Learded the cake as he would an enemy while everyone else sang him happy birthday, but he tried not to let it show on his face. After all, despite their differehe other children had goo such efforts to make this, and even though they didn’t see eye to eye most of the time, it was still a nice gesture.

  It was just too bad that the cake itself retty awful. It wasn’t their fault, of course. There was no sugar here and little in the way of sweeto be found in Sanctuary. He only had the dimmest memories of what sugar tasted like from when he was very young, but he khat it wasn’t carrot or cream. This cake was a mockery of sweetness, but he was determio enjoy it all the same, if only because it meant that another year had passed.

  Still, when they finished, he blew out the dle and smiled, thanking them all for remembering. The truth was that he didn’t even know if this was his birthday. It almost certainly wasn’t. Half of them had been too young to remember that sort of thing when they’d been rescued by Brother Farbaer and Jordan so long ago.

  Leo didn’t even remember the boat they’d been rescued on, but some of the older kids did. They’d told him that one mihey’d been sailing north with a man called Markez. One sed, they’d been looking for a pce that still had light somewhere upriver, and the , the Tempr had appeared carrying a child to battle a rotting dragon. It had apparently been a terrifying sight.

  The description had been thrilling, but Leo would never know why Brother Farbaer was carrying him that day in the same way that he’d never know his birthday. One day st spring, someone had simply decided that everyone who didn’t know their birthday should get one, so they set about pig o for everyone and then marking them on a dar they’d carved into a nearby liveoak so they remembered to celebrate them wheime came.

  Not having a birthday had never been a of Leo's. At least, not until they came to this ageless pow that he never got any older he leased to have one, so he could at least keep track of all the growing up he was losing out on.

  This dle theoretically made him what? Fourteen? How different was fourteen than eleven for the third time?

  He wasn’t sure, but he imagihat given the choice, he would prefer to be aging. Maybe old men like Jordan were gd to stay the same age forever. As far as Leo was ed, being thirty was already like living with one foot in the grave. He wao live, though, and when every day was the same, that bordered on the impossible.

  That was why they needed something to mark time. The harvests helped, but really, that was it. Each day was distinct, but given that the weather was oo hot now, and the magic protected them from ever being too cold, it was hard to say what time of year it was on any given day.

  So, they made their own holidays now, trag the passage of time with birthdays and holy days to keep things moving in something that resembled a life. Slowly but surely, the shreds and pieces they knew about Siddrim’s worship bleogether and became a new sort ion to them, and though they didn’t share it with the adults, they e.

  As he pted this, small slices of cake topped with whipped frosting were cut and handed out to everyone. Even Jordan woke up from his nap long enough to joihough that put a damper on the mood as a whole. The versations that followed weren’t anything that they hadn’t had a dozen times befiving Leo all the time in the world to study the man.

  On the surface, he was still just as warm and helpful as he’d always been, but the darkhat had spread through him like a cer had practically taken his eyes now, and not even his polite questions or wide smile could vince most of the children to talk to him any lohan they had to.

  The part lingered lohan it might have because no one could say the things they really wao say until Jordan finally left to visit Tax in his tower, but that was normal, too. They were caught in aernal loop so pletely that even birthdays and made-up holidays were quickly taking on a strange iia of their own.

  “I Just feel like we're living the same day over and over,” Sam sighed when Jordan was finally gone. He’d said the same thing not so long ago, but he’d been every bit as right then as he was now. Almost everyone agreed with that at this point.

  Even ara fessed that she was tired of winning all the time. “I’d trade a hundred victories for an actual challenge,” she said dismissively. Rin and Tara weren’t too happy to hear that sihey were the ones she always beat, but even they were forced to agree on this. It was hard to get better when you could only fight the same people, and your body insisted on never growing up.

  The only ohat didn’t agree with that, of course, was Toman. Out of all of them, he was the only one whose world had ged. Well, him ahey’d sed pces. Now, instead of being strong pared to at least Leo, he was the weakest of all because he lost every bout the two of them had now.

  Everyone said it was because Leo worked hard and was gettier, but that was only because they didn’t know he was cheating. They had no idea what he could see, and he was determio keep it that way. Hell, he was determio rise to the top, though he didn’t really know if that was even possible. He was w through Will and Rin’s fighting style now, and he evehem sometimes, but even with his ability to see bloarries ing, it only offset so much of the deficit he had in strength and reach. Everything else would have to be made up for by uanding his oppo and their weaknesses.

  Nothing different than normal happened for the rest of the day, and indeed, he expected nothing too different to happen in any of the days that followed. He didn’t expect that would ge week or month. Then, he was woken up in the middle of the night.

  It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but the st time hadn’t been since Jordan had told them of Sister Annise’s departure, and the children had met to discuss the fact that they’d beeo. This time, as he woke to Jenna’s fad a finger pressed against his lips, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Instead, he got dressed as quietly as he could and the outside to join everyone else at the tree where the group had these rare midnight talks.

  It was chilly but no worse than normal, and Leo ed himself tightly in his cloak before he sat down on the grass and waited for everyone else. He didn’t have to wait long before ara and standing in front of them, with her pretty blonde hair visible even ihin moonlight.

  “I know you’re all w what we’re doing here,” she said finally. “I’ll e right out with it. I think we o leave sooner rather than ter, holy?”

  “What?” one boy cried out.

  “What happened?” another boy said.

  “It’s nothing new, of course,” she tinued. “There was no act or emergency; it’s just that every time I… and many of you look at Jordan or the e he is with, I see a growing darkness. Brother Farbaer didn’t trust mages, and frankly, I doher. I think the sooner we are rid of them, the better.”

  What followed was a quiet but spirited debate. Most of them could see a growing darkness in the mage’s soul, but even though some didn’t, all of them argued about what exactly it was that it meant. Was it this pce? Was it that book?

  “What if he means to do us harm?” Toman cried out, clearly on the side of ara.

  “I don’t think he means to hurt us,” she said, “But tainting us with his shadows would be almost as bad. If what sister Annise said was true, then we are the st bearers of the Tempr’s light. We o preserve that.”

  “But how?” Reggie asked. “There is only darkness beyond the veil that protects us. To leave is to die.”

  “So they say,” Rin said, but it was without vi. No one seriously doubted that the darkness had beeed iime they’d been here. They’d all felt Brother Farbaer’s passing, and no one seriously thought that the darkhat was dev the world could be defeated without him.

  After all, how could darkness ever be pushed back without light? Though he prayed that a new light had risen up in some far-off nd, Leo, like everyone else he’d talked to, had the sick certainty that they were in. They were twelve tiny fmes that stood against the end of the world, and trapped as they were in a pce where they could never grow up, they’d probably never be strong enough to do so.

  In the end, they held a vote, but less than half of the children thought they should try to leave. Leo said almost nothing the eime, and it was only when he rodded to give an opinion after the vote that he said, “It doesn’t matter if we try to escape or not because it’s impossible. You o be able to work with spells and magecraft, and all that we have is the light.”

  her the vote nor the words of her peers were enough to stop ara and those who agreed with her. They annouhat they were going to try anyway, but by m, Leo woke to find them once again in their own beds.

  He never doubted that oute. While he secretly believed that he could escape this strange prison, he was also sure that no one else could. The light had started thten in a few of his friends; at least, he retty sure it had. It was normal to wax and wane, but the darkness of the world outside had only grown worse, and baring a sign from the gods or a visit from the ghost of the Tempr, he khat their pce was not out there. They were sparks that might one day rekindle a fire or flickering dle fmes at best, but they were not a bonfire, and they could not hold back the night.

  Author's Note: Hello everyone. As you know, retly I stubbed the first book for release on Amazon. I still don't have the link for the print/ebook (it's in review because it got pirated in February by AI pirates, as some of you might recall) but I now have the link for the audiobook, which you find here. I hope to have the link to the print/ebook in a couple of days. So, if you are enjoying Tenebroum, please sider pig up a copy of the print/digital/audiobook to support it. These books will un Octhth, just in time for spooky season. Thank you so much!