Prologue

At the age of fourteen years old, Valerie considered herself too old to still believe in fairy tales. She believed on walking to school with Audrey and looking at Gabriel whenever there was a sports practice or in class where he sat two seats at her right in the row before hers. She believed in hanging out with Jonathan in a secretive way only the two of them shared, she believed on the four of them sometimes hanging out after school. She believed in her aunt Moira, who sometimes went to travel to who knows where and returned with presents for her. She, did not believe in swords carefully kept away in the depths of caves waiting for fate to pick them up or men coming out of crystal cages to help. And especially, she did not believe in ancient wizards raising from the dead ready to take over the world.