The dog-like monster must have really liked pets, because he didn’t even nibble on Mary after her bumpy ride came to a sudden end. He did lick her goodbye, though, which left her at the Key’s office door tired, thirsty, and wet.

The corridor she was standing in looked almost normal. The floor was covered in dark marble, while light one coated the walls. The door protected its owner from annoying outside noises like knocking by a thick layer of leather cushions - because, of course, why not.

It could almost pass for an ordinary place, if not for the light. Mainly because there wasn’t one. Or, to be precise, there had to be some light, since Mary could see everything quite clearly, only she couldn’t spot its source. The shadows were unusually unhelpful in this regard, because each of them seemed to be pointing in a different direction.

With a heavy sigh, Mary knocked on the door. She waited for almost a minute, but since the door seemed to be indeed knockproof, she creaked the door open. The office behind it was both normal and traditionally lit - that is, there was a window. A normal window, thank heavens, that was showing a normal outside view of the garden. She was so relieved she didn’t even mind that this garden would in no way fit into anything that surrounded the building she initially entered.

Behind an old computer monitor, at a large desk, sat a middle-aged woman. Her long, blond hair made Mary jealous - she never quite managed to get hers to curl into such simple yet fancy waves - they flat out resisted any attempts to curl them at all. She was actually glad that they were affected by gravity at this point… well, at least they were black. The woman wore half-moon glasses with dark frames, over which she fixed Mary with a piercing stare.

“Yes?” the woman asked with a subtle hint of impatience that one could expect after walking on an accountant that just finished fruitlessly staring at a blank page for five hours straight, only to find out that no one would need that report after all.

“Um… Good evening ma’am,” Mary said sheepishly, trying to keep her wet hair from falling on her face. “I’m Mary Oceanrunner. Mr Adam Venture told me to look for Key….”

“Mary!” A warm smile entered the woman’s face. ”Come in, come in! Where have you been? I’ve been expecting you for hours! Here, have a seat,” she said, pointing at a very unsuspiciously looking chair opposite her.

Mary was still a bit wary after her recent experiences, but her legs were in no mood to hear any excuses. She made an effort to sit down rather than collapse, with moderate success.

“I’m sorry ma-am, I got lost on the way…,” Mary started, but Key was already typing something slowly on a yellowish-grey keyboard with her index finger, an action that seemed to be absorbing her completely.

“Let’s see, let’s see… Mary Susan Oceanrunner, from Lower Lewiston, age 16, an anchor-shaped scar on your left heel… Everything in order so far?” Key asked, to which Mary nodded silently. It took three more minutes of too loud and way too slow clicks before the woman spoke again. “Hm… type C, safe to reveal, perfect test score…” Even. More. Typing.

“E-excuse me,” Mary finally dared to ask, “but could you tell me what’s going on?”

“What do you mean, what’s going on? You’re going through the heroic registration procedure.”

“I mean…,” Mary paused, but it was too late to stop now. “What does it mean? And why me?”

“Because you’re going to be a hero, of course. You’ve signed the agreement, haven’t you?” The woman shook her head and went back to typing.

Mary swallowed audibly. That she’d done.

“Right,” Key’s hand left the keyboard and started to move the mouse instead. “Where was it… here. I’ll play you the prophecy now. Listen closely.”

There was one more click, and a crackling, drawling voice rang from the speakers. “Is it recording already? Ok, ekhm.”

There was a deep intake of breath, and someone started to play the organ ominously in the background.

“Another hero will raise this spring.

Anchored with a stone blade,

crushed, melted and broken,

Discarded in a daze and wielded by dust.

She will see through the Veil,

and will become a Veil.

Near the spirit unbroken,

The True Darkness Woken

Shan’t lightly be spoken.

And amid the river

Mostly known as time,

After final battle-”

The recording ended with a booming sound and a racket suspiciously resembling the microphone stand falling over. The whole prophecy thing may have been way scarier, if not for the occasional girlish giggle in the background, that wasn’t entirely masked by the music, and that Mary was now pretty sure that it belonged to someone thoroughly stoned.

After a few seconds, some weird flute music started playing from the speakers, and it took Key over half a minute to turn the sound off.

“So, how did you like it?” Key asked.

“Ekhm… sorry, what was that again?”

“A prophecy about your epic quest, of course!” Key looked at her with eyes widened by surprise. “Wasn’t that obvious?”

Mary moved her hands over her face. “And… assuming that it is actually a prophecy and not just some teenager on drugs spewing nonsense, how do you know that it was me that it was about?”

Key looked at her as if she said she didn’t want to pet a three-headed murder-beast. “I’ll have you know that Delphina is a very respectable oracle, and her prophecies come to pass over three times in ten. And the second question,… you said you had an anchor-shaped scar on your foot, didn’t you?”

Mary wanted to bang her head on the desk, but she was too tired at this point. “So what marked me as this ‘hero’ thing was stepping on broken glass? A broken bottle that some drunk didn’t bother to pick up on his way out?”

Key smiled. “See, you’re getting it already.”

“But many people get cuts like that!”

“Well, in the scale of a globe, probably, yes. But the prophecies always refer to orphans, or very soon to be orphans before they reach adulthood when they’re spoken. That, and the fact that Delphina only ever makes prophecises about USA citizens greatly narrows our potential candidates.”

Mary opened her mouth and then closed it again without saying anything. She had no idea what she could say.

“And now that we’re almost finished, I’ll go grab your mentor. He’ll need to sign some of the paperwork too. Please stay here and touch nothing while I’m gone, would you?” Key sent Mary another smile, and brushed past her stunned self on the way out.