He’s a soldier now, thought Marcus, but he was only seven or eight when the world ended.

Diadem swung the remote, scattering the holographic mist and grabbing the Windwhisper icon, and suddenly there it was, a giant hologram filling the center of the room as the cute purple dragon soared across the opening credits. “Windwhisper!” came the theme song, and Marcus and the soldiers sang the next line in unison with it: “Spread your wings and fly!” They watched the entire episode, laughing and cheering, reliving for half an hour the childhood they’d lost, but minute by minute the magic seemed to seep away. The colors were too bright, the music too loud, the emotions too broad, and the decisions too obvious. It was hollow and sickly, like eating too much sugar, and all Marcus could think about was: Is this really what I missed? Is this really all the old world was? Life since the Break was hard, and the problems they had were painful, but at least they were real. When he was a kid, he’d spent hours in front of the holovid, watching show after show, effect after effect, platitude after platitude. The episode ended, and when Diadem looked at him with the remote poised for another, he shook his head.

She turned it off. “You look awfully sad for someone who just watched a friendly purple dragon knock a wizard into a lake made of marshmallow cream.”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Marcus. “Sorry.”

She put the remote away. “You seemed to enjoy the beginning, but not the end.”

Marcus grimaced, flopping onto the couch. “Not really. It’s just that it’s . . .” He didn’t know how to phrase it. “It’s not real.”

“Of course it’s not real, it’s a cartoon.” Diadem sat beside him. “A 3-D cartoon with photo-realistic backgrounds, but still—just a story.”

“I know,” said Marcus, closing his eyes, “that’s not the right word, but it’s . . . I used to love watching the Evil Wizard get it,” he said. “Every week he’d have another scheme, and every week Windwhisper would stop him: one up, one down. Problem surfaced and solved in twenty-two minutes. I used to think that was awesome, but . . . it isn’t real. The good guy’s always good, and the Evil Wizard is always, well, evil. It’s in his name.”

“There were not a lot of children’s shows about ambiguity and unsolvable moral quandaries,” said Diadem. “I don’t think most five-year-olds were ready for that.”

Marcus sighed. “I don’t think any of us were.”

Vinci came and talked with them after dark, apologizing again that they weren’t able to see Trimble yet, and bringing stories of the world outside: The war was going poorly, raging closer and closer to the city.

“But who’s fighting?” asked Woolf. “All of Morgan’s forces are on Long Island.”

“There are other . . . issues,” said Vinci.