I awoke sometime later feeling like I'd just gotten hit by a truck.

"About fucking time. You really are an idiot aren't you?" Damian said upon seeing me lift my head groggily.

"Seemed like a good idea in the moment." Was the only thing I could think to say

"You thought completely draining your reserves was a good idea?"

"They're dead aren't they?"

"You were almost dead you dumbass."

"You going to keep complaining or are you going to help me up?" I held out a hand towards him and after one more judgmental look, he reached out and pulled me up to my feet.

I took a good look around us. The protective circle had been broken and I realized why when I saw Cassidy inspecting the charred corpses of the goblins. Once I was sure that I wouldn't collapse again I turned back towards Damian and asked "How long was I out for anyway? And why Is Cassidy playing with the dead bodies?"

"You were only out for about half an hour. And Cassidy was supposed to be making sure they were actually dead. I have no idea what she's doing now." We both looked over at the third member of our little party and found her squatting in front of one of the goblins with a container in one hand.

"Cassidy!" I called and waved her back to us when she turned.

She jogged back over and seeing our interest said with some excitement "I was just collecting a few DNA samples. Fae blood is great research material, and it goes for a ton of money."

"You can not sell that stuff." I said making sure she understood my seriousness.

"Why not?"

"Fae blood might be good for research, but the sale of it is regulated by the Towers. And even if it wasn't the Fae courts keep a pretty close eye on the border cities Their spies are all over the place. How do you not know any of this?"

"Most practitioners aren't the biggest fans of magicians, as you're no doubt aware. We've had to learn to keep a low profile if we don't want some ignorant mundanes trying to kill us, or some dumbass mages trying to do what they see as a service to the world. So excuse me if I haven't had the freedom to learn much about this stuff. The only reason I moved to Eden City was because no magician in their right mind would live in the same city as where a Tower is based."

"And yet you're a magician in such a city." The silent question was clear but she evidently didn't want to share.

"I appreciate the advice." Was all she said before pocketing the container of Fae blood. But a moment later she changed the subject wildly as she asked, "By the way I meant to ask. When we were passing through Jotunheim you seemed awfully familiar with the inhabitants. Was that not your first time there?"

I chuckled and replied, "No that was my first time in Jotunheim. But I have met one of the frost Jotun before. Or at least a half-Jotun."

"Really? What were they like?" she asked interested.

"He had hair the color of snow, and a large well-kept beard. He was rather portly for being such a skilled fighter. And he had this hilarious baritone laugh that would make his stomach jiggle slightly."

"What was his name?"

I couldn't hide the large grin I had as I said "Niklaus. But he mostly went by Nick. He claimed to be the son of the Aesir Odin and a female Frost Jotun."

Her interest had begun shifting to confusion then to skepticism as she tentatively asked, "You're description is starting to sound a lot like...."

"Santa?" I supplied, "That's the guy."

Now the skepticism had fully taken over, "You're telling me you met Santa and he's the son of Odin and a frost giant?"

"That's what he said. And let me tell you, Santa may be jolly. But he's also real violent. Fat man almost took my head off. But we're on decent enough terms. I think."

"You're full of shit." Damian said equally skeptical.

"Believe me or don't. It doesn't change anything." I replied slightly indignant.

As enjoyable as our conversation was it was clear that we were procrastinating. A fact made all the more clear as we faced the gate to Avalon. But almost as if by some sort of unspoken agreement none of us took a step forward. So close to our destination, I was starting to get a little nervous about what we might find. For the last seven years, I had been perfectly content to live a simple life away from the business of the Towers. But as much as Lieutenant Harris espoused his belief in my innocence, the police still didn't have any other suspects. And even if there wasn't the possible murder charge, there was the fact that the Midnight Tower had clearly decided that I was the culprit and needed to be made an example of. Prove to everyone that killing a high ranking member of one of the Towers wouldn't be allowed to pass. And as if all that wasn't enough, I was now neck deep in a conspiracy involving a literal legend. Part of me was almost wishing that Jax had lied, that there was no fourteenth tower. But the other part of me was slightly excited, my father's research had been the one part of him I'd been able to hold onto. If Jax was right and the Twilight Tower really had managed to save the research involving runecraft then I had a good chance of uncovering more about the lost magic than anyone had managed to in centuries.

I took a long deep breath and then said "All right, let's get this over with." And stepped through the gate and into Avalon.

What I saw on the other side was beauty incarnate. There was a massive lake with water so blue it redefined the color in my mind. Indeed even the trees and the grass seemed to possess so much more vibrant colors than anywhere else I had ever been. The air was fresh and I swear I felt healthier just breathing it. I could hear the bird calls and was struck by the sheer majesty of the place. And it was clear I wasn't the only one. As Damain and Cassidy each stepped through the gate I could her soft gasps from both of them upon seeing the beautiful sight. The next thing I spotted was a crumbling structure some distance away through the trees.

Pointing at it I said "Looks like as good a place to start as any."

We went in a slow but steady pace through the grove enjoying the tranquility of the place. Despite the serene nature, the plane was clearly home to wildlife, as proven by the animal tracks present in the dirt. In the moment I could instantly understand why Avalon had been described as an island paradise. It's beauty was clearly untouched by mankind's trademark destructiveness. But I felt something nagging at the back of my mind. It took a few minutes to realize what it was that had me so bothered. Jax had said that the Twilight Tower disconnected Avalon from Earth after it had become clear to them that the Midnight Tower's campaign to eradicate them would succeed. Part of me had assumed that there would be some evidence of what I had imagined to be a violent final battle before the connection to the plane had been severed. But aside from the crumbling structure visible beyond the grove, there was nothing to suggest any humans had ever even set foot in Avalon.

Once we were past the grove I could see the remains of the Tower much more clearly. And it was a tower in the most traditional sense. While most of the magic towers had renovated or updated their architecture over the centuries, there were a few that still retained the original structure. That was why the building was instantly recognizable as the headquarters of a Tower. It was an immense monolith of stone, and as we approached the massive doors at the base of the Tower I noticed that the building seemed to lack any iron whatsoever. Instead, the only metal being used for the structure was bronze.

As I reached to open the door I heard Damian say "shouldn't we knock or something?"

I made direct eye contact with him as I sarcastically rapped out a loud and quick knock on the wooden door. After waiting a second I said, "Looks like no one's home."

"Dick" Damian said under his breath as I pushed open the door

The interior of the tower was covered in dust and debris from centuries of decay. The hallway the entrance led into was long with a door on either side and ending in a spiraling stone staircase that led upwards. The room on the left proved to be a large space that I assumed was a dining hall once upon a time. The door on the right led to the kitchen or at least what was once a kitchen. Not seeing anything of note in either room we elected to go up the stairs to the following levels. The higher floors proved to be an assortment of bedrooms, offices, and workshops. The rooms had evidence of personal belongings left behind in some kind of mass exodus. But were completely devoid of anything to do with magic. By the twelfth floor I had begun losing hope of ever finding anything besides the occasional moldy book. And by the nineteenth floor I had given up entirely. It wasn't until we reached the top floor that there was anything different to find. The top floor had a locked door right at the staircase but time and the elements had made it so that the door was too rotten to keep anyone out. A few solid hits proved to be enough to break the door entirely. The entire floor was open and unmistakably served as the personal quarters of the Tower Master. I was impressed by the state of the room. While the rest of the tower was a rotting decrepit mess. The top floor looked spotless and the furniture looked practically new. But upon a closer look, I realized that wasn't entirely the case. The magic helping to preserve the room seemed to weaken as it got further from a particular point. No doubt why the door was so easy to break down. The three of us spread out in the room looking for anything out of place. If the room turned out to be as empty as the rest of the tower then our trip would have been for nothing. After a solid hour of searching the large office as well as the workshop and bedroom to either side I noticed the large desk at the back of the room.

"Over here. Whatever preservation magic they put on this place seems to originate from the desk here." I said waving the others towards the desk which seemed to be the focal point of the magic. We began looking over the desk but aside from its fantastic shape, nothing seemed to stand out. That is until Damian checked underneath the desk.

"Hey I found something scratched down here." The excitement in his voice was clear.

I got down beside him to look at what he'd found and was delighted to see what was clearly a rune etched into the wood of the desk. But my elation was short lived as I realized that the rune was unfamiliar to me. Something which in hindsight shouldn't have been a surprise. If the place really was the fabled fourteenth tower and the location where runecraft had originated from then it would only make sense that there would be runes I wasn't aware of. Not knowing what else to do I reached into my pocket space and pulled out a knife which I used to scratch the rune. My hope was that doing so would destroy the form of the rune and break whatever spell it was running. Of course, I knew it was a dangerous gamble as breaking the flow of magic from the rune could end up causing the spell to backfire with explosive results. Sometimes quite literally. Luckily for us however, the spell simply stopped. It was then that I realized that the desk had an extra drawer that hadn't been there before. Or more accurately, the drawer was always there but had been veiled by the rune which somehow also seemed to be the source of the preservation magic.

I went to pull open the drawer open only to hear a click as the floor beneath the middle of the desk slid open to reveal a deep recessed space full of carefully preserved books. Opening a few of the books revealed them to be handwritten notes on runecraft. One of the books near the bottom of the space was much smaller than the others. I opened it to find a beautifully florid script written on the back of the front cover which read. "My name is Morgan La Fey, Master of the Twilight Tower. If you are reading this then it means our illustrious tower has truly fallen. Words cannot do justice to the sorrow I feel as I write this. For so long we strove to make the world better through the pursuit of magic. But magic is ultimately just another of the many forms that power takes. And power has an unfortunate habit of corrupting once good men. Dantallion Grey is just such a man. Though I remember a time when I considered Dantallion a friend, I see now only an enemy. One who is dedicated to erasing our Tower from the annals of history. An insult made all the worse by the silent complicity of the other Towers. While they are not taking an active role in our persecution, they seem more than willing to sit by and allow it to happen. Fortunately, not all hope is lost for our great Tower. While Dantallion has become a greedy and cruel shadow of his former self, his second son Mathew is still the kind young man he's always been. I have instructed my daughter Elise to deliver to him a handful of our notes on runecraft and directions on how to find these books should the need ever arise. I know that Mathew and Elise were always sweet on one another and hope that someday they will be happy with one another. The Tower has been evacuated and I have already begun the process of untethering Avalon from Earth. When it is complete the plane will be safe from Dantallion and his ill machinations. I have chosen to remain behind. The final steward of the Twilight Tower. But I hold out hope that someday the Tower will be returned to the light. That maybe one day a descendant of Mathew and Elise will take up their birthright as master of the Twilight Tower."

I sat there stunned as I processed the note. A message safeguarded through the centuries. The research I had conducted at Grey Manor after learning about the Twilight Tower from Jax had involved looking into the Grey family tree. I found mention of Dantallion Grey and his two sons David and Mathew. The eldest son David had died at nineteen of violent causes leaving behind a bastard son who was raised by the tower. David's son eventually took the last name Mccoy. A fair bet that Lucas was the distant descendant of David. The second son Mathew married a woman named Elise Clemments, eventually succeeding his father as Master of the Tower. It was from Mathew that the Grey's of today were descended. And if the note was true, then Elise was in fact the daughter of Morgan La Fey. Her deepest wish had apparently come true, A descendant had found the Tower. I wondered briefly, how much of this my father had known. Was that why he was obsessed with rediscovering runecraft? And how had Jax of all people gotten ahold of information that had been entrusted to Mathew Grey?

I decided to push my questions to the side for the moment, more preoccupied with reading as much as I could about Runecraft. We ended up moving into the tower for a time. I no longer needed to return to Eden City any time soon, and both Damian and Cassidy refused to leave me behind. I spent every waking moment pouring over the documents on runecraft until it reached the point where I was practically living out of the Tower Master's office. Cassidy managed to uncover some basic tomes on magic that had been overlooked in the mass exodus and had thrown herself into reading them, spurred by the same obsession with perfecting her spell that all magicians seemed to have. Damian, meanwhile, contented himself with exploring the abundant nature of Avalon. In the modern age it was difficult to find stretches of wilderness where a shifter could run free without fear of being found. But the three of us were the only people in the entire plane.

It was around the third week that Damian insisted that it was time to leave, "We've been here weeks now. I need to get back to my bar. We can come back another time. This plane has sat untouched for centuries. What's another few days?"

I looked up from my reading slightly out of it. It took me a moment to process his words but when I did I said "No. This place has been buried long enough. I've been reading up on runecraft and I think I figured out how the Twilight Tower managed to tether the Dvaram that became the border cities. If I'm right then I might be able to copy the process. And get this, nothing in what I've read suggests that the tether has to be to Earth."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I think I can tether this plane to Eden City. If I'm right, then I just need to know the right values for the point I'm trying to tether it to. I always knew that the form of the rune acted as the complete form of the spell but until now no one's been able to figure out how to identify the rune aside from using it to find the effect and comparing it to runes with similar effects. But it's all in these notes. Everything to do with the structure and pattern of the runes. It's brilliant. Runecraft isn't just a different form of magic, it's like a second magic language entirely. Think of it as the original coding language. The effect of the rune changes based on the smallest details. And by combining runes into a sequence it's possible to create infinitely more complex spells than would be possible with a traditional magic circle. No wonder the Midnight Tower wanted to get their hands on runecraft. Done right it's theoretically possible to create a rune that can counter even the most powerful spell." I was speaking a mile a minute at this point and Damian was clearly overwhelmed by the flood of information I was trying to share.

Holding his hands up in a calming gesture he said, "Slow down man. First things first, did you find anything to do with that rune you came looking for? The one that your dad died over and that was carved into your uncle?"

I shook my head as the wind was knocked from my sails, "No. I know there's got to be something about it somewhere in these notes. But I've barely scratched the surface of the text. Get Cassidy and we can head out. Now that we have a better idea of the route, it should take less time to get back to Eden city."

I began stuffing the books in my bag. While I was intending to tether a gate back to Avalon as soon as I could, I refused to let the books out of my possession for any significant amount of time. Once I finished packing my things I descended the tower. Damain and Cassidy were both waiting for me on the ground floor by the large door.

"You know, I'm kinda going to miss this place. This might be the nicest vacation I've taken in my life." Cassidy quipped

"If I can tether it to a point in Eden City then we'll be able to come back any time."

"You can do that?" the excitement in her voice was clear and I couldn't hide my smile at it. Unfortunately, she saw my smile and immediately scowled at my clear amusement.

"I think I should be able to. I won't know until we get back home and I have the chance to try it."

For the first time since Ulysses was found dead I had hope that things would turn out alright. One way or another I would figure out how runecraft was connected with Ulysses' death. I wanted to say that this was a turning point, that now maybe I could finally escape the shadow of the Midnight Tower. That one way or another I would find Johnson and whoever else had a hand in Tommy's death and see them dead as well. But I didn't instead I simply said "Let's go."

We set off for the gate to Faerie only to stop short as we reached the other side of the grove. Standing around the gate decked out in armor and wielding a variety of weapons were the slender and unmistakable forms of Sidhe. The Sidhe were the Fae elite that made up the ruling force of the various Fae courts. Their armor and demeanor marked them as Summer Fae. We each saw one another at the same moment. It was too late to turn back.

Always the eloquent orator I managed to say "Well Shit." Then I managed to tack on "Noble Fae of the Summer Court, I greet thee and offer my warmest hospitality. You are my guests and are welcome in my land."

One of the Sidhe, a tall man with hair the color of wheat stepped forward and declared, "This is no land of yours human. This plane has been unoccupied for centuries. And though your words convey peace, your actions have shown the opposite. Seven Fae lie dead in the field beyond this gate, the air about them carries the unmistakable stench of mortal magic."

"Those Fey were no kin of yours. They belonged to no court and were the first to bring violence towards us. We have no quarrel with you and simply seek to pass through the gate in peace so that we may return home." It was clear from their demeanor that they weren't interested in peace. But I had one last thing to try, "Does Queen Titania know you've brought a military force to a land outside Faerie? Because last I checked the conflict with the Court of Thorns was heating up considerably. And I doubt Titania has enough manpower to allow you to go around picking fights as you wish."

I could see the lead Sidhe tensing up in anger. It was clear that I'd hit the nail on the head. These guys were probably young Fae looking for an excuse to make trouble. He started to make a move but was stopped by one of his companions placing a hand on his arm. Then with one final disgusted look they left through the gate.

"Well looks like we can't go back through Faerie." I said stating the obvious

"Maybe we don't have to, I think I found the gate that originally connected this place to Earth. If you can get it started then maybe we can leave through there." Damian supplied.

"That could work. Lead the way." I said following behind him.