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Of course I wasn’t going to tell my mentor about the voices in my head. Especially the one that sounded just like Kato.

The train slowed, and we all stood up. I could already see the train platform through the glass doors.

“So, what’s this ‘Circus of Dreams’ all about?” Asher asked Eris.

“It’s a magic circus that tours the Many Realms,” replied our mentor. “The main attraction is a Dreamweaver named Portia, a very talented dancer and magician.”

“Dancer?” Bronte perked up. “I’d love to see that.”

“You’ll have to travel to another realm. The circus has never come to Gaia.”

“Why not?” Dutch asked, frowning.

Eris tapped the button to open the train doors. “In the grand scheme of the Many Realms, Gaia is too insignificant.”

“How many realms are there?” I asked.

“More than we know of.”

The doors opened, and we followed Eris down the stairs, onto the platform. A bright and shiny sign welcomed us to the Interchange. Two escalators loomed before us, each clearly marked. One led to the Black Obelisk, the other to the Magic Emporium. Eris took the Magic Emporium escalator, and we followed.

“What exactly is the Magic Emporium?” Asher asked.

“It’s the Fortress’s shopping district,” Bronte said immediately.

“People from all across the Many Realms come here to sell their magical wares,” Kylie added as we emerged from the underground level and entered the Magic Emporium.

The buildings were all so tall! And so clean. There were people everywhere, their arms weighed down with colorful shopping bags. At least half of those people weren’t even human. I could see it in the way they moved. The way they dressed. And the way their skin shimmered a little too much in the morning sun, like it was dusted with magic.

But not everything here was clean and shiny. There was graffiti too—and more than a few Remembrance Walls dedicated to pictures of loved ones claimed by the Curse. It seemed the Brotherhood of Earth was just as busy here as in Bayshore.

“Wow!” Asher exclaimed, his eyes wide. “It’s incredible!”

It really was. I’d never been so close to so many shops before. Bakeries and apothecaries, restaurants and blacksmiths. And above all, lots and lots of souvenir shops. And there weren’t just magic shops here. Many stores claimed to sell the ‘authentic Gaian experience’ to our visitors from the Many Realms.

“Don’t be fooled by these pretty potions and beguiling baubles!” A man in a scruffy brown robe stood across from a busy escalator, his voice cutting through the background chatter. “Don’t be tempted by sly spells and insidious incantations!” the Brother called out.

“You’re the only insidious thing here, old man!” someone shouted from an escalator.

It was a teenage girl with a bubblegum-pink ponytail and the matching clothes to go along with it. Her three friends—two boys and a girl—were dressed in exactly the same style.

The Brother didn’t counter her directly. Instead, he appealed to the crowd gathering around him. “Don’t buy into the Great Deception. Magic isn’t the solution to our problems.”

The escalator crowd was growing too. There were now ten teenagers.

“Magic will set you free!” one of them called out. He wore a t-shirt with a dragon printed on the front.

“Magic is what got us here in the first place,” said the Brother. “Magic has brought nothing but pain to the people of Earth.”

The Brothers always referred to Gaia by its old, pre-Curse name: Earth.

“That’s not true,” the pink girl told everyone here. “Magic is good. It gave you the Knights.”

Many people in the audience nodded in agreement.

“Magic gave us the Curse,” the Brother reminded the crowd, trying to draw them back into his narrative. “And it is stripping away our humanity, piece by piece, day by day. Until there will be nothing left of us. Magic turned the Cursed Ones into mindless savages, but it did something far worse to the rest of us: it turned us into mindless consumers, all too eager to sell our souls for the latest trendy trinket.”

The pink girl and her friends laughed at him. “Run along, old man. No one’s buying your sermon today.”