“You saw all this?” Panther pressed.

She shook her head. “No, I was asleep. When I woke up, we weren’t in the gardens anymore. We were on the banks of the river south of here—Hawk and Cheney and me. But if Hawk isn’t telling the truth, how did we get there? How did Cheney end up with us, for that matter?”

“How did you get here ?” Owl asked, steering the conversation in a different direction while everyone was still calm enough to listen.

“We just started walking,” Tessa answered. Her dusky face lifted into the moonlight and her eyes shone.

“Then we found this camp with all these children and their protectors. Hundreds of them, come up from somewhere south, fleeing an army that had killed everyone else. Hawk took them across the river, over a bridge.” She hesitated, as if she might say something more about this, but then decided against it. “After we were across, he told the others to wait for him there until he returned with his own family. Then we came looking for you.”

“You knew where we would be?” Owl said.

Tessa nodded. “Hawk knew.”

Owl and the others looked at the boy. Hawk shrugged. “I just did. I can’t explain it. It has something to do with the magic.”

Panther looked off into the night. “I’m not calling you Bird-Man anymore. I’m calling you Magic Man. Or maybe Crazy Man.”

“Panther.” Tessa spoke his name firmly and waited until he looked at her. “Don’t call him names. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. He isn’t the same as you remember. He’s something else now, something special.”

“Tessa, don’t,” Hawk said. “I’d say the same thing as Panther if he were telling me all this.”

“So tell us more about the world ending,” Chalk urged, brushing past the rest of it. “Is this for real?”

“The old man said so. He said it was all ending, and we had to get to someplace safe until everything got better and we could go out into it again.” Hawk shook his head. “I asked him if he was serious, if he was sure about this, and he said he was. He said it’s all gone too far and everything’s ending. I guess I believe him.”

“Look around you,” Cat said suddenly from one side, the scaly patches of her mottled face reflecting the moonlight. They all turned to look at her. “I don’t know about this old man, but I know enough to believe what he says about the world. It’s already ruined. Anyone with half a brain can tell that. Why should it be so hard to think it’s going to end?”

“She’s right,” agreed Sparrow. “Giant centipedes and armies killing off the compound people. Croaks and Lizards and all the rest. I think it’s ending. What do we do, Hawk?”