Standing in the twilit market square, Dawn felt increasing amazement as she watched the Neecriots file out of the portal. “They understand,” she said to Reeve, “they are leaving behind a country that has not chosen sides for one already at war?”

“Yup,” Reeve said.

Dawn shifted her attention from the whole of the Necriot contingent to its individual members as they shuffled past. “Never have I seen more willing volunteers.”

“War may not be their first choice, but they’re happy they’re getting to choose at all. It’s more than they had in Neecrus.”

“And there are how many yet?”

Reeve looked along the line as it snaked across the square and connected to ranks that had already reformed. “I think about half have come through.”

“The rulers of Neecrus condone this?”

“Are you kidding? They’re thrilled. For years, they’ve had a bunch of bored city folk wandering around their capital, stirring up trouble. Or, almost stirring up trouble, because the undead guards would pretty much always stop them from hurting themselves or each other. We just reduced the bored-towny population pressure in Morbeet by a ton. And,” Reeve bent to pat the trunk that sat between her, Millie, and Walter, “we helped them with their guard problem too.”

Dawn registered that Reeve looked amused, maybe even smugly so, but was unsure what Reeve meant and so shook her head.

Reeve bent and unlatched the trunk. She motioned Dawn closer. Dawn approached, and Reeve raised the lid of the trunk a quarter.

Dawn leaned forward to look into the darkness but recoiled reflexively as a pale hand gripped the lip of the trunk from within, its knuckles white. A bird’s nest began to rise into view. Then jaundiced eyes.

Reeve rapped her fist against the trunk and shouted, “Hey! Not yet.”

The nest, which contained a startled finch, slowly descended back into the trunk and out of sight.

Dawn stood rigid, aware her face might be even paler than usual.

“The living volunteers are just part of what we’ve brought to add to Dusk’s army,” Reeve said. “Well, your army.”

It was several seconds before Dawn felt the composure to clear her throat and run her fingers through her hair. “How many?” She said, pleased that her voice sounded even, at least to her.

Reeve stared down at the trunk for a few seconds, then looked around the square at the queuing volunteers. “I dunno. Maybe about the same number as the living. Give or take?”

Dawn pursed her lips. She wanted to clear her head. Having spent the better part of a year largely in the wilderness with only Nyx as company, the turmoil of Dusk’s abduction, the bustle of the city, the arrival of the volunteers from Neecrus, the long-awaited return of Reeve and Walter, and now the revelation of the trunk’s contents were too much noise. “Come,” she said to Reeve, Walter, and Reeve’s companion to whom she’d yet to be introduced, “we must talk.”

“Broom closet?” Reeve said.

Dawn nodded and gestured to the steps to the town hall.

Leaf caught Dawn’s eye. “I will stay here and oversee the rest of the arrivals.”

Dawn nodded. “Fetch me if the portal needs to be recast, or closed.” She saw Reeve point at the trunk. “Leave it. Leaf can have it brought in.”

Reeve nodded and waved Walter toward the town hall, but her father was staring toward the portal. “What?” She turned and found Bunce trotting toward them. “OK, good, you two entertain yourselves. We’ll be in Dusk’s micro-office if you need us.”

Inside the town hall, Dawn paused as Reeve deposited her naginata in the alcove, and then they all proceeded to Dusk’s chamber. Dawn sat in Dusk’s seat and motioned the other two to the remaining stools. Seeing Nyx nosing around the frame of the chamber door, Dawn gave the great cat a mental nudge, and Nyx padded toward the front doors to stand sentinel.

“Dawn,” Reeve said, “this is my friend Gyl. She’s originally from where I come from. It’s her first time visiting this world, but she’s spent a lot of time in similar ones.”

Dawn was amused to see the auburn-haired caster lean forward to offer a tentative hand, which Dawn grasped firmly at mid-forearm, prompting Gyl to do the same.

“It’s really cool to meet you,” Gyl said. “I’ve heard so much about you. Well, as much as Reeve was able to tell me between classes. And then during lunch. And we had some time during ELA when we were supposed to be doing a think-pair-share. But she was able to tell me a lot more than you’d expect in that time. She’s pretty good at talking fast, or typing fast, I guess, like I am right now. I tend to do that when I’m nervous. But, it’s like you’re practically a celebrity. I’m sorry your sister isn’t here—I mean, I’m sorry she was abducted, obvs—but I’d love to also meet her. You two sound totally bad-bass. Ohmagod, I need to stop saying that because the filter replacement is super lame,” Gyl looked nervously toward Reeve, “great, now I’m the one breaking character.” She turned back to Dawn.

Dawn slowly released Gyl’s wrist, and Gyl quickly reciprocated. Dawn sat back against the wall and looked at Reeve.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“This is pretty normal for her,” Reeve said.

“Ohmagod, you have no idea,” Gyl said. “When I’m nervous, like now, I don’t know if you could tell, my brain goes crazy. Not literally like hundreds of times faster, like things are in-world, but, you know, it feels like that sometimes. ADHD super-charged brain. Sorry, I’m gonna stop.”

Dawn opened her mouth to speak.

“Maybe,” Gyl said, “you could try showing me some of the special melióδin spells you can do? I mean, if you’re willing? I know I probably can’t learn them, or I mean cast them, but it’d be cool to try, right? You probably haven’t tried with a…you know, with a player character, right? Maybe I could cast the spells too. But even if I couldn’t, we’d learn something about how they work, yeah?”

Dawn closed her mouth for a moment, then, when it seemed the pause would hold, said, “It is nice to meet you as well, Gyl.” Dawn looked back to Reeve.

“So,” Reeve said, “are you going to fill us in or what? You’ve been off doing a solo quest thing for a while now, right?”

Dawn again began to speak but stopped, an almost overwhelming primal fear spreading through her, so strong she gasped.

“You OK?” Gyl said.

Dawn closed her eyes and reached her consciousness out to find Nyx, from whom the fear was emanating. Through the cheetah’s eyes, she saw the main doors of the town hall, which remained closed tightly for only a moment before both exploded inward with such force that they rotated fully open and smashed against the walls on either side of the doorway. Dawn felt hot air blow past Nyx’s face as the great cat crouched and looked out onto a square bathed in flame.

“Dawn!” Reeve’s voice brought Dawn’s consciousness back to her own body, and she found herself leaning against Dusk’s desk, clutching her stomach, while Reeve and Gyl stood over her in the tiny office. “Are you OK? What was that?”

“Fire rains from the sky. We are under attack. We must to the square or all of your new arrivals will be slaughtered.”

“Go!” Reeve pulled the office door as wide as the desk permitted. Gyl stepped through and began running toward the front. Dawn stood and used a planted hand to vault the desk, leaving Reeve to fight the door and furniture in her effort to quickly follow.

Find Leaf, Dawn thought to Nyx, and she felt the cat bound out the door into the descending night.

Dawn caught up with Gyl as the caster was nearing the now-unguarded front entrance. “You know defensive spells?” Dawn yelled over a roar from outside.

“Yes!” Gyl shouted back.

“Then ready one,” Dawn said, beginning with both hands her own base cast.

Dawn sprinted ahead of Gyl and reached the doorway first. She slowed herself quickly, her last few strides bringing her to a stop on the top step down to the square. With a roar and deafening crash, a ball of fire landed in the square before her and shattered bricks, leaving a shallow, scorched crater. The portal to Neecrus was gone, and the orderly ranks of the recent arrivals had degenerated into scattered groups huddling against walls or running for any cover they could find.

“Ohmagod!” Gyl yelled, stopping next to Dawn. “Who the heck is doing this?”

“Our enemy,” Dawn said.

“Which one?”

“Does that matter right now?” Dawn said.

“Ohmagod!” Reeve yelled, stopping on Dawn’s other side.

“You are unoriginal in your astonishment,” Dawn said. She considered the situation and decided how she would finish the base cast she had begun. Her hands began spinning in rhythmic arcs as her fingers flicked through the air, tracing the first in a long series of complex sigils she had recorded to memory.

A sizzling sound pulled their attention upward, where flaming projectiles were leaving comet trails through the darkening sky. With a roar that caused the three companions to duck reflexively, a ball of fire passed low over the town hall and smashed into a building across the square, collapsing its facade and much of its roof as flames exploded from windows.

“That’s not just normal catapult payload,” Reeve said, staring at the burning building.

“No,” Dawn’s hands kept moving, “they are dense with mana. Their aura is nearly blinding.”

“Aura?” Gyl said quietly. “You can see their aura?”Her hands hung still in front of her, and she stared at the dozen trails of fire crossing the sky, their destinations elsewhere in the town. “I don’t think we can shield the whole town.”

“No caster could,” Dawn said. She glanced up but didn’t pause the spell she’d begun. “The strength of a shield drops with the cube of its radius. We could drain the entire world of mana and still fail in shielding the town.” Concentrating on her cast, which continued with the same speed and grace with which it had begun, Dawn felt Reeve and Gyl turn their gazes from the sky to her.

“Cube of its radius?” Reeve said. “What math have you been taking while I was gone?”

Dawn did not respond, but her hands slowed and then dropped to her sides. “You may want to brace yourselves,” she said, glancing sideways at Reeve, who was exchanging a look of confusion with Gyl. Reeve shrugged and placed a hand against the door frame. Turning, Dawn found Gyl doing the same.

Dawn slowly swept her hands out from her sides and up until they stopped high above her head with only a narrow gap between her palms.

“Look,” Gyl whispered to Reeve and pointed into the sky where shimmering frost seemed to hang high over the town like a spherical shell.

Dawn dropped one hand like a knife to point straight ahead of her as the other fell next to her chest, her elbow back behind her. She thrust the hand at her side forward, palm vertical, until it was beside her other hand.

A forest of trees erupted from the bricks of the square. The sky darkened. The sizzling of the fiery missiles faded. Screams filled the square for a moment. A bird sounded a startled cry and took flight from a hemlock tree that now stood some half-dozen paces from the bottom of the town hall’s stairs, and then there was silence.

Dawn started down the stairs as Reeve and Gyl watched the bird spiral up until it was high enough to escape over a nearby rooftop.

“Come,” Dawn said. “Many of your volunteers from Neecrus will be needing help down from the trees.”

“Yeah, um, speaking of the trees,” Reeve said, following her down the stairs. “Did you just use a bunch of trees and a time change to protect the town from attack?”

Dawn strode between the two nearest trees, looking high into their branches as she did. “This forest has nothing to do with our escape.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about that. Seems like a pretty big coincidence that a forest appeared in the middle of Deilmarkt the same moment that the fireballs disappeared. You know, because, among other things, forests don’t usually just appear in the middle of towns.” Hearing voices above them, Reeve stopped and looked up. Two Neecriots were clinging to branches halfway up an oak. One was a thin man in farmer’s garb. The other a woman in a soot-covered traveler’s cloak.

“See?” The woman said to the man. “Tolds you Thhia would be more interesting than Neecrus.”

Before the man could respond, Dawn spoke up to them. “I am glad you are finding our company to your liking, but we are no longer in Thhia.”

“What?” Reeve and Gyl said in unison.

Dawn looked at her companions and watched Reeve look around at the trees that filled the market square. Along the buildings that lined the square, branches pressed against the insides of windows in places and protruded through at least one roof. Reeve opened her mouth to ask what Dawn imagined might be one of the many questions on her mind, but then Reeve’s eyes widened, and she blurted, “Where’s my dad?”