Return to Ravnica

Jace hesitated. Not many people had ever looked at him the way Emmara was looking at him in that moment. He wanted to say something that would make her look at him that way for a lot longer. He imagined the way her face would brighten even more if he told her yes—how he could touch her hand and tell her that nothing was more important to him than joining her, helping her. He wished he could go through with it, for her sake.

But he couldn’t.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t join the Selesnya. But maybe I could help in another way.”

Emmara’s smile melted. “Oh. I’m too late, then. You’re part of another guild already?”

“No. That’s not it.” He thought of all the time he spent on other planes. He thought of all the mysteries that drew him from one side of the Multiverse to the other. “I’m just not … someone who likes to get too attached.”

That struck her. “I see,” she said and stood. Her demeanor reverted to formality and etiquette. “Well, I should be going. I have a lot of guild matters to attend to. Thank you for your time, Jace. It was good to see you.”

“No, Emmara, I’m sorry,” he said, standing with her. “I just meant I can’t afford to get mixed up in any of the … guild politics right now. I’m researching something important, and it’s taking up all of my time. I’d love to help you after I solve this.”

She nodded. “We’d love to have you,” she said. When she was at Jace’s door, she turned. “That leaf I gave you is a Selesnya artifact, made by a woodshaper. You can use it to contact me, if you want. Just say the activating words into it, and I’ll be able to hear you.”

Jace looked at her gift in his hand. “What are the words?”

“ ‘I need you.’ ”

***

The streetlamps had begun to glow by the time the Selesnya elf woman left the building. Mirko Vosk stood on the building’s flat rooftop, near the ledge, watching her walk off into the night. Following the woman had paid off, and not in the way he had expected.

Vosk’s eyes reflected the light of the streetlamps like a cat’s, and he was nearly bare-chested despite the cool evening. He walked over to the chimney opening again, where he had listened at it with his sharp ears, but he heard no more from the man she had visited. She had shown clear interest in this man, an acquaintance of hers she called Jace. She believed in his talents—likely some kind of mage. And this Jace had mentioned that he had been conducting research about some sort of pattern or code.

That was exactly the kind of information Mirko Vosk’s master would want to possess. The Selesnya woman smelled appetizing, and her direct access to Trostani was valuable. But Vosk sensed that he had more than one target now.

Mirko Vosk stepped off the ledge of the building. Instead of falling, he floated into the night sky with a casual, upright elegance. It was time to seek an audience with his hidden master.

***

The Izzet mages weren’t hard to find. After a couple of days of observation, Jace heard an explosion and saw a startled a flight of birds from across the district. The plume of blue smoke was a telltale sign of one of the Izzet’s pyrotechnic experiments. Jace tracked the source of the blast and spied two mages, a human and a goblin, outfitted with alchemical gadgetry and mizzium gauntlets. They emerged from a disused tunnel, leaving behind charred bricks and a haze of smoke, and their instruments crackled with energy. From what Jace had gathered, this was the Izzet style of research: keep adding energy until something blows up, then observe the results.

Jace stayed hidden at the mouth of the tunnel, letting the two of them pass by. He opened his mind to briefly skim their thoughts. The goblin, Skreeg, appeared to be an assistant to the human, or possibly an apprentice. The human went by Ral Zarek.

“No sign of any gate there even though the energies were promising,” said Skreeg. “What will we tell the Great Firemind?”

“You let me worry about that,” said Zarek.

Skreeg and Zarek were on the move, turning onto a main thoroughfare and chatting quickly, so Jace couldn’t delve deeply into their minds to learn all that they knew. Instead he shadowed them, trying to stay close without being seen.

“Could it be that the Dimir just don’t have their own gate?” asked Skreeg.

“Impossible,” said Zarek. “It’s here. It’s waiting somewhere for us. We’ll just have to look deeper.”

“How do we know that? How do we know we’re even going to find what we’re looking for?”

“This path was built for us by the ancients, Skreeg. A parun set all this up, do you understand? A founder of one of the guilds built this puzzle across this whole district so that we could find it.”

“Of course,” said Skreeg. He scratched his ear. “But why do we think it’s for us?”

Zarek snorted. “Because we found it first.”