MAGIK

When the demon lord Belasco trapped six-year-old Illyana Rasputina in Limbo, he was not collecting a hostage — he was manufacturing a key. His masters, the Elder Gods, could enter Earth through a gateway spell built from five bloodstones, and each stone had to be fashioned from a piece of a single corrupting soul. He chose hers, and set the finished gems one by one into a pentagram medallion called the Beatrice amulet.

The stones were a progress meter for her damnation, as the Magik Vol. 1 #1–4 (1983–84) limited series shows in detail. Belasco cut the first stone from her soul the night he claimed her. A second appeared after Cat's failed rescue ended with Illyana back in his hands, begging to become his apprentice. A third followed as his black-magic training took hold — three-fifths of a little girl, converted into red gems while the adults who loved her fought over how to save what was left.

Illyana ultimately forged her Soulsword from the uncorrupted remainder of her own soul, drove Belasco out of Limbo, and escaped to Earth carrying the medallion with its three stones still set in it. The two empty settings were the point: as long as the count stopped at three, the gate stayed shut. She spent years afterwards guarding a necklace that was simultaneously her wound, her leash to a demon, and the scoreboard of a war for her own soul.