The instant Kez’s fingertip touched the surface of the crimson star, it flared violently, blazing like a ball of fire.
He had been expecting something like this, so the reaction didn’t surprise him.
As the crimson light erupted, his vision shifted to somewhere far away.
…
Inside a hidden cave in Afghanistan, Tony Stark sat on the ground, expressionless as he listened to the man in front of him.
“Your life’s work is in the hands of these murderers. Is this really how you want to give up?”
“Is this going to be the great Tony Stark’s final act of defiance?”
“Or are you going to do something about it?”
Tony answered flatly, “Why bother? They’re going to kill us either way.”
“And even if they don’t, I’ve probably got a week left at most.”
At that moment, a metal cup near Tony’s feet suddenly erupted with crimson light invisible to ordinary eyes.
The glow engulfed him in an instant.
…
Sokovia.
Wanda Maximoff sat in the living room of an ordinary house, watching the news on television.
“Famed American scientist Tony Stark, chairman and CEO of Stark Industries, has gone missing after his convoy was attacked by militants in Afghanistan. The scene of the attack was devastating, and authorities have yet to locate Stark. While he is officially listed as missing, current estimates suggest that he is most likely…”
A smile appeared on Wanda’s face.
“Serves you right. Now you know what it’s like to get blown up by missiles.”
“I hope…”
Before she could finish, an ornament resting on the table suddenly burst into crimson light.
The glow swallowed Wanda whole.
…
When Wanda’s vision returned, she stared around in a mixture of alarm and confusion.
A colossal bronze table stood before her, with ten high-backed bronze chairs lining either side.
Across the table, a man’s features and body were obscured by a hazy blur, and judging by the way he was looking around, he seemed every bit as disoriented as she was.
Almost simultaneously, both of them noticed the mysterious figure seated at the head of the bronze table, his entire body concealed behind layers of gray-white fog.
The figure was Kez Merlin.
Looking at the two people he had summoned, Kez was genuinely surprised.
He had wondered which lucky—or unlucky—people in this world might have come into contact with objects carrying traces of spirituality, but he certainly hadn’t expected his first two catches to be Tony Stark and Wanda Maximoff.
Neither of them had become Iron Man or the Scarlet Witch yet.
Wanda, in fact, had only recently turned nineteen.
“Sir, where are we?”
“Am I dead? Is this some kind of place where the dead are judged before going to Heaven or Hell?”
Wanda and Tony spoke at almost the same time, then turned toward each other in surprise.
Given his injuries, Tony had naturally assumed that he had finally died.
Wanda, on the other hand, was more confused by the fact that the man beside her had immediately jumped to the conclusion that this was some sort of afterlife tribunal.
She had been sitting safely at home watching television only seconds ago; there was no reason she should suddenly be dead.
Kez wasn’t surprised by their different reactions.
He knew exactly what Tony Stark was currently going through, so the man assuming he had died was perfectly understandable.
What surprised him more was that Wanda hadn’t let Tony’s conclusion influence her own.
Now it was his turn.
“An experiment,” Kez said.
Wanda considered the words carefully.
‘An experiment?’
Her curiosity quickly began to outweigh her fear.
One moment she had been sitting in front of the television in her living room, and the next she had appeared in this inexplicable place.
Towering stone pillars surrounded them, while the enormous bronze table made the hall look almost like some kind of meeting chamber.
Where were they?
What was this place?
Wanda drew a slow breath.
“If the experiment is over, can you send me back?”
“If that’s what you want,” Kez replied, “I can send you back right now.”
Wanda didn’t sense any immediate danger.
Even if there was one, she understood that anyone capable of pulling her out of her own home and bringing her here in an instant was far beyond anything she could resist.
Instead of asking to leave, she said, “This is… incredible. I always thought things like this—mysteries, supernatural powers—belonged in fairy tales. I didn’t think they were actually real.”
Tony had recovered enough to follow the conversation.
“So I’m not dead?”
Kez turned toward him.
“No. At this moment, you’re still alive.”
Tony looked down at himself.
There was no car battery hooked up to his chest here, and his body seemed completely healthy, without even a trace of his injuries.
Everything about this place vaguely resembled some of the occult material he had encountered over the years, yet none of it matched closely enough for him to identify what he was seeing.
Maybe the universe simply couldn’t bear to let a genius like Tony Stark die in some terrorist cave and had decided to throw him a lifeline.
As for the mysterious figure sitting before him, Tony had no idea what legend he might have stepped out of.
God?
Jesus?
An angel?
Tony looked toward the figure at the head of the table.
“How should we address you?”
Kez studied him with faint amusement.
Tony Stark, without even a hint of his usual venomous wit.
That was certainly different from the man Kez remembered from the movies.
He leaned back in his chair, interlaced his fingers beneath his chin, and smiled slightly at the two of them.
“You may call me…”
Kez paused for a moment before continuing in an even voice.
“The Fool.”
As the title echoed through the vast hall, the surrounding gray fog seemed to respond.
It churned and rolled around them, while those two simple words reverberated again and again inside Tony and Wanda’s minds.
Tony immediately searched through everything he could remember about mythology, occult traditions, and even the fairy tales he had heard as a child.
Nothing came to mind.
He couldn’t recall a single deity from any mythology who had ever been known as the Fool.
Not even an evil god.
Of course, that might simply mean his knowledge of mythology was embarrassingly incomplete.
If he somehow made it out of that cave alive, he’d have to fix that.
He could hire a few professors specializing in mythology and religious history and have them put together something comprehensive.
Wanda couldn’t think of anything either.
The Fool card from the Tarot briefly crossed her mind, but she dismissed the connection almost immediately.
How could a mysterious being capable of doing something like this possibly have anything to do with a card used for fortune-telling?
Silence lingered over the hall for several seconds before Wanda finally spoke.
“Mr. Fool, what exactly do you need us to do for this experiment?”
Kez looked at the curiosity on both their faces.
“I prefer equivalent exchange.”
“I won’t ask either of you to help me for nothing.”
He gestured around the hall.
“This will become a private gathering held here on a regular basis. Since we’ll be meeting for some time, it’ll be easier if each of you chooses an alias.”
“As for the names…”
“Pick one from the Tarot.”
With a wave of his hand, twenty-one cards appeared on the bronze table—the remaining Major Arcana, excluding the Fool himself.
None of the fifty-six Minor Arcana were among them.
Tony Stark looked over the twenty-one face-down cards and stepped forward first.
Since there was no way to see what any of them were, he simply chose one at random and flipped it over.
Tony stared at the title printed on the card, his brows drawing together.
“The High Priestess?”