"…Ophelia Harridan."
The woman's voice carried across the nobles' section as a girl with long, curly white hair stepped forwards. Her deep brown skin seemed almost luminous beneath the cathedral's pale light.
Ophelia stopped at the entrance to the portal and gave the woman a brief nod. She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then stepped through and allowed the glowing surface to swallow her.
The portal settled behind her.
For several seconds, nothing happened. The children waited in silence until the light rippled again and Ophelia emerged from the other side.
She looked exactly the same.
Liam studied her face, searching for any sign of what she had seen, but her expression revealed nothing beyond mild confusion. That was always how it happened. Nobody remembered what took place inside the Gates of Selection, not even the children who entered them.
Their talent ranks also remained private until they opened their status screens. Unless someone chose to reveal their talent, nobody else had any way of knowing what they had received.
The woman beside the portal did not even look up when Ophelia returned. She simply marked something on her clipboard and called the next name.
One child entered.
Then another.
The line moved faster than Liam expected, and with each name called, the space between him and the portal seemed to shrink.
Eventually, the woman looked down at her list again.
"…Liam Velrodi."
His heart seemed to jump straight into his throat.
The trembling in his hands worsened. Liam curled his fingers into his sleeves and tried to force them still, but it was useless. Anyone who looked closely would know exactly how nervous he was.
He glanced up at Mathilda.
She did not give him a speech or remind him of his training. She only smiled, warm and familiar, and nodded towards the portal.
Liam swallowed.
Then he stepped forwards.
His legs felt strangely weak as he crossed the short distance, and he became painfully aware of everyone watching him. Kael, the other noble children, their guardians, the woman with the clipboard.
He stopped in front of the Gate.
Blue and gold light shifted across its surface, too bright for him to see what waited beyond it.
For one brief moment, Liam wanted to turn around.
Instead, he drew in a breath and stepped through.
The cathedral disappeared.
There was no ground beneath his feet, no light and no darkness. Only a strange fizzing sensation that moved through his body and behind his eyes.
He tried to call out, but no sound left him.
He could not see.
He could not hear.
He could not smell or feel anything around him.
He could not—
Could not—
Could—
All five senses returned at once.
Noise crashed over him.
Liam opened his eyes and found himself standing in the middle of a city.
At least, he thought it was a city.
The buildings towered above him in sharp structures of glass and metal, their surfaces covered in moving lights and enormous shifting images. Glowing signs crowded the space overhead, flashing words in languages he did not recognise quickly enough for him to even attempt reading them.
The people were dressed strangely too.
Some wore clothing so plain that Liam first assumed they were servants or labourers, yet they carried themselves without any of the politeness expected around nobility. Others wore bright colours, torn trousers or shirts printed with unfamiliar images.
Worst of all, none of them seemed concerned that a child had appeared in the middle of the street.
People hurried past him, barely offering more than an odd glance. A few looked at his clothes, but no one stopped.
Liam remained frozen where he stood.
This was not the cathedral.
It was not Astravia.
The noise became harder to ignore the longer he listened. Footsteps, voices, music and the constant roar of unfamiliar machines blended together until he could barely separate one sound from another.
Strange metal carriages rushed along wide black roads without beasts, runes or any visible source of mana. People walked while staring into glowing slabs held in their hands, while others spoke aloud to small objects placed against their ears.
None of it made sense.
Liam stepped backwards without realising it.
HONK!
The sudden blast of sound tore through the chaos.
He spun towards it.
A large machine was racing towards him from the right, bright white lights glaring from its front. It moved faster than he had expected, charging down the hardened road without a single magical creature pulling it forwards.
There were no runes.
No magical glow.
No mana that Liam could sense.
Yet it was almost upon him.
For one terrible second, his mind went blank.
Then his training took over.
The machine came into focus with painful clarity. Liam saw the reflections of the glowing signs moving across its glass surface and the horrified face of the person seated behind a circular device inside it.
Move.
His body reacted before the thought had fully formed.
Liam twisted sharply to the side. His shoes scraped against the ground as the machine tore past him, missing him by only a small distance.
The rush of air struck him hard enough to throw him off balance.
He stumbled into someone nearby, and both of them fell.
Pain shot through his shoulder when he hit the ground. The lights above him blurred for a moment, and the noise of the street seemed to grow even louder.
"Ow! What the fuck?"
The unfamiliar voice snapped him out of his daze.
Someone groaned beside him.
Liam pushed himself upright and turned towards the person he had knocked over. She appeared to be several years older than him and wore blue trousers with a dark jacket over her shoulders.
One of the glowing slabs had fallen from her hand and skidded across the ground.
For the first time since his arrival, someone was looking directly at him.
"What the actual fuck?" the girl exclaimed as she scrambled to retrieve the object before someone stepped on it.
She checked the glowing surface quickly, then turned towards him again.
"What's a kid doing in the middle of—"
Her words stopped.
Her gaze travelled slowly over his white and blue clothes, the silver decorations and the cape hanging from his shoulder.
Her irritation gave way to confusion.
"Wait." She blinked at him. "Are you filming something, kiddo?"
Liam remained where he was.
He understood the individual words, but together they made very little sense. Her accent was unfamiliar, her manner of speaking was strange, and his head still felt unsteady from nearly being struck by the machine.
"Where is this?" he asked carefully. "What is this place?"
The girl stared at him.
"Could you direct me to the nearest Grand Cathedral of Origins?"
For several seconds, she said nothing.
"The nearest what?"
"The Grand Cathedral of Origins," Liam repeated, though his voice was less certain this time. "The cathedral responsible for the Awakening Ceremony and the birthplace of the Good One."
The girl glanced around them as though expecting someone to reveal themselves.
"Okay," she said slowly. "Either you're the most committed actor I've ever met, or you ran away from some insanely expensive fantasy convention."
Liam frowned.
He had not understood most of that.
The girl rubbed her forehead and looked at him more carefully. The annoyance in her face had faded, replaced by something closer to concern.
"Kid, are you lost?"
Liam straightened as much as he could while sitting on the ground.
"Lady, my name is Liam Velrodi of the Velrodi family in the Astravian Colony. I require directions to the nearest cathedral, or assistance procuring a carriage. You will be properly rewarded once I return home."
She continued staring at him.
Liam began to feel slightly uncomfortable beneath the look.
"Okay," she finally said. "So you're definitely not okay."
His frown deepened. "I am perfectly fine."
"No, you're not. You're a literal child standing in the middle of Times Square wearing cosplay and talking about colonies and carriages."
Liam caught only one unfamiliar word clearly.
"Cos… play?"
The girl let out a long breath and looked around the crowded street as though hoping another adult might notice them and take over.
"Listen, I'm taking you to the nearest police station. They can figure out who you are and where you're supposed to be."
Liam did not move.
"A police station?" he repeated. "What organisation is that? Is it affiliated with the Grand Cathedral?"
The girl blinked.
"You're really committed to this, huh?"
She hesitated before reaching towards him, clearly unsure whether she should touch him.
"All right. No more questions. You're coming with me."
"Not until you tell me where you intend to take me."
"I just did." Her patience was beginning to thin. "A police station. They deal with lost kids, missing people and things like that."
Liam looked at her suspiciously.
"Lost children are handled by an enforcement organisation in this world?"
"Yes?" she replied slowly. "That's how it works pretty much everywhere."
She shifted her weight and glanced at the road beside them.
"Look," she added, her voice softer now, "I'm not trying to hurt you. You're a kid standing alone in the middle of traffic wearing clothes nobody else is wearing. If I leave you here, you're going to get lost or get hit by a car."
Liam looked towards the machine that had nearly struck him.
A car.
He turned back to the girl.
"Very well," he said carefully. "But I will remember this arrangement, and I expect answers once I have confirmed your intentions."
She gave him a tired look.
"Sure. Whatever makes you come with me."
Liam followed her through the crowd.
The noise pressed against him from every direction. His legs were much shorter than hers, and he struggled to keep pace while avoiding the people who continued to push past without apology.
Walls of glass reflected the endless lights overhead. Giant moving displays flickered across the sides of buildings like illusion spells gone out of control, while cars continued speeding along the roads without any visible magic powering them.
Liam's steps began to slow.
The reality of the situation struck him all at once.
He was in a world he did not recognise, following a stranger towards an organisation he had never heard of.
The people around him had not been kind. They had bumped into him, ignored him and walked past as though he did not matter.
Why should this girl be any different?
Why would a complete stranger decide to help him?
His pace became more cautious.
Liam watched the girl's back and began looking around for somewhere he could escape if necessary. He did not trust her, not entirely, but he needed information.
He needed to understand where he was and find a way back to the cathedral.
"Please, lady, slow down," he called. "My legs are far too short to keep up with yours."
He softened his voice slightly, attempting the harmless tone that usually worked on older servants.
If she thought he trusted her, perhaps she would speak more freely.
The girl looked over her shoulder and seemed genuinely surprised, as though she had forgotten he was struggling behind her.
"Right. Sorry."
She slowed down.
"I forgot you're, like, actually ten."
"It's all right." Liam moved closer, trying not to sound too eager. "What is this place?"
She looked down at him.
"You're strange, you know that?"
"I have been told otherwise."
"That doesn't surprise me."
She sighed and began explaining where they were.
The city was called New York. The area around them was Times Square, and the glowing slabs people carried were called phones.
Liam asked about those first.
Then the cars.
Then the buildings, the screens and the reason none of the machines seemed to use magic.
The girl could not answer the last question because she did not appear to understand what he meant by mana, but she answered the others with growing confusion.
Liam kept slipping more questions into the conversation whenever she paused. He believed he was being subtle about it.
He was not.
Still, the more she explained, the harder it became to remain suspicious. His fear did not disappear, but curiosity gradually pushed its way beside it. There were too many things he had never seen before, and every answer seemed to create several more questions.
Without noticing, Liam stopped searching for somewhere to run.
By the time he remembered his plan, they had already stopped walking.
A plain building stood in front of them. Compared with the glass towers surrounding it, there was nothing particularly impressive about it, though people moved in and out of the entrance with steady purpose.
The girl, who had finally introduced herself as Ferra, looked down at him.
"All right," she said. "We're here."
Liam looked at the building.
"This is the police station?"
It looked far too ordinary.
Ferra gave him a light nudge towards the entrance.
"Come on."
She led him inside and approached the front counter. An officer sat behind it, wearing a dark uniform decorated with a small metal badge.
Ferra began explaining what had happened. At first, her tone was casual, but it became more serious as she described finding Liam alone in the middle of Times Square.
The officer's eyes moved between them.
"You found him there by himself?"
"Yes," Ferra replied. "No adult, no guardian. Nothing."
The officer looked at Liam more closely.
"All right. What's your name, kid?"
Liam hesitated for only a moment.
"Liam Velrodi," he answered. "Of the Velrodi family in the Astravian Colony."
The officer wrote it down without reacting.
"Got it. Liam, do you know how you got to Times Square?"
"I was at the Grand Cathedral of Origins for my Awakening Ceremony," Liam explained. "I entered the portal, and then I arrived here."
Another officer nearby stopped what he was doing and glanced towards him.
The man behind the counter became more careful with his words.
"All right," he said. "We're going to treat this as a missing-child case involving possible confusion or a trauma response."
Liam frowned.
"We'll run an identification check, try to locate your guardians and contact child services."
"I am not missing," Liam said.
His voice came out smaller than he intended, but he kept his back straight.
"I am exactly where I am meant to be. I simply require assistance returning to the Grand Cathedral."
The officer released a quiet breath.
"Liam," he said more gently, "we can't help you return to a place we can't confirm exists."
Several hours passed.
Evening light crept through the high windows of the station, leaving long shadows across the floor. The room had grown quieter, though people still moved between desks and spoke in low voices.
Liam sat alone on a bench near the side of the office. His feet barely reached the floor, and a paper cup of water rested beside him, mostly untouched.
Ferra had left some time ago.
She had stayed longer than he expected, speaking with the officers and answering their questions, but eventually she had returned to her own life.
Nobody at the station had managed to help him.
They had searched for Astravia, the Velrodi family and the Grand Cathedral of Origins, but found nothing. They had asked whether he knew his address, his parents' identification numbers or the name of his school.
His answers only seemed to worry them more.
Liam had woken early that morning, and the weight of the day was finally settling over him. His head felt heavy, and his eyes stung each time he blinked.
He lowered his gaze towards his hands.
He should have been back at the cathedral by now.
Mathilda would be waiting for him beside the portal.
At first, he had believed the Gate would simply pull him back when the evaluation ended. Then he had thought the police might understand what had happened.
Now it was dark outside, and he was still there.
His vision blurred.
Liam blinked quickly, but a tear slipped free before he could stop it. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and looked around to make sure nobody had noticed.
Another followed.
He pressed his lips together.
He was not supposed to cry. He was ten now, and he had just gone through his Awakening Ceremony. Crying would not help him find his way home.
His chest still hurt.
He missed Mathilda.
He missed the way she corrected him whenever he tried too hard to sound like his father. He missed her familiar smile and the certainty that, even when he was frightened, she would know what to do next.
He even missed his room.
His bed, the quiet corridors of the estate and the familiar routines that had felt so ordinary that morning now seemed impossibly far away.
Then he thought about his parents.
Richard and Veronica had been gone for weeks, and Liam had spent most of that time telling himself he did not mind. They were important people. They had responsibilities.
At that moment, he wanted them anyway.
"I want to go home," he whispered.
His shoulders slumped as the last of his energy left him. His head dipped forwards, and his eyes slowly began to close.
[DING]
Liam's eyes snapped open.
The sound had not come from the station.
It had not come from outside either.
It had sounded directly inside his mind, like something had clicked into place behind his thoughts.
[HOST VERIFIED.]
Liam stared ahead, suddenly wide awake.
[ANOMALY DETECTED.]
[QUERY: WHERE TF DID THIS CHARACTER COME FROM???]