“You can help us get to the Orphan of the Dawn?” Fae asked.
The Dragon-tortoise-person nodded. His smile never wavered, looking ever amused as he puffed on his pipe, small smoke rings wafting up from his nostrils. He gestured to the table. “Please, sit,” he said. “Have tea with me. There’s only so much I can say before Sonya is with us.”
“Shouldn’t we go find her, then?” Olivia asked.
“We wouldn’t really know where to look,” Fae said, taking a seat across from the Dragon. “You’re sure she’ll be here soon?”
“Oh, yes,” the Dragon said. He poured tea into his saucer and added a small spoonful of honey, stirring gently. “She’s drawn to the truth, as you two are.”
Olivia stood a moment longer, but then took a seat next to Fae. She’d had her hood up since back at the Chapel of the Unreturned, and she didn’t lower it now. “Who are you?” she asked.
“You could say I am the father of all Dragons,” the Dragon-tortoise said. His eyes glanced upward, for a moment, then back to the table. “Perhaps you’ll meet the mother of all Dragons while you’re here. That would be… more complicated than meeting me.” He chuckled. “You can call me Paparyu.”
“Papa…” Fae started, then narrowed her eyes. “That’s definitely not your name.”
The Dragon laughed, shaking his head. “Ah, but I do love playing that joke,” he said. “Toryu works just fine. As you may have learned, Dragons don’t actually have names human mouths can pronounce.”
“Toryu, then,” Fae said, not all that fond of the Dragon-tortoise’s sense of humor so far. “You were sitting here waiting for us. Why? How did you know we’d be here?”
“The Silver Star Sanctuary is a curious place,” Toryu said, sipping his tea. “It’s as close as you can get to the center of the Enchanted Dominion. From here, if your senses are specially attuned to the flow of magic throughout the Dominion — for instance, if you’re a very old, very wise Dragon — then you can see, hear, and feel things far and wide. So I have been aware of you girls for some time, and of your intent to reach this place. And…” he chuckled, “time is a curious, wondrous thing. Nearly all mortals experience time in a linear fashion, but the truth is something far greater and far stranger. It’s something we can never fully comprehend. But there are a few who experience and understand time more fully than the rest of us, who aren’t bound by the linear simplicity we are accustomed to.”
“What do you mean?” Fae asked.
“This sounds familiar…” Olivia said, staring at her empty teacup in thought. After a moment, she poured herself some tea, adding a small amount of a cream and a gentle spoonful of honey. “The truth… we only see it now as if through a dim, clouded mirror.”
“Indeed,” Toryu said. “And I bring up time specifically because it’s important to your quest. The last visitor I had here was a woman named Ophelia. For so very long, she had served as the Lady beyond the Time Wilds, in a place without name, watching over and caring for the River of Time. She had found someone to take her place, someone who had been called and accepted the call, and so she left that place. But she could only continue to reside in the mortal world for a very short time yet, so she came directly to me. Because in her very unique position, she’d been able to see the truth of Time better than any of us. And she’d been able to see you three… and your connection to the Orphan of the Dawn. She’d seen a great many things, but chief among them, that the time was coming when eleven Greysons would stand against Darkness, and against the one Greyson who betrayed the universe. And they would need help. So she set a few things in motion, things I, quite frankly, don’t fully understand. But I understand a little, and what I understand most is your connection to — and, in truth, need to reach — the Orphan of the Dawn. That is the key. Well,” he chuckled, as if over some private joke, “not the key, so to speak, but it is key to your quest and your success.”
“Hold on…” Fae said, confused about a lot of what Toryu had just said, but one thing in particular stuck out above the rest. “Eleven Greysons? Against one? I get that the one is Sal, but… eleven? Where’s that number coming from?” No matter how much she thought about it, there were only eight Greysons alive right now after Sal — her, her siblings, her parents, and her grandfather.
“Ophelia didn’t explain,” Toryu said. “She was short on time, and so spoke quickly and in what she deemed to be the most important details. But remember that she saw Time as close to its true form as anyone ever will: wild and impossible, past and present and future all at once. Perhaps there are changes to come to your family before the Endless Night is stopped.”
Or perhaps…
But no. No, I don’t think so. That would be… well, it would be too easy, and at the same time, way too weird! How would that even be possible?
No, I don’t think that’s it.
It’s probably something to do with Caleb’s group, or Delilah’s, or Shana’s. Not mine. There’s plenty strange enough in my group, but I don’t think it’s related to Ophelia’s strange number.
“Ah, here she comes,” Toryu said, looking beyond the stage with a smile. Fae and Olivia turned to see Sonya coming across the garden’s bridge. Halfway to the stage, she stopped, turning around suddenly. For a moment, she stood like that, and it took Fae a moment to realize what was happening.
“A boy?” she asked when Sonya reached the stage.
“Yes,” Sonya said, brow furrowed in puzzlement. “He said —”
“ ‘There is a darkness here’,” Fae and Olivia said together.
“Yes,” Sonya said, sitting down. The table had been set for three when Fae and Olivia arrived, but now, suddenly, it was set for four. When the change had happened, Fae couldn’t say. One moment there were three chairs, three cups, and then Sonya was here and there was four of everything.
“The boy you spoke of before?” Toryu asked. “And yet none of us could see him this time save Sonya, hmm?”
They took a moment to catch Sonya up to where they were, and as they did, Sonya placed a notebook on the table and took notes while she sipped her tea. “What is the Orphan of the Dawn?” she asked when the others had finished. “From everything we know so far, it seems like it’s a place… but also a person.”
Toryu chuckled. “Oh, what a marvelous deduction,” he said. “The Orphan of the Dawn… ah, how to explain her? No, no, I don’t think I will. She will make sense, or as much sense as is possible, when you reach her.”
“A place and a person…” Fae murmured, finally taking her first sip of tea. It smelled of roses and vanilla, and tasted sweet and smooth, softening nerves she hadn’t realized were on edge. “But why is she so important to the three of us? What is it that connects us?”
“Time and space,” Toryu said, “are intrinsically connected. It’s a fascinating, marvelous reality. We so often think of the two as separate, distinct entities. But the Enchanted Dominion is more reflective of that truth than you might realize. Different Locations, so many different Locations, and time flows differently in each. And sometimes, time and space together reach out to us. Time Mages are the most obviously touched, directly affected by a special bond with Time. But you three are a similar case — I shouldn’t say case, that sounds so clinical, as if you three aren’t the marvelously individual living beings you are. But you three… are touched, so to speak, by both Time and Space. And you will see, will see what even I cannot see, when you reach the Orphan of the Dawn.”
“Have you been there before?” Olivia asked. “The way you talk of the Orphan of the Dawn…”
Toryu chuckled, puffing twice on his pipe. “Nostalgia?” he asked. “Oh, yes. A very, very long time ago, when I was just a child, if you can believe such a time existed… I was the first friend of the Orphan of the Dawn.” His voice took on a breathy, nostalgic tone. “She is as I’ve said, both place and person, but even that description is… not quite right. She is something, something unlike anything else in the entire universe. And she is beautiful.” He smiled, staring off into the distance. “And she was always, even when I was there, so very lonely. Not lonely in a despairing or forlorn way, but lonely in a… well, this may sound strange, but in a hopeful way. Loneliness in expectation of one day never being lonely again. And it was a very long time ago, after so much time spent together, that I…” He closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Ah, well… I left. I meant to come back, but her location in the universe was a more fickle thing than I realized. I… as soon as I left, my fate was sealed. I could never go back. It took me a very long time, until this form you’re speaking with now was stuck, to realize that I still had a role in her future.”
“Deciphering the map,” Fae said.
“Indeed,” Toryu said, opening his eyes. He took a sip of his tea and sighed. “I can never go back. But I can help you three go there. And you may be her most important visitors ever.”
Olivia pulled out the map to the Orphan of the Dawn, spreading it out on the table. “We deciphered some of it,” she said. It wasn’t a normal sort of map, but instead one that showed a series of symbols, start to finish.
“We know that the final symbol before the Orphan of the Dawn represents Grimoire, specifically calling attention to The Gate,” Fae said, laying her sketchbook beside the map. Sonya followed suit, placing her own notes next to the map. “And the fourth symbol is Renault, specifically the Time Tower.” Fae showed her sketches of the engravings they’d found in the second section of Otherwhere after the Celestial Shore. “The second time Grimoire appeared as an engraving, it was as if the artist was underwater, looking up through the Bay Ruins.”
“There was also the final engraving,” Olivia said. Fae turned to the proper page, showing a stage, and set within a pedestal on the stage, a great ornate key.
“But there aren’t any symbols for it on the map,” Sonya said.
“The key is for later,” Toryu said. “That’s why you found that last in your Otherwhere travels. It’s for after the Orphan of the Dawn.”
“After…” Fae murmured thoughtfully as she added that note to her sketch.
“But even then, we only deciphered two of the six symbols leading to the Orphan of the Dawn,” Sonya said. “We know Grimoire is last, and Renault is fourth. But what of the others? We saw the second symbol multiple times in Otherwhere, but couldn’t figure out what it meant.” She indicated the symbol on the map, an X shape with flared out edges, melding with a pentagon that had membranous, bat-like wings.
“Well, we know the first,” Olivia said, pointing to the bottom of the map and the symbol of a worn, crumbled statue of a man upon a throne. “The Watcher of Solace, like Oliver said.”
“Yes, that is your starting point,” Toryu said. “Each Location you must travel to — or city, in the case of the fourth and sixth — has a specific clue, a specific path that builds upon the previous ones. There is a reason why Grimoire is last. Everything is placed properly. You start at the Watcher of Solace, and then, to this mysterious, forlorn symbol.” Toryu indicated the second, the X-pentagon-wing symbol. “The clue behind its truth was all around you, but it’s still hard to put it all together if you don’t know. This is the symbol for Folly’s Stair.”
The name struck a chord with Fae, and a moment later she’d pulled out a sketchbook and opened it up to a page near the end. Setting it on the table, she stared in shock — and was frustrated at her memory failing her.
The sketch was of a steep, narrow staircase rising up inside a very old house, vanishing into darkness at the top. Flanked by paintings on every side, it was the symbol drawn near the bottom of the stairs that Fae stared at: the X-pentagon-wing symbol was right there.
“It was in my bag all along,” she said, shaking her head. “And I knew the name because Neptune had recognized it, way back when I showed them all of my drawings. I should have remembered.”
“But now you do,” Toryu said with a smile.
“But Folly’s Stair sounds… ominous, doesn’t it?” Olivia asked.
“Oh, we’ll get to that,” Toryu said with a chuckle. “Third, ah, yes…” His large, tortoise-like finger traced the third symbol faintly. It was of a hand surrounded by water. “Titan’s Hand Isle. It lies at the base of Titan, separated entirely from the body and forming its own landmass.”
“Oh!” Fae said, flipping through the same sketchbook that had Folly’s Stair. “Madeline already went there, so I wondered if my drawing was somehow for her, but…” she came to the right page and stopped. There was Titan, the massive statue that was an entire country in itself. “But I always wondered, since she started at the Belt and worked her way up.” Her sketch, she now realized, was as if from the perspective of someone on Titan’s Hand Isle, looking up at the great statue from the lowest point possible.
“Now you begin to see,” Toryu said with a smile. “All has been connected, and nothing has been in vain.”
“But that means from the very beginning…” Fae said, looking at the date of the Titan sketch — the year before she started high school, “someone knew I’d have to go there.”
“Now, this fourth symbol you already know as Renault’s Time Tower,” Toryu said, moving right along. “And fifth…” He gazed upon the symbol between Renault and Grimoire, a dreamlike series of clouds around an artist’s easel. “This represents the Palette in the Clouds. A city of artists lost long ago.”
“Lost?” Fae asked.
“Not like the Lost Locations, either,” Toryu said, stroking his mustache. “No, this is something far stranger. It’s as if it vanished entirely, although rumors tell it still exists within people’s dreams.”
“Dreams…” Fae murmured.
“But then how do we get there?” Sonya asked.
“That’s exactly the clue, isn’t it?” Fae asked. “Dreams.” She pulled out her mirror, the one that connected her to the Dreamer’s Heart — to Shana. She gazed into it, thinking of Shana, but the glassy surface didn’t change. She shook it, tapped on it, and groaned softly. “I can’t get it to work the way I think it’s supposed to.”
“You will, in time,” Toryu said. “Having knowledge of who the Dreamer is helps. Don’t worry, you don’t need to go there until between your fourth and final points on the way to the Orphan of the Dawn.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Fae said, dejectedly returning the mirror to her bag.
“Now then, that boy you three saw,” Toryu said, puffing on his pipe, smoke rings wafting up from his nostrils. “Interesting. ‘There is a darkness here,’ hmm? A boy… darkness… hmm… I feel as if I should know exactly who he is. And yet… hmm…”
“Do you know what he meant?” Olivia asked. “Is there… a ‘darkness’ here?”
“Oh, I know what he meant,” Toryu said, his smile turning mischievous. “Don’t you worry. You’ll understand soon enough. ‘There is a darkness here.’ Indeed…”
“Should we be worried about the others?” Fae asked.
“No,” Toryu said, standing. “Not yet.”
That’s… not exactly comforting.
“Are we leaving?” Sonya asked. She put away her notebooks, Fae put away her sketchbooks, and Olivia carefully folded up the map and returned it to her jacket’s inside pocket.
“Yes,” Toryu said, starting towards the far side of the stage. His stature was deceptive when he sat. Since he had such a large shell and stocky body, Fae had expected him to be taller, but as he walked along, even though he hunched over somewhat, he only came up a little higher than Fae’s waist. “Come along, ladies. Fae, you have a drawing, don’t you? Given to you by Oliver?”
“Oh, yes,” Fae said, pulling forth the drawing Oliver had given her.
He called it a “passing of the torch.” His final magical drawing… and it was meant for me.
It showed a grand, sweeping staircase forming an arch over a rounded door inset with a trio of ten-pointed stars. Fae handed it to Toryu, and he led the way down paths of the garden none of them had seen before. They passed under a flowering arch, through a stone courtyard of dried-up fountains, and then up a sloping hill dotted with statues of people with eyeless masks, before arriving at a cozy white veranda with a set of glass doors. Toryu opened the doors and headed through, and the girls followed.
“Here we are,” Toryu said, holding up the drawing, nodding once, and handing it back to Fae. True enough, this was the place shown in the drawing. Toryu strode forward, touching the door lightly for a moment. Then he stood back, gesturing to the girls. “This room is for you three. I cannot enter.”
“Why’s there a room in here for us?” Fae asked.
“Oh-ho,” Toryu said, smiling. “Mysteries upon mysteries. Take a look inside and find the answers — as much as answers are there to be found, anyway.”
Fae, Olivia, and Sonya stepped forward. The door didn’t have any handles, keyholes, or other markings. It seemed almost fused with the wall. Would it really open?
Somehow, Fae was drawn to the star in the center of the door. She placed her hand against it. Sonya placed her hand against the star on the right, and Olivia the star on the left.
The three stars pulsed with light, and then the door simply vanished. Out wafted a cool, dry breeze that smelled slightly salty. The interior of the room beyond was dark, and Fae hesitated. She looked back at Toryu, but he held up a hand.
“I will be here when you come back,” he said. “I know you have many more questions. Of Dragons, and the boy, and this place, and your friends. Don’t worry, dear. I’m not leaving you behind. There is a darkness here, that much is certain. But the darkness is not what you see there.”
Fae turned back to the open doorway, and after another moment’s hesitation, started inside. Olivia and Sonya followed.
Lights slowly came to being in the room, lanterns that shed a soft, silvery glow.
In the center of the room was the boy. He stared at them through his eyeless mask.
“Hello again,” Fae said, staring. Who was this boy? How did he keep appearing and disappearing like that? How come sometimes people couldn’t see him?
“There is a darkness,” the boy said. He pointed. “Out there. Here is light. Here is truth.”
“Truth…?” Fae asked.
But the boy was gone.
In the dimness, an echo of his voice remained: “Here secrets cannot hide…”
The lights grew brighter, bright enough now to see this room properly. It was circular, perhaps thirty feet in diameter, with high ceilings. On the floor was a mural, stone paneling working together to create silhouettes of three young women reaching up together, as if they walked in darkness but were reaching to escape it, looking up towards something greater. On the ceiling was a second mural, silhouettes of three young girls holding hands. They were only silhouetted because behind them was a bright, golden light, beautiful and welcoming.
Three reaching for three…?
There’s something here, but I can’t work it out.
Around the entire perimeter were murals on the walls, but these were far harder to understand. Starting from the door behind them and working around towards the opposite side, the right wall was a series of images melding into one another in a confusing, jumbled collage. And yet… Fae recognized the pieces, disjointed as they were.
“This is…” she started, and Olivia and Sonya, looking at the left wall, said the same. And when she spoke, they spoke as well.
“Grimoire,” from Fae, and “Renault,” from Olivia and Sonya.
Fae turned around to look at their wall, and there she saw images she recognized far less, only from pictures and never from actually visiting the great southern city of mages. There were parts of the great wall that protected the city against monsters. Huge, frozen mountains in the distance. A towering, sparkling skyline so unlike Grimoire’s rustic feel. It was so clean, so smooth, a pristine white swirling with snow. In the center, towering high, was what must be the Time Tower.
The Grimoire wall was abundant with hills dense with the old-style architecture of Grimoire, dotted here and there with the ancient watch towers, and mingled in with rose gardens, Lunar Festival lanterns, and pieces of the Bay ruins. Arching over it all was the broken arch of The Gate.
Both murals wrapped around the room towards the space opposite the door, and that central point of the wall saw the murals morph on both sides into scenery that was far less welcoming to Fae. Towering skyscrapers dotted with balconies, bridges spanning between them, the looming, vertical architecture…
Of Wasuryu’s city.
In the center of it all was a young woman emerging from a dark pool, wreathed in sickly green fire, the symbol of the Dragon — a reptilian eye within three spiraling lines of fire, water, and wind — tattooed and glowing on her forehead. The woman in the mural was very familiar to the three who stood in the room.
It was Fae. It could have been Olivia, or Sonya, for they all looked identical, but of course it was Fae.
I’m the “True” Vessel. This is…
What I would become. If Wasuryu succeeded, that’s who I would be.
“No, stop!” Sonya suddenly cried out. Fae and Olivia looked at her, to see her holding out her right hand, the tips of her fingers bristling with a magenta aura. Tendrils like flame rose from her fingertips, but not as if it was something under Sonya’s control. It was as if magic was leaking out from her.
“What’s going on?” Fae asked. “What —”
“Stay back!” Sonya cried, raising her free hand as Fae started to approach. Sonya’s eyes were wide with terror, and her whole body shook. “This… it isn’t safe.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Fae said, keeping her voice calm. “Just tell us what’s happening.”
“Here secrets cannot hide,” Olivia said softly. “Just like the boy said.”
“I’m sorry,” Sonya said, shaking her head. The aura flaring along her fingers blazed, growing brighter and rising higher. “It’s… Wasuryu did this. When I became the Broken Vessel… this new power started exploding from me. But Mineria… said this is my power. It isn’t something he gave me. It’s always been here, my…” She shuddered, tears glistening in her eyes. “My Wellspring.”
“Wellspring?” Olivia asked.
“That’s what my message in the bottle said,” Sonya said, her voice taut. She flinched as her magenta aura blazed brighter, covering her entire hand. “It’s okay!” she said suddenly as Fae started to approach again. “It doesn’t hurt me. It can’t. But… it’s so destructive. That’s why I was imprisoned in the Fault Line Dungeon. It’s the only place where I couldn’t be a danger to anyone else. Before that, I… there are entire cities that are ashes now because of my power. And there was… a woman. A woman my power killed, and just before it did, she said one word: ‘Wellspring.’ Just like my message in the bottle. The name of this accursed power that I can’t control!”
“But I used the candlestick bell,” Fae said. “You’re not the Broken Vessel anymore. If it’s your power, I’m sure there’s some way you can control it. This is the first time it’s come up since the Dungeon, right? You don’t have to be afraid of it, not if it’s your power.”
“That’s what Mineria said,” Sonya said, shaking her head. “That fear had a hold on my heart. That fear is what makes me dangerous. But how can I not fear it? After all I’ve done, all the pain and misery I’ve caused…”
“Wellspring is not a curse,” Olivia said.
“What…?” Sonya asked, staring wide-eyed at Olivia.
“I heard of it,” Olivia said. “While I was still the Sealed Vessel, it was something that came up in numerous places. An ancient form of Birthright Magic, thought lost to time. It isn’t a curse. It isn’t destructive on its own. Your emotions choose what form it takes.”
“My emotions?” Sonya asked. She gestured with her glowing hand, as the magenta aura blazed higher and spread up her arm. “And what emotion can stop this?”
“When you were the Broken Vessel, fear was all you knew,” Olivia said. “I remember Lairah saying that when I brought you to the Dungeon. ‘So this is what that monster does. Leaves her with nothing but her fear.’ Your fear is a destructive force. But other emotions can change what form your power takes. You can choose whether it hurts or helps. Wellspring… it’s simply an overflow, magic in a raw form spilling out from you, reflecting your own inner self. For you, it reflects the fear and turmoil, the trauma that Wasuryu inflicted on you. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.”
“Pretty words,” Sonya said, backing away until she touched the wall. “Please. Just leave me. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Emotions…” Fae said softly, thinking. “Fear… fear is a choice, but it’s also… it can be replaced by…” she looked up, determination welling up within her, “…hope.”
“What?” Sonya asked.
Fae reached into her bag and pulled out the candlestick bell. But she didn’t just ring it right away.
Hope can bounce off of people not receptive to it. And the bell seems to respond to and resonate with my own hope, as well. I can’t do this half-hearted. And I can’t count on the bell to do everything for me. And…
She looked at Olivia, holding out the bell.
I can’t count on myself to solve everything alone.
Olivia held the bell with her, and they raised the bell overhead together. “Sonya,” Fae said. “You don’t have to be afraid ever again. We’re with you, no matter what, through whatever happens, now. Wasuryu has no hold over you, over any of us. He’s a monster, and we will beat him. But it starts here.” She looked at Olivia, then back at Sonya. “It starts with us refusing to let fear of him, the trauma he’s inflicted on you and Olivia, control us. It starts…with hope.”
Fae and Olivia rang the bell together, and light exploded into being, white and bright and oh so gentle. The bell’s peal resonated beautifully in the small chamber, and Fae’s heart sang in tune with it.
Sonya’s wide eyes relaxed. The tension melted out of her body, and she lowered her arms. The magenta aura faded, and was no more. Tears rolled freely down Sonya’s cheeks, but…
She was smiling.
One step after another, Sonya came to Fae and Olivia, and they went to her. All three girls embraced, holding each other tight. There was warmth, and kindness, and love in that simple connection.
And Fae felt it, though before she’d ever started on this journey, before Mercury had ever found her drawing in Grim Night’s, she would have thought such a feeling so hokey and cheesy and way too ridiculous. But not now.
She felt her heart, and Olivia’s, and Sonya’s. Their hearts were in tune with each other’s, all three glowing with hope. Hope to banish fear. Hope to conquer pain and trauma. Hope to shine a light in the darkness.
It wasn’t an easy light to carry. Not alone, anyway. But together…
They could carry the light forever.
“Thank you,” Sonya said softly, pulling away. She wiped at her eyes, still smiling. “Thank you. And I’m… I’m sorry. I’d already been told not to fear, but I… I just couldn’t do it alone.”
“Neither could we,” Olivia said. “But we’re not alone.”
“Yeah,” Sonya said, nodding. “And… we won’t ever be alone again.”
The three of them left the room, back out into the hall where Toryu waited for them. And Fae gasped as soon as she was back in the hall, because a sudden warmth had flared against her chest. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but its suddenness took her off guard. She reached into her shirt, pulling out the amulet of the Orphan of the Dawn. It was warm, and the crystal in the center was glowing with light.
“Ah, that’s what I’d hoped would happen,” Toryu said, smiling. He pushed up his glasses, taking a closer look. “Yes… yes, you’re fully prepared, now.”
“What do you mean?” Fae asked.
“That chamber was an Echo of Truth,” Toryu said. “It isn’t the only one of its kind, either. There are other rooms like it, each holding keys and clues that will point the way to the full Truth. And now that you’ve entered one Echo, that amulet will respond to nearby Echoes. It’s the final piece in following the map to the Orphan of the Dawn.”
“There are Echoes on the way there?” Fae asked.
“One in each place you must visit,” Toryu said. “That’s what you’ll be seeking in each one — that Location or city’s Echo of Truth. When you’ve visited all six, you’ll understand the way to the Orphan of the Dawn.”
“You didn’t tell us before we went in,” Sonya said, raising an eyebrow.
Toryu chuckled. “It wouldn’t have changed anything,” he said. “You discovered it all the same, and discovering it for yourself is often more meaningful. A guide is often necessary to get you to the right place, but the final step is almost always best when it is yours to take.”
“And now we know exactly what to do,” Fae said, watching as the amulet’s light faded. “Thank you, Toryu. We can finally begin to understand the mystery that connects us.”
“There is more to be seen and more information here in the Sanctuary that will undoubtedly serve you well,” Toryu said. A bell chimed somewhere, and the old tortoise-Dragon raised an eyebrow. “But it seems the Matron is ready for you. I’ll show you the way.”
Fae, Olivia, and Sonya followed Toryu out into the garden, along a different path that led to the exit. When they were back in the Sanctuary’s vast atrium with the great tree in the center, Fae noticed the masked boy again. He stood by the tree, watching the girls as they followed Toryu.
He didn’t say a word. He just stood, watching them. But somehow…
Fae felt that was more a warning than anything he could have said.