“Southwest,” Willow finally decided after hours consulting the map. Sun Geon clucked his tongue.

“The mountains will only slow us down. If we cut south—”

“Char will be on us immediately,” Willow said. Her enemies would know when the population of Asche moved—Willow saw the small scrying spells pop into and out of existence constantly. Sometimes the spells popped out with a burst of fire. Those were something else.

“Better yet to battle them in open country,” Sun Geon said. “You have the advantage of numbers. From what you say, they’ll send one warbeast, maybe two? Your creatures will be able to overrun any army.”

“I don’t want them to fall in a meaningless battle,” Willow said. “What is the point of their deaths if all it does is give us an opening for survival? Either we all make it, or none of us do.”

“Their deaths are a sacrifice they are more than willing to make,” Sun Geon said. “As a ruler, you must understand this. To them you represent something more than just yourself. You represent hope. Leadership. A future free of enslavement. They would do anything to protect that. To protect you.”

“That is why I can’t lay down their lives,” Willow said, and pointed to a spot devoid of any city markings deep in the mountains to the southwest. “We’re not escaping—there is nowhere left to escape. Nowhere they won’t follow us. We’re hiding here, deep in the mountains. The peaks will give us defenses against their cannons and weapons of war, and I can take care of any warbeasts that follow. We’ll stake our claim there, where there are no passes to connect us back to humanity.”

“So you mean to run,” Sun Geon sighed, disappointment evident in his voice.

“I mean to survive.”

🜛

“Spread the word as far as you can,” Willow said to the elf, and he bowed. She inclined her head slightly and he was off, scurrying on those four hardened feet. Soon all who still resided in the city would know of her plan and would prepare for the exodus. Into the wild they would go, and in the wild they would live. She just assumed the magical creatures that had been enslaved in Asche and those from the forest would welcome a return to such a rustic domain, but she didn’t know for sure.

She returned to the mansion with Leopold keeping pace beside her. “What about the humans who’ve stayed,” he asked.

“I can’t imagine the other city-states would attack them,” she said. “I’m not here, they would gain nothing from an attack.”

She turned left, then right, in the warren of halls. She’d once looked forward to discovering new rooms every time she ventured out of their bedchamber, but no longer. By the end of the week this building and all the others would be vacated. She supposed the small university would remain populated, and maybe they’d even elect a new governor from their ranks, but the city of Asche would never be as it was before.

“What now,” Leopold asked, and Willow turned into a smaller dining room empty of placements. There were so many dining rooms in the mansion, Andrew must have entertained hundreds of guests.

“Now, you have to train too,” Willow said, and withdrew a shining orb from her coat.

“What is it,” Leopold asked as he accepted the orb.

“Something of my own creation,” Willow said. “You can trigger it just like the fire I gave you before—the slightest trickle of essence will destabilize the shell. But I’ve made this one much more specific. I think I can put pretty much any spell in a capsule like this if I worked hard on it.”

Leopold concentrated and she saw a flash of essence boil down his arm and into the sphere. It splintered and golden light flowed up his arms, across his chest and down his legs, the seams crashing together in plates of ethereal armor.

“Whoa,” Leopold said, suddenly finding himself holding not a sphere, but a halberd. He stepped back and gave it an experimental twirl. The halberd flowed around his body as if he were a true master.

“Weapon and armor,” Willow said. “And the skills to use them. I wonder how good you are.”

Psychokinesis bloomed out of Willow in a sphere that rose in the air behind her. Leopold jumped back, landing lithely on the table, a small smile on his face.

“Let’s find out.”

🜛

They trained, all four of them. Even Sun Lin was more than a match for Leopold in his armor, although he improved every day. There was only so much that accelerated reflexes could do—in the end you needed strategic sense as well.

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Outside the mansion preparations were being made. The elves told her that many of the magical creatures had been born in the city and had never been into the wild. Those more familiar with the rough country gave instruction to those number, attempting to make up for years of being trapped in a master’s cage. Willow knew it wouldn’t be enough, not for too long, but hopefully until they reached their destination. Once they made it to the center of the sloped mountain range they could settle down again. Those who’d been born slaves could revel in their newfound freedom.

Pavilions went up outside the mansion, covered by cloths of different colors. Willow recognized them as warparty tents, although she’d only seen them in plates from fairy tales. She supposed the elves’ martial elegance hadn’t been exaggerated in the stories. They seemed to know much better than her how to prepare a convoy and keep it supplied, and she kept out of their business.

With her, Sun Geon, Sun Lin, and Leopold, she estimated they’d be able to take on a hundred human troops at the same time with enough leeway to allow an embattled group of magical creatures to escape. Much more than that and her people would start taking casualties, which she wouldn’t let herself imagine. These beings had been through enough.

It should be plenty. There was no way a hundred guards would be able to speed down the overgrown highways from Jon or Nox to intercept them. Maybe a small group, but not a hundred. She was being overcautious, she was overpreparing.

She was putting off leaving. She was afraid.

Leopold met Sun Lin midair and his ethereal halberd rang with the force of her kick. He was thrown back into the wall, but kept his feet and raised the halberd in a defensive stance. His face ran with sweat.

“That will be enough,” Sun Geon said, and walked over to speak to his disciple. Willow approached Leopold as he attempted to wipe the sweat from his face, only to be stymied by the ethereal helmet.

“Now I know why guards hate them so much,” he said, rubbing at the thing.

“You’re getting much better,” Willow said under her breath.

“Not good enough to defeat a cricket,” he said.

“Grasshopper, and she’s more powerful than any warbeast I’ve seen,” Willow said, then looked down. “I’m worried that we’re stalling.”

He pressed his lips together and walked over to the wall of windowpanes. Outside, magical creatures were rushing to and fro, gathering supplies and making stockpiles. Elves emerged every so often to adjust or direct those wayward creatures that were just on the cusp of sentience.

“We should go,” Leopold said, and turned to Willow. “Now, before they have a chance to discover our plan. They’re always watching, waiting for preparations. We begin in the night, and by first light the city will be empty and we’ll be well on our way. They won’t expect that.”

“I’m worried about what they will or won’t expect,” Willow said. “I’m no strategist.”

“You’re doing the best you can,” he said, and pulled her close. She had to use her psychokinesis to push against his enclosing arm—the armor gave him a terrible strength that he hadn’t yet learned to master.

“I love you,” Willow whispered and pressed her lips to his.

“And I love you,” he said as they parted. He leaned his forehead on hers, the armor leaving a bare inch of space between them. “Everything is going to be okay.”

🜛

It turned out he was right. A whispered conversation with the elves under the protection of the same warding charm Carl had showed her months ago revealed that they would be ready to leave by nightfall. The pavilions had been set up conceal whatever occurred within, as they’d been woven through with a strange silk the elves secreted which gave nearly the same effect as the warding charm. The elf, whose name she didn’t know, told her that it was how the elves had stayed hidden and free for as long as they had.

So they had less than a day left to prepare. Willow found that she had remarkably little to pack, especially after Andrew had captured her. A few extra sets of clothing that she could stuff in a sack. The magical creatures would need a veritable city’s worth of supplies to keep the caravan running, but she knew they’d be able to find what they needed in the surrounding forest. It was the humans who were the problem in that regard.

One thing she did have was her cane. Leopold had cleaned it sometime after the battle, and it had stood unremarked-upon in the corner of their bedroom. She took it up and looked it over. There were small wrinkles in the metal where it had been beaten back into shape. The wooden handle was wrong—different from what it had had when she’d seen it last before the deathworm. But rubbing her finger down its cold weight gave her strength. A memory of home. Of that little dot on the map. Of Bryan, who’d paid to have the cane restored. Of Margaret and Benny and the house they shared together for those halcyon weeks. Of school and the promise of learning enough that she wouldn’t be a burden anymore.

Those times and places in Durum were gone now, scraped clean from the earth as if a giant had used a scouring brush on everything she’d come to love. Only her small town remained, and it was to there that she planned to make her retreat. After she set up the remains of Asche in the mountains to the southwest, after she was sure nobody was coming after them, she’d steal away with Leopold with disguises woven of the strongest magic to return home.

Maybe then she’d finally find peace.

🜛

Darkness.

The sea of lights had been extinguished. None of the magical creatures glowed anymore, whether by their own control or the elves’ ingenuity. There was hardly a sound as the pavilions came down in the darkness to reveal ranks of magical creatures outfitted with carrying harnesses stuffed full of material and provisions.

Willow met them at the southern gate. Her, Leopold, Sun Geon and Sun Lin led them out down the road, then through the first mountain pass as the road turned east toward easier country. With no wagons to pull and no passengers to coddle, everything ran silently up the steep pass. There were no dumb oxen here—nearly every creature was as smart or smarter than a man.

They crested the pass, the stars hidden by the canopy overhead, and poured into the next holler, leaving little trace of their passage.

With luck, the spying city-states wouldn’t know they were gone until morning.