EVERYTHING WAS A LIE.

Cas couldn’t think of anything else as he stared at the shard sticking out of him. He reached down and tried to pull it free – but once, twice, thrice, his trembling hands passed straight through the obsidian rock, too panicked to solidify and take hold.

He was an illusion.

His entire life was false. His memories were nothing. He wasn’t the Foretold. He was just a figment, an imaginary friend made real by…

His gaze shot over to Warrior, tears slipping down her cheeks as she stood to face him.

His best friend.

Warrior Bane.

The real Foretold. The One with a power greater and more unique than any the Master of All possessed.

But Cas didn’t understand.

His life and death powers were real. The seekerthing had sensed them. He had still blinded Dr Bane, still frozen the Snout twins solidly in their tracks and manipulated the Nuggle’s legs … unless those powers were Warrior’s too. Unless she had imbued him with her Lifemaker and Deathmaker magic, in the same way she had created a hill with a face and Hobdogglin with his scaly legs and bright violet eyes.

Violet. Cas reached up and grazed his face. His fingers brushed against his own grey eyes flecked with purple.

Even his and Hobdogglin’s features were the same. How had he not known?

Finally, Cas calmed himself enough to pull the rock shard free. The misty, smoke-like hole in his stomach closed. He patted his belly, but it had already healed, feeling whole and real again.

He could feel his heartbeat thrumming and hear quick, panicked breaths escaping his lungs.

But this was what Warrior did, didn’t she?

She created illusions that were half real, half not. Illusions that were able to move and think and feel for themselves, to interact with the real world, but which were never actually born. Which never had a real body.

Now that I’ve found you, I can finally come home.

Cas remembered Warrior’s words on the evening she had rescued him from Curious Mrs Crane’s in the Normie world. For months, Dr Bane had been sending her there, against her wishes, to search for the Foretold. She hadn’t wanted to do it any more. She had wanted to stay at Wayward.

I’ve never wanted to be the Foretold, Warrior had told Cas in the mausoleum.

So, she had created the one thing – the one person – that she knew could bring her home.

“Cas,” Warrior sobbed in the present, her words muffled by tears. “I’m sorry.”

Cas didn’t know what to say. He thought of every inside joke they had shared. Every time it had seemed like they were the same person and she knew his thoughts … because she did.

Even the Oracle had sensed it in some way. No aura, no existence. A nothing boy.

“H-how long have you known?” Cas croaked out at last.

Warrior stifled a sniffle. “Not until now for sure,” she answered softly, as if this was a reasonable excuse. “I thought maybe, on the night you ran after Lucille Du Villaine following the Scuffle, when—”

“You didn’t want me to,” Cas butted in. “When you said, ‘I didn’t say you could do that.’”

Snivelling, Warrior dragged a hand across her grubby cheeks. “Look, Casander. This doesn’t change anything. You’re still my friend. You’re still you—”

“How touching,” the Master of All sliced her off scathingly. Cas had almost forgotten that he was standing barely three metres away with the seekerthing in pieces at his feet. The Master strode forward and snatched Cas up by the chin. “Remarkable.” A devilish glint twinkled in his eyes. “You feel so real. You can even touch me.”

“He is real!” shouted Warrior.

“He’s real to all of us!” Lucie Du Villaine added.

The Master glanced once at Cas, then at the shattered seekerthing. “You,” he said, switching his gaze to Warrior and tossing Cas aside like a ragdoll. “You’ve lost me my seekerthing – but you may prove very useful yet.”

“Don’t touch her!” said Fenix, moving to guard Warrior.

In the same instant, the Master’s Earthshaper Heretic sent another fragment of rock soaring towards the Firetamer. It stopped barely centimetres away, scratching the tip of Fenix’s nose.

Paws hissed angrily, hackles raised and hair standing on end.

“Come to me.” With a lazy curl of the Master’s finger, Warrior started moving towards him in the same rigid way that Cas had done.

“Aeurdan,” Dr Bane begged, his eyes popping at the sight of Warrior. “Don’t—”

But the Master of All slapped Dr Bane’s silver, shaggy head back. Dr Bane toppled, motionless, into the sewer water.

“Sister of mine,” said the Master, examining Warrior like precious treasure. “You and I are going to do incredible things together. You’re better than any seekerthing, Warrior. Much better. You’re the real Foretold. The one who can bring illusions to life and imbue them with powers. If you join my side, no one will be able to stand against us in my quest for the Orders’ powers.”

“STOP!” Cas bellowed, as the Master of All and the Heretics closed ranks around her. They swallowed Warrior in an undulating mass of purple and white, moving as one towards a clear patch of water, looking ready to jump.

They were going to use it as a waygate.

“Okuli,” said Cas, focusing on the unsuspecting henchmen.

The Heretics staggered back, clawing at their eyes, momentarily blind.

“Warrior, run!” Cas bawled. “Muskuli.” He clenched his fist to create a searing cramp in the Master of All’s leg.

The Master cringed in pain and let Warrior go. She rushed forward, her face hopeful – but at the very last second, the Master snatched at her wrist and hauled her back.

“You’re not going anywhere, little sister,” he grunted, as the Heretics stumbled out of their dark trance.

The chance to escape had gone.

Before Cas could act again, the Earthshaper Heretic sent separate fragments of rock flying towards Cas and his friends.

“Two choices,” the Master snapped, offering Warrior an ultimatum. “Join me and I’ll let your friends live. Or try to escape and watch them suffer.”

“Don’t do it, Warrior!” Cas yelled, summoning all of his courage as the daggered point of the rock edged closer.

Warrior tugged fiercely against the Master’s grip, straining to see her friends’ faces, trying to figure out another escape route. But there was no way out.

She had no choice.

“I’ll come with you. Please, just let them go,” pleaded Warrior quietly.

“NO!” Cas shouted as the Master and the Heretics gathered around Warrior once again, sucking her into their shadows.

As one, they leapt through the waygate and disappeared from view.

“No, no, no,” stammered Cas, dread and fear and all things terrible brewing inside him. The rock shards dropped away, and he waded over to where they had vanished, staggering through the sewage as fast as he could.

With a frustrated scream, Cas smashed his fist into the clear pool of water. Even if he knew how to use a waygate, there was no way of following the Master and Warrior without knowing where they had gone.

A clattering sound echoed from the large pipe they had originally come from. Mrs Crane appeared in the gaping black hole, wheezing and dishevelled. Orange-clad wardsmen spilled out of the tunnel behind her.

“Cas – Paws – Fenix – Lucille Du Villaine?” Mrs Crane panted, her tweed dressing-gown splattered with filth. “What’s going on – where’s Dr Bane? Where’s Warrior?”

Cas couldn’t even bear to look at her as he sank down onto the island, clutching the broken pieces of the seekerthing in his hands.

“She’s gone,” he whispered, looking at the glimmering remnants. “She joined the Master.”

And I don’t know how to get her back.