense and straightforward way of speaking, her voice an almost monotone as she relayed the details of their world. Antiquity was hard to pin down – over the course of thousands of years, so many documents and structures and items had deteriorated and no longer existed. The stories that did exist were as much myth as history. Because of the Primordial language, Raella and many other scholars had deduced that Elves had once been the sole inhabitants of the world before the gods arrived. Their stories say that when the gods came, they saw a beautiful and lush world with a thriving magical civilization, but decided to introduce their own creations anyway. The gods also brought the gift of divine magic – any person they favored, elf or otherwise, was given immensely powerful and rare magic as a sign of that favor and were called the Chosen. The gods also had personal Champions to represent them, individuals that were physically enhanced and had some degree of divine magic and protection, if not the same raw energy that a Chosen one had. Collectively, to be favored by a god was to be one of the Graces.

“So clerics and paladins,” I heard Peyton say at one point when she was riding near Raella’s side of the wagon. Raella gave her a curious look, obviously not understanding the reference, but said nothing to the statement. “Though… do the gods grant their powers to very many?”

“No. It was always a very rare thing, to be a Chosen or Champion of a god. Usually, the Graced were called in times of divine need.”

One of those instances of divine need rose many years ago, when an elven man had pushed his mortal magic to its very limits, and managed to raise himself to something very like divinity. The gods were offended by this, and several gave their favorites a mission: to destroy this individual. Unfortunately, he had become too strong, so all they could manage was sealing him away.

“And we’re here to reseal him?” I interrupted when I was hearing this lecture.

“Yes,” Raella answered simply.

“What was he like?” I asked.

She was silent for a long moment. “That was nearly 5000 years ago. No one really knows for sure. But from our understanding, he was a particularly vain and cruel individual. We suspect that he intended to challenge the gods themselves with his newfound power, to carve out his own domain amongst them.”

“Has anyone ever tried to free him instead of resealing him?”

Raella gave me a very sharp look. “Has he been speaking to you?” I shook my head. “Good. He will make promises to get you to release him. Do not trust them.” Then she continued with her lecture without answering my question.

Shortly after the threat was sealed, the gods stepped away from the world and no longer had a direct influence on it. Their favorites dwindled and disappeared until divine magic became a rarity. Their temples fell into disrepair as people realized the gods had abandoned them, and worship decreased until barely anyone could remember the names or domains of the divine.

Shortly after that time, the Elven empire began its conquest. First, they spread into the southern continent, the region where the dwarves lived, because of the vast mineral wealth of that area.

“Do the dwarves live in underground cities?” I had asked absently when Raella first mentioned them.

She had paused, glancing back at me from where she sat up next to Chase. “Lexie asked the very same thing. Where does that silly idea come from?”

“So they don’t,” I said. Strangely, I felt a little sad. The second I had heard about dwarves, I had immediately pictured massive underground structures hewn from the very Earth itself.

Raella shook her head. “No. They have expansive mining organizations, but they live above ground like everyone else. The only things that live underground… well. You won’t want to meet them.”

The Elves then spread across the western continent, where the humans lived in various tribes or smaller warring kingdoms. The entire conquest took nearly a thousand years to complete, the obsessive quest of a single family line intent on completing what the first Emperor had set out to do. The Empire was relatively peaceful for the next 2000 years, facing only the occasional rebellion or quelling the raids of remaining barbarian tribes that had resisted rule.

But then the first cracks of the Fracture had started. It began with individuals that had been cast out from the mainland Empire for their questionable magic practices and studies. Many were heavily judged for the ethics of their experiments, and moved out to the fringes of the Empire to continue their studies in peace. And since humans and dwarves were second class citizens in the Empire, they were targeted and used inhumanely in these experiments. “There was one mage that had turned an entire human village into a ravenous horde of undead. Another, not many years later, that specifically kidnapped human children. When the authorities finally listened to the appeals of their parents, they found that the children had been twisted into amorphous, acid spitting monsters. Other similar horrors were visited upon humans and dwarves alike, because the authorities were slow to take the concerns of those citizens seriously.”

The line of Emperors and Empresses had also become increasingly erratic over time. Some were obsessed with the building of great monuments, monuments that went unfinished whenever the Emperor that had started it died. Others were obsessed with further conquest, sometimes personally leading armadas across the sea, never to return. Some were bent on impossible missions, or were unreasonably cruel, or invested in the strange ethically questionable experiments of the fringe mages. A lot of them were assassinated or deposed, replaced with the next in line for succession.

The last Elven Emperor had been relatively harmless. He left the running of the Empire in more capable hands and spent his days wiving, whoring, and enjoying his wealth and influence. As a result, by the time of his death, he had several true born heirs and many bastards besides. When he died, there was a war of succession as his children each attempted to lay claim to the throne. And not just his children – other magistrates and nobles also made claims, if not for the entire Empire then for one small piece of it. “And that’s the Fracture,” I stated, remembering what I had heard about it before.

“Yes. It was a tumultuous time, and the Empire never truly reformed. The larger cities govern themselves, and offer protection to smaller villages or towns. We still present a unified front toward outside lands, and have collectively agreed to maintain isolation. However, in recent years, some trade and deliberation has been opened with the dwarves.” She paused for a moment, seeming to consider how much to explain, before elaborating. “It will be necessary to pass through dwarven mines to reach the seal. We knew, as the time neared, that it would be important to gain access at some point. Either through peaceful negotiation or war. Luckily, Master Zern and the ruler of Glyss, the city closest to that border, managed to push for peace.”

“So the seal is buried deep underground?” I asked.

“Yes,” Raella answered.

Great. Why did everyone always want to bury shit like this away?

---

The street wasn’t empty. There were individuals walking along it and a small group loitering in front of our inn, a little upset at having their business turned away. Peyton took a cautious glance around, then stepped out and started walking toward the center of town. I followed, ducking my head nervously. She glanced at me, an amused look on her face. “Lucas, just act like you belong. You’ll be fine.”

“Easy for the actor to say,” I grumbled, but attempted to straighten my posture and act like this was an everyday occurrence for me. Peyton grinned. “What if they notice we don’t have pointed ears?”

“Are you in the habit of staring at other peoples’ ears?”

“When they don’t look normal, yeah.” She shrugged, brushing off my concern.

The center of town was busier. It looked like a street market had recently cleared out, with a few stalls standing empty already, and a cart being loaded up with supplies as another stall owner prepared to shut down. There were two other stalls that appeared to be open though – both selling food. There were people settled on the rim of a circular fountain at the center of the square, and others closing up shops that lined some of the nearby streets. People called farewells and greetings to each other when they recognized someone.

“I wonder what kind of food they sell,” Peyton said.

I shrugged. “I didn’t bring any money. I was just going for a walk.”

She stepped over to the one with the shorter line. I frowned as I watched her. It wasn’t just that I hadn’t brought money – I also hadn’t been given any money. Still, she produced some coins from a pocket and brought back three paper packets. She handed one to me. “No one gave me any money,” I said.

She grinned at me. “No one gave me any money either.” She continued to walk, choosing a street seemingly at random to head down. I followed her slowly, investigating what she had handed me. It was some kind of fried bread, and when I bit into it there was a sweet cream and fruity jam filling it. It was delicious. I ate slowly as I trailed behind her.

When Peyton finished eating, she folded the paper carefully and slipped it into a pocket. She appeared to be saving the third packet for later, and I wondered if she planned to give it to Lexie. She slowed her pace so that we were walking next to each other. When she glanced up at me, I looked away. “Why do you always avoid me?” she asked finally.

I shrugged, and she raised an eyebrow at the noncommittal response. With a sigh, I finally said, “I guess you make me nervous.”

She smiled. “Yes, I’ve been told I have that effect on men.” I smirked, but said nothing. We continued walking in silence.

I had mostly let her choose the path, and I was starting to wonder if we had wandered too far when I saw that we were approaching the inn from a different direction. “So how are we going to get back in?” I asked. We returned to the alley where we had left, and I began to study the roof ledge and the surrounding area. I was thinking that I could boost her up to the ledge when Peyton walked straight up to the back door where the kitchen was at and tried the knob. It was locked. I leveled an ‘I told you so’ look at her when she shocked me by knocking.

After a moment, the barkeep opened the door a sliver, looking at us in surprise. Recognizing us, she opened the door to let us in. Peyton grabbed my hand suddenly and raised a finger to her lips, smiling in a charmingly sheepish fashion. She said, “Please don’t tell anyone we snuck out. We wanted to be alone.” And then she presented the third packet to the woman. The barkeep accepted the packet gratefully and nodded, smiling conspiratorially. As I passed her, she gave me an appraising look, and I felt my face begin to burn in embarrassment. We walked back into the common room, which was blessedly empty. Lexie must have gone to her room.

Peyton still held my hand, pulling me along after her up the stairs. At the top, she glanced around. Seeing no one nearby, she finally dropped my hand. “I guess now it’s just a waiting game to see if anyone noticed our little stroll.”

I nodded. “Yeah.” There was an awkward silence as my brain tried to think of something to say. “Thanks for the snack,” I finally managed, and without looking back, I went straight to my room. I flexed the hand that she had grabbed, frowning to myself as I stepped over to shut the window.

“Can anyone even remotely tell me what the fuck just happened?!” Jennifer paced behind her desk, too agitated to sit. Standing in front of it was her tech team, the three individuals assigned to attempting to trace the Stream. Manuel Huerta-Ramos and Andrea Smith both stared at her desk, refusing to look her in the eye. Andrea, already pale and blonde, was paler than usual and looked like she was on the verge of crying or puking. Manuel, on the other hand, had a slight frown, his face turning slightly red, looking like he wished he could explode. Sometimes Jennifer felt like the kids these days were too emotional, too easy to read. It irritated her.

Terry Greene, on the other hand, stood straight, staring back at her almost impassively. When she made eye contact with him, he offered the faintest eyebrow quirk. She had worked with Terry many times before, had known him for years and even loosely considered him a friend. She could see the look for what it was – the slight questioning of whether this matter warranted this much anger, or if she was the one letting herself get too emotional because it had involved Cassandra. “We don’t have the information we need to make an accurate assessment. What we can assume is that something about their location caused the Blackout,” he said.

The Blackout. The phenomena already had a name then. “And why can we assume that?” Jennifer asked, focusing solely on Terry.

Terry paused for a moment. “We think that the stone ruins once belonged to a temple or holy site of some sort.”

“How do you figure?”

“First off, it’s been established that only Elves can cast. If Asterollan can cast magic as a human, it means one of two things. Either he has Elven heritage that he hasn’t mentioned or doesn’t know about, or he is wielding the same divine magic the Graces have. If he’s a Grace as well, then the holy site of the god that favors him would likely increase his powers.”

Jennifer frowned. “If they have their gods back, why do they even need our people for their mission.” Terry shrugged and opened his mouth to respond, but she held up a hand to stop him. “I know. We don’t know enough about any of it,” she said, stifling her frustration. “Still doesn’t explain the Blackout.”

“It might. If the site is heavily protected by the divine magic of one of their deities, maybe that somehow interfered with whatever is recording our people for the Stream.”

Jennifer sat down and studied the three standing before her as she considered what Terry had said. She wondered, not for the first time, exactly how every movement and moment was being recorded for Cassandra and the others. Whatever it was, the subjects themselves couldn’t see it – no one ever reacted to the camera viewpoint at all. There were never any cuts to the video, no clear edits. It was like a continuously powered completely invisible drone camera buzzed around them, circling as needed to catch every moment.

She studied the younger members of the tech team for a moment – both were still avoiding her gaze, and seemed to feel relieved that Terry had done all the talking. “You can go,” she said curtly. Andrea practically fled from the room, probably to find a bathroom to cry in. It wasn’t the first time she had done so. Manuel flashed Jennifer a slightly menacing look, but turned quickly on his heel and left her office without a word.

Terry made no move to leave. He glanced pointedly over at the couch. It was the sort that converted into a bed by allowing the backrest to lay flat. It was in that position even now, and there were blankets and a pillow sprawled across it. Terry sat on the edge of the bed and began petting Larry, who had been snoozing there throughout the entire briefing. Jennifer watched, frowning as she thought of the Blackout.

It had happened maybe an hour ago, and she had already pulled up their own recording of it and watched it several times over. Of course, it had to be Cassandra’s stream. The Blackout had been a lapse of about 10 to 15 minutes. From the moment Cassandra descended the dark stairs with the Hunter, her own stream had gone pitch black. There had been no video or audio for her, although the other three continued to play just fine. Jennifer had played the moment back, the volume on her computer as loud as it would go to see if any sound filtered through. She had adjusted the brightness of her monitor to see if any image lay hidden in the darkness. There had been nothing.

She had been watching when it happened, as she often did. She had sat, tensed, staring at the screen, her eyes flicking to the time constantly as she counted every passing second that she couldn’t see her daughter. Nothing like it had occurred before. The Stream did strangely respect nudity, casting a soft blurriness on the video whenever someone in the scene was naked. There were some perverts online that were working on how to sharpen the images with varying degrees of success. It wasn’t that anyone was missing much – someone bathing, or using the bathroom, or changing clothes – but that didn’t stop the idiots from trying. The shifting of colors could always be seen behind the blur and the audio was always present in the background though, and this instance had been dead silent and dark. Hence being called the Blackout.

It had resumed when Asterollan exited the cavern alone. Jennifer had feared the worst initially, feeling the bile of rage build in her throat as she wondered what this man had done to her child. She had physically reached out to grip the edges of her computer monitor, on the verge of screaming at it. But Cassandra appeared as well, stepping out of the darkness of the cavern and blinking against the light of day. Completely unharmed. Safe.

The internet was already blowing up with speculation and analysis, and no one had any better answers than her own team of professionals. “When was the last time you dropped by your apartment?” Terry asked, breaking into her silent musing. She shrugged noncommittally, almost ashamed to tell the truth. He glanced around her office. The door to her private bathroom was slightly ajar, and it was easy to see that she had her toothbrush and make up and other personal care items stored in there. Her duffel bag with her shower supplies and gym shoes sat on a cabinet next to her office door – she had started exercising nightly at a local gym, so she could shower after and return to the office to work and sleep. “Jennifer,” Terry said her name a bit severely when she didn’t answer.

“I go back to it regularly,” she said a bit defensively. Not entirely a lie. She used the apartment laundry room to wash her clothes weekly. She just didn’t set foot in the apartment itself. There was nothing wrong with it – it was a nice place. But she wanted to be here. She wanted to be working on this.

Terry sighed, reading through her lie. “Is there any point to even paying for it?” he said, but she had the feeling he had asked rhetorically so she didn’t bother with an answer this time.

“I should take Larry for his walk,” she said instead, standing to retrieve the leash. Larry perked up, immediately awake at the word ‘walk.’ He wagged his tail happily as he carefully climbed off the couch. Larry had his own bed here as well, but she had gotten used to sharing the couch with him. She had initially been concerned over whether the team would mind his presence, but they liked him quite a bit. In fact, he was gaining weight, and she suspected that most of them were giving him snacks or feeding him between his meals. She had a food bowl and a water bowl set up for him that she refreshed daily as well. The pet supplies were another sign of how lived-in her office had become.

“Jennifer,” Terry said again, his tone softer this time.

She grinned at him, a thin, forced smile. “The walk will clear my head. I was probably more pissed that it happened with Cassandra rather than anyone else. Just… Try to find out what you can.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Of course. By the way, Linda said to invite you over for dinner sometime. Tomorrow sound good?”

Jennifer hated the idea of spending time away from the office, but she also didn’t want to have this argument with Terry. She smiled and said, “Sure, that sounds great.”

---

Her team was massive for the moment, but they weren’t getting results. She had four people assigned to each individual stream, three of which worked in 8 hour shifts and watched every tedious second for anything that might remotely be a clue. The fourth carefully watched and re-watched relevant moments from the notes of the others. She had at least 5 individuals working phone tip lines or sifting through online content. There were a lot of Stream fans that were very observant, and any theory or analysis provided, even on an amateur level, was being considered if it merited looking into. Anything that seemed important was pushed on to the tech team. Some of the problem though was that in regards to such unknown phenomena, it was hard to narrow down what to take seriously and what to disregard as hogwash.

They also had a young man named Vincent Underwood that was studying everything about magic possible. He had screenshots of the magic circles used to summon their people to that other world. That had been so early in the Stream that she had no clue how he had even obtained them, but they were in his cluttered office, posted on his whiteboard, with notes scribbled all around them. Most of what he studied seemed to be fables and myth. He was currently fascinated with researching stories of Avalon, though she wasn’t sure how that would help.

She had a field team in case they found anything that merited physical investigation, but had to eventually loan most of them out to other assignments because she couldn’t find anything substantial for them to do besides helping with research or twiddle their thumbs. There were two individuals she kept working with the airlines and continuing the search for the plane, but it had been long enough since the disappearance at this point that hopes that they would find anything were low.

They held meetings twice a day, morning and evening. Major events in the Stream were discussed, and information that could provide hints about what they could be researching next. But whenever the floor was opened to what they could actually do, there was always an immediate and crushing silence. Everyone had theories, but no one had answers. And all they could do was watch.

So Jennifer spent her days leading meetings, and taking Larry for walks in the park across the street, and going to the gym to work out more intensely than she had in years. And between all that, she watched the Stream for as long as she could remain conscious. Sometimes Larry would whine when he heard Cassandra’s voice on the computer speakers, and she would pat him on the head and say, “Me too, buddy. Me too.”

---

When she wasn’t watching the Stream, she was still online, more obsessively than she had ever been in her life. The internet and its culture had always been something belonging to her daughter’s generation. She had never really been interested in it beyond its practical uses. But now it was the only connection she had to Cassandra. She watched analysis and video montages, scrolled through memes, looked at fanart. She read essays and articles and top 10 lists all centered around her daughter. She rewatched significant moments that had occurred to her daughter over the weeks that she had traveled with her new Elven friends.

When she wasn’t looking up Stream content or watching the Stream itself, she checked the Facebook community for the family members of Flight 5071. It was run by Anna Hobbs, Peyton’s mother. Anna had reached out personally to every immediate family member of the missing and had invited them to what she had termed an “online support group.” In fact, when she had initially reached out to Jennifer she had revealed that she knew that Jennifer was leading the investigation team trying to find the source of the Stream. Jennifer wasn’t sure how she had gotten the information and had been clear that she couldn’t divulge anything (not that there was anything to share) and Anna had been very understanding about that. Still, a loose friendship had formed between them.

Over the past few months, Anna had also become the public face of the families of the missing. She spoke in interviews and held press conferences and always seemed to be doing something to keep the matter firmly in the minds of the public. She had even volunteered to foster two children whose parents had both been on the Flight. They had no other close family to take them. In fact, she and the children were living in Jennifer’s house in Reno. Anna had been in the process of relocating to Reno to foster the kids, and Jennifer had been in the process of moving to Virginia to lead her team. It had worked out quite nicely, and Anna had made quite a generous offer on the house.

The Stream was very popular, but a lot of people were beginning to treat it like any other form of entertainment. It was thanks to Anna Hobbs that everyone still remembered and talked about what could have possibly happened to Flight 5071. Sometimes Jennifer had to fight off the feeling that Anna was doing more substantial work by continuing public interest in the matter. After all, as long as interest continued, the funding would keep pouring in, and that was important.

Anna also included her in a group text with Lexie’s father, Jordan Saint, who was distraught at having lost his entire family on the flight, and Leanne and Frank Kearney, Lucas’s parents. She rarely contributed, but she read every message. In a way, she felt that her life had faded into her being nothing but an observer. A position she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with.

It was interesting watching the analysis come out of the Blackout. A new thing that Jennifer learned was that apparently there were people that “shipped” her daughter with the Hunter. This meant that they thought there was a potential for a romantic relationship between them. They were vehemently opposed by people that “shipped” her daughter with the elf, Lyre. Some argued that the Blackout was perhaps due to a tryst, though Jennifer doubted it. There were no signs of physical exertion, or misadjusted clothing, or mussed hair.

Jennifer played the video back again on her computer multiple times over the next weeks, staring at the dark rectangle on her screen. It lasted exactly 13 minutes and 52 seconds. What had happened in that time? Certainly, it couldn’t have been anything significant.