<03/16/1972 – 01:26 | Manhattan, New York, United States>

  It took almost a full hour before Danny and Taylor were picked up by Nyar's vehicle and driven back home. As hectic as everything was, Nyar and Danny did their best not to argue about the situation in the car, especially with Jane's physical conditions. Her entire body was dormant, unconscious to the world around her. Even after making it back to the house, Danny and Taylor both had to carry Jane inside of the door, laying her down on the sofa. Once the three of them were safer, Nyar finally let it all out.

  "Who's idea was it to head out in the middle of the night to meet those bastards?!"

  Danny stepped in front of Nyar with his hand raised, his face bowing in shame. "It was my idea, and I'm a complete moron for trying it."

  Nyar wasn't accepting anyone's apology right now. Danny and Taylor both had cuts and bruises all over their bodies, but luckily nothing too serious. Jane on the other hand was obviously tortured, with large marks all over her skin and her face. "You have any idea what I was thinking when I went through the search history and got a phone call from you? I had the police on line and everything!"

  "I didn't—"

  "I thought you were going to die!" Nyar wouldn't let Danny finish, over how stupid the three of them were, but Danny soon slumped to his knees, holding his face in terror.

  "I didn't want any of this! I should have listened to you!"

  "Hmmmm!" Taylor and Danny both paid sudden attention to Jane, assuming she was waking back up, but after moments passed with Nyar hovering for answers, Jane could only groan and mumble a few nonsense words. She didn't open her eyes, and she wasn't really coherent in the slightest.

  "What happened to her?" Nyar demanded.

  Danny had no reason to lie to Nyar anymore about anything. This was getting too dangerous. "We were all ambushed. Those guys were not just random thugs. They're all members of the Scarlet Cult."

  "The what?! What the hell are they doing in New York?"

  "You're not the only one with that question." Danny glanced back at Taylor, who was focused on checking Jane's health. Her worried face warranted further concern.

  "Guys, Jane has a fever right now. She's burning up!" Taylor felt Jane's forehead, and still was she unconscious or incoherent. Jane was not recovering from that horrible mess earlier.

  "You disobeyed every rule I gave you, put all of your lives in danger... With the way Jane looks now, and the police investigating the situation, I now have no choice but to send all of you home. This plan to give all of you choices for better lives, that's been burnt to the ground."

  "I don't care about that anymore!" Danny never felt so wrong in his life. Everything he did tonight was another careless mistake, just like back on those cliffs so long ago. "I messed up again! I did it again!"

  Taylor found herself trying to defend Danny's flawed logic instead of tending to Jane, and she knew what he was referencing right now. "Stop it Danny! You did what we all thought was the right move!"

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  Nyar held his head as if he had a headache. "I can't believe this is happening. I failed to protect the three of you, so I'm obviously the one to blame here."

  "That's not—" Before Danny could try and calm himself and Nyar down, Taylor interrupted the both of them eagerly.

  "Danny!"

  "What?!" Danny turned around, and his face went to horror once again at the sight before him. Jane was still unconscious. It appeared as if she were in some kind of terrible pain and unable to express it, but the top of her hands were slightly glowing blue again, sparking up a static storm. Her symbol was still absent, but this reappearance of her magical circuits backfiring worried Danny even more, and now Nyar is here to see it.

  "What the hell is going on? What is that?" Nyar didn't understand the situation, but right now, it appeared to be a surprise for Danny and Taylor too.

  Danny had no choice, and he turned around to raise his head up to Nyar standing just behind him. With a swallow of his saliva, Danny reported the whole truth about their encounter tonight, knowing full well that this would freak him out. "Nyar? When we were being attacked, after Jane was tortured, we saw her use magic to break free. She hurt everyone who tried to come at her, and then she collapsed!"

  "What, she used..." Nyar's eyes widened with terror fueled further by his wild imagination. "She used magic?" Jane blasting random magical energy at the bad-guys; this is what Danny was describing right now... But he has to be mistaken. "No, you must have seen something that wasn't really there. Magic cannot be used outside of the veil."

  "But Jane is marked," Danny argued. "And I have no idea what that dangerous symbol in her skin is doing to her... But Taylor and I both saw it happen. Her symbol activated, and it supplied her with dangerous magic. She used it to fight back."

  "But that's..." Danny wasn't blinking. He's serious! Jane, using magic because of a symbol activation? What the hell is going on here? "But that isn't possible! Nobody can use magic outside the veil."

  "Well obviously we were wrong!"

  Right now, Danny sounded just as frightened by the idea as Nyar was. He could sense it in his voice, as his arms were just slightly trembling. "Why are her hands sparking up like that?"

  "I think she overdid it, used too much magic at once without a stable source? I don't know."

  "None of us know what that symbol is capable of, or what it was designed to be used for."

  "Do you understand what this means?" Nyar questioned?

  Danny twisted his lip in denial, realizing where the real danger was. "Don't go there. Only Jane can do this because of her symbol."

  Nyar ignored the comment, and went with his better-predicted conclusion. "The veil is a total lie."

  "I'm telling you," Danny warded, "it's not! The Scarlet Cult had no magical abilities at all. They didn't even try to fight back, because they knew they couldn't! The same goes for me and Taylor."

  "Guys, I'm worried about Jane's health! What if that symbol really did something horrible to her back there?"

  "Using magic outside of Sprawn Valley is physically impossible. You and I both know that. So whatever those arcing things are on her hands, it has to be an impressive light show."

  Danny had to try and break this down for Nyar to understand, but there was plenty already to be believable. "Why is this so hard for you to accept? Impossible as it may be, I saw Jane use magic multiple times before she collapsed! If it wasn't for her, Taylor and I would be dead right now!"

  "Oh god!" Taylor whined. "This must all be a dream. That explains it all. We're all dreaming."

  Nyar added to the stress of their situation from Taylor's comment. "If that's true, then I'm having one hell of a nightmare, and I'd like to wake up from this as soon as possible."

  "Danton," Danny pronounced.

  "What?"

  Answering to Nyar's sudden confusion, Danny elaborated his sudden thought. "From everything we've learned, magic cannot be used outside of the veil. It's factually impossible! But that only holds true if what we were taught is true... What if Danton really is lying about everything, to all of us?"

  "You're saying Danton is behind this?" Nyar couldn't dilute the possibility. The elites and champions of Sprawn Valley are usually as twisted as the practice is. "If that guy has anything to do with this, I'll travel there myself and change his face with my fists!"

  "What are we going to do?" Danny felt the time to really panic was now. Jane is still unconscious, her hands still sparking like a tiny electrical storm, the same kind he and Taylor noticed shortly after the spell bomb orb was used on her. Right now, she may actually be in some sort of physical danger. On top of that, Nyar calling the police will soon reveal who Taylor and Jane really are. Their connection to Nyar is weak, as he explained earlier. Will Taylor and Jane be deported because of this?

  "For once, I don't know." Nyar began to pace left and right between the hallway and the dining room, a cell phone in his hand, but whom could he call? No connection in the world would help anyone out in this situation. And hell, if word gets out that magic can be used outside of the Leray veil, it would bring about mass panic and chaos around the world. People only accept Leray magic's existence because it is contained, but this changes everything. This has to be a nightmare!

  "This is bad," Danny repeated. Taylor seemed calmer, but her attention was on tending to Jane, not that she could do very much for her right now.

  "I know her symbol has something to do with this. That mark on her hand must be far more powerful than anything we've ever realized."

  "Yeah, well Danton was supposed to do a scan on her symbol, and he never got back to us on that."

  "You really think he's our enemy?" Taylor questioned.

  "I don't know what to think anymore Tay. I don't know what's happening." But right now, there is nowhere to go for answers. That is, unless there is some way of getting truthful information out from Brash Danton. That guy has to be hiding something. Jane wouldn't lie to them both yet again, not after everything they've been through. It isn't possible!