When William Carter came to, it wasn't daytime. Nor was it night.

This world he had been stolen to, whatever it was, seemed to instead be stuck in some sort of hazy in-between state, where the shape of his hand before his eyes was just barely visible yet the faintest haze of light peeked over the horizon.

Pushing himself to his feet, the magician let out a heavy groan. Whatever had just happened- shadowy hands, Charlie's face, a silent scream- left his body battered and torn. He felt around a moment, hoping to retrieve his spectacles (which, somehow, seemed to have survived the incident), and stumbled upon not only the glasses but the little box as well. He unwrapped it gently, making sure the contents were still secure and suddenly it hit him-

Charlie.

From the moment he had appeared in this barren wasteland, Carter hadn't seen hide nor hair of her. Ignoring the protest of his joints, the magician turned to check the barely-lit area behind him. Nothing. Not even a series of disturbed pebbles or settling dust to let him know she was there.

Feeling a pit of cold dread sink into his stomach, Carter began to call her name: "Charlie...Charlie! Where are you?"

He ran a few paces- though it would make no difference, there was nothing but darkened stone in any direction he could see- and twisted his gaze.

"Charlie? Please- say something! Anything! Even just a groan if you're in trouble or a very loud breath- I'll hear you."

No response.

"I'm begging you...Charlie…"

The magician sank back down to his knees. There was no mistaking it. She was nowhere in sight.

Damn. This was all...he never should have summoned those shadow creatures.

Entirely aware both of what a pitiful sight it would make and thankful that there was no longer anyone around to see it, the formerly Amazing Maxwell curled up into a tight ball on the icy stone. Despite his best efforts, small breathy sobs forced themselves out of his throat.

She was gone.

Dead or injured or worse, kidnapped by those wretched shadow hands that...that…

And he hadn't even gotten to say goodbye, or thank you- or anything really. What a swell woman she was. That he lov- fancied her. Even...William Carter carefully felt the small lump in his pocket.

Even that.

The magician stayed this way for a while, limbs bound together as tight as possible. He was convinced that if he didn't, all of his insides would certainly fall apart. She was, after all, gone.

But…

Maybe not forever.

The magician clambered again to his feet, hands still gripping his sides like steel clamps. Charlie had been taken by the shadow hands as well, right? Through the same portal as he was. So to the same dimension he was in right now!

Which meant she still had to be somewhere in here...whatever nightmare realm "here" may be. The only question now was how to find her.

Well, find her then find a way out, that was...but still it was a start. With renewed enthusiasm, Carter glanced about the shadowy plain that surrounded him. Then groaned. Nothing, absolutely nothing besides his own internal sense of direction, served to distinguish one direction from the other. He paused a few moments, trying to determine the best course of action.

Technically, he could stay here and wait for Charlie to find him. It wouldn't be the most proactive thing to do, but could she have gone that far?

Of course, there were no roads or towns in this strange world Carter had fallen into. Not to mention no food or water. If he stayed here for longer then a few days, there was no doubt he would starve to death. Leaving Charlie a corpse as her only companion.

That meant that there was only one option left on the table- walking. He'd set out on his own and search for any trace of where his assistant had landed. But this idea presented its own problems: everywhere he looked was the same gray stone without so much as an incline to mark left from right.

How on earth was he supposed to go anywhere if there wasn't anywhere to go?

Carter let his gaze slide across the flatland with a frustrated scowl. Then bit his lip and made a decision. If everything looked the same, then it didn't really matter which way you went did it?

He picked a direction (about thirty degrees up from his left ear), took a step and then promptly fell over.

For a moment, the magician wondered if his injuries were really worse then they looked. After all, even with the addition of his glasses, every shape was a little fuzzy in the dim light. But no- there was something caught beneath his feet.

Carter felt around a moment then managed to catch the smooth, textured feel of something that was certainly not rock. He grasped the object gingerly between his thumb and index finger then rose it up so that it was just a few inches from his eyes.

Damn.

The Codex.

Somehow, despite all odds, the little book had been transported with him into this nightmare realm. The magician was tempted, a few moments, to hurl the thing as far away from him as physically possible- but quickly thought better of it. The book was only a tool after all- it had been his mistake that had actually sent the two of them here.

And besides, if the magician wanted to survive in this empty realm, then the object that brought him here might be his greatest tool. He leafed through the pages then winced in distaste as a bit of the shadow goo dripped onto his fingers. Leftovers from the performance- disgusting but maybe useful eventually. At any rate, the magician couldn't afford to be giving up any resources now. So he stuck the slime in his pocket, flipped to a random page and began to walk as he read.

Though the light was dim, he could still make out the faint scrawling etched all over the page. Some was his own, coupled with tea stains and ink blots from sleepless nights studying the tome. Others had been there what for looked like ages before he had even laid finger on the book. Carter scrutinized them closely, hoping for any clue as to what predicament he had gotten himself into- but quickly found they were no help.

The Constant.

They are watching.

Find the hub.

The magician shook his head, frustrated. How was he supposed to locate something like that when he couldn't even tell north from south- or if there actually was a north. The powerlessness of the whole situation was galling, not to mention the fact that his feet were getting sore from all the walking. How long had it been since he'd woken? Two hours? Three?

It might as well have been five minutes considering how much the landscape had changed. Gray faded into gray faded into more dull gray. Carter squinted. Though it might have only been his imagination, the sky did seem to be getting darker. Perhaps this place had night as well.

He continued walking.

If that was true- and as he could no longer see anything more than a foot from his face, the magician was beginning to suspect it was- what exactly would he do? Try to create some sort of shelter from his book and costume? Just curl up on the ground and go to sleep right there? For some reason though Carter wasn't feeling particularly sleepy. Tired? Certainly. But a strange feeling of malaise hung in the air here that he was certain would prevent him from closing his eyes.

So it was decided. He would continue walking- and in the meantime, keep scanning the Codex Umbra for any more clues:

Thulecite.

Gatekeeper.

Ravenous Maw.

The longer the magician stared at the words, the stranger they seemed. Meanwhile his toes had long since gone numb, seeming almost to an exhaustion-addled brain as though they had fused with his loafers to become one smooth walking appendage. Convenient. But that would have to be the one part of his body that was actually working for the magician. His muscles had begun to ache miles back, setting any nerve endings not destroyed by the shadows' maltreatment ablaze with acidic fire. Carter chewed on his lip as though the momentary pain would somehow detract from the rest of his situation. It didn't. Not that it really mattered.

Everything would be fine once he found Charlie.

He'd just have to make it a little bit further…

Minutes more passed. Nothing changed but the size of the pebbles gracing the ground and the faint outline of a full moon rising the sky. Hours ago, the magician might have paused to watch, curious of the precious similarity to his old world.

And yet now he kept walking.

It had to have been at least ten hours. The moon had disappeared below the horizon, like a silver nickel sinking into the depths of a frozen stream, and the light of dawn had taken its place. Though the world around the magician was, by no means, suddenly bright, the lonely gray of the landscape encompassing him was beginning to become more clear.

Things had changed during the night.

Not drastically- but more than enough for Carter to notice a change. Instead of singular stones scattered about the flatlands there were piles. Most looked like rubble but a few seemed to be...something more. Something ancient that had long since crumbled to dust. The magician studied these closely in the occasional moments his limbs were so overcome by fatigue that he could scarcely take another step. Collapsing at the base of one of these dipliated structures, he would run his hands through the rubble until his fingers touched upon something interesting.

The first few times, he managed to find a few fragments of what looked like polished glassware, vibrant shades of red and blue reminding him of the Tiffany lamp he saw in the window of a New York City department store.

As he walked farther and farther, these were joined by pieces of a gleaming metal that looked a bit like gold. It wasn't though-Carter had tested it, using an trick one of the old Californian '49ers had taught him: to rub the brass of his coat buttons against the metals side. If it made a dent, the material was gold but if not…

Well, the miner hadn't really told him.

All the same, he shoved the shavings in his pockets along with the rest of his finds. When the journey got particularly dull, he would take them out and jangle them around in his palm. The little fragments made a pleasant sound, and occasionally Carter would sing along to their euphony.

"We had wandered in the shadow of the pines

The moon looked down on you and me

And a darkness stole across the summer sky

And a shadow came between my love and me."

His stomach joined in the refrain, making the magician firmly aware that he had not eaten since before his last performance. He dug around in the pockets of his suit and managed to discover a few hard candies- but those disappeared almost as soon as they were found. And no matter which way Carter looked, there was nothing remotely close to sustenance anywhere near on the horizon.

Only rocks. Of course...the magician had heard a story of an unlucky cowhand that had apparently survived five days in the desert sucking on pebbles made damp by the morning dew. But it had probably only been a tall tale. And despite everything, William Carter wasn't desperate enough to try it.

Yet.

As the hazy sky brightened to a point that almost resembled a California dawn and the idea of big rock candy mountain became more tempting, the landscape had subtly began to change again. If he squinted, Carter thought he could almost make out the hulking mass of something, the same color as the rubble piles around him, looming over the horizon. His heart skipped a beat at the thought of cities- soft beds and showers and artificial lighting- but as the structure grew closer and closer, cold reality squelched the magician's hopes.

Whatever this massive edifice had been, it now was just as ruined as everything else surrounding it.

He would have probably cried but the liquid remaining in his body at this point was barely enough for sweat, let alone tears.

This world was just one nightmare after the next.

The sentence circled in William Carter's brain like one of the Codex's incantations. It echoed with each step, providing a strange contradictory sort of strength, until at last as twilight fell, the magician staggered into the shadow of the ruins.

There, almost as though they were waiting for him, stood a ring of braziers each glowing with its own unearthly spark. The magician let the faint shadow of a smile fall from his lips. Each was a deep heliotrope- the exact same color as the shadow beings he had been summoning for weeks in his act. And though Carter was acutely aware that he could count on one hand the reasons why trusting these things was a good idea, he was nevertheless relieved to see something he knew how to deal with in this strange new world.

With a heavy sigh, he sank to the base of a brazier and closed his eyes.

Sleep came quick like the night...