“We both know I do nothing to stop you,” Jordan said with a shake of his head. Leo’s heart sank at those words before the man tinued. “But your weakness doesn’t involve you, does it, Tazuranth.”

  “I’ve had turies to pn for every eventuality,” the mage boasted. “I was an Archmage before yrandparents were born, and the spells that power sanctuary are fwless. You do nothing to stop me from harvesting this light, but even if you could, you wouldn’t because you know how badly the night sky needs more stars.”

  “You might find some twisted words that expin to me why we o sacrifie child to save the world,” Jordan agreed, “but certainly not 12 of them, aainly not Leo. I personally picked him off of a cursed battlefield. He didn’t survive that ordeal just so you could—”

  “Enough,” Tazuranth spat. “Lunaris is on her deathbed, and I must prepare for what es . Move aside, and I won’t strike you down.”

  Jordan only smiled at that because that was what caused the rest of the children to charge the Archmage. Of course, that probably wouldn’t do any more than Jordan’s words, but it still warmed his heart to see the boys and girls he’d fought and pyed with for so long besides trying to save him from certain doom.

  Then, with a wave of his hand and a few words, the Archmage produced a faint, hazy cloud that wafted over the crowd, instantly dropping most of them to the patchy crabgrass where they’d been running.

  Toman held his breath and ran the farthest, which made Leo smile a bit. Despite everything else that was happening, he was getting stronger, and Leo could respect that. Still, moments ter, when everyone was asleep or dead on the grass, all Leo could do was struggle at his bonds and gre at the mage. “If you’ve hurt them, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what,” the mage ughed, “I might have to deal with my misguided apprentice before he damages something. But the rest of you… After I’m done siphoning the light from you, I’ll repeat the same with your friends, and if you survive the experience, well, maybe we do it ain and…”

  The mage’s words trailed off as an arrow suddenly arced through the air over the heads of all of them.

  “No!” the mage yelled as he suddenly uood Jordan’s threat, even if Leo still didn’t. He had no idea what would happe, but at least now he knew where aria had been.

  She’d been at the archery butt more than she’d been at the beach tely, gettier aer with her short bow. She’d said it was to give other people a ce at winning, but that rang hollow to him. He didn’t know what it was she was aiming at, but whatever it was, the first arrow must have missed because she fired a sed.

  This time, he and the Archmage both saw her. “Little brat,” he growled as he pulled out a wand from his robes and aimed it at the sky, causing the wispy afternoon clouds that dotted the blue sky above them to begin to darken and rumble.

  Leo knew with certainty that he was going to strike her down. He was going to call fire htning down from the heavens and annihite her in a single blow, and there was nothing he could do to stop the man, no matter how hard he struggled against his illusionary bonds.

  Then, there was the sound of breaking gss somewhere in the distance. Leo didn’t have a ce to wonder what it was, though, because his full attention was taken up by the ripples that traveled across the sky. The shield… the dome that had hidden them from the world for so long… it was fading. No, worse, it was colpsing.

  Leo had seen that magic for a long time now. It was a familiar sight that was always in the background of everything they did, and now it was vanishing. That could only meahing. He relutly tore his eyes from the ripples and looked to the Archmage.

  Now that the barrier he’d built so long ago was goime was flowing in, and the mage was drowning in it. It was hard to see the details exactly because he was so covered in shadows, but Leo could see him drop the wand even as he clutched his chest and fell over.

  The transformation was clearer iher residents of Sanctuary. Each of them aged decades in seds, and by the time they fell to the ground, they were already shriveled corpses. Those graying, shrinking corpses didn’t stop aging when they died. Instead, they tio rapidly decay until they were only skeletons wearing the clothes of the living.

  It was an impossible thing, and he doubted that everyone else would believe it when they woke up, but he’d seen it, and he could not doubt what his eyes showed him. Really, they should be grateful that they hadn’t had to watch, he thought as he watched the st of the dust that had once been the Archmage blow away, leaving behind none of the darkhat had poisohe man’s soul.

  Even as he saw aria running toward him from across the field, part of him expected the tower to colpse, but whatever strange magics the Archmage Tazuranth had women seemed only to affect the living, and they were all gone now. Well, all of those that had beeered by time for more than a few years, anyway.

  “By the gods, Leo, you’re safe. He didn’t get you!” she said as she hugged him so tightly he thought she might crush his ribs.

  It was only when ara reached him and hugged him tightly that he realized he was not ued either. He was taller than her now. Only by a few inches, but still, that was all the height in the world for someone who had been waiting for years not to be the shortest of his group.

  At that moment, Leo felt ashamed for the selfish joy that he felt, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling it just the same. He’d finally gotten something he’d wanted, but at what cost?

  “How did you know?” he asked finally. “To shoot, I mean? Did Jordan tell you?”

  “ly,” she said, stepping back self-sciously. It was easy to see that she’d grown up, too, but it was even easier to look aretend she hadn’t. “One day st year, I asked him about this spell, and he… well, he poio that little crystal right on top of the spiral and said that it powered the whole thing and that if anything ever went wrong, all someone would have to do was break it, and the te would lose all his power over us.”

  She looked around at all the skeletons, and until that moment, he wasn’t sure that she uood that she’d dohat, but when she began to cry, it was obvious that she knew. “But I didn’t know… I didn’t think…” she sobbed, embrag him a sed time as she cried into his shoulder.

  Leo had no idea what to do with a g girl, especially not ohat had suddenly bee so pretty. So, he just held her as he took in the se, not sure what else to do.

  With the mage gone and his magic failing, everyoarted to stir once more. However, the mood was one of fusion, not celebration, and it wasn’t until Jordan woke up and started to expin things that they made any sense.

  “He’d been pnning to use all of you for some time,” Jordan said, “I wish I could have taken you far away from here to prevent this, but it was much too dangerous before now outside of the prote of his spell.”

  “But aren’t we all outside the prote of that horrible man’s magiow?” Jenna asked. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Jordan agreed. “And the world is a lot more dangerous than what it was the st time we were out there. That’s true, too. But we’ll do whatever we have to do , it will be okay.”

  “Okay?” ara practically shouted as they all gathered together among the corpses. “Okay?! How you say that? I killed everyohe townsfolk didn’t deserve this. Hoould you wao do this?”

  She was in trol of her tears now, but only because of her ahey were all getting used to these strange ges. No one looked the same as they had before, and everyone’s clothes had gotten too small and tight as they’d each aged almost 4 years in a few seds.

  “You didn’t kill anyone,” Jordan said calmly. “You saved Leo. Everything that happeo make that happen is Archmage Tazuranth’s fault. If you hadn’t stopped him, then once he was doh Leo, he would have e for the rest of you, o a time, until you were the corpses that decorated the ground.”

  “But—” she started.

  “No buts,” he chided her. “This is how it had to happen. There was simply no other way forward from here. Everything will move much quicker from now on, and you must be ready for it.”

  “But the harvest,” Sam protested. “Surely we must…”

  “We will pick what we , and then we will move before the Lich find us,” Jordan answered. “It is overwhelmingly powerful, but it is not omnist, and a moving target is much harder to surround and prepare for.”

  The versation tinued on for a long while after that. It was like the mage thought this would be the st time they talked or something. Jordan was often very patient with them, but today he was especially so, aalked until the su before they decided it was time for dinner, even though the versation mostly went in circles as different children asked him the same questions in different ways.

  How could they not, though? People were dead, and everyone was ged. Leo had been the shortest for years and years, and now, in a siernoon, everyone was ged, and the pying field that they’d all known for so long was equalized and distorted.

  At that moment, more than anything, Leo wao battle so they could all test themselves and learn what their older bodies were capable of. Instead, as everyo back to the barn that had bee their home all this time, he walked to the cliffs and looked out at the nighttime sky and tried to make sense of it all.

  With the spell of Sanctuary shattered, the weather had gotten worse almost immediately, and it was chillier now than it should have been for this time of the year. The miasma of the outside world had also started to leak in, but he couldn’t do anything about that. All he could do was look out over the o with its barely visible white caps and listen to the sound of the waves. Then, just as he went to go bad join everyone else, he saw something.

  Even from the cliff, he could see something glimmering down there in the nighttime seas, not so far from shore. If the moon had been out, he would have thought it was nothing more than a refle. As it was, though. The night itch bck, and it was only his glowing eyes that let him see as he started to pick his path down to the shore to iigate.

  Leo had no idea what it was they were supposed to do . He did know ohing, though. He khat he was never going to leave an unanswered question behind again.