Evin had no idea how high up he was. He clutched the chimera’s back with all his strength and buried his head into the fur at the nape of one of the creature’s necks. He certainly could have opened his eyes and looked down, but then he knew he’d see the trees below looking like little more than twigs, and he’d know for sure that if he let his grasp loosen just a little he’d end up falling a long, long way.

Adventurer or not, Evin was pretty sure he was not a fan of flying.

His heart thudded in time with the great flapping of the chimera’s wings. The wind brought up by the flight made his hair whip around his face and his clothes tug at his body.

Bet hung onto his waist, with Jorick behind her.

“This is amazing!” Jorick called out, his voice lost to the great wind.

“N-n-n-o it’s not!” Up here the air was cold and Evin couldn’t keep his teeth from chattering as he spoke.

“I agree with Jorick,” Bet said. “This is—”

“No one was talking to you,” Jorick interrupted. His voice was even colder than the air.

The chimera had wasted no time in taking off in the direction of the wizards’ keep once the sun had risen. After Bet’s confession, the chimera had cornered her and interrogated the elf girl in Draconic. She seemed to understand even though she responded to the creature in Common, giving directions to where the order of wizards watched over the lands surrounded by the wall.

As she explained it to Evin and Jorick later, the keep was a massive square tower that rose on either side of the wall. Magic kept it hidden until you were upon it, so only those who knew its exact location could ever find it.

While Bet had been talking with the chimera, Evin had found Jorick outside of the burrow sitting next to the body of the machine woman. The two boys had talked, vowing to keep watch over each other in the coming battle.

And now, here they were, miles above the earth and soaring north toward the great white wall that was, in fact, just the lower half of an endlessly large dome.

After many moments of silence, Bet whispered, “There it is.”

Swallowing, Evin dared to open his eyes to look over the chimera’s heads.

The wall loomed ahead of them, pearly white in the midmorning light. For a moment, it was all Evin could see—until the air in front of them rippled as though they were stones flung into a pond. Suddenly the view of the wall changed to show a massive structure attached to it—the keep, with half of the building on the inside of the wall and the other half looming outside.