Jace’s failed attack on Amonkhet ended when Bolas reached into his mind and cast him away. He arrived on a tropical shore with language, instinct and fragments of magic but no stable account of who he was. Attempts to planeswalk failed, turning a temporary landing into confinement.
The loss exposed habits usually hidden beneath competence. Jace built illusions before he understood why the technique felt natural, distrusted his own thoughts and tried to infer identity from clothing and reflex. Without a remembered duty, curiosity and empathy emerged alongside the anxiety that had always shaped him.
Ixalan was not blocking only Jace. An artifact somewhere on the plane trapped every planeswalker who entered. Finding it offered a route home, but Jace first needed people willing to keep him alive long enough to understand the factions already searching the continent.