I know that my update schedule (or lack thereof) sometimes causes people to forget things that happened or to get some details mixed around.

I can relate.

According to my account profile info, I have been a member of this site for two years and thirty-seven days. I had posted Chapters one and two to a Yahoo mailing group when Sephrena found me and lured me here, so to admit that I have put out less than a chapter a month.

I will give everyone a bit of backstory that really isn't in the story, more like hinted to and sprinkled in.

Terri is the neice/nephew of the last vortex. Agatha Winston had two children, the second one was revealed to be a vortex, only to be killed by the remains of a large group of users who came together to stop Nethizar thirty years ago. Of the three-hundred or so people, only sixteen survived the battle. Augustine was barely twenty-five when her ability to hurl ice shards with surprising accuracy was the killing blow to a vortex that was already straining it's shield to prevent a building from crushing it. A last ditch effort to be sure.

Augustine had been outside, shielded by the debris when it fell, so she took the lead and helped dig out bodies and save those who had been fortunate enough to live through the event. Those who came away from the battle vowed that they were spared only because they had no proof that Nethizar had perished and so they were doomed to repeat the same mistake. The Twice Doomed was formed.

Agatha's first child, A girl named Clare, was checked by Augustine personally to determine the child's ability. This child had no capacity to gather mana and would never be a user. Agatha decided to keep the child removed from the magic world and made every effort to hide magic from her. Augustine was instrumental in hiding the truth about her baby brother's death. Augustine was the only person besides Nethizar that knew Agatha was the mother of the first vortex.

Despite having no contact with the magic world, Clare met Michael and they started an amatuer magic act in Atlantic City. The true illusionist stuff done for shows and other entertainment venues. She gave birth to a little boy, named Terry, which effectively put her out of the business of being a scantily clad assistant.

Terry was confirmed to be a vortex by Agatha, since Augustine had all but forgotten about Agatha's mundane daughter. Terri was sealed up, several times.

Michael now makes a living designing and making illusionist tricks for others, plus marketing and making sure each stunt is set up properly. He also built numerous items for their home, including a flowered wall relief made of wood that cleverly conceals the door to the attic stairs. Much of the attic was converted into a room for Terry when he was young, but the main stairs were extended to that room alone and the second attic entrance was concealed in Terry's closet, and how long would it actually take for a young boy to find a secret door is probably measured in hours.

So, to put the pieces together:

Terry is messing around in the attic, decides to try on one of his mother's old costume leotard from her stage days, then finds the spell scroll, reads it and begins the series of events that you are more familar with. It at first appears to be an accident, or coincidence, but turns out to be neither as it was just the first move of as someone in the previous Blog's comments put it: "A very deep Game."

Instead of writing cliff notes of everything that happened, I'm going to just tell you to read the story, so that I can spend more time working on the next chapter. It is closer to being done, but the dialogue was just too wooden for my tastes and is being corrected, line by line. The teaser was from the middle of the chapter, not the end.

Ally Kat