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I don’t have time to single out each one of them, but I do make eye contact with every person who allows me.

“I’m going to the tower. I know more—remember more—than I did before. We built that tower; we can tear it apart again.” Fists clenched, I continue, “I would like to believe I’ve never done anything that would lead any of you astray. I want to believe I’ve earned your trust. This is a lot. I wouldn’t believe me, either. But help me for the next six hours, and I’ll be in your service for the rest of my life.”

“Can’t we just,” Balfid treads carefully, “turn off the machine?”

“No, we’d have to re-employ it, and the Serpent won’t return for twenty-three hours. It’ll be too late.” I take a deep breath. “Everyone needs to bring a lamp. I’ll answer any other questions on the way. Now move.”

The folk closest to the table scoot back to allow me to jump down. I start toward the door, then turn back and, standing on a chair, pull the clock from the tavern wall. With it under my arm, I push my way to the door. I will do this by myself, if I have to. I’ll fail, but I’ll try.

The sun has passed its zenith, warning me of my dwindling time. I need to run. I must hurry. Too many lives are at stake.

Salki, bless her, falls into step beside me. She says nothing. She doesn’t have to. But I do.

“I need you to run back to my house and get the machine in that nook.” I hand her the emilies looped through my belt. “Then I’ll tell you my plan.”

She nods and runs ahead.

We pass a house, then another. I’m about to break into a sprint when footsteps behind me signal the arrival of Maglon, followed by Balfid and Gethnen. Behind them, Arthen runs from the alehouse. A few more follow him, and then a few more.

I grin at the blossom of hope opening in my chest. I might not have won over all of Emgarden, but I will have enough.

I see it before we reach it. Hope it’s a trick of the moving sun. Memories aside, it’s been alongtime since I saw the natural rise and fall of daylight. I need that empty spot at the base of the tower to be a shadow and nothing more.

Arthen slows first. “What ... is it?”

“A hole?” Maglon guesses.

Even before, I was never part of the war. I’m not a soldier. Even if I were, I couldn’t fight amidst gods. Mortality binds my life to physical form, to gravity. I never saw Ruin with my own eyes, before it took the shape of a wayward forest god and settled into this tower.

Heartwood, I’m coming.I take solace in the fact that Moseus still needs his battery alive. For the next five hours, anyway.

I approach the dark spot where the doors used to be, stopping ten paces back. It hurts my eyes to look at it—a two-dimensional rift in a three-dimensional world. It has no true color, just endlessness, darkness, eternity, a void, a gap in reality where nothing is nor can be. Just large enough to engulf the heavy double doors into the tower.

Ruin siphoned Heartwood’s strength to take the form it has now, but to create something like this should have drained Moseus immensely. But Moseus is smart. So long as nothing disturbs him orthis tower, all he has to do is sit around meditating for five hours and he’ll have everything he wants.

Meditating.He never drew his strength from peace, but from lack. That sheltered room was an artificial night, but never enough to truly heal him.

“Can we climb it?” Salki asks, my little machine in her hands. She wrings the frame.

Arthen responds, “I’ve tried before.”

“Ladder?” Balfid suggests.

“Windows are too narrow,” Maglon says.

Crouching, I close my eyes and work my brain. I can do this. I helpedbuildthe damn thing. Does it have another weak spot, outside that apparent gap between floors two and three?

I would reprimand whoever constructed that floor, if I could recall who it was. Then again, they wouldn’t remember, either.

Frantess throws a rock into the void. It makes no landing, no sound. Amlynn grabs her elbow and pulls her away.

“Your tools won’t work, Arthen?” Salki asks.

He must have shaken his head. I hear no other answer.

“There’s no back entrance?” Maglon shuffles, like he’s going to walk around the tower to see. As if in all these years, we’d never bothered to check.

“Maybe if we throw in enough,” Thamton calls from the back, “that blankness will fill in?”