George Puslick, aka Tamshin Rurick's, phone buzzed against the wooden workbench at quarter past ten, rattling a half-empty coffee mug and scattering a small pile of dried herbs he'd been sorting into jars. The co-op smelled of soil and cannabis and the faint chemical edge of the grow lights above the rows of plants. He had spent the evening pruning lower branches and was in no mood for conversation.

  He checked the screen and sighed. "This fucking guy."

  Tamshin answered anyway.

  "I found him." David Reeves' voice came without greeting. "Los Angeles. He's an actor. Did you know he's making a film with Serena Winters? This will not do!"

  "I've seen the trailer for the other movie. The one that mocks us. The one that makes Morthisal look like a reasonable person." Tamshin set down his pruning shears.

  "He's building a real life. The man has an agent, a career, a billionaire girlfriend." A pause. "He's weaker than he pretends, Tamshin. I made contact at a party. I looked him in the face. He pushed power on me, and failed spectacularly."

  "You went up to him."

  "I introduced myself. Professionally." David's voice carried the particular energy of a man who had not slept, or had perhaps done a few lines of military-grade cocaine. "Listen to me. If we bring enough of us together, combine what we each have, including Morthisal, we might be able to force a rift and send ourselves back."

  Tamshin rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We have been over this."

  "Not like this. I've been experimenting. Testing the boundaries of what I can do. I've developed two additional abilities since I arrived. Two, Tamshin. If I can do that, then what has Morthisal been sitting on? His power in Mythralon was—"

  "His power in Mythralon was built over centuries of dark practicse in a world that fed it." Tamshin kept his voice flat. "He arrived here the same as the rest of us. Whatever he retained, it is not enough to tear a hole between worlds. You're describing pure fantasy, dude."

  "I'm describing all of us pooling our energy directed at a single point."

  "You're delusional."

  Silence on the line. Then David said, "Why did you try to kill him in Seattle?"

  Tamshin said nothing. Outside the co-op window, a car puttered past on the wet street. Its headlights swept the interior.

  "He was the single worst tyrant on Mythralon. Why should he be allowed to live a good life in this world? Morthisal should be made to suffer."

  "Fine. I agree. But that doesn't mean we can't use his power now, then dispose of him later."

  Tamshin drummed his fingers on the surface. David had a good point.

  "I'm calling a meeting," David said. "Discord. Tonight. Be there."

  "I didn't—" The call ended.

  Tamshin set the phone face-down on the bench and stared at his herbs for a long moment. He had no interest in David's portal theory. The man had spent nearly thirty years on this earth and accumulated enough magical residue to make himself genuinely dangerous, which had apparently also made him genuinely desperate.

  But David had said it plainly. Morthisal had something to lose now.

  Tamshin opened his laptop.

  The Discord server loaded at eleven. Tamshin logged on as CelestialMage. The channel was called Refugees, which Tamshin had always found darkly funny, though no one else seemed to appreciate the joke.Accounts appeared one by one in the sidebar.

  DarkSovereign. ElfLoreMaster. GreenwoodArcher. Three others, users who rarely spoke—NorthernPact, SilverReed, and a newer arrival who called himself FadingLight and had never explained the name.

  Then a new username appeared at the top of the list. PortalSeeker.

  David had made a whole new account for this.

  PortalSeeker: Thank you all for coming. I'll keep this brief. I've made direct contact with Morthisal Ebonwrath. He's in Los Angeles operating under the name Vince Logan. The former dark lord has secured a film role opposite Serena Winters, signed with a talent agency, and is in a documented relationship with Yvette Sterling, a billionaire tech executive. He is embedded, comfortable, and he believes he is safe.

  PortalSeeker: He retained more power than most of us. I felt it when I stood in front of him. He's been using it regularly. It's a form of mind control. It's very weak, and it hasn't grown the way mine has, because he hasn't been pushing it. Why would he need to, when his life is going so well?.

  ElfLoreMaster: He could have been holding back on purpose. Have you considered that?

  PortalSeeker: Doubtful. Listen, if all of us pool our resources, focused and coordinated, I believe we can generate enough combined output to tear a rift back to Mythralon. I've worked through the theory. I'm not asking you to take it on faith. I'm asking you to come to Los Angeles so I can show you.

  A pause while the others absorbed this.

  GreenwoodArcher: I'm in. I have been in this body for years. Do you understand how exhausting it is to pretend to care about follower counts? I miss the Greenwood. I miss having a bow in my hand instead of a ring light.

  GreenwoodArcher: When do we leave?

  ElfLoreMaster: I'll speak plainly. I was a historian for nine hundred and fifty years. I cataloged other people's stories. Births and deaths, wars, and the rise and fall of cities. Every word I wrote belonged to someone else. Here, I create them. My books exist because of me, not because of what I witnessed. I'm staying. I have no interest in going back.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  NorthernPact: Same. I have a family here. Children. I'm ain't going nowhere.

  SilverReed: I'll hear more before I decide.

  FadingLight: …

  CelestialMage: This entire plan is stupid. What are we going back to Mythralon as? Surely our abandoned bodies are long gone, buried, and forgotten.

  DarkSovereign: Why can't we travel in our current bodies?

  CelestialMage: Because it doesn't work that way, and you know it.

  PortalSeeker: Portal first. We will know how to proceed from there.

  Arguments formed and spread the way they always did in this group. Fast, loud, and circular. GreenwoodArcher sent three separate messages calling David a genius. ElfLoreMaster responded with a paragraph about the difference between homesickness and suicidal nostalgia. NorthernPact dropped off without another word.

  Then DarkSovereign typed.

  DarkSovereign: I'll come to Los Angeles. I want to see Morthisal for myself. After that, I'll decide.

  Several people reacted with surprise. DarkSovereign had never offered to travel anywhere. He claimed the demands of his position made it impossible.

  PortalSeeker: Good. I want everyone who's willing to be in Los Angeles within the week. We approach Morthisal together. We present the plan. He listens, or he doesn't. I've tried it on my own, and he needs more convincing.

  ElfLoreMaster: And if he refuses?

  PortalSeeker: Then we persuade him in whatever manner we must.

  ElfLoreMaster: That's not an answer, David. What leverage do you have over a man who can rewrite what people think?

  PortalSeeker: He has a career. A relationship. Public visibility. He has built something here, and he does not want to lose it. That makes him vulnerable in a way he never was in Mythralon. In Mythralon, he had nothing to protect. Here, he has everything.

  Tamshin read that twice.

  CelestialMage: What leverage?

  He typed it as a statement, not a question.

  PortalSeeker: Exactly what I said. He has something to lose. We make him understand the cost of refusing.

  CelestialMage: And if he still refuses?

  PortalSeeker: Then we escalate. We will only discuss this in person.

  The meeting wrapped up in loose agreement. Most would arrive within a week. GreenwoodArcher was already searching flights. ElfLoreMaster signed off with a final note that she wished them all well and considered the whole enterprise a beautiful disaster.

  Tamshin closed the server and sat back in his chair.

  The co-op was quiet. Tamshin poured two fingers of whiskey into his coffee mug and stood at the window.

  David's portal theory was nonsense. It had to be. Tamshin had worked with void magic on Mythralon long enough to understand its architecture, and the idea that six or seven displaced people with fractured, half-functioning abilities could combine their power into something capable of tearing dimensional fabric was ridiculous, not to mention dangerous.

  But David had said something that held.

  He has something to lose.

  Tamshin thought about Mythralon. Not the version people discussed on the Discord server. The forests and the markets and the old roads. He thought about a tower on the eastern edge of the Veilmoor. Stone walls and candles, and four young students who had studied void theory under his instruction for three years.

  Two of them had died in the first campaign against the dark lord. The third had survived the siege of Evenmarch only to be raised afterward, pressed into Morthisal's dead armies, and marched against the very walls he had helped build.

  The fourth had simply vanished. No grave. No record. Just gone, the way so many had gone.

  Morthisal would be watching David. David was the one who had made contact, the one who had arrived with the proposal to take Morthisal out. The former dark lord had to know this, and he would be on the lookout.

  No one would be watching Tamshin.

  He was a bald, unremarkable man who grew marijuana in Chicago. He had no profile. No interview. No viral videos. He would walk into Los Angeles as George Puslick, with no hat, and he would have facial hair. In California, sunglasses were practically issued to everyone. Morthisal would spend every waking hour focused on the man loudly declaring his intentions.

  Tamshin went to a closet and shifted clothing around, pushing aside worn flannel shirts and a canvas jacket that smelled faintly of fertilizer. He took down his wide-brimmed hat, the brown one he'd worn in Seattle. Underneath it, wrapped in a soft cloth to protect it from dust and light, was a different hat entirely.

  A ballcap. Navy blue, unremarkable, the kind sold in sporting goods stores across America by the thousands. But it was special. He'd been charging it for weeks now. He could wear it pulled low over his eyes, paired with sunglasses, and become just another face in the California crowds.

  The ball cap would make him invisible.

  He opened a private message to DarkSovereign.

  CelestialMage: You don't actually believe David's portal theory.

  The response came after a long pause.

  DarkSovereign: No.

  CelestialMage: Then why go?

  DarkSovereign: Because I also believe Morthisal needs to answer for what he did. In Mythralon, he was untouchable. Here, he is just a man in a stolen body.

  CelestialMage: You want revenge.

  DarkSovereign: I want justice. There is a difference.

  CelestialMage: And if the only justice possible is permanent erasure?

  Another pause. Longer this time.

  DarkSovereign: Then I suppose we'll see how committed we are to our new lives. Murder has consequences. Prison. Life sentences. Are you willing to throw away your freedom for revenge?

  Tamshin stared at the question. He looked around the room. The grow lights. The workbench. The dried herbs and the pruning shears and the half-drunk coffee mug. His whole small, quiet, real life.

  He typed: I'll see you in Los Angeles.

  DarkSovereign: Indeed. And Tamshin? Whatever you're planning, be careful. David isn't as stupid as he seems. And neither is Morthisal.

  The DM went still.

  Over the next three days, Tamshin told the co-op he was visiting family. He booked a cheap flight departing Tuesday morning, a middle seat on a budget carrier with one connection through Phoenix. Tamshin packed light. A bag with clothes, cash, and the baseball hat folded carefully between two shirts.

  He opened his laptop one last time and found the photo that had been circulating — Morthisal at some industry event, a drink in his hand, laughing at something off-camera. The white streak in his dark hair had caught the flash. He stood like a man who had been born into this lifestyle.

  Tamshin studied the photo for a long time.

  "Enjoy it," he said quietly. "While you can."

  He closed the laptop and went to bed.