Prologue
Jax stepped through the portal from Androva into the half-light of a Terran summer’s evening. Night would fall within the next hour, and the sky was already dark grey. He had not been able to wait any longer before coming to look for Shannon, despite the fact that it would have been safer in complete darkness. Where was she? If only they hadn’t had that stupid argument. Jax had opened the portal for Shannon that morning as agreed, but she hadn’t turned up. It was an important day because they were supposed to demonstrate their new Rejuvenation Spell to the Council. At first, Jax had blamed Shannon’s absence on their argument the day before. He had planned to apologise, but when Shannon failed to appear through the portal, he became angry with her. It wasn’t until later, when his anger had died down, that he realised it was completely out of character for Shannon not to keep an appointment with the Council. After that, he started to get worried. The more he thought about it, the more worried he got. But he couldn’t go to look for her until it was dark enough that there would be no Terrans wandering about. And now here he was, and there was no sign of Shannon.
