Things Lost and Found (a Waglington and Mianite fanfiction)

Epilogue 3/3

*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.