Nasperge was distracted. His juggler’s balls flew through the air, dazzling the sparse carnival crowd, but the Magician stared straight ahead. His eyes barely registered the tools of his trade, and his mind was focused far, far away from the movements of his hands. He was a showman, and his body language told the audience that he was present and engaged. But Nasperge had long ago taught his body how to tell a showman’s lie. In flesh, Nasperge was there on Thorneau, but in mind, and in heart, he was somewhere else entirely.

Aliavelli.

Nasperge’s body betrayed him then, as the thought of that far off plane brought a genuine smile to his face to replace his fabricated one. He loved Thorneau, he loved the carnival, and he loved the stage, but there were few things in life, or perhaps none, that he looked forward to more than his returns to Aliavelli.

The Magician had a fine memory, far better than he usually let on, but even he could not remember the first time he had ‘walked to Aliavelli. It was early in his life as a planeswalker, he knew that, although he would never put a number to how many years that might have been. He didn’t even remember what he had done on that first trip there, or who he had met, or what he had accomplished. He just knew that he had been there, and some time later had left.

Much as his crowd was doing now.

Nasperge gulped, realizing he had allowed himself to drift. Hurriedly, he went into his finish, which regained some of the patrons, and when the final, black ball (painted mostly red) burst into a flourish of confetti, they applauded him. Three or four even cheered, which Nasperge took as a success. His employer would see things otherwise, but it didn’t matter. It was going to rain soon on this town, and Nasperge was planning to cut out even sooner than that.

Just in time to return to Aliavelli.

As the Magician set about the largely mindless act of clearing off the stage, he remembered his first return to Aliavelli. Despite his first journey there being lost in the deepest pockets of his mind, his return was vivid and clear. Rarely had he been so happy, so excited, to venture onto any plane. He had learned, through some old book on some forgotten plane, that one of the Doors existed on Aliavelli. And Nasperge meant to find it.

And it proved to be a very happy return.

It had taken him a great deal of time, which he had, and patience, which he didn’t, but eventually, he discovered the Temple. The Sisterhood had been reluctant to trust him at first, but his unworldly knowledge of the Door eventually won them over. Together, the Magician and the Sisters of the Temple worked to discover its secrets, and although Nasperge never lost hope, they made little progress. Years passed, but they could never find anything behind the Door. And so, reluctantly, Nasperge left.

There was no guessing how long he was gone from Aliavelli, but when he returned, it was with the knowledge of an ancient chant, a chant he found recorded on the etchings of a clay pot on a dead world. None had uttered that chant there in a leviathan’s lifetime. Its Door would never open. But perhaps its key would open Aliavelli’s.

And so Nasperge returned again, his hands full of hope.

As Nasperge was packing up his belongings on Thorneau, he tried to remember the time he and the Sisters of the Temple spent trying to decipher that chant. The countless hours condensed into a single memory for the old Magician. At the time, the minutes had undoubtedly crept by slowly and agonizingly, but all Nasperge remembered now were the failures. At first, the failures had been disappointing. Then, disastrous. He remembered the communal joy they had felt when they first opened the Door to something other than a stone wall. He closed his eyes against the memory of their first steps onto the Bridge between worlds, when the weight of their unsparked souls broke the spell. Nasperge was there as they were all cast into the aether, but of those who ventured forth, he was the only one who survived.

It took the Magician a long time to return to Aliavelli after that. He knew well the lives that had been lost that day, and he blamed himself. But time and curiosity brought him back, to an unexpected welcome at the Temple. The Sisters had mourned their losses, and the presumed death of Nasperge, but they had learned much from the tragedy. Nasperge was surprised to learn that they had continued to experiment in his absence, and had learned that only one of the chanters could step onto the Bridge at any one time. But they had come to believe that Nasperge, and those with the Spark, could perhaps join them.

Which is how Nasperge the Magician met Moira Trevanei.

Although their faith was strong, the chanters were understandably reluctant to step onto the Bridge with another living person. They knew well the stories of the lost Sisters, and while most would not admit it, they were afraid to risk sharing their fate. The Sisterhood knew the danger of their experiments, and none were required, or even asked, to volunteer. And the day Nasperge was going to walk onto that Bridge, not one of the Sisters did.

Until one brave, beautiful initiate, who had not even taken her vows, stepped forward.

Nasperge’s smile reappeared at the thought as he approached the tent of François Avare, the owner of the Carnival. The Magician’s contract had expired three days earlier, and he had been working on twelve hour extensions since then. But the town was growing cold, Nasperge’s crowds had been shrinking, and François had been hinting that he would let the old man go. Nasperge’s smile widened.

Just in time.

Nasperge had returned to Aliavelli several times since Moira had left the Temple, and the two had remained close friends. He had missed the birth of Moira’s first daughter, the temperamental Astria, by about six months, but had performed at the celebration of her second, third, and fourth Name Days. He missed the next two because of other engagements, but had one of the happiest returns to Aliavelli he had ever had. Nasperge was a guest of Great House Trevanei on the day Beryl was born. Three days later, he had held her in his arms, and looked into her beautiful, green eyes, and commented to Moira how they looked like precious emeralds.

Nasperge grinned as he prepared to planeswalk. That had been precisely nine years earlier. Today was Beryl’s Name Day, and Nasperge had a performance to give.

The moment, the very instant, that Nasperge stepped out of the Blind Eternities and onto Aliavelli, he knew that something was terribly wrong. As was his custom, Nasperge ‘walked to a spot directly in front of the gate of House Trevanei, but the vibrant, light-colored banners displaying an open eye with a flame in the middle were gone. In their place were hung banners of black. Nasperge’s grin faded. Someone had died. The banners were tattered at the bottom into three points. Nasperge gulped. It had been someone important. Then the Magician noticed the banners’ gold trim. Nasperge’s heart stopped beating. It had been the High Sorceress.

It had been Moira Trevanei.

Nasperge felt the color drain from his face. He felt the cold creep over his body as his cheeks seemed to catch fire. It was a bright morning on Aliavelli, but the sky seemed to suddenly darken around the Magician. Nasperge had no idea how long he stood there. It may have been an hour or more. When he finally recovered enough to move, he approached the gate, and was immediately turned away. He tried to explain who he was, and that he had been a personal friend of Moira’s, but it served no purpose. The guards were adamant, and eventually Nasperge turned away toward a new destination, one he hadn’t been to in a very long time.

Nasperge’s return to the Temple was not a happy one.

The Magician looked crushed as he entered the ancient structure. A young initiate greeted him there, and when she asked him how she could help, he could only stare. Her white dress, belted by a simple white sash, was precisely what Moira had been wearing the day Nasperge had met her. The young woman had to ask twice more before Nasperge found his voice.

“Hepthia,” he said, then stopped. The Magician swallowed air. “I need to speak to Hepthia.”

The initiate stared at him open-mouthed for a moment before nodding and quickly running back toward the dormitory. Nasperge stood there, making no attempt to move or even look around. Again the minutes passed, and again, the Magician did not seem to notice. Finally, another form moved to approach, and Nasperge looked up to see the smiling face of Hepthia. Her eyes did not reflect the smile.

"Nasperge," she said, then stopped. She leaned in and kissed him once on each cheek, which he returned half-heartedly. It was an old Thorneau custom that Nasperge had taught her and Moira years earlier, and she had always embraced the gesture with him. For the first time in all the times he remembered being on Aliavelli, Nasperge wished he was home again.

"Hepthia," Nasperge began. "Moira..."

"I know, Nas. Please, come sit with me."

When the Magician didn't move, Hepthia reached out and took him softly by the arm, leading him to a wooden bench in the inner courtyard, where she sat down with him. Nasperge slumped forward on the bench while Hepthia sat straight, her hands folded on her lap, partially covering up her blue sash belt. For a long time, they just sat there, the Magician and the Priestess, searching for something, anything, to say.

Finally, Nasperge broke the silence. "How did it happen?"

Hepthia sighed. "Does it truly matter? We all loved her, Nasperge. Isn't that what matters? Isn't that what we should hold on to?"

Nasperge nodded, and then looked over at her. "I'd still like to know."

She stared back at him, but relented. "We don't really know everything about it. House Trevanei has been quiet about what really happened that day. But with everything that's followed, I been able to piece a theory together."

Nasperge nodded, urging her to continue. Hepthia sighed again, the weight of her words slowing her speech. "It was an accident, Nas. She and the children were in the Trevanei garden. There was...a fire."

Nasperge furrowed his brow. "A fire? That's not possible. Hepthia, I've stood with you on the Bridge. You've seen the Fire that burns between worlds. The Fire Moira Trevanei walked through. Moira would not be burned by fire."

Hepthia hung her head. "Not by any normal fire."

"The fire on that Bridge is no normal fire..."

"I know," Hepthia said. "This must have been more powerful than that."

"How?" Nasperge insisted. "Moira is..." His voice caught in his throat. He cast his head to the side. When he continued to speak, his voice was quieter. "Moira was a master pyromancer. The High Sorceress. She wouldn't have summoned flames in her own garden except to defend her children, and she wouldn't have fallen to her own fire."

"It wasn't her fire, Nas."

The Magician stared at her. "Then whose?" When she didn't answer, Nasperge thought over the scene again. "Astria?"

A tiny tear escaped the corner of Hepthia's eye as she bowed her head and shook it.

Realization dawned slowly on the Magician. "Oh, no..."

Hepthia only nodded.

The two of them sat in silence for a very long time before Nasperge shifted, placing his hands on his knees. "I have to see her," he said, pushing himself to a standing position.

"You can't do that, Nasperge," she said as he started to turn away.

Nasperge sighed. "Why not? You think I'm angry, don't you?" He spoke the question as a statement of fact. "Nobody loved Moira more than that little girl, Hepthia. Nobody." He put a strange inflection on the last word. "I need to see her. She needs to know she was loved. She needs to know...that she still is."

"That's not what I mean," she said, standing up to join him. "I mean nobody can see her."

Nasperge paled. "You don't mean she..." He couldn't finish the thought.

Hepthia shook her head. "No, she's still alive. But..." she paused, a cry entering her voice. "...but I wonder if she wishes otherwise. Her sister certainly does, I think."

Nasperge struggled to speak. "Exile?"

"That may have been better for her. Astria's had her locked up somewhere. And if I know the Houses, that can only mean one thing."

Nasperge felt ill. He had to sit down again. He knew what it meant perfectly well.

Hepthia looked down as Nasperge stared, saying nothing more.

The Magician sat there silently for a long moment. Then his eyes lit slightly. "What about the Temple? I know she's young, but the Temple could take her in. At least that would spare her..."

But Hepthia was already shaking her head. "I thought of that, too. I asked the Mother for permission, and I was given it. I sent the formal request to House Trevanei over a month ago. Astria refuses to even speak with me. Her response was impressively formal, with all the false pleasantry that Moira so hated. But the message was clear. I am not welcome in the halls of House Trevanei. And I have no doubt the same is true for you."

Nasperge nodded, remembering his dismissal from their gates earlier. Nasperge dropped his face into his hands. "Moira's gone...Astria...Beryl. And I never..."

Hepthia sat down again, and, uncharacteristically, put one arm around his shoulder. "I know how you felt about her, Nasperge. I think she felt the same way."

The Magician froze, then moved his right hand away from his face and down to the interior of his cape, where a pocket would have been. There, he imagined the weight of the small, blue envelope Moira had given him the last time he had come to Aliavelli. As he withdrew it from the pocket that wasn't there, he wondered what it contained, but then, suddenly, he didn't care. It was from Moira. That's all that mattered. And in that instant, all he wished was that he could return it to her, because it would mean she was still alive. That would be a very happy return.

Nasperge slipped the envelope back into the nonexistent pocket and stood up. "Did she ever tell you that? That she felt the same way?"

Hepthia smiled, but shook her head. "Did you ever tell her?" Nasperge said nothing, but continued to stare expectantly. "No. Moira never told me."

Nasperge sighed, and seemed to enjoy it. "Then I guess we'll never know." He turned away, and spoke to no one. "Happy Name Day, Beryl Trevanei. I know it will take a while, but please, have many happy returns of the day."

Hepthia nodded.

Nasperge 'walked away.

And somewhere, in a darkened room in the cold, mourning halls of House Trevanei, a scarred, one-eyed little girl cried herself to sleep, wishing for a happy return she knew would never come.