They found her in a room a bit further along the corridor just beyond the room that they had all piled into from the glowing gateway. It was a small room, but quite beautiful, lined with pale blue tiles, with a single, diamond-paned window framed into the frontmost wall, beyond which they had an excellent view of a great stretch of hills whose peaks were gilded by the brilliant morning sunlight, rising beside a glittering river. Minerva had been laid carefully upon the bed, which was positioned against the back wall, her eyes closed, her hands folded above her chest.

She was wrapped in a new, lime-green dress, and all the blood had been wiped away; Calder seemed to have cleaned and changed her, so well, in fact, that had Milius not known otherwise, from the peaceful look of her, he might have thought she was sleeping.

And in a way, she was. An endless slumber, filled with the happy memories of better times, when she was younger and healthier, when his father was still with them, when Milius was so small that he could barely reach her knees — or so he hoped she was. It was a much more comforting thought than the alternative, a blank, lonely stretch of blackness.

Her feet were protruding slightly over the edge of the bed. She had always been so tall, much taller than Milius’s father, who was around the same height as Milius was now, though with green eyes and brown hair, so unlike his sisters, Aurora and Porella, Sirius and Regulus’s mothers, with their icy-blue eyes and flowing manes of deep gold.

At the thought of the two women, a dreadful realization suddenly struck Milius as he remembered, with a horrible pang, the words of the female Archer less than an hour ago: “And then our worst fears were confirmed when the light appeared; they went on a rampage at the castle — slaughtered dozens before we chased them away.”

“Regulus,” Milius breathed. How could he have forgotten? Regulus, Porella, Aurora, and Thalia — they were all still at the castle.

“What?” Sirius said, looking bemused.

“Regulus! Your family! They were supposed to be at the palace!”

For a split second, the look of incomprehension on Sirius’s face remained there. But then, as he understood, his jaw fell open in horror. They had their differences with the others, no doubt, but they were, after all, still family.

“Lucas and the others would probably have seen,” Milius said. “Go —”

But Sirius still looked uncertain. His eyes flickered onto Minerva and he said, “Are you sure?”

“There's nothing we can do for her,” Milius said. His voice was almost cold, and he felt sickened with himself as the words resounded in his ears, but it was the truth. “But everybody else . . .”

Sirius nodded, clapped a hand on Milius’s shoulder, and hurried out of the room. Milius turned to look at Minerva, lifeless yet serene-looking, drinking in the scene, searing it into his mind, the last he would ever see of her. . . . He bent lower and kissed her forehead.

“Rest easy, Mother,” he murmured. Then he stood up abruptly; he couldn't bear to be there for a second longer. He wheeled about and strode through the door, shutting it behind him, and set off down the corridor with that same burning feeling in his eyes which he disliked so much. His hand reflexively closed around the hilt of Palpatunde as he walked, and for a moment the blade seemed to pulse, an almost comforting sensation, but Milius ignored it. He veered into the room that they had been in earlier, and found nearly everyone gathered inside once again.

They all looked around as he entered. “It's all good, they're fine,” Sirius said. He looked immensely relieved. “Shya saw to them.”

“But where are they now?” Milius asked.

“We transported them all using our rings,” said Lucas. “We brought them to our base back in our homeland, in case the Hunters showed up again.”

“Can we bring them here instead?”

“Inadvisable,” Calder said at once. “We can assume that Alcyeoneus remains, for the time being, ignorant of the Tower’s location, but we could also have said the same for the Dragoon Cave. It he found us there, it is not unlikely that he may track us here as well. If that happens, the more people here, the more casualties we may have. It's best if they remain where they are, as far away from the site of action as possible.”

But Milius shook his head stubbornly. “Our family, at least. I want them to be where we can keep an eye on them.”

Calder sighed. “Oh, very well. But just them, please.”

“How long is it to Derwenton?” Milius asked Lucas, wondering whether Lumeus was up to another long flight.

“You're thinking of flying?” Aaron said in disbelief. “After all that has happened, they will surely be looking out for any dragon that soars across the land! Especially any as distinctive as ours!”

“How else am I supposed to get there, then?” Milius said defiantly. He felt angry again, remembering how Aaron had behaved towards Minerva when she was still . . .

“Milius, Aaron is right,” Calder said, with a rather austere look on his wizened face. “Flying is too dangerous at the moment.”

“Besides, there are very few ways to locate and enter our bunker,” Lucas said, sounding smug. “Aerial surveillance is not one of them. We'll take you, we were planning on going back there anyway.”

“Really, why?” asked Ariana, who had entered the room along with Hestia and Cole.

“It seems we were thinking rather rashly before,” Lucas said, suddenly grim. “We communed during the break, and decided that as this is truly a world-level crisis, it would be unwise to concentrate all our efforts in one place — that place being here. We'll need to go all over, warning and recruiting, rallying a strong enough resistance to deal with this god. Some of us will also need to stay with those who we brought to the bunker. There is no guarantee that *they* will be safe either. Tamron and Jeremiah will be leaving” — he gestured at his allies — “along with Kali and Enzo,” he added, indicating the other two Archers. “I, however, will be staying here, along with Shya.”

“Well then, I think we should go now,” Sirius said. “Get this over with.”

Lucas nodded. “Indeed. All who wish to accompany us, please gather round.”

Milius moved forward at once; so did Sirius and, to Milius’s slight surprise, Cole (who shrugged when Milius cast him a curious, questioning look), as well as the two Paladins, the other Archers, and Shakil. Ariana, however, opted to remain behind.

“I think I should stay here, just in case,” she said.

“Very well, then,” Lucas said. He grasped hands with both his comrades, and all three of them closed their eyes and began to chant. “Ave, em vale. Dulce mor duos, erem et.”

The three rings began to glow, and a veil of green light enveloped the traveling group. The feeling was like a warm breeze passing over Milius’s body, and it was quite pleasant, but next moment the feeling had passed, the light had faded, and Milius was standing beside the others in a vast, green-and-brown-walled room, lit with emerald lanterns.

“Here we are,” Lucas said, gesturing around with both arms and beaming.

Milius looked around. The walls were engraved with what looked like scenes of history in almost exactly the same way as the underground structure of the Dragoon Cave, only in this case, the lines of the scenes were being carved into the walls before their very eyes as though by dozens of invisible hands; at the same time, preexisting scenes all over the walls were vanishing from the face of the stone as though those same hands were somehow erasing them, to be replaced by fresh carvings.

“What are those?” Shakil asked, indicating these images. He looked awed, as usual, at the sight of some unknown, yet interesting show of magic.

“These?” Jeremiah gestured carelessly at the walls. “The very walls of this bunker are imbued with the magic of the time god, Chronus. As a result, many of them reflect scenes from any period in time, past, present, even future.”

“You lot can see the future?” Cole said at once, looking excited. “So, you can tell us what's happening with Frederick —!”

“No, we can't,” Tamron said flatly. “For one thing, time is so immense, so diverse, so all-encompassing, that the walls record scenes from all over the world, from every period, with hardly any context. These images are replaced almost immediately, so there isn't enough time to study them, and even if you try, the lack of detail leaves them near indecipherable.”

Milius gazed around at the alternating visions. It was like looking into Phontus’s enchanted ceiling. He saw one scene in which several club-wielding men were crowding around a savage-looking beast, which was promptly replaced by one with a group of people who were kneeling before a kind of fountain, and one displaying a gigantic squid, which looked much like Phontus himself.

“They're this way,” Lucas called, interrupting his reverie. He was pointing at a huge bronze door framed into the wall ahead, where a monkeyish face embedded with rubies for eyes was protruding from the metal.

They all strode forward, and Lucas held his ring up to the face’s ruby eyes, where it performed the same examination of the jewel as the owl on the Dragoon Cave’s Library door. Apparently recognizing whatever mark it had been searching for, the face’s eyes blazed red and the door swung inwards. They filed through and sauntered along a long corridor lined with pale-faced portraits of men and women draped in dove-white cloaks, who could only be past Paladins. Or perhaps, Milius thought suddenly, frowning, with everything they had said about time and the many irregularities that plagued it, along with the effects of the walls displaying events that had not yet occurred, some of the people here might have been Paladins who had not even been born yet. . . .

They trooped through the door at the end of the passageway and entered a large, sumptuously decorated hall filled with people, all of whom, by the resplendence of their garments, had been at Haygar and Porella’s wedding. Some of them were arranged in small groups around the room, whispering to each other, while the majority had taken seats around an enormous wooden table, laden with food — yet even the wondrous aroma of the succulent-looking meals before them could not wipe the looks of shock and horror from their faces.

Apparently, however, the sudden appearance of four Dragonknights in their midst could. Many of them leapt to their feet with looks of relief as they spotted them, including Milius and Sirius’s cousin, Regulus, clearly visible because of his chalk-white skin and the contrasting quantity of dark brown hair that framed it.

Thalia and Aurora had leapt up as well, and now came hurtling around the table towards them, tears sparkling in their blue eyes.

“Sirius!” Aurora said. “Oh, Sirius!”

Sirius knelt down, a little smile on his face as he opened his arms in welcome, and mother and sister alike flung themselves upon him. Milius watched as they stood there, Thalia sobbing into her elder brother's chest, and Aurora stroking locks of Sirius’s golden hair.

Regulus, however, stopped in front of Milius. There was a long gash on his cheek, red and raw, and his robes were ripped in several places, but he looked otherwise umharmed.

He gave a little chuckle, looking relieved as well, and said, “I don't think I've ever been more glad to see you. The Void Hunters, they —”

“We know,” Milius said, “we fought them too.”

“But I don't understand. I thought they were heroes — were they upset that they lost the Exhibition, or something —?”

“No, far from it, actually.”

“And that light streaming into the sky! What was that? We were all terrified!”

Milius sighed. “It's a long story, but it ends with the resurrection of an ancient dark god that was sealed away thousands of years ago. Goes by Alcyeoneus,” he said.

“What?” Regulus looked horrified.

Milius nodded gravely. “It’s worse than you could think. From the looks of it, he destroyed half of the country in minutes.”

“But — that's —” Regulus spluttered. He paused, took a deep, shuddering breath, and seemed to pull himself together. “Is there anything we can do?” he said, more calmly.

“We're working on it,” Milius told him. “But we need to get you guys back with us. Where's Aunt Porella? And King Haygar?”

Regulus looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Looks like we have a lot to catch up on,” he said, with a sad little smile. “Come on, they're this way.”