Kathe and Leane darted out of the mouth of the cave with their packs rattling from the pots and pans hastily tied to their packs. Kathe clutched an array of trinkets she hadn’t had time to stow. Stopping abruptly at the cliff’s edge. a few bits tumbled away.

Ratina’s dreams had ever been vivid, a fact her kin, especially her long-suffering mother, had lamented her entire life. Either they lost her too them (ah, the dreams which drifted pleasant), or they were woken by them (when they weren’t she screamed to wake the dead). Either way, Ratina never forgot a moment of them.

Master Woodruff paced past my desk without stopping, but his gait slowed noticeably. His wand tapped between my shoulders as I knew it would, and Woodruff continued his circuit.

The icy grip caressed my spine. Without thinking I spun my staff and brought the crook down on the ground behind me. A high pitch yelped sounded followed by the sounds of a creature scurrying away. I glanced back and caught a dash of red disappearing into the barn.

Ralphine thought she still sat slumped in the alley, but she could see none of it. Power warped her vision from reality as it seeped further into her.

The worlds lay before Merye in hasty lettering: jagged, broken, and drifting erratically. She wanted to look up to glower at her fellow apprentices. Had they known this bore magic when she’d been tasked to review it?

At the end of the most secluded of the castle’s passages, Ullyne stared at me in desperation as she motioned toward the open chamber door. Divica’s chamber, and even from the corridor I heard she was in hysterics. Again.

Ralphine backed away, the heal of her boot catching on a cobble stone. Horror, shock, and dismay deadened her reactions and she fell eyes still looked on the sky. Magic freed from the wizard’s decanter swirled out from the library. A silent wave of power gathering until it collapsed over the city.