It started slow, a kiss wrought of uncertainty, both sides still holding their breath, still waiting for the worst to happen. Bracing themselves for the fallout of a forbidden impulse. But consequence was forgotten as they succumbed to a pull they'd been fools to ignore. Killian could only attest to his own struggle, of course, but if Emma's actions were anything to go by, he wasn't alone in his longing. She drew Killian closer, persuaded him deeper, and seemed to revel in the sounds that accompanied his surrender.

His better judgment, what began as a booming, berating voice in the back of his mind, faded to near nonexistence. The responsible thing would've been to tell Emma it was a mistake, to warn her of the hell they'd inevitably pay—the rules were put in place for a reason, and his superiors didn't take kindly to defiance. But how could he when something—everything—about it felt…right? Felt like—

Killian forced himself to break contact, cursing his conscience the instant his lips were his own. "That was…that…"

He'd be lying if he said that night in the rain was the first time he'd thought about it. The first time he'd been tempted. If anything, the reality should've sated him, should've slaked his craving. But one taste wasn't enough—he wanted all of her, all at once.

It was this desire that held him back, even as her mouth chased his, and untangled him from her embrace. "I shouldn't have done that."

"You weren't the only one."

All that talk of the fair and of finding her perfect match, of never feeling about another client the way he felt about Emma…

He raked his hand through his hair, a pale substitution for hers. He could still feel the paths her fingers had forged, and he dreaded the hours their memory would torment him.

…what must she think of him?

She'd been the one to initiate it, but she was hardly the one at fault. Killian had all but begged her to pounce.

"It was just a kiss." This came as more of a question than a statement, as though Emma were trying to convince herself by putting a voice to her doubt.

Killian didn't search her eyes for confirmation of this, knowing he'd not survive the aftermath of what else he found staring back.

He should've known he was in trouble from the moment Emma Swan fired a shot into the dark and promised that the next time she wouldn't miss. And perhaps he had. Perhaps he'd purposely confused that pull—that once subtle ache he'd allowed to grow, allowed to fester until it was as untamed as the power he'd never wanted to possess—for a lesser offense.

"Where I come from, there's no such thing. You have no idea the penalty—"

"It was just a kiss," she said again, more confident this time. And maybe, for her, the just was rightly placed. "If you're afraid I'm going to mistake a moment of weakness for Happily Ever After, then you can relax. It's out of our systems, so no one has to suffer anyone else's wrath, or…whatever."

"I wish it were that simple."

"Careful," Emma chanced a smile, the sight of which softened the edges of Killian's panic, "I hear wishing can be tricky business."

How the bloody hell she was capable of calming him so quickly—

Well that was part of the problem, wasn't it?

He should've known he was in trouble that day on the beach when she'd tried to comfort him through distraction. He'd never talked about Liam with anyone—not even the sailors who'd called them both Captain—but something about Emma Swan had made him unafraid of the ghost that'd haunted him for more years than any soul should live.

"I'm pretty good at keeping secrets." She smiled again, and it might've masked the disquieted tone to her voice were her eyes not as full of fear as Killian felt.

She blinked it away in that frustrating fashion of hers, until all that remained was a challenge Killian would've been wise to decline.

He should've known he was in trouble the first time he'd wanted to answer a question her eyes shouldn't have been asking. She'd been unable to look directly at him, and when she did, when the striped and spotted furniture sets lent little aid, her interest locked on a single feature—much like now.

He should've known he was in trouble a thousand times over.

And perhaps he had.

Perhaps this line warranted crossing.

At the very least, Killian was willing to find out. He leaned forward with every intention of finishing what they'd started—

"Who did you tell, Killian?"

"I didn't tell anyone."

"Do you expect me to believe that?"

"It's the truth."

Alistair turned a tortured look upon him, one that veered abruptly toward disgust. "And what would a man like you know about that? You fancy yourself a changed man, but deep down you're the same degenerate you were when I found you, drinking yourself stupid over your brother's death."

Killian didn't take the bait—it wasn't his mentor talking. These were the words of a man who'd been unmade by the same institution that'd molded him. "They let you live." It was a paltry offering, but it was all Killian had. "I know it may seem a small consolation, in light of events, but you'll be glad of it one day."

"Bugger off, Jones, and take your platitudes with you. I've no heart for them anymore." He kicked the door to slam in Killian's face—

He stopped just shy of his target, resting his forehead against Emma's. "Swan…"

She must've gleaned his decision from this single utterance, scarcely louder than a whisper and laced with a reproach he hadn't intended, because she was on her feet and across the room before Killian registered the empty place she'd left behind.

"I should go," she said.

"You don't have to."

"I have an early day tomorrow."

Killian nodded, at a loss for an excuse as to why she shouldn't leave. He walked her the rest of the way to the door, where she lingered, hesitant to clear the threshold.

It was all he could do not to forsake his oath, insist she stay, when Emma smiled a fake smile and said, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," he answered the door she locked loudly enough for him to hear. "Love."

—

The lamp burned low but it was sufficient for his needs. The parchment, ancient by any realm's standards, was too delicate for an excess of light.

Killian set the page aside, returning it to the stack at the table's opposite end, and rubbed his eyes, strained from study. He'd pored over texts for so long, the words started to blend together. He leaned back in his chair, stretching muscles that hadn't moved in at least an hour.

He'd been an avid reader all his life, something Liam liked to tease him about when Killian was still a boy. "Shall I swab the deck, then? While you're off slaying dragons and rescuing damsels?" But whenever they pulled into port, Killian would find a new book added to his collection, placed among the others as though by magic. When Killian went to thank his brother, Liam would give him a blank expression and ask him what he was on about this time. Then he'd wink and order Killian back to his quarters.

That night the pastime had less to do with enjoyment than it did with escape. He couldn't sleep for thinking about Emma. About the way she looked when she'd left his apartment. He couldn't help feeling that he'd wounded her somehow. Rejected her. His mind drifted back to the challenge in her eyes, daring him to act against his own warnings. Take a leap of faith.

He could only imagine what she thought of his superiors—nameless, faceless entities whose reign bordered on nonsensical. They weren't real to her. If something wasn't real, how could it be a threat?

For Killian, the threat was very real. Not just to himself, but to her. If the council caught wind of what he'd done, they wouldn't stop with just his head.

Fortunately, guides weren't as closely monitored when on assignment as they were within the boundaries of the council's domain—unless one was under active investigation on suspicion of impropriety, the council relied solely on status reports filed at the end of each term. Such was their claim, anyway. Killian had learned the hard way how invasive their tactics could be, and he didn't fully trust their motives. Not as he once did. He wouldn't put it past them to pull a person's memories for inspection, if it suited their endgame.

He wondered, and not for the first time, if this had been their method of uncovering Alistair's plan. If his thoughts, as guarded as he'd come to keep them, had been his mentor's undoing. If he'd unwittingly testified against him.

It wasn't your fault, he told himself for the hundredth time in as many years. And for the hundredth time, his words rang hollow. Doubt crept up in their place. Maybe it was merely the shadow of a thought, not fully formed, or the ghost of something forgotten but never erased. Maybe the council had gone so far as to sift through dreams and Killian's unconscious had intimated something he wasn't aware of.

They had to have read his mind, read someone's. The timing was too convenient to be coincidence.

Then again, maybe it was nothing at all, and paranoia had simply deemed him a suitable plaything.

He didn't know. And the not knowing drove him to guilt. Self-condemnation. That, and the fact that Alistair never looked at him the same way after the council's ruling.

Killian's phone lit up with an alert, and not a moment too soon. His thoughts could do with an interruption.

One of the newest recruits assigned to him had encountered a low level emergency, but with this particular recruit it could've been something as trivial as a broken shoelace. She was still in that stage of apologizing after every message, terrified of disturbing her instructor and incurring his wrath.

Killian smiled down at the screen before dialing her number.

"Mr. Jones, hi, so sorry to bother you at this hour." She sounded frantic. Killian envisioned her wringing her hands while pacing back and forth to summon her courage.

"It's no bother, Charlotte. What's the emergency?"

"Do you remember that problem I had a couple weeks ago? And a couple weeks before that?"

"The town that doesn't exist?"

"It kinda…happened again." She paused. Killian could only guess that she was having doubts as to her aptitude, even though he'd assured her time and again that this was a common occurrence among new guides. Navigating the realms wasn't the easiest skill to master, and sometimes recruits ended up in the wrong place, or no place at all. "I did everything you said and I still can't quite get there. It's like I'm being blocked by something. Like magic, but stronger. I looked it up on the maps you gave me and even tried a few mortal ones, but there doesn't seem to be any record of it."

Killian stood up from the table and crossed to the room's only door, on the side of which was a small panel embedded in the wall. He lifted the sleeve on his right arm and held his wrist out to be scanned. "Send me the coordinates," he told Charlotte. "I'll see what I can find."

He ended the call after her third thank you.

The beam arced across his wrist, drawing out the markings beneath the surface of his skin. An antiquated code comprised of numbers and lines that revealed Killian as a first of his kind. The tags had grown preposterously complex since his induction into what the council still considered an elite institution, even amidst rumors of corruption.

He keyed in the sequence for the library he needed and the room, which was technically a portal within a portal, transformed in the blink of an eye. Where moments ago the walls were lined with shelves, they now housed a system of mainframes. Silence was replaced with the whirring inner workings of the magical/technological hybrids as they sorted data from every age of every established realm under the council's purview. In the room's center, the old wooden table was replaced with a modern metallic piece that was home to what someone from Emma's world might call a laptop.

Killian took a seat and set to work. The coordinates Charlotte messaged him corresponded with a location in the Land Without Magic, but she was right—for all Killian could tell, there was no name for it. Just a spot on the map in the middle of Nowhere, Maine. He opened Charlotte's recent activity log and double-checked the source of all incoming wishes. Everything was in order. No reason she should've had trouble making contact with a prospective client—

Before Killian's next keystroke was complete, all open files disappeared and a prompt flashed on screen to inform him that the records were classified above his clearance.

Now curious, given that he had one of the highest clearance levels outside of an actual council member, Killian opened a new search, looking for all wishes that'd originated in or around the same location over the past year. The result was a staggering number, all from the same person, inside a town that for all evidence wasn't real. They started slow—once a month, then once a week. In the last few days, the amount had increased to as many as ten wishes per day. He extended the search parameters to include every wish made within a sixty mile radius of this origin point to see if these incidents were as isolated as they appeared.

Just as Killian felt he was making progress toward solving a mystery he didn't fully understand, he was locked out again.

He spent the next hour trying to trick the computer's programming into permitting him access to restricted documents, but it was to no avail. He wasn't going to discern whatever secrets the council sought to hide using a tool they'd designed.

One last attempt, and Killian would call it a night. He'd tell Charlotte to pass the request up the chain of command and move on to more promising endeavors.

He'd been focusing on the wishes themselves, but what if they weren't the most crucial variable?

Like magic, but stronger.

He checked the archives for any and all traces of magic in the outlying areas, dating as far back as fifty years. He wasn't disappointed. Approximately twenty-seven years ago, an exorbitant amount of energy was released in the place that Charlotte couldn't get to. Nothing before or since except for a minor blip in the woods outside a small town, like those caused when a new portal is formed.

The town's name was familiar, but Killian couldn't recall why.

His next search was for coinciding incidents across all realms, which showed that at the time of this irregularity in the Land Without Magic, an entire kingdom in the Enchanted Forest had been razed to the ground.

"Bloody hell."

Another prompt informed Killian that he'd hit the limit of illegal searches and his privileges had been temporarily revoked. But it didn't matter because he remembered where he'd seen that name before.

—

The storefront was unremarkable as storefronts go, with a door like any other, save no mortal could open it.

In an attempt to cut down on all nonessential magic, the council enacted a new protocol that forbade any guide from free travel between realms. Especially realms that had such trace amounts of magic left as the land he presently called home. They cited a massacre that'd taken place before Killian was born as their reason for the precaution, wherein all wielders of magic were targeted, hunted down via the magical signature specific to each, and made examples of. To counteract any guide leaving a trackable pattern, the council assigned a series of permanent portals for every city under its authority, and designated one portal per guide.

This was Killian's. Luckily for him it was only a few shops over from where he and Emma usually got their morning coffee.

He latched the door behind him and set a course for their building.

Most days, he would've listened to his gut and made himself more aware of his surroundings. Been a bit more wary of the strangers that passed him. This was not most days, and Killian chose to ignore the subtle pinch at the base of his neck.

He was conflicted about what he found out. On the one hand, could fate really be that twisted? And what confirmation did he have? None. He was running purely on conjecture. On the other hand, he knew better than most that coincidence was, in many cases, a myth.

He swore he'd never lie to Emma again, not even by omission, but he'd need tangible evidence first. They were hardly on the best of terms as it was after last night—

In younger years, he might've mistaken the pulse for a gust of wind, but it cut through his distraction, transformed the pinch at the base of his neck into a chill that ran along his spine and spread through every limb, setting him on edge. Once uncertain, he now knew he'd recognize its signature anywhere. The thrumming vibrations rippled across Killian's consciousness, echoing like the beats of a drum as they reshaped the air, altered its underlying structure.

He was being followed, and his pursuer had cast a glamour spell.

Killian kept his face forward, eyes locked on the horizon. It'd been a good long while since he'd bested someone—the pirate he'd forsaken in centuries past gloried at the possibility. When he came to the intersection, instead of waiting to cross, he turned down the alleyway, tucked himself into a corner, and waited.

It was a solid minute before his prey happened by, and when he did, Killian bounded upon him, driving his body against the building's outer wall with a hand to the man's throat.

"Why are you following me?"

"Is this…" the man choked out what few syllables he could with Killian tightening his grip, "...any way to…greet…an old friend?"

The man dropped his glamour and Killian dropped him to his feet, stepping back like he'd been burned. "Alistair. What…" Killian reined in his amazement, opting instead to be as detached as his mentor had been when last they saw one another. "Why are you here?"

Alistair massaged his neck, turning his head to extreme angles for no apparent reason other than he still had the ability. "I am your direct supervisor, or have you forgotten?"

"Could you blame me?"

"Is that your way of saying you miss me, Jones?"

"Not remotely."

Alistair laughed, a sound that often alternated between wheezing and hacking. That day it was the former. "And here I thought you'd be glad to see me, us being mates and all."

"Is that what we are?"

"Come now, Jones." Alistair dusted off his coat, setting himself to rights after Killian had ruffled him. "I thought we'd agreed to put the past to rest. You know, bygones and all that."

"You threatened to cut out my tongue if I ever spoke to you again."

"Like I said, bygones."

"What do you want?"

Nothing good, Killian knew. In his experience, Alistair had never been the bearer of glad tidings. His presence alone could usually be taken as an omen of unpleasant things to come.

"Maybe you answered a text or two, you'd know," said Alistair. "I received a most distressing call from the council this morning."

"The council called you?"

"They did, indeed. Seems there are quite a number of red flags in your file."

Killian rolled his eyes despite the resurgence of his previous panic. "You of all people know the council's paranoia is without equal."

"Alas," Alistair grinned, "their suspicions are not always without merit. Your case, for example—teeming with unreported incidents. Flirtations, yearning looks, illicit desires—"

"You're mistaken."

"So you don't want to sleep with your client, then?"

Killian clenched his jaw and hoped the reflex went unnoticed.

"They know about the kiss, Killian. To say they're displeased would be an understatement." He wanted to smile—Killian could see it in his eyes. The sheer delight at this reversal of roles. How the mighty have fallen. "Being that you're their golden boy and all, they're rather reluctant to have you decommissioned. That being said, they won't be embarrassed again."

"In other words, I'm to be preemptively punished on account of your crime."

"Careful, Jones." Alistair snarled, his cavalier attitude suddenly gone. "I'd take care to remember my own culpability if I were you."

There was no winning this argument; Killian had given up trying long ago. He turned from Alistair, followed the alley back to the intersection and waited for the signal to cross.

"Jones."

In the time it took Killian to respond, Alistair was already in his midst, had already taken Killian by the collar and hauled him forward to speak in his ear. "Consider this a warning."

Magic fueled his movements—there could be no question—as he shoved Killian onto the road, amidst the screeching tires and the blaring horn of the driver who reacted too late.

—

Killian was assaulted by a blast of air as the automatic doors parted. The sun was high enough in the sky to let him know he'd spent too many hours under a physician's scrutiny. And a simple sprain was all he had to show for it. He'd been tempted to heal it himself, given that he'd already broken more rules than he could count, but he decided it would be in his best interest not to anger the council beyond all hope of forgiveness.

That didn't mean Alistair would escape their next encounter unscathed.

Killian had seen the twisted pleasure he'd taken in tossing him into oncoming traffic, so much that it had him questioning whether Alistair had truly been sent by the council. Perhaps it was that his mentor had undertaken a mission of revenge—

Killian would've laughed if his entire being weren't so bloody exhausted. He was seeing vengeful plots where none existed. Accusing Alistair of being as easily swayed by darkness as he had been, once upon a time. He'd even let a case of mental fatigue persuade him of the notion that Emma had ties to an event that'd occurred in some nameless nowhere town nearly thirty years ago.

It would explain why her contract disappeared…

He massaged the bridge of his nose with the fingers of his still-functioning hand. They'd ruled out a possible concussion once he regained consciousness and passed a litany of neurological tests, but he was starting to wonder if he hadn't hit his head harder than he thought.

"Killian?"

He looked over at the sound of her voice. "Swan. What are you—?"

"Someone from the hospital called. They said you were in an accident—I thought…" Her eyes were rimmed with redness and her speech was thick with an emotion she quickly pretended wasn't there, going so far as to add a light laugh for good measure. Killian looked past her to the bright yellow bug parked at an awkward angle in the visitor's lot. "I guess I thought the worst."

He couldn't remember the last time someone had been distraught over the idea of losing him.

"My arm took the brunt of it." He gestured to the sling across his left shoulder. Emma gave him a tight smile but seemed to breathe a bit easier. "I'm sorry, Love. I told them not to call you."

"You weren't going to tell me?"

"I was under the impression you weren't speaking to me."

"Why would you assume that?"

Killian didn't answer. Judging by Emma's body language, he didn't need to. Now that the threat of fatal injury had been removed, the fact that this was the first time they'd seen each other since the previous evening made its mark on her expression.

If Killian cared anything for her, he'd end it here. Now. With the next sentence to leave his lips. He'd follow procedure, have her case reassigned. Sever ties.

"Emma, about last night…"

If he cared anything for her, he'd do the right thing and step aside, allow her to find the good things she was meant for.

All he could ever be to her was a temporary distraction. A waste of what time they had left.

Could he really wish that for someone? If he cared for her?

That was the trouble, wasn't it? He more than cared.

But he'd witnessed firsthand what the council did with traitors. With the things that traitors loved.

"I want to apologize. And to say that it won't happen again."

She was quiet for a long time as, little by little then all at once, every hint of hopeful anticipation drained from her face. When she smiled, Killian wondered if some part of her could sense how dim it was in comparison to others.

"I guess I could take some of the blame," she said in an attempt to take up their usual banter as though nothing had happened. Nothing had changed. "I did kiss you first."

"You did, didn't you?"

"You don't have to be so smug about it."

Killian laughed, but something about it felt dishonest. He held out his hand. "Friends?"

Emma stared at his palm as though it were the final step toward defeat. And she accepted. "Friends."

—

"Go on ahead. I'll be along in two shakes."

His leftenant nodded with evident understanding before shutting the door to Killian's quarters. When the crew's retreating steps grew faint and disappeared, he pulled his flask from its keeping and set two places at the table, a generous serving given to each. He reached for the glass nearest him, clinked it with its mate and said, "Cheers, Brother," before touching it to his lips. But he didn't drink. A voice in his memory held him back. And not one he would've expected.

"Rum, Sailor? Does anyone know what happens to sailors who drink rum?"

He set his glass aside with a heavy sigh.

It'd been long years since that day and Killian still remembered every moment. Every exchange. Every misguided instinct.

"Maybe you shouldn't have goaded him into it."

The world outside offered little solace, but that could've had more to do with the fact that he looked out at it through the same window that'd held his final gaze before Liam's collapse. It'd rained that afternoon—nothing too bothersome, but enough to make the landscape look as though it were an unfinished canvas, abandoned by its artist mid-stroke.

Despite its fullness, the moon was reduced to a sliver by slow-moving clouds. And despite its persistent light, Killian hadn't known a night this dark since the first he'd spent as the last of his line. A shooting star barreled across the sky as though it, too, were intent to break him.

"Make a wish," Liam used to say.

To which Killian's unwavering response was, "Wishing is for children."

"What do you suppose you are?" Liam would nudge his arm and Killian would frown.

It'd seemed pointless, some years, to wish for anything. What could he ask for that he didn't already have? He sailed and served with the finest crew aboard the finest ship in all the lands. He had a brother who'd proved himself a better father than the one they shared. The one who'd left. And one day, he'd be Liam's right hand and together they'd restore honor to the Jones family name.

What would Liam think if he could but see Killian now? Would he recognize his brother in the pirate, or was the man Liam knew gone forever?

Sometimes the memories of him were so vivid, Killian would swear he heard Liam's voice. It was always strongest in that part of the ship.

"Make a wish," it said now. "It's not too late."

But wishing was for children. And cowards. What man would Killian be if he caved to such nonsense? As if a person's sins could be so easily undone, simply by wishing it so.

He shook his head. He wasn't a boy anymore, and he wouldn't be tricked into behaving like one. Stomping back toward the table, he took up his drink again and downed it in a single swallow. Liam's, too.

He was at the door, prepared to leave, prepared to drown his sorrows with as many vices as it took to do the job and let the lads call it celebrating. They couldn't know that Killian had given up on that, too. That his smile was a mask, his laugh an empty mimicry of a younger man's enthusiasm. What was the point of celebrating when his best days were behind him?

He glanced over his shoulder, knowing the moment had passed. The star had completed its descent. Even if it hadn't…

What was the harm, really? No one would know but him. Worst case, nothing happened, he'd show himself for a fool, and head to the tavern with a renewed sense of vindication over his brother's ghost. Best case…

"Bloody hell."

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

"That is a new one, I must say," came a voice from inside the cabin.

Killian spun on his heel, drawing his sword in one fluid motion. Seated at the table and carving a sizeable bite from the bread that'd gone untouched along with the rest of Killian's meal was a man he'd never seen, dressed strangely even for this corner of the kingdom.

"Most people in your position wish for power, fortune, a chance to try their hand at world domination, what have you."

"Who the hell are you and what do you think you're doing on my ship?"

"Eating your dinner, looks like." The man stood up, brushed his hands clean on his coat. "In answer to your first question—you can call me Alistair. Now, what sort of redemption are we after? A few alms for the poor when you pass through town? Or are you looking to take holy orders? 'Cause if I'm being honest, somewhere in the middle ground is probably your safest bet."

"How did you…?"

"Did I forget to mention?" The man called Alistair laughed—a hacking sound Killian often heard from dying men. "I've come to deliver your happy ending. You did say redemption, didn't you? Otherwise, I'm on the wrong boat, and let me tell you it would not be the first time."

Killian woke with a start, sitting up before he registered where he was. He checked his phone for the time and cursed under his breath. It'd taken him ages to fall asleep—his mind refused to cooperate with his need to put the past twenty-four hours far behind him. Now come to discover he'd slept a grand total of ten minutes.

He moved to the edge of the bed and took a drink of water from the glass he kept on the nightstand. It was a habit he'd picked up from Emma, or perhaps just from falling asleep too often around her. Whenever he did, he'd wake up to find a full glass on the nearest hard surface.

They hadn't spoken during the drive home. Not one word. It hadn't been uncomfortable, not completely. It was more...tense from a mutual effort to return to normal. To somehow find their way back to before.

The conversations they'd started between the sidewalk and the car—

"So I'm your emergency contact, huh?"

"Does that surprise you?"

"You need to get out more."

"The last time I went out I got hit by a car."

—were quickly dropped. Their hearts weren't in it. Killian could only attest to his own, of course.

They said goodbye in the hallway—

"See you tomorrow, Swan."

"Bright and early, I know. Coffee's on you."

"As you wish."

—before entering their respective apartments.

Killian had showered and dressed as best he could while favoring his sore limb and settled in to sleep—a dreamless sleep, if this world knew any mercy. Turned out it was crueler than he'd given it credit for.

His tired gaze moved from the water glass to the nightstand itself as a voice from his unconscious met him in the waking world. He'd promised, by actions if not words, that he'd give up the search. She wasn't ready to know. But the same question that haunted him the night he'd set his life on its present course haunted him now.

What's the harm in finding out?

Since he was up anyway, might as well put his suspicions to rest.

He waved his hand in front of the nightstand's top drawer to unseal it. From inside he retrieved the one file he hadn't disposed of and leafed through its pages until he found the one he was after. An article that listed the name of a town that'd experienced a minor blip of magic twenty-seven years ago. Like those caused when a new portal is formed.