Axel wasn't mistaken. What stood before him and Kinsey was a portal. Not the kind people only talked about in history lessons, but the real thing. A circular frame stood upright in the hidden room, taller than most people and wide enough to swallow several people at once.
Its surface wasn't exactly solid. It moved slowly, like liquid glass, rippling inward on itself in endless layers with bits of faint light pulsing from its edges.
This kind of technology didn't come out of nowhere, of course. During the early years, when portals first began appearing across the world and Mythic Beasts poured out of them, humanity had almost collapsed again.
Then technology caught up. Scientists learned how to stabilize portals and how to shut them down and eventually how to force them open under controlled conditions using certain pass codes, witches, and interface panels.
