Caleb and his friends stood facing a narrow cave at the back of Jiryu’s chamber. “We just go through here?” Caleb asked.
“Yes,” Jiryu said, sounding as amused as always. “Though I cannot tell you where it will lead. The Timespan is not an easy place to reach. And it has no permanent link to any other Location. Where you will come out is anyone’s guess.”
Caleb nodded, then turned back. He entered Time-state so he could see Jiryu one last time. “Thank you,” he said. “You’ve helped me realize so much.”
Jiryu chuckled. “You are most welcome, young Time Mage. But be sure you do not lose yourself in the journey ahead. Watch out for that fear of yours. And be just as vigilant for pride.”
“I know,” Caleb said. “Never think I know everything. And never try to be in control.”
“You begin to understand… farewell for now, young Time Mage.”
Caleb exited Time-state and turned, leading the others down the tunnel. He held Addie’s hand, but even though she was small, she still had to walk behind him. All of them went single-file through the narrow passage. After a while, Caleb saw a light ahead, and quickened his pace.
But…
“Oh… so that’s how this works, huh?” he asked.
Quite a ways from reaching what looked like the tunnel’s exit, he’d stepped into a brand new place. One step touched the tunnel’s stone, the next step landed on crunchy gravel.
“Oh, right,” Chelsea said, coming up alongside him. “You’ve never really done the Location-to-Location thing, have you? Always taking trains wherever you go…”
From narrow tunnel to wide open space, they were now able to spread out, taking in the view.
There wasn’t all that much to see, though. It was a stark, white place, with featureless skies and a flat, white ground, save for four gravel paths that intersected at the center.
At a well.
“We mustn’t tarry,” Gwen said, stepping forward. “I know the exit from this place, though not where it will lead.”
“But what is this place?” Caleb asked, looking around. “Just a stone well in the center? It’s… kind of eerie.”
“Yes,” Gwen said, her voice taut. “It is. This is the Well of Steel. Let us move on.”
Oh. Got it.
Caleb swallowed any other questions at the sound of Gwen’s voice and the urgency in her expression. They strode past the well, giving it a wide berth, heading towards the opposite gravel path. But as Caleb walked past…
He thought he heard a voice.
Faint, like a whisper. He struggled to make out the words. But one stood out above the rest:
“…retrieve…”
“Eyes front,” Chelsea said, turning Caleb’s head back to watch Gwen, who led the way.
But Caleb hadn’t even realized he’d looked away. Chelsea was holding Addie’s hand now, too, and pulled her along, even as the girl stared at the well.
There were no more explanations. No more questions. They followed after Gwen, and after a few steps along the gravel path…
They were in a new place.
From stark white to wide swaths of vibrant color, the new Location was a stunning contrast. The Well of Steel had been silent save the voice Caleb barely heard, but here there was hustle and bustle, proper city noise, because they were, in fact, in a city. Light shone down from a high roof of stone, hanging globe lanterns flickering with amorphous blobs of light within. This was a city, but it was indoors, perhaps underground, judging from the natural-looking stone roof, and similar types of partially carven stone around the place. Despite being underground, it felt open and airy, warm and dry, with lots of space. Wide, smooth lanes ran between houses with high, arched doorways. Every home had its own lamp post outside the front door that flickered with white light. Hanging from nearly every second floor balcony were banners of all different colors, bearing various unique sigils that were likely family crests of some sort.
To the right, the lane morphed into stairs wide enough for dozens of people to walk abreast, heading down to a grand, open plaza. Hundreds of people milled about the place, shopping, conversing, some gathered around a central stage where actors were performing some kind of play — Caleb thought it looked like a comedy, and judging by distant laughter, he was right. The plaza itself was, astonishingly for its size and construction of metal and stone, suspended over a silver river that poured out into a vast lake, in the center of which was an island that housed a sort of shrine, with people traveling to and fro on small boats to pay their respects. The lake was to the left of the plaza, far below, while to the plaza’s right, a huge waterfall sent silver water cascading down to the river, a flow like a rain of diamonds that dazzled the eyes.
To the left of where they were, the lane headed up a shallow incline towards the rocky wall of the grand cavern, within which was an imposing building with high pillars and huge doors. Guards stood outside in resplendent green armor, bearing tall poleaxes that glittered with silver light. There were fewer people going in and out of that grand building than walking to and fro elsewhere, but the ones who did have business up there were dressed in truly outstanding attire. Clearly the guarded building was a place of importance.
“We go straight ahead,” Gwen said, leading the way through the crowds. The people were all decked out in color, and most of those they passed seemed like families, with parents walking along with children. “This is Solheim, a city built within an asteroid in a galaxy very distant from your own.”
“A galaxy?” Caleb asked, stunned.
“But isn’t this the Enchanted Dominion?” Lorelei asked.
“Yes,” Gwen said, smiling in amusement. “The universe is not entirely within physical reach, no matter how Human technology advances. Some solar systems, some galaxies, are part of the Enchanted Dominion, rather than what we call the Human Realm.”
“How come we don’t get a cool name for our home like yours?” Caleb asked, pouting.
Gwen seemed surprised. “ ‘Enchanted Dominion’ is essentially the same as ‘Human Realm,’ isn’t it?” she asked.
“Huh?” Caleb asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Their people are called Enchanted,” Will said. “And a Dominion isn’t too dissimilar from a Realm.”
“Ohhh,” Caleb and Addie said in sync. “But… man, ‘Enchanted Dominion’ sounds so magical and special.”
“Who do we need to talk to about giving our realm a better name?” Addie asked.
Gwen stared at her. “Ah… I don’t… know, actually,” she said. “I’m not sure there’s anyone you could talk to. But —” she smiled, kneeling down to speak to Addie at eye level, “it’s simply a colloquial term we use. That doesn’t mean it has to be what you use.”
“So I can call our realm whatever I want?” Addie asked, eyes wide.
“Oh, boy,” Chelsea muttered, rolling her eyes.
“You certainly can,” Gwen said, laughing.
Addie gripped Caleb’s hand tightly, but instead of the reaction Caleb expected, she had her face scrunched up in intense concentration. “This is gonna take some serious thinking,” she said. “Nobody talk to me for a while.”
“Excuse me?” Chelsea asked, and Addie immediately held up a hand, palm out towards her, like a little wall.
Caleb laughed. “She’s taking it seriously,” he said. “Why not ask Will? I’m sure he can come up with a good —” But as Caleb looked back at Will, he saw that Will also wore an expression of intense concentration. “Wait, you too?”
Will held up a hand to Caleb like Addie had to Chelsea. “Please,” he said. “This is serious work.”
“Oh, wow,” Caleb muttered, impressed. Lorelei smiled. Chelsea rolled her eyes and let out a sigh.
“Well, I’m sure they can ponder while we walk,” Gwen said. “Come on. The exit isn’t too far away.”
“If nothing else, this is turning into a nice road trip,” Chelsea said, looking around as she walked. “The Well of Steel was creepy, but this place is beautiful.”
“And lively,” Lorelei said. “How many people live here?”
“Tens of thousands?” Caleb asked, craning his neck to gaze up. The city continued up, stairs and lanes leading into new passages, suspended plazas, and more. Level by level the city ascended, filling out the asteroid with dense, complex neighborhoods.
“Hundreds of thousands,” Gwen said. “I do believe last census had the population at three hundred and fifty-one thousand, two hundred and twelve.”
“It’s not just up,” Lorelei said, gazing over the edge as they crossed a bridge. Caleb looked with her and gasped. The lake they’d seen by the nearest plaza wasn’t an endpoint, but fed out to yet another waterfall, pouring down thousands of feet to a trio of lakes that all fed out into more waterfalls, pouring down further, and at each of these lower levels were hundreds, thousands more houses, shops, stages, and more, everywhere filled with bustling crowds.
“Awfully quiet for so many people, though,” Chelsea said.
“It’s because it’s just people,” Lorelei said. “It has the density and scale of a major city on Earth, but without the technology. No cars, buses, or even trains or trolleys speeding past. No loudspeakers or intercoms. They have a lot of plays and concerts going on, but they don’t have electric amplification.”
“Technology makes that big of a difference, huh?” Chelsea asked. “Take away the waterfalls, and even Grimoire is louder than this place on a Friday evening.”
Their path took them on a slowly descending slope, wrapping around the perimeter of the city. They walked mostly through residential areas, packed with houses with only a few shops or food carts here and there. As they crossed a bridge and reached the first plaza they set foot on, Caleb realized that it was a school. One large building, with a great big yard full of sculpted structures to climb and play on, and filled largely with children, with only a few adult supervisors.
“Recess,” Caleb said, grinning as he watched kids not much older than Addie scramble after each other, laughing and shouting as they went. He looked down at Addie who still clung to his hand, but she was still in intense concentration, paying no mind to the school kids.
She’s really taking this seriously.
Looking back, Caleb saw Will was still focused, too. He didn’t hold onto anyone to stay with the group in the crowds, but he walked very close to Caleb, his thoughtful gaze fixed on Caleb’s back.
These guys…
Caleb could only laugh. And he couldn’t help but be excited to know what name the two would come up with for the Human Realm.
“Over here,” Gwen said, taking them off the main path onto a sandy slope heading down to the lakeshore. Silver water lapped gently against the shore. Several beautifully detailed marble sculptures dotted the shore, each some sort of animal Caleb had never seen — one like a unicorn with six legs, another like a crab with armor plating and a jousting-style lance strapped to one arm, one like an extremely fat lizard lying on its back with spiky spines all over its rotund tummy — while at the edge, where Gwen headed, was a small collection of flat stepping stones instead of sandy beach.
“The exit’s just here,” she said. “I’m not sure where it will take us, but Solheim isn’t like some of the larger cities, in that it doesn’t have any permanent connection to another Location.”
“So we really do have to just wing it, huh?” Chelsea asked.
Gwen smiled. “Much travel through the Enchanted Dominion goes like this. You’re experiencing it properly for the first time. I visit Cartographer’s Waystation frequently, so I often have predictions available and can judge my path through many Locations, but not always, and I haven’t been there in a long time.”
“You guys just wing it all the time, no matter where you want to go?” Chelsea asked. “Seems reckless.”
“In truth, a great many Enchanted live where they are born for their entire lives,” Gwen said. “But at the same time, this type of travel is more feasible for us because we’re so long-lived. A detour that costs someone several days or even weeks is just normal travel. But don’t worry —” she noticed Chelsea’s expression, “I know the Dominion very well. And while we haven’t reached such a Location yet, there are many that have more reliable means of transportation to other Locations. Most likely, our next destination will be the Sea of Tranquility, but depending on where we end up, we may go to the other place on the list.”
“Morispé Vale?” Caleb asked.
“No, the Final Frontier,” Gwen said. “I’d never heard of Morispé Vale until you brought it up, and you said even Maxwell and others in that group didn’t know much of it, so I couldn’t tell you how to reach it.”
“The Final Frontier…” Caleb murmured. “Shana’s team went there. But it’s huge. How do we find the place we actually want to reach?” He consulted his list. “Hope’s Rampart…”
“When we reach the Final Frontier, we should be in Tier Town, the only real hub of civilization on the Final Frontier,” Gwen said. “I know several guides who can lead us where we need to go.”
“You really are well-traveled,” Chelsea said.
Gwen nodded. “Part of it has been for study and training. Part of it has been for business, expanding my clientele. But plenty of it has also been… for myself.” She had a faraway look in her eyes. “Yes. Well. Shall we?” She approached the stepping stones.
“Ready, heavy thinkers?” Chelsea asked, getting only a hand from both Addie and Will.
Caleb laughed. “They’re ready.
Gwen stepped ahead first, vanishing into thin air. Then went Chelsea, then Caleb and Addie, and Lorelei and Will followed right after.
I wish we could visit longer.
That thought flitted through Caleb’s mind in the brief blink-and-you’d-miss-it period of nothingness between Solheim and the next Location. But then it was gone, as his mind was distracted by the new place.
“It’s beautiful,” Chelsea said softly, and Caleb murmured his agreement. A deep, gorgeous night sky of blues and purples hung over the sleepy town like a painting. Before them was a cozy farming hamlet, with wide fields of wheat-like crops and cozy cottages with lights flickering in the windows.
But Gwen’s response was surprising. Her voice taut, golden eyes wavering with worry, she said, “This is wrong. Something terrible has —” She looked up at the night sky, and her eyes widened. “It’s never night here.”
“Never…” Caleb started.
“The Endless Night,” Lorelei said. “I don’t see anyone outside. Are we in danger?”
Gwen raced ahead to the nearest house. “Check on the others!” she called. Chelsea and Lorelei were the first in motion, and Caleb quickly followed, scooping up Addie so he didn’t have to adjust to her speed when he ran.
“There’s no one here!” Chelsea said after pounding on the door and then checking inside one of the cottages. Lorelei called out the same. Caleb knocked frantically on the door of the next house, and after no reply pushed it open. It wasn’t locked, and inside, while lamps were lit, it didn’t seem like anyone was home. He stepped into a dining room where a wonderful meal was spread out, but abandoned. A dinner roll had several bites taken out of it. A bowl of soup was stained around the edges, showing that about half had been eaten.
“They ran away,” Caleb said softly, staring. “In the middle of dinner.”
“We have to go, now!” Gwen cried from outside. Caleb carried Addie out, wasting no time in rejoining Gwen, Chelsea, Lorelei, and Will. “There are two exits, but if we’re too slow, they may be sealed.”
“Sealed?” Chelsea asked.
“The Endless Night is coming,” Gwen said, her face pale. “Darkness is beginning to consume this place. The people escaped, they saw the signs in time. But it may be too late for us — if they’ve gotten word to Paladins, then they’ll have sealed this Location. We’ll be trapped here!”
Gwen sprinted, and the others followed. “Are you sure there’s no one else here?” Caleb asked.
“I’m sure,” Gwen said. “Let’s hurry!”
They ran straight through the fields, crushing stalks in their wake, fluffy grains clinging to their clothes and hair. Out the other side, they hopped the fence, racing towards a pair of trees whose boughs arched towards each other, as if forming a natural doorway.
At a full sprint, Gwen didn’t slow down even a bit as she reached that archway first. And…
Bam!
She slammed hard into a gleaming wall of white light, bouncing backwards and landing in a sprawl. Chelsea and Lorelei helped her up as she got her bearings back, while Caleb and Will checked out the space. The white light faded, but when they stepped up to the archway and reached out, the white light returned, and it was solid as a steel wall.
“This is the only exit?” Caleb asked.
“There are two, right?” Will asked.
“Two,” Gwen said, nodding. Her face was pale, her eyes flicking about frantically. “Come on. If that one’s sealed, then the other… we have to try!”
She ran, leading once more, and as they charged through another field, Caleb felt a sense of foreboding. He glanced up at the sky.
Like a painting, he’d thought it looked. Deep blues and purples, so beautiful to see. But as he looked again, the color seemed to have started to fade.
Almost like it was being swallowed up by blackness.
“There!” Gwen called, pointing. A wooden gate at the edge of the fields, left ajar.
“I’ll take it this time!” Chelsea said, dashing ahead of the others with a burst of Enhancement Magic. In three seconds, she was there.
Bam!
She was knocked flying by a sudden wall of white light, skidding across the dirt to a stop. She sat up shakily, her nose red, her eyes narrowed in rage.
“That’s it, then,” Gwen said, dropping to her knees. “We… we’re trapped here.”
“Trapped?” Addie asked, looking up from Caleb’s arms. “There’s no way out?”
“There’s gotta be some way,” Chelsea said, waving off Lorelei, who had started to examine her after her fall. “We have options, right?” She looked up at the sky. “Besides, how bad is it, really? Are you sure they weren’t overreacting?”
“No,” Will said, gazing at the sky. “Can’t you feel it? This sense of dread…”
Gwen was inconsolable, and wouldn’t say a word. Addie kept tugging on Caleb’s sleeve, asking him questions he didn’t have answers to.
“You can’t just go back in time and get us out?” Addie asked.
“I can’t travel through time,” Caleb said.
“Then stop time, and the Darkness’ll never get us, right?”
Caleb started to reply, then stopped. He looked to the left, across the wide plains towards the horizon.
Darkness was growing there. Rising.
Like a flood.
“Whatever,” Chelsea said, stepping forward, lighters in hand. “We’ll just fight it. We defeated the Darkness at the Library of Solitude. This place is smaller. It’ll be fine.”
“This isn’t like that!” Gwen said mournfully. “The Library was still holding on, because it was a Daylight Bastion, and the Dream Forge existed as a failsafe. There’s nothing like that here. This Location won’t last! We can’t protect it alone!”
“Gwen, you can’t just give up,” Chelsea said. “Get up and fight! You never know until you try!”
“Stop it from getting to us!” Addie said, pulling hard on Caleb’s sleeve.
Stop it… stop time…?
Wait…
Could that work…?
The flood grew higher, and closer, and Caleb could hear it now, like something between a rushing wave and an earthquake, rumbling with dreadful intensity. His hand went into his pocket, feeling the cool metal of his pocket watch.
Things have been different. Really different, ever since my Trial. I’ve kept wondering about this specifically…
Could it be what saves us?
While Chelsea stepped forward and Lorelei joined her, ready to fight…
Caleb entered Time-state. Immediately after, he Phase Stepped.
Time came to a complete stop. But the oddities he’d started to notice since his Trial for the Phase Step remained. All of his friends, who had still appeared solid and like people in Time-state, suddenly turned translucent, pale blue phantoms in the River of Time. Sparks of blue light, like cobalt lightning bolts, leapt from person to person, and from object to object.
All throughout the River, its current had stopped. And in the midst of it, Caleb could see objects like cogs, gears, flywheels, dials, and clock hands. Normally, in Time-state, there was a faint tick-tick-ticking sound in the air, but he couldn’t see these mechanical elements that caused it. But now, during his Phase Step, though he could see the mechanical elements, they ceased to move or make sound.
It’s a river… but what’s with all the gears and stuff?
No, don’t think about that now. Is there a way this can help us? Phase Stepping isn’t just stopping time. It also changes… everything.
The landscape of this farm-town Location was fuzzy and indistinct, hard for Caleb to make out clearly during Phase Step. After some looking, using his friends as guides, he figured out the path they were on, and the gate they’d been approaching, where a wall had blocked Chelsea from exiting.
And there…
It is a wall.
Caleb could move completely differently in Time-state, swimming with instinctual ease through the air, and he quickly floated over to the gate and pressed his hands against the gleaming wall that sealed this Location.
But it’s not just this. The entire Location…
He could see it now, and feel it, too. A slight resistance, that when he pressed against, gained visual form to make out a wall. Not just the small wall that blocked their exit, no.
The entire Location was contained within a similar cube-like encasement.
This is… how the Locations operate. They’re all moving around, changing where their entrances and exits intersect. But even though we can see so much more beyond these barriers, the barriers exist. This place has distant low mountains and forests that we can see, but they’re far beyond the Location’s actual barrier.
This blocks people from leaving except through designated connection points — the exits and entrances. But with the Phase Step, could I…?
Caleb changed how he pressed against the wall, and the wall didn’t seem to exist at all as he partially phased through it.
What happened, and what he saw, took his breath away.
A void. Emptiness, nothingness, like he’d never seen before. It wasn’t darkness, or light. There was no form, no substance, no sound…
Nothing at all. Void, and nothing more.
But in that void were globes. Like crystalline bubbles, he could see through them. And within…
No way…
One bubble contained within it a vast, deep forest, filled with glowing blobs in many colors. Was that the Wood of the Wisps? He’d never been there, but it matched how Chelsea described it. Another bubble contained a rainy city. Caleb loved the rain, but for some reason this city seemed dismal and drear. And the third bubble he could see contained a city wreathed in starlight, filled with spire-like towers connected by bridges.
Starlight Spires… the last place Chelsea and Delilah took Isabelle before they got her back home…
Turning back, Caleb saw that the farm-town his group was in was wrapped in a bubble, too. Each bubble its own Location… so this was what the Enchanted Dominion was?
Or perhaps… no. I’m seeing this through Phase Step eyes. Everything looks different like this. But it makes sense. Better yet…
This is our exit.
Caleb stepped back inside his bubble and looked at his friends. But there was one problem with his plan. Ever since his Trial, things had changed about his Time Magic. And one major change had been to his Phase Step. Namely…
He couldn’t physically interact with people while Phase Stepping.
I can still phase through anything, and it still stops time, and now that I see I can leave even a sealed Location, it has tons of uses. But if I can’t touch them, how in the world do I get them out?
And then he saw her — the blue woman. As always, she smiled at him, though her eyes seemed sad. She didn’t speak, but seemed to be waiting.
“How do I get them out?” Caleb asked, his voice strange in this world of stopped time. “If I can’t touch them…”
One of the blue lightning bolts zipped past — the only things other than Caleb or the woman that moved during the Phase Step — and the woman reached out. The light was something she could touch, and she held it like a rope, giving it a gentle tug. The cog that the bolt had come from turned at the pull, giving a soft click as it moved forward one increment.
The lights… they’re like… tethers?
Now that Caleb looked, he realized that lights were constantly touching and jumping between his friends, more than they ever connected to other objects. He’d noticed that before, too — these streaks of light were much more heavily attracted to people than they were inorganic objects.
“I can —” Caleb started, but when he looked, the woman was gone.
It’s okay. She showed me all I need to know.
Thank you.
He first took hold of a bolt of light that was connected to Chelsea. When he gripped it, it held, and he was able to move Chelsea effortlessly. Another bolt, this one connected to both Addie and Lorelei. Another, to Will, and the final one, to Gwen. The bolts were warm and smooth, thin and easy to grip all of them in one hand. And the people they were connected to felt weightless. Caleb beamed.
This is it! We’re out of here!
Trailing the others behind him, Caleb took one brief look at the oncoming wave of Darkness frozen in time, and then left this Location behind. Out in the void, those three bubbles he’d seen remained, locked in place during his Phase Step.
There are hundreds of Locations, so why do I only see these three?
Well, I can wonder about that some other time. I’ve never Phase Stepped this long. Better hurry.
He darted towards the bubble containing Starlight Spires, passing through its barrier effortlessly. Inside, the great city expanded to its proper size, and Caleb was staggered by what he saw. Every spire was hundreds of stories tall, defying Earth architecture, and there in the center of it all was the greatest spire of all, gleaming white and thousands of stories — tens of thousands? — tall, a veritable city all its own.
Caleb came to a soft landing on a wide balcony, smiled as he saw all of the others had made it with him safely, and then exited Time-state.
Whump!
The instant he did so, he fell forward, as if pushed, or hit by something really large, rolling and tumbling until he crashed into a pillar. Despite the speed of his roll and the impact of his stop, he was more stunned than hurt, caught completely off-guard by the sudden velocity shift.
What the heck was that?
He heard groans and grumbles and confused murmurs, and looked to see that the others — Chelsea, Addie, Will, Lorelei, and Gwen — had all fallen as well, though none had taken the kind of beating from the floor that he had.
“Where are —” Chelsea started, then looked up and let out a soft gasp. “Starlight… but…” She looked at Caleb, as if seeing him for the first time. Slowly, she smiled. “You did this?”
“Y-yeah,” Caleb said, slowly standing, swaying on his feet. He felt dizzy, disoriented, and his ears were ringing faintly. The ringing slowly abated as the others got their bearings, but Caleb had to lean against the pillar that he’d crashed into for support for a while.
“It’s so pretty,” Addie said, gazing with wide, amazed eyes. “You’ve been here before?”
“Lorelei, Gwen, and I have,” Chelsea said. “But not the boys.”
“It’s my first time in the Enchanted Dominion, after all,” Will said, taking it all in.
“Hey,” Chelsea said, coming to Caleb’s side. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Caleb said. “Just… well… I get the weird feeling that I kind of broke a lot of rules.”
“You got us out of there,” Chelsea said. “What’s breaking the rules about saving lives?”
“Well, it’s like… I was allowed to break the rules, just this once,” Caleb said. “Extenuating circumstances. Hang on, let me test my theory.” He gripped his pocket watch and moved to enter Time-state…
And nothing happened. He thought he heard, very faintly, a bell tolling, but that was all.
He tried once more, with the same result. Then he tested out bringing forth the chains of his Containment Magic and the discs of his Mobility Magic, and both of those worked as easily as always. “It’s just Time Magic,” he said, nodding. “Yeah.”
“Yeah what?” Chelsea asked.
“I can hear a bell,” Caleb said, “the same bell that tolls when I’m about to be kicked out of Time-state since my Trial. It’s a new limitation, one I still don’t get. She gave me a chance, let me do something I shouldn’t normally do, because of the circumstances. But it came with a cost.” He let out a sigh, then couldn’t help but chuckle. “I won’t exactly be a Time Mage for a while.”
“Won’t be a Time Mage?” Addie asked. “But that’s the whole point of this adventure, right?”
“For a while, I said,” Caleb said. “I’ll be let back in eventually. But until then, well… ah, I don’t want to speculate too much. I’m still learning a lot of this new stuff.”
“As long as you’re okay,” Chelsea said.
Caleb nodded. “Yeah. Bit of backlash there, I guess, but I’m not dizzy anymore. I’ll be fine.” He took a breath, then stood on his own, without support, and looked around. “So… this is Starlight Spires, huh? Where you guys found the way to the Library of Solitude.”
“Been a long time,” Chelsea said.
“I should have been here, too,” Caleb murmured. He immediately recoiled at a sudden smack on his arm. “What?”
“Don’t go regretting things now,” Chelsea said. “You left us because you needed to. If you’d come back before you got training, you would have gotten yourself killed, right?” She stepped closer to him, her intense gaze locking Caleb’s eyes to hers. “You got what you needed so that you wouldn’t be taken away from me again.”
Caleb nodded slowly, unable to look away from her eyes. “Right,” he said. Slowly, his hand found hers, and he gave it a gentle squeeze.
“You guys are so in love,” Addie said. Somehow the girl had found her way between them, and was smiling up at them.
“You got that right,” Chelsea said, ruffling Addie’s hair. “Come on. We should be able to find a way to somewhere useful from here. Right, Gwen?”
“Right,” Gwen said. She seemed recovered, the strength back in her voice, the color back in her face. “In fact, Millennium Vista even has a pathway to the Sea of Tranquility. We’ll be able to go directly there.”
“That’s great!” Caleb said. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s go!” Addie repeated, pumping her fist like it was a cheer.
They started onward, Gwen leading the way. Chelsea held Caleb in one hand and Addie in the other, directing them and keeping them safe, because the pair were constantly looking all around, gazing in awestruck wonder at the astonishing sights. After a while, though, a disparity developed. While Caleb and Addie remained amazed and excited, Gwen grew quiet and reserved.
“What is it?” Chelsea finally asked.
Gwen looked back at her, then stopped at a wide clearing, where they had a huge, unbroken view of the starry sky. Her golden eyes seemed silver in the reflected starlight. Softly, sadly, she spoke. “The stars are going out.”
Caleb stopped looking all around at the city to watch what Gwen meant. There were millions of stars in the sky, above them, below them, all around them. So at first, it was hard to tell.
It was Will who helped him see. Coming up alongside Caleb, he pointed. Caleb looked where he indicated, and his heart sank.
Three stars. Three tiny pinpricks of light. In the grand scheme of things, they were three grains of sand on a vast beach. But when those three stars winked out, vanishing… they left nothing but darkness behind.
The light was lessened. Most wouldn’t notice, and those who did would probably forget easily. But staring at it, watching it happen, and understanding what it meant, left Caleb rattled.
With the loss of those three stars, the darkness grew.
“Gwen,” he said.
“Yes?” Gwen asked.
“The Location we escaped from… what was it called?”
Gwen bowed her head. “Verdant Garden.”
Caleb gazed out at the sea of stars. “Verdant Garden…” he murmured. “We have to remember it. And every other Location lost to Darkness. Because they won’t stay that way.”
“Right,” Chelsea said. “Because we won’t let them stay that way. Darkness doesn’t get the final say. When the time comes and we know how… we’ll save them all.”