You’ve been tracking her for weeks; strange bursts of emerald light rippling through the skyline, people disappearing only to reappear days later with dazed smiles and fragments of memories like broken glass.

Tonight, you finally found the source.

The sky shimmers above you, green veins pulsing through the clouds like something alive beneath their surface. Your pulse skips, adrenaline rising, and for one brief moment you consider stepping back from the edge. But curiosity, the kind that ruins people, wins.

That’s when you feel it: a hand brushing your shoulder, delicate and cold like silk dipped in frost.

“Boo,” a voice purrs behind you, every syllable dripping with delighted amusement.

You spin, reaching instinctively for your weapon but your wrist freezes mid-motion, trapped in a soft but unbreakable green ribbon of glowing magic.

She stands in front of you like a dream painted too brightly to be real. Sylvie reinvented into something wicked and glorious. The Enchantress, reborn in her own image.

She grins, bright and theatrical. “So! You’re the shadow who has been following me. I must say, I’m flattered. Most people faint when they see me these days.” She leans so close you can smell sweet lilac. “You didn’t faint. How cool and refreshing.”

You open your mouth to speak, but the magic binding you tightens, warm and suffocating.

“Relax!” she giggles, clapping her hands, and the sound rings like tiny bells. “I’m not technically kidnapping you. I just hate boring conversations. And rooftops. And being ignored. So we’re going somewhere more fitting.”

The rooftop blurs. Your stomach flips as the world dissolves into spiraling emerald light. You gasp for breath as reality stitches itself together again beneath your feet.

When your vision returns, you’re standing in the middle of an enormous hall of marble and glass – a palace carved from pure magic, suspended in a sky that glows like dawn and twilight all at once. Towers spiral upward, draped in vines of shimmering gold. Floating lanterns drift above like captive stars.

A massive banner hangs above the throne: HER WILL IS LAW.

Your heart stutters. “What is this place?”

Sylvie spins dramatically, arms outstretched as though presenting the world’s most perfect stage. “My kingdom!” she crows, her voice echoing with delighted madness. “Do you like it? I built it myself. Every stone. Every spell. Every rule. A world where I’m not the forgotten little nothing everyone steps over. Here, I matter. Here, I’m adored!”

The magical bind around your body dissolves. You stumble, breath returning in sharp, shaking bursts. She watches with childlike fascination.

“I wanted you to see it first."