Colonel Charles stared at him for a moment, then pulled out a small tablet. “That brings us to the first thing I needed to speak to you about.” He typed something on the screen that Fort couldn’t see. “Did you know we had cameras up all over the base, back at the old school?”

“Sure,” Fort said, not liking where this was going.

“Now, during the attack, most of them were destroyed,” the colonel said, then paused his typing and gave Fort a long look. “Most, but not all.”

A deep chill went sailing down Fort’s spine. When Sierra and Damian had left, Sierra had wiped herself out of Colonel Charles’s memory entirely, so that he wouldn’t hunt them down while she and Damian tried to find the other books of magic. Clearly something had changed, since Colonel Charles knew exactly who she was now. Sierra had left Dr. Opps with his memory of everything, so maybe the doctor had betrayed them, or—

Colonel Charles turned the tablet around, and Fort’s eyes widened as he saw himself on the screen, waving his arms around while talking to Damian and Sierra. The three of them looked like they were arguing for a moment, then Damian and Sierra passed Fort and ran offscreen. There was no sound, but from Fort’s perspective, what had happened was pretty obvious.

His mouth suddenly as dry as a desert, Fort blinked, not sure what he could possibly say here. There he was on camera, letting two wanted magicians go free. At the time, he’d wanted Damian to stay, to get judged for what he’d done—even if Damian had been possessed by the Old One when he’d done it—but Sierra had convinced Fort that she and Damian would never be treated fairly.

And now Colonel Charles had Fort on video letting them walk. “Uh…,” he said, trying to decide if he should run, and if the colonel could catch him if he did.

But then Colonel Charles put his hand on his shoulder, and it was too late. “So first of all, I just want to tell you,” the colonel said, “that I’m proud of you.”

That was it, he was getting kicked out, and… wait, what?

“You’re… proud of me?” Fort said, his voice breaking.

“From what I see here, you tried to stop them,” Colonel Charles said. He squeezed Fort’s shoulder, then removed his hand, and Fort almost collapsed, not able to believe his luck. “Considering you had no magic at that point, and both of them could control your mind, that speaks highly of your bravery.”

“It… does?” Fort said, still struggling to catch up.