I want to scream. I want to do everything in my power to fight against him, but there's nothing to do. I'm trapped, a prisoner in my own body, literally.

I try to close my eyes and find that my eyes are still under my own control.

Am I going to end up in that abandoned house, floating in a line on the second story until it's my turn to come down to the table and play? Maybe that's what he means about the other wizards. Maybe the wizards come to that abandoned house to play scheme, to practice against people who can't fight back.

And that brings something else forward. He's using blood magick. If he has nothing to do with the blood wizard, why is he using blood magick?

Dom pulls the hood of my parka as well as the hood of my cloak back up and over my horns, hiding them away.

As we move out of the small room and back onto the ceiling he snaps his fingers and we lift away, moving towards the floor far above us.

Right as we're about to hit, we slowly spin in the air so that our feet touched down on the real ground floor of the Forbidden Library. I look up and can see the giant hanging globes of light, so small from down here.

We move away from the platform we landed on, making our way through several tables where people are bent over large books. We go to the end of the hallway where there's a wall.

The wall looks like it's made of sandstone. At the center of this wall is a slit, chest high. Dom steps up to it, removing a necklace from inside his cloak. He places the medallion at the end of this necklace halfway into the slit and waits.

He glances back at me. “I don't know what you were trying to do by coming here, but if you don't have this medallion, there's no way you can get access to the actual tournament.”

I'm on your side, you fucking moron. How do you not get that?

Dom removes the medallion from the wall once the slit glows with blue light.

The blue light fizzles in a line, bisecting the wall like a line of gunpowder lit a flame. The magick arcs away from the slit to either side, curling in smaller and smaller circles until it eventually disappears. Then the slit cracks open, the crack moving six feet above and all the way down to the ground. The wall splits in two and opens.

A massive hallway stretches on the other side of the door.

The floor is covered in checkered tile that alternates between different shades of rich brown. The checkered pattern vaguely moves and I realize that what I am actually looking at is hair underneath glass. And the hair is moving.

Dom glances down at the tile and back at me.

“Wizards,” he says as though that explains it.

Sure. Wizards. They take you hostage in your own body and make you look at floors that have sentiment hair underneath them. Wonderful. Totally makes sense.

As we continue forward, two small children approach us.

They both wear maid outfits, but neither one of them has a nose.

The longer I examine them, the more I feel like they aren't children at all.

“Hello,” one of them says in a monotone voice. “Dominic Marzone. Are you here for the tournament?”

“Yes,” Dom says and then looks at me. “They’re Illween,” he says as though that explained anything.

I can do nothing except step forward after him.

One of the Illween starts to ask, “Would you like us to prepare—”

“Of course,” Dom cuts them off. “Two. I do not want to stay with my thrall.”

No emotion appears on either of the Illween's faces.

“As you will,” one of the Illween say and they both move away, fading into the darkness at the edge of the hallway.

When we make our way through a door, the lights instantly grow brighter. We now stand in a massive chamber. The floor beneath us is glass and this floor doesn't contain moving hair.

This floor is transparent and you can see what's below. A single long dinner table filled with candles. There are people sitting at the table, eating.

Dom sees where I'm looking and explains. “They're preparing. They're testers for next year's Lumaverse chase. They're preparing to test out the course.”

He shrugs as if this is all supposed to make some sort of sense to me.

A group of people clusters at the far end of the chamber.

Everyone wears robes but some of the people there looked different than anything I've ever seen in my life.

There's a man who has to be at least eleven feet tall, spindly and looking almost as though he is made of sticks within his own robe. There's another person, a girl who stands on the shoulders of a man whose eyes are missing. She holds a dagger above above the man's head, the point of it slowly spinning at the top of his skull. A tiny rivulet of has dried on the left side of his face, but the man doesn't seem to be experiencing any pain. If nothing else he seems completely oblivious to it.

Far across the room I see Maldive. He's wearing the robes of an adept, but he doesn't seem to be looking in my direction. He also doesn't seem to be with anyone else. He looks to be alone.

I notice that several of the other people wearing robes also wear the same golden collars with bloodstones that I am. When I catch their eyes, I can see my own fear reflected back at me.

I see several people not wearing the collars, but their eyes look dead, dull, as though they've been beaten into submission.

To the left is a large stage and upon seeing Dom enter, a man sitting in a chair there stands and steps forward.

“Wizards, welcome to the Centennial scheme tournament. I want to thank every single one of you for making the arduous journey from wherever you've come from. I know we have wizards from as far away as Simula and Puul. I know that even Elichor sent a wizard. I am pleased with the turnout.”

Dom eyes the crowd, looking around warily.

He leans over and whispers, “The main reason people are here isn’t the actual tournament but the prize. Some of us know what it is and some of us don't.”

As my eyes scan the crowd, I can easily make out the wizards who know what's at stake. Their eyes are fastened to the man speaking. Those wizards who didn't seem to know were dozing, or waiting with bored looks on their faces.

Silvy floats around, swiping buttons from different wizards as well as their thralls, stealing buttons from other worlds.

The man on the stage has been talking for a while, talking about the history of the tournament, what it means to Anara as a whole, etc., etc. Now he gestures to the shadows behind him and a girl a little younger than me steps out.

Dom's breath catches in his chest and he whispers, “Pixie.”

Pixie wears next to nothing. She's essentially wearing a rag around her chest and her hips. Nothing else.

She holds a pillow in front of her. On the pillow rests what looks like a rotting leather glove. It doesn't look like a modern glove, but more something you'd have seen in medieval times.

Thick seams.

Heavy studs on the knuckles.

Flaking away in disrepair on the pillow.

The man on the stage raises his voice. “Wizards of the major plaines. We have brought forth this mysterious gauntlet from our vault. What its purpose is has been lost to time although you may experiment to find that out for yourself.”

Is this what wizards do in their free time? Try to figure out the uses of things that have been forgotten in time?

Dom leans over. “It's not a gauntlet. It's one glove of a pair called the Plaine Piercers. That specific glove is called Filigree.”

Another puzzle piece fell. Filigree, the other word was scrawled on the sheet of paper Marist mentioned. Filigree is the name of the prize. Filigree is the name of the thing everyone here is competing for, the thing that's driven Dom to take me hostage and Maldive to sacrifice all those adepts.

Filigree is the reason Arbor was murdered.

Filigree is the reason Pixie was kidnapped.

“Now, wizards, is the time to bring forth your thralls for entrance into the tournament. First up: Dominic Marzone.”

Dom steps forward and I feel my own legs move.

Something else clicks.

Fuck.

“Best of luck,” Dom whispers. “Hopefully you live through this.”

Get me out of here.

Dom leads me onto the stage.

No.

The announcer smiles at Dom. “I almost thought you weren't going to make it.”

Please no.

Dom isn't paying attention, he's staring at Pixie.

He's going to do it.

Pixie doesn't so much as glance back at Dom.

He's going to enter me into the tournament.

The announcer clears his throat and gestures at me. “Is this your thrall?”

This isn't happening.

“Yes,” Dom says. “She will be playing death scheme in my stead. As is the tradition.”