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“That won’t do much for long, I’m afraid,” Kit yelled over the chaotic din when they finally reached her and Jocelyn. She hopped down from the table and wrapped Elyria in a too-quick hug. “I left an ice wall at the entrance in the hopes of slowing them down, but they clearly made quick work of that.”

“What’s the plan then?” Elyria asked, shuddering as she heard the boom and scrape of power being hurled against her cage of brambles.

“We’re evacuating,” said Jocelyn, rushing forward to knock an overladen basket of clothing out of a young sylvan woman’s hands as she waddled by. “Leave it! Leave everything you don’t need. Just go!”

“Evacuating to where?” Elyria said, incredulous as the young woman burst into tears but did, in fact, go. A cursory glance told her that the area was almost clear. A half-dozen residents were still making their way past, but most of them were barely more than vague people-shaped things in the mist as they headed toward the massive goldwood tree at the rear of the glade.

Jocelyn turned back to Elyria. “Elder Larkess said to get everyone to the council chambers.”

“Doesn’t putting the entire stars-damned settlement in one place just make it that much easier for them to pick everyone off?”

“Not if we eliminate them first.” Cedric flipped Ashrender’s hilt in his hand. “There aren’t that many of them. At Castle Lumin, Raefe and I took on more than twice as many ourselves.”

“You may have taken on twice as many cultists, but only a few of those were monsters,” Elyria reminded him. “And half-formed ones at that. These ones here tonight are clearly something new—and they are fixated on you. They went insane at the first sign of your magic.”

“Still, between the six of us, we can⁠—”

Kit’s face immediately fell. Jocelyn stiffened.

Elyria blinked. Her head swung from side to side, as though she might have just missed seeing where Thraigg and Shep were hiding.

“Not the six of us” was all Kit said.

Elyria’s heart fell into her stomach.

“Thraigg? Young Shep?” Cedric’s voice shook. “Are they . . . ?”

“We don’t know,” Jocelyn offered quietly. “Thraigg was on patrol when . . .”

“I was with Shep when they came.” Kit shook her head. “They pulled him through the gate before they all came through at once. I threw the ice wall up, then ran back here to warn everyone else.”

Her jaw worked as she said the words, and though her tone was even, the words stoic, emotionless, Elyria saw the way they pained her.

“That is exactly what Shep would have wanted,” Elyria said.

Jocelyn gave a sad nod. “Especially given the cargo you carry.”

It was then that Elyria noticed the small satchel strapped across Kit’s body, bouncing against her hip. “What cargo?”

“A story for later,” Kit said. “But I have the⁠—”

A shuddering boom rang through the glade. Red light shone from between the spaces in Elyria’s bramble cage. For a single glorious moment, they looked like rosebuds, gleaming red flowers among the thorns, and it was, well, beautiful. But then there was another shudder, and a panicked pang ran through Elyria’s chest.

“You’re right,” she told Kit. “It won’t last much longer. Cedric, we have to—Cedric?”

But he was no longer beside her.

He had drifted a few yards over to the side of the dining hut, his gaze pinned on something none of the others had seen yet.

Elyria let out a gasp as her eyes followed in front of him, and she realized with terrifying clarity that the glade was not as clear as she had previously thought.

Because there, formerly blocked from view, a small group of sylvans and older mixedborn stood vigil outside the schoolhouse, forming a semicircle in front of its doors.

“What are you doing?” Elyria screamed at them, rushing across the clearing, her hands waving wildly. “You need to get out of here! Get to the⁠—”

“There are still children inside!” one of them shouted. Elyria recognized him as the sylvan boy who had been on patrol when Sid arrived. Her heart plummeted into her gut as she lifted her eyes to the windows on either side of the schoolhouse doors, taking in the smattering of cherubic faces—and the fearful expressions—peering out from within.

“Get them to safety.” Elyria heard footsteps behind her and knew that Kit, Jocelyn, and Cedric must have followed. “Get them to the council chamber. We’ll hold the enemy off.”