Prologue: The Shade

ABOVE THE BLUE SEA, birds flew in flock. An abnormally tall man with a black hooded trench coat walked out of a fog of shadows, staring up at the cloudy sky. Looking around at what used to be a city called Miami in South Florida, he surveyed the marshes that conquered the area. The drowned city of ghosts had only a few thousand residents who were too stubborn to move. He turned and saw an elderly man fishing off the coast.

The frail fisherman noticed the man staring at him in shallow water. “Aren’t you a tall fella?” the man asked, prying his eyes from his fishing pole, looking over at the seven-foot-tall man who had emerged from a hidden path of shadows.

“What year is it here?” the visitor asked the fisherman.

“2224… You don’t know the year? Don’t tell me you’re one of them aliens the news be talking about.” The old man studied the being, who did not look entirely human. “Wait, are you one of them fae folk? I saw you teleport.”

The two locked eyes for a moment.

“Oh!” the old man exclaimed, realizing his words could have been harsh. “I don’t mind if you’re fae. I’m just asking. Not my business if you are.”

The man in black held back a laugh and watched the fisherman reel in his line.

“But you really should keep up with the date. It’ll do you some good,” the old man said, raising his eyebrows, giving what he felt was sound advice.

“Thank you for that guidance.” He nodded at the old man, who looked back at the brackish sea, tossing his fishing line in an area that had no fish. “No… I am not of the fae, nor did I teleport. The Shade is not a portal. It is a path that moves very fast between the three realms, with many doors.”

“Sounds like a portal to me.” The fisherman shrugged.

“Portals and The Shade are not—”

A group of teenagers a quarter-mile away distracted the two from their private conversation with loud screams.

“Damn kids,” the old man said. “They’re always fighting. Crime’s getting worse, despite the country trying to enforce peace. People blame y’all and that Isis lady. But for an old man… you lot bring me peace.”

Rather than correcting the man in his old age, the man from The Shade allowed him to believe that he was fae.

“At least you can die,” he told the fisherman as he tried to find the door to lead him back into the shadowed path. Before opening the door, he turned to the old man and said, “I have no end. Therefore, my soul can never know rest.”

The man stepped through a translucent door.

Not realizing he had dropped his fishing pole in the water, the old man muttered, “Teleportation.” Then, he laughed like an innocent child. He looked around the scarce beach and exclaimed, “I just met a fae fella!”

No one heard his excited words.

“I am not fae,” the other man said from within the shadows.

“Then, what are you?” the old man hollered, trying to find him. “Well, at least tell me your name before you go to God knows where!”

“I have many,” the man said and vanished.

As the man with many names walked away from the hazy door that led to the beach where the fisherman searched the waters, the entryway shrank to a window the size of a basketball. And voices echoed within The Shade.

He pinched a particle in the air and twisted it, flinging himself down the dark path. After he reached his destination, he approached a new window that hovered in a pit of shadows.

He grinned darkly and watched a woman walk down a sidewalk on the other side. “Maybe the orb was wrong…” he whispered.

The man walked to another window nearby. He gripped the edge of the new window, which led to the woman’s house, and turned it into a door. Then, he raised his hood and stepped through the gateway.