*Kay's POV*

After Waglington and Donella left, Phil, Matt, Tom, and Winter called a meeting and explained the plan to the apprentices. I wasn't the only one nervous about trusting technology to keep me alive in this "stasis" Phil kept talking about. My future sight didn't give me any justification for my worries, unfortunately. We started packing up the next day. I knew this was too good to be true, I thought, packing my one bag for the umpteenth time. Just when I start to think we're safe, we have to move again. It felt like we were still on the run, and I supposed we were in a way. Instead of fleeing Mianite troops, now we were fleeing the literal end of the world.

Aduladi lightly nipped at my ear in mute reprimand. I ducked my head away from him, making him flutter to maintain his perch on my shoulder. He hissed in annoyance but stopped when I stroked his chest feathers in apology. Adu didn't like it when I focused too heavily on the negative aspects of my past and powers. He could tell when I was now that he was my familiar.

Echo and I had gone back over to Jordan's witchery set up last week and worked out a trade with the Ianitee. I fixed the water damage to his circle magic book, and he set the proper circles for a familiar binding ritual and let us use his supplies. Adu and I couldn't communicate as easily as Echo and Jax—they had been together for years before their binding ritual—but we were learning. I zipped my bag shut and swung it over my unoccupied shoulder. We climbed the stairs to Phil's workshop in companionable silence. Adu left me at the outdoor section of stairs to do some twilight hunting.

I'd spent most of the day helping some of the other apprentices pack up the library with Matt. Things had gone well until Matt "accidentally" set the box with Tom's romance novels on fire. We disposed of the evidence, and Tom didn't know yet. I certainly wasn't going to tell him. I wondered if the box getting lost in transit was as plausible an excuse with space ships as it was with bridging spells. Well, we'd cross that bridge when we came to it.

What is up with Matt today? He didn't have that much spare energy yesterday; now he's setting fires every time he gets excited. It was almost like when the athar was still intact, before they started losing their powers. I knew the brothers intended to split the Tower Heart's power right before departure, but anticipation didn't translate into excess magic. He'd definitely gotten a boost from somewhere else. I puzzled over what that other source might be as I took the last stretch of the stairs to the top room of the tower.

The door was open to visitors for the first time, and that was only the start of the strangeness. The inside of Phil's workshop had been cleared out a lot since this morning. Most of the machinery had fallen silent where it now sat shoved against the curved outer wall. A pile of luggage, boxes, and bundled had sprouted from a cleared space on the right side of the room. The central portions of the catwalk on the second level had been retracted, leaving the middle of the room open for the rocket positioned on the launch pad. Phil and Tom had been working on a spell to retract the roof and were in the middle of testing it when I walked in. The deep blue sky held a few early stars. I looked up, wondering why it felt like those stars were a little less bright than they had been last night.

---Time Skip---

When Ilanna teleported into the tower's lobby in the middle of the night, we all expected Donella to accompany her. None of us expected a dwarf. Ilanna introduced him as Alroy before telling us why we had an injured dwarf before us instead of a master wizard.

They hadn't even finished their story when I drifted into one of my visions. It almost felt like their tale triggered it, which would be a first. I saw the world crumbling and our tower falling beneath a starless, black sky. It was brief as far as my visions went, but nonetheless disturbing.

After relating what I'd seen, the master wizards hesitantly decided we could wait until the next evening for Donella. If she didn't show up by then, they still had to get us out of there. No one said it, but we all wondered if Donella and Wag still lived after encountering such a creature as World Historian, aka The Shadows. He had slain numerous gods. What hope did a pair of wizards and a handful of mortals hold of surviving? Don't forget, those two wizards are Waglington and Donella. If anyone can find a way to win it's them, I reminded myself. And I think I would see if someone as close to me as Master Wag died, regardless of how far away he is. Still I worried about how they would escape Ruxomar if they missed the launch.

An hour passed with no news, then two and three. My sense of impending doom grew with each tick of the clock hanging in the dining hall. Evening came with no sight nor vision of our friends. It was time to go. The Fyre wizards split the Tower Heart. They used brilliant, opalescent shards to power each of the six space ships; the remaining crystal dissolved into silver light that hovered around the Fyre wizards before sinking into each of them. Matt looked positively hyper, floating rather than flying, eyes brighter than they'd been in a long time. Tom was a bit sad to see the Tower Heart go. He had grown rather fond of it, and it had developed its own sentience. It didn't have to help us, but it wanted to. It knew that this world didn't have much time left, and I thought it just might have grown fond of us too. Phil patted Tom on the shoulder before telling everyone to report to their ships. Winter had worked out the seating arrangements yesterday.

Winter, Matt, and Tom's space ships were loaded and launched before the sun disappeared below the horizon. All the apprentices except Ilanna and I were sound asleep in their stasis pods. There were two last minute problems to sort out. First, without Donella, who was going to take charge of her ship? Second, what to do with Alroy? Teleporting him back to his home hadn't worked when they tried earlier. That likely meant that the volcanic vent his city was built in had either collapsed or become active. Botan could have been blocking the spell as well. Leaving him here didn't seem right. It was finally decided that he could take Donella's birth if he wanted to, solving both problems. When presented with the offer, he looked like he might decline, wanting to stay here to die with his people. Then he changed his mind. "I shouldn't turn away a rope when the cliff is crumbling from beneath me. My kinsmen would curse me for a fool if I stayed. What purpose would my death serve?"

So it was decided. Ilanna and Alroy's rocket was safely off, and I couldn't delay getting into my pod any longer. Phil gave me his best reassuring smile, which made him look like a bit of a mad scientist in my opinion. Not very reassuring. "Alright, Kay, your turn," He said, motioning me into the waiting space ship. He kept talking, hoping to distract me from my worries. I wasn't exactly claustrophobic, but I liked always having an exit strategy. Being locked inside a stasis chamber was the exact opposite of that. "Now, Aduladi should be perfectly safe to join you in stasis like Jax did Echo. However, I haven't had a chance to thoroughly test the waking process on avians. You have no idea how hard it is to catch sparrows." He chuckled briefly and helped me up the ladder to the deck my chamber was on. "From the tests I have performed, you or Aduladi may be disoriented waking up. So I'd like your familiar to wear these, just to be safe." He held out his hand, and a set of small, rubber triangles appeared in his palm. It took me a moment to realize he meant them to go on Adu's talons. "I've seen what he can do to a rabbit. I don't want him doing that to you accidentally."

Adu fluffed his feathers in indignation and screeched at Phil. I found Phil jerking back from my boreal owl—who was only nine inches tall—extremely funny. I really tried not to laugh, but I couldn't help it. One of the most powerful wizards I knew, afraid of nine inches of feathers and attitude.

Phil blushed in embarrassment and snapped his fingers, getting revenge on Adu by teleporting the rubber sheaths onto his talons. Adu nipped at one experimentally before leaving them be, deflating his feathers in defeat. Phil must have magically reinforced the material. I assured my familiar that I never thought he'd do anything to hurt me. "Okay, Phil. See you when we land," I said stepping up to the open stasis chamber. I tried not to think about how much it reminded me of a high tech coffin. The pods were arranged vertically in tiers—seven to a level—to better fit in the rocket. Under different circumstances, I would have taken time to marvel at the hybrid of technology and magic he'd created here. As it was, I could only force myself to focus on the expertly shaped runes and sigils lining the rim of my pod. I didn't recognize all of them, but of those I did there were protection, peace, rest, stability, and sleep.

Adu lightly nibbled my ear and leaned against the side of my head. That was as close as he could get to a hug, and I appreciated the gesture. I took a deep breath and stepped inside, turning to face the glass cover as it slid into place. Phil waved and said loudly enough that I could hear him through the glass, "See you on the other side, kid." Then he slid back down the ladder to program the launch sequence for my rocket and his.

The inside of the pod was comfortably padded and smelled lightly of burnt metal where wires had been sautered and metal welded. I noticed that a series of runes similar to those on the outside of the pod were carved on the inside. As I studied one that looked familiar, trying to decide what language it must be from, the marks started glowing a soft green. I was mesmerized by the glow, and my eyelids started drifting closed. I was distantly aware of Adu relaxing on my shoulder and the stabilizing restraints I had forced myself to not think about before now sliding into place and tightening. They would keep me and Adu from bouncing around inside the one-size-fits-all stasis chamber. I could feel the rocket rumble as the workshop machinery moved it into position on the launch pad.

I wondered how long the trip would be. Phil had mentioned it would take longer than a bridging spell. As so often happens when setting out on a long journey, I froze for a moment, unable to remember if I'd packed something very important—my report. I'd taken the job Master Wag gave me before I left the Realm seriously. I hadn't had much time to write when we were on the run, but I'd summarized the last year once we'd settled back in at the tower. I relaxed some when I remembered it was in my bag, recalling what I'd written a few days ago before stowing it. "We came here looking for new magic, and found more than we had ever dreamed. Here was a land where mortals could practice magic to rival a wizard, and wizards could study for more than a lifetime and barely scratch the surface. Here too there were forbidden magics we would warn against using. Here too was prejudice, discrimination, and those who fear us. I suppose some things never change.

More important than the magics and weapons we trained with, we were forced to learn to work together when we thought the Fyre wizards had fallen. We learned some of the lessons those who lived through the war must have—lessons of consequence, loss, and perseverance. I would wish those lessons on no one, but I hope we will prove stronger for having learned them. They do put things in odd perspective. I find myself valuing my friends far more for having lost some of them. I hope I never grow so complacent that I take them for granted. I have also learned that while the cautionary tale of loss is important to remember, we should not let it rule our thoughts. Sorrow and grief have a place, but the present and future have far too much to offer to live in the past."

And so it is done, all 263k words, 533 pages, 1.6 Megabytes of it. (Those number are from my backup Word doc without author's notes, tags, etc.) XP Yes, this should be 2 books. I'm going to repurpose 2 of my author's notes posts as "Book 1" and "Book 2" markers. Just the little behind the scenes post to do, and I will mark this book as "Completed". :)