Because of detours, of causeways and bridges being closed or blocked, he actually had to go to the Second Ring to get down to the Third again. His path took him past the Temple of the Twins just at dusk. He hadn’t planned it that way, but just as he got close enough to see the front portico, he realized that the nightly procession of Fledglings to the Tower of Wisdom had just begun.

He stopped, and stared. What were they thinking? The city lay disorganized and, in places, in ruins! Surely they could put off their regular magics for a few nights!

Then he realized that by gawping at them, he was making himself conspicuous, and put his head down, walking onward, trusting to his coating of dust to make him anonymous.

And as he drew nearer, he also realized that a good half of the people trudging slack-faced at the orders of the Magi in charge were far too old to be Fledglings.

Nor was he the only one to have noted this.

“Hoi!” shouted an old man, face contorted with anger, and so covered in dust from stone and brick it was impossible to see what color his complexion really was. “Where are you a-goin’ with them Winged Ones?”

He planted himself firmly in the path of the Magi, and stood there with his hands on his hips, staring defiantly at them.

The Magus in the lead drew himself up in affront. “Just who—” the man began.

The commoner interrupted him. “They was supposed to warn us!” he shouted, growing more angry by the moment. “They was supposed to tell us so none got hurt! And how come they didn’t, eh? Eh?”

By now, the shouting had attracted a crowd—angry people, most of them, who were surrounding the Magi and their charges, looking daggers at them. No—not at the Winged Ones, who were oblivious to all of this. All the anger was directed straight at the Magi.

“I don’t—” said the Magus in charge haughtily, but what he “didn’t,” Kiron would never know, for he was shouted down again by a different commoner.

“We know why!” the man cried out. “We seen you, comin’ here every night! First ye drag off the young ’uns, and they come back looking like ye sucked ’em up dry and threw back the husk. Then that’s not good enough for ye, and ye start a-takin’ the Winged Ones, them as is supposed to be our protection, and they come back a-lookin’ the same! Ye think we be blind? Ye think we be stupid?”

Since this was probably precisely what the Magi had thought, they exchanged bewildered and alarmed gazes.