She turned to face Woostra. “You were right. When I went into the tower, the voice began to whisper to me right away. At first, I couldn’t understand what it was saying. I went down into the pit. I went so far down I couldn’t see where I’d come from. The farther down I went, the clearer the whispering became. I began to understand words and then phrases. I could tell the voice was coming from the thing that lived in the pit, from the old magic conjured when Paranor was built. I could feel it stirring; I could see it moving …”

Bombax reached for her arm. “Aphen, calm down. Maybe you just thought …”

“Don’t patronize me, Bombax!” she shrieked at him in fury. “Just listen! I heard it! I saw it! It was real! And the last thing I heard was so terrifying I ran back up those stairs …”

She caught her breath, shook her head. “It wants to come out of there, whatever it is, whatever it intends, and it’s telling us we don’t want to be here when it does.”

Bombax nodded slowly, chastened. “All right, calm down. I believe you. I do. Don’t be angry with me. I just needed to be sure you believed yourself. You’re asking us to leave Paranor, Aphen. To abandon her to the Federation.”

“It isn’t exactly what she’s asking,” Woostra said, pursing his lips thoughtfully, giving the big Druid a long look.

Bombax hesitated. “You think the old magic won’t let that happen, that it will stop the Federation?”

“I think it will do whatever it needs to do to protect itself. I think it wanted Aphenglow to grant it permission to come out of the pit and put a stop to what’s being done to it. And it is warning us not to be here when that happens.”

“But we can’t allow that! Not without the Ard Rhys giving permission for it! Not without her even knowing!”

“We have no idea where she is,” Aphenglow pointed out. “And we don’t have time to find her.”

“She’s beyond helping us,” Woostra added. “Beyond even advising us. We have to make this decision on our own.”

There was a long silence as those gathered looked from face to face. “The first thing we have to do,” Aphenglow said finally, “is figure out how we’re going to get out of the Keep without getting killed.”

“We can use the tunnels,” Cymrian offered.

She shook her head quickly. “Not without chancing an encounter with the Federation. They’re inside already—or if not, close to being so. We don’t know which of the tunnels they are in. Probably, they are in more than one. Maybe, they are in all of them. Some of us might make it. But we have wounded and injured to consider. If we go, no one gets left behind.”