"—It will turn out exactly as it always has. They'll learn magic and wipe themselves out." Gabriel said, turning away from Quentin. He was standing in front of a large window, arms tucked behind his back. Kaleidoscopic streaks of multicolored light flashed across his view. The hexagonal room was vast and tall. The light from the geometric chandelier hanging above had been dimmed, leaving only the glow from the window to illuminate the space.

  "What if we tried something different this time?" Quentin knew better than to undermine his creator's authority, but he didn't care. Not this time. "What if used different initial variables?"

  Gabriel tilted his head back towards Quentin. "What are you proposing?" He had seen nearly the same outcome arise from hundreds, if not thousands, of scenarios over the millennia. Memories of countless failed experiments flooded his mind.

  "Let oversee this time, I know there's a way."

  Gabriel snorted a laugh. "You think there's hope for them? I've seen them destroy themselves countless times. They've destroyed planets, all living things around them. A taste of magic is enough to erode their civility, degrading themselves to savage, bloodthirsty beasts."

  Quentin walked up beside Gabriel, smiling as he turned to his mentor. "Not this time."

  ***

  In the center of another room, an intricate ritual diagram had been shaped using thin golden tubes. They snaked back and forth, forming a constellation around the outer rim of the diagram. It was roughly circular, with an empty space in the middle for a plush, padded cushion to sit on. The seat was occupied by a hooded figure in a meditation pose. Quentin's face was mostly obscured by the cloak, his eyes closed.

  Weeks of preparation had left disorganized stacks of books scattered around on various tables lining the outskirts of the room. Handwritten notes had been tacked to empty walls with crude nails. Quentin muttered a long incantation to himself, doing his best to articulate the complex phrase at as low of a volume as he could maintain.

  The tubes began to glow red-hot, gently shaking back and forth as they filled with a thick lava-like liquid. Above Quentin, a ghostly image of a hand appeared, fingers outstretched. The hand closed, then opened, an eye appearing in the palm. When the hand closed again, Quentin opened his eyes, a bright blue light shining out from them.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He inhaled a sharp, deep breath, and placed his palms in the pair of hand-shaped outlines on the ground in front him. The outlines lit up with a blue glow, and he closed his eyes once more.

  ***

  Clusters of dark mass rippled and shook in an amorphous bubble. Massive, ghostly hands reached out from the starry void to shape the mass. Bright light glowed from within, like coals in a furnace. The mass congealed into a solid, imperfect sphere. Streaks of red lightning danced across the surface, dissipating into nothing.

  Ethereal fingertips carved blue, glowing symbols into the surface of the new planet. A pale blue dot was plucked from the void to serve as a template. According to the ancient texts, this drab modest planet was a rare find among the cosmos.

  Colossal hands guided the twin planets together, squeezing them in their nebulous palms. When the hands opened back up, only one planet remained. The faint glow of the symbols faded into darkness. All but one of them had been blue, its sinister red glow crackled with bright, remnant lightning from its distorted formation.

  As the hands of the Administrator disappeared into the void, a violent flash of red lightning streaked out from the corrupted symbol. The hand shook and warped, color shifting in chaotic lines across its fingers. It reeled from the sudden attack, a hasty retreat sparing it from any further damage.

  ***

  Gabriel leaned in on the rim of the circular display in the center of the room. A floating, holographic sphere rotated slowly above it. His eyes were weary, and his sunken expression aged his face. Blue dots on the surface of the sphere glowed, except for a single red one. It was far away from the outlines indicating a landmass on the planet.

  An ornate wooden door opened across the room from Gabriel. Quentin closed it behind him as he stepped into the room.

  "Is there a problem?" Quentin asked, as he walked over to see what Gabriel had been staring at.

  Gabriel turned to Quentin and pointed at the hologram. "This… anomaly." His expression hardened, the weariness in his eyes turned to a flare of anger. "What did you do?"

  Quentin shifted, uneasy. "There was a problem initializing the mirror. I made a mistake."

  "What mistake?" Gabriel said his question as a statement. The blunt tone shook Quentin. He had rarely seen Gabriel's anger, and never once directed at him. He steeled himself to deliver his reply as clearly as possible, hoping to minimize the fallout. "There's a corrupted tether. The instability has locked us out—"

  Wide-eyed, Gabriel interrupted him, grabbing him by the shoulders before he could finish the explanation. The panic in his voice sent a chill down Quentin's spine. "What do you mean: 'locked out'?"