Anice subconsciously supported him and with her help he managed to crawl over to Lily where he attempted to heal her with the last of his energies. After several moments, his silver eyes dropped in sadness and he shook his head in a helpless manner.

“She’s gone,” he said weakly. “There’s nothing…I can do…” He fell into a fit of hoarse coughs, blood leaking from the corners of his mouth as he stared up at Anice with all sorts of emotions in his eyes.

“L—Lord Silverkin, can you try again?” asked Jaden, his voice brittle as he stared down at his deceased lover. “She only hit her head. It wasn’t hard. She’s just unconscious.”

Violet and Rosa cried hysterically as they clung to their sister, Emely and Helen hugging one another as they sobbed into each other’s shoulders. Violent death was difficult to witness for anybody, let alone young and delicate girls like them.

Amidst this scene of sadness, Corrie suddenly appeared a few dozen paces up ahead, the soles of his boots crunching against fallen scales of ice that were left over from the desperate struggle. Looking past Stason and Mr. Albeck’s bodies, his eyes settled on Lily’s unmoving form before they took on a deep look of depression. His ratty old dagger was clutched tightly in his right hand, its blade slick with blood. After a moment’s hesitation, he gritted his teeth and strode over to address the group, though Anice hardly heard his words.

“It was the church,” he said amidst the chorus of sobs, continuing on despite the fact that nobody looked over at him. “One of them admitted to it when he had a knife to his neck. He said he didn’t have a choice, something about a curse. He mentioned the delegation, but then he began to seize as if he’d ingested some sort of poison. I slit his throat just to be safe.”

“You’re saying…the church did this?” Jaden didn’t look away from Lily’s face as he spoke, his hands shaking with emotion. Suddenly angry, he screamed, “How can you joke around at a time like this?” Softer and in broken tones, he went on, “Why would the church want to hurt someone like Lily? Why would they want to hurt any of us?”

Caedmon bowed his head, and for a moment Anice was worried that he’d never lift it again.

Sputtering, her father said, “It’s me… But I…don’t know why…”

Zech’s head snapped to attention, causing Anice and the others to follow his line of sight to where several people in white robes were hurrying away from Caedmon’s estate. They slowed when they caught sight of the tragic scene, but rather than hurry over to help, they quickly turned around and ran back toward the distant gates.

“Deacons? Don’t they serve Bishop Rendel?” said Zech in a choked voice, though his eyes flashed as he seemed to connect some dots. “Was the church really behind this? But why?”

“The demon’s appearance is probably related to them, too,” said Corrie, who sheathed his dagger with a shaking hand. “It came from the south, and so did the delegation. It would explain why they just sat back and watched instead of entering the city and trying to stop it. They must have known how dangerous it was beforehand.”

His words went mostly unregistered.

“Anice…”

Her father’s voice left him as a drawn-out hiss that sent shivers through her soul. He raised his right hand, extending it in the wrong direction. It seemed that he had lost his vision.

“Papa!” She grabbed his hands in hers, those familiar hands with their writing calluses and blotchy ink stains, something that remained the same despite the formality of the day. “Don’t talk, Papa. We’ll take you to the estate. Someone there should be able to heal you. Bishop Rend…” Her voice died in her throat as she realized that the man she’d just mentioned was apparently the one responsible for their current crisis.

She tried to heal him again and finally managed to activate her spell, but no matter how much effort she put forth it was all in futility. She could only use normal magic, after all, which was meant to mend minor cuts and scrapes. If it were Alistar…

After coughing up more blood, Caedmon said weakly, “You must leave…leave the county…the kingdom. Rendel’s people saw you…you…saw them…” Stopping to struggle for breath, he eventually went on, “He won’t want…any witnesses…”

“I’ll go to Grandpa! He won’t let them get away with this. Surely—surely he’ll do something!”

Caedmon shook his head. “He can’t. The demon…the delegation… Father can’t…”

His head slumped to the side, though his chest still rose and fell with erratic rhythm.

“Papa!” she yelled, vision blurred by hot tears that stung her eyes like sandy wind. “Papa, no!”

“Annabell…Annabell…”

This was her mother’s name, and also the third one that Caedmon had chosen for Anice on the day that she’d turned ten years old.

After another brief silence, his eyes momentarily came back into focus and he stared at her for what she knew would be the last time.

“Anice, my precious girl. You’ve grown…to look so much…like…”

His hand fell and his life faded.

Anice felt as if the world had lost all colour. Woods, Lily, Alder, Stason, Mr. Albeck, Mr. Herst—she had lost countless loved ones in less than an hour, along with all of the other familiar faces that she would never see again after this day. Even so, the only person on her mind was her father. How could he die just like this? He’d finally finished up with his work at the collegia and had promised to spend more time with her at home. They were supposed to share each meal together, to wander the estate, to play tag and…and…

Anice cried alongside her friends for an indeterminable amount of time. At some point Corrie had rushed off to the crest of the hill that obscured the city from view, returning a short while later to look at the others with a sombre expression.

“I know it’s the last thing you guys want to hear, but we need to leave.” When nobody responded, he continued, “The delegation is moving in towards the city. It seems like Sword Master Tramon’s still fighting the demon, but that’s irrelevant to us right now. The longer we wait, the larger the chances that Bishop Rendel will send more people after us. If he doesn’t, then the delegation might. We don’t know enough about what’s going on, but the only thing that’s for certain is that we need to leave here as soon as possible.”

“Where will we go?” cried Emely, whose large eyes were red and puffy, her nose dribbling snot. “We have nowhere to go.”

“But we still need to leave.” Picking up the dagger that Jaden had used to stab Lily’s killer, he patted down the man’s body and removed the belt and sheath that it had been housed in. “Lord Caedmon was right. The king can’t help us, not when the delegation’s involved in this. They’re from Providence Region, so we can only imagine what sort of people put them up to this.” His voice hardening, he said, “We need to leave the empire. That means we should head west toward Baldor. From there, we need to travel as far away from the church’s influence as possible.”

“How can you be so calm?” said Violet, who looked up with rare anger in her voice. “Lily’s dead! Woods is dead! And yet you can still talk like that?”

“Do you think I like this?” snapped the smaller boy. “Hate me if you want, but right now I’m the only one that’s thinking straight. Do you think I want to see any more of you get killed? I have to say this, because if I don’t then that’s exactly what will happen!”

Violet buried her head into Lily’s abdomen and resumed crying, her white dress stained at the hems with her sister’s blood.

“What about Alistar?” Zech eventually said, blue eyes listless. “He might still be alive.”

“Alistar can take care of himself better than anyone here. We’re the ones that the bishop’s people saw, not him, so we’re the ones that’re the most at risk. We need to leave as soon as possible.”

“If we leave,” Lessa managed to say, her voice hoarse from all of her sobbing. “Will he even be able to find us?”

Corrie unsheathed his dagger and held it up for everyone else to see. “Alistar gave this to me while back. I don’t know where he got it, but it has an invisibility enchantment on it. Not a normal one, either. It masks all sounds within a pace of whoever’s using it.”

Anice tuned out everyone else as she stared down at her father’s worried expression, still holding his hand in hers.