Rain’s attention was swallowed whole by the sight of the Glade up that he almost didn’t notice how the children had come to stand behind him—all besides Klein who was busy keeping Nun Cathleen imprisoned.

“Is that?” Meera was the one who asked, her Indian accent bleeding out of her words. She was holding her waist; it seemed the most painful of her cuts resided there.

Rain decided to take the time to heal them all once everything was settled.

“It is,” Ella answered. “This was the same thing I saw the day Kelvin died.”

“I-Is this bad?” Mei Mei asked, Ray resting on her’s and Geraldine’s shoulder. “I feel like it is. Nun Cathleen killed Kelvin because of it, didn’t she? What do we do?”

Ray remained silent, his usual act of shooting Mei Mei down nowhere to be found. His gaze was completely pinned on the ethereal waterfall, as though he had lost himself staring into an abyss.

Ella said, “I really don’t know, Mei. But it probably is bad.”

Those words of hers caused a gloomy feeling to fall over the children, each one of their shoulders tensing in return. As for Rain, his mind was occupied with laying bare all the information he had about how the Glades functioned.

From what he knew, a Glade could only be left unattended to for forty-eight hours, maximum, if not Melding would occur. It also couldn’t be avoided, as Alice… He sighed… As Alice had told him. Once a Glade appeared, it was mandatory that people ventured into it and cleared it.

Any other person in his current situation might have panicked, but he couldn’t find any reason to, after all, he already had an idea on how to avoid this situation from escalating.

He discreetly glanced over his shoulder at the imprisoned Nun and nodded.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, causing the children to shift their gazes towards him.

“How do you know that?” Tit questioned. The Russian boy of fourteen with silver hair was the one closest to Rain and the Glade amongst the kids, and it was evident on his face that he was the most frightened.

It was to be expected. He had just fought his guardian, who’d turned out to be a psychopath, and now he had to deal with something he was yet to explore but had incited so much fear in Nun Cathleen and Archbishop Jude to push them both into killing a child.

No one would blame him if he didn’t want to find out what was on the other side of the Glade.

“Because he said it will.” Rain turned to his left to see Sean arrive with J as his ride. The boy was caressing his forehead as though a nasty headache was bothering him. He looked at Rain. “What happened with you?”

Rain closed his eyes and heaved out an exhale as Sean came down from J and his Companion began to circle around him while rubbing her face against his thigh.

Initially he had wanted to rush into the woods to find Sean after Nun Cathleen was settled with, but the sudden appearance of the Glade had shifted his focus. He was glad to know the boy was alright.

Sean continued, “You did something right, Rain? I-I suddenly had a nasty headache and fell asleep. What happened? I thought you had died.”

Rain smiled. Sean not running into his arms first before seeking out answers was a change he was part happy and part sad to see.

“Why are you smiling—”

“Asleep?” Tit had a scowl on his face. “While we were fighting for our lives because of a mess you caused, you were asleep?”

“Tit, stop it,” Ella chimed in. “You know it’s not his fault.”

The Russian boy glanced at Ella, then glared at Sean before grinding his teeth together. In situations like this, some coped by blaming others for their plight, it seemed Tit was among that crew.

“He did his part,” Rain said, him considering whether to involve himself in the arguments of the kids shoved aside. “Ray wouldn’t be alive without his help.” There was confusion on the faces of the children, but none was comparable to Ray’s. “And now he’s about to help out again.”

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Sean blinked rapidly. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Rain turned around to face Klein who, unlike the other kids, had a blank expression. “Hey, Sean’s going to activate the Glade, once he does, I want you to hoist her into it.” He pointed at Nun Cathleen, and even though half of her face was covered in black, writhing shadows, he could make out the unease his words had set into her.

It was palpable that it was unmissable.

Now she knew that the boy she had risked everything to bring into the little cult she and the Archbishop had been forming was actually the cause of her downfall in every way possible.

Rain was so glad Alice had lied back on Cumbernauld.

“Alright.” Klein nodded without questions; Rain liked the boy.

“Um,” Sean interrupted. “I don’t understand, Rain.”

Same here… Rain retorted within himself.

Sean was a Protagonist, they were the only ones who could activate Glades; that was all he knew. How the boy would activate it, he wasn’t sure, but they had no choice but to figure that out now.

Rain exhaled and jerked a thumb at the Glade. “I want you to activate it.”

“I don’t know how to do that, though.”

Rain put his hands on Sean’s shoulders. “When has that ever stopped you?” The boy pursed his lips. “We need your help. You know what will happen if we don’t do something about this Glade.”

Sean was silent for a while before taking in a deep breath and exhaling. He then nodded and moved towards the Glade.

Rain turned to J. “Be near him. If you sense anything off, pull him away from the thing.”

J purred and went with Sean.

As soon as she left, Ella took her place.

“He’s a Protagonist?” the girl asked; Rain nodded. “So it was a lie back at Cumbernauld.” Rain nodded again. The girl fell silent for a moment. “What about the lady?” Rain said nothing, but the message was more than passed across. “What are we going to do about the Archbishop?”

“Simple,” Rain said. “You all leave with me.”

Ella’s eyes widened. “That’s… That’s impossible.”

Rain turned away from watching Sean who had closed his eyes and placed both his palms on the surface of the Glade to look at her. “How so?”

“Where are we going to go?”

Rain smiled. “Do you think I’ve been travelling without a destination?”

Ella looked at him before immediately averting her gaze. “Still, it’s—”

Rain frowned. “What exactly is the problem?”

She bit on her lower lip. “There’s no way we can come with you. The Archbishop will come after us. He’ll hunt us down.”

“What will you do instead?”

Ella paused. “We’ll go back and pretend like we got all our injuries from you, and you killed Nun Cathleen. That way we can convince the Archbishop to leave you alone because you’re dangerous. We have no other choice but to do that.”

“No can do,” Rain started after a sigh. “I’ll just have to kill him.”

Ella stared at him incredulously, which was an acceptable reaction.

They had struggled against Nun Cathleen, there was no way he alone stood a chance against Archbishop Jude. Not even all of them did.

Although, Rain had made up his mind. He was not going to let the kids back into the life he had pulled them out of, and if it meant he would have to trade a part of his humanity for that, then he would.

Besides, if anything really had happened to Alice, then he would be killing two birds with one stone. It was too sweet a deal to pass over.

Before Ella could voice whatever opinion she had bubbling within her voice box, a gust of warm wind blew upon them, forcing their gazes away from each other and onto the Glade.

The ethereal blue was no longer peaceful; it was now ridden with ripples and shimmering with a violent energy.

As soon as Klein noticed this, he understood the assignment.

J scooped up Sean, who had been staring at the Glade in a daze, and leapt out of the way. In that instant, Nun Cathleen, still covered all the way from her mouth down in black, flew through the air, leaving an intense, fevered stare for Rain in her wake as she disappeared into the blue waterfall.

Rain was glad Klein had kept her mouth covered through it all; because of that he had heard no wailing of unwarranted death threats.

It was her reckoning, it was only normal that she was silent and took it like a good ‘Daughter of the Veil’.

“Barricade it!” he said to Ella, recalling that the Glade wouldn’t vanish until a full minute had passed.

Ella heeded with haste. A similar ball of energy she had used to protect herself and the children a few moments ago appeared around the Glade, completely drowning out its blue with a sinking black.

A minute later, the Glade vanished and Nun Cathleen with it.