After a while;
The Arcana Masters were out of a pocket dimension.
spat, laughed, then sobbed once and wiped his face with the back of his hand. "By the gods… we're alive."
A younger one crawled to his knees, eyes glassy. "Who—who did this? Who saved us?"
Azzy stood where he'd left them — tall, calm, the scythe sheathed at his side. He watched them gather, unhurried, like a man who'd performed a necessary cruelty and was already moving on. He didn't look triumphant. He looked tired in a way that made people instinctively bow.
Iphi was the first to cross the stretch of sand, boots quiet, face a closed map of grief and fury. She scanned the circle, searching the open ground for a body that should have been there.
"No body," she said flatly, voice catching. "Where's Captain David? Where—"
