Evin and Jorick panted. Everyone else looked on, silently. Colton emerged slowly from beneath the table and walked to Klem’s side.

“What have you done?” Colton whispered.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

As sweat dripped into his eyes, Evin looked up and saw that the transparent stone blocks that had divided the room now hovered in the air like clouds in a spring sky. One floated near him, and he touched the glassy surface. The block drifted away as though as light as a feather.

“Bravo!” Sefron clapped slowly. “Well played, rogue.” Sefron grinned at Evin then gestured to Jorick. “And you too, warrior. I overestimated your intelligence when I initially picked you. But I must say that you made a great team. Your respective tempers worked out nicely in helping me destroy the wall.”

“You?” Klem bellowed, pointing a pudgy finger at Sefron. “What are you saying, Sefron? You planned this? But why?”

“We had a good thing here!” cried Colton.

Sefron turned to them and smiled. “Neither of you ever thought outside of the box, which, I suppose, worked out well for me. Now you have a choice: the two of you can flee and leave me to my plans, or”—Sefron aimed his spindly black wand at the floor, and a bolt of magic shot from its tip and sent white stone flying—“that could be you,” Sefron finished. “Your decision?”

Colton looked to Klem, and Klem to Colton. Without a word, the two waved their staffs in the air—and disappeared.

“Now, to the issue of Betilivatis,” Sefron said, turning to her. Bet began to tremble. She clutched her satchel close.

“Do not worry, my dear apprentice,” Sefron said. He caressed her cheek, and she flinched. “I hold no ill will toward you. Without you, nothing would have gone as I had planned. And so, as a reward, I return to you your memories.” His eyes flashed and Bet gasped for air. She clutched her temples as she fell to the floor.

“And you, boys!” he said, striding to Evin and Jorick. “You deserve a reward as well! For you see, no magical creature or man could have touched the artifact, and no normal human would ever be so dumb as to dismantle the one thing keeping legions of monsters out of the human kingdoms beyond the dome. However, you managed to do what I could not, and for that I am thankful.”

Evin couldn’t think in his exhaustion, couldn’t understand what this man was saying. And then, Sefron was in front of them. The wizard’s eyes flashed, and Evin’s mind flooded with all of his true memories.

Only then did he realize what he’d done.

“No,” Evin whispered. “No!”

Shoving past Sefron, he raced to the edge of the balcony and looked out across the monster-plagued lands that had been surrounded by the great white wall.