"What day was that?" I frowned in puzzlement.
"I know half the primates had been abducted Tuesday morning because that was the day Professor Morton sent me to check on the remaining primates that were still within the Academy."
"They were rounded up Tuesday, but they didn't actually leave by train until Wednesday night. By Thursday, Uncle Blackstone had called in reinforcement from the Northern Realm."
I gasped. "So that was why everyone was in black mage bodysuits Thursday."
"Yes, they were assisting with porting duties. Once the soldiers began porting in Thursday, the war actually began."
Corwin nodded in agreement. "It started the morning that I was too busy to pick you up and had to call Connor to come get you."
"What were you talking about?"
"Uncle Blackstone was discussing the possibility of war erupting between the different factions of mages and what we had to do if that happened. No sooner had I left him and joined you when heavy fighting actually broke out in Topaz city."
"What was the reason for the fight? Surely it couldn't have been over some primates. That's not a good enough reason to destroy an entire city."
"You're right, it's not." Corwin shook his head.
"They were fighting because the Elites wanted to take the primates out of Topaz City and start a war with the humans.
My jaw dropped.
"When Blackstone came by the classroom to tell us to get out, we knew then that the Council of Mages had lost the battle."
"We knew we had to get out of the Academy, and quickly, because the school would be the next target."
Connor snapped his fingers. "What we didn't know was how we were going to find Tory or the primates.
"We figured that it was going to be tough trying to find the Elites' location because they will be under stealth mode. As Blackstone told you before, trying to find a group of mages when they don't want to be found is damn near impossible."
"But lo and behold, you and your team of winged and webbed and furry spies led us straight through the firing lines and directly towards the Mage Elites."
Connor sighed. "You took my breath away. I had no idea that you'd be such a strong mage in your own rights."
Corwin held up his hand. "You should have seen her at her little apartment, Bro. Oh my God. I saw her command thousands and thousands of critters just standing in front of her bedroom window like it was nothing."
"That must have been…"
"Yeah," Corwin's voice became husky. "It was."
My face grew hot. That embarrassing moment was being discussed. I had to change the subject. Sadly, I could not think of anything to say.
But then Connor spoke up again.
"Remember the huge BOOM!?"
I nodded with a shudder.
"That was the capstone being taken out at the moment we were running towards the train station."
Corwin groaned. "The destruction of our pyramid crippled our energy grid. Once we lost power, we lost Topaz City."
"How'd we get so lucky to make it out of there?" I asked.
Corwin shook his head. "It had nothing to do with luck. We were barely one step ahead of the heavy fighting because Blackstone tried to keep the skirmish lines in place for as long as he could until we were safely out of the area that was being attacked,"
He sighed with a heavy heart. "We knew they had lost the scrimmage line when the firestorm broke through their line of defense and headed for us.
"Man, that was close." Connor breathed. "We barely survived it, and only because Tarzan was quick-thinking and got us shelter on the lee side of a building in between a narrow alleyway."
"Yeah," Corwin added. "We never felt the full brunt of the attacks, only the tail end of the fire spirals after it had lost much of its energy.
"So…what's going on now at the Academy? What happened to Topaz City?" I asked.
"We don't know, and I don't think we're going to be able to go back to find out." Connor shook his head. "At least not for awhile."
"What do you mean? We have to go back. We have to take Tory and the orangutans back. Simon's family is still there. My parents are still there!" I cried.
Connor rubbed his eyes with a weary hand. "Sweetheart, there may not be much left for us to go back to."
I bolted up into a seated position. "Don't say that!"
"I'm so sorry honey. Topaz is in very bad condition right now." Connor whispered, reaching out for my arm.
"But we can't just leave our families like that!" I cried. "If something horrible happened to our homes, we should be there to defend it, not run away!"
"Nana, we're not running away." Corwin reminded me with uncharacteristic gentleness. "We are on a mission, remember?"
His eyes were hard. "The mages in Topaz City and Uncle Blackstone bought us enough time so that we could leave to carry out their orders. They're counting on us to succeed."
He turned to look at me with pleading eyes. "If we turn back now, we will have not only failed to complete the mission, we will also have wasted their sacrifice."
Connor reached out for my hands and covered them with his own. "Don't be scared. Corwin and I are here with you. We will do everything we can to get you to Tory and the primates.
"You just need to focus on finding their trail and leading us there," he said.
"And not to put any pressure on you or anything," Corwin spoke up, "but if you can figure out how to access the Book of the Demons, that would be a big help too."
The Demons book!
I had completely forgotten about it. We had been so focused on moving forward and staying alive that it had languished, untouched, at the bottom of my messenger bag.
I nodded. "I'll start working on it as soon as possible," I reassured the guys.
In truth, I had been exhausted from the nonstop traveling.
The constant stress that I would miss a cue from one of the winged or webbed scouts kept me frazzled and tense because I was constantly putting out feelers and searching the skies for any signs of them.
There was also the other issue which I did not bring up with the twins, partly because I was afraid of what their answer to me would be and partly because I did not want too much distraction on my plate at the moment.
I had no clue what we would do once we met up with Tory and the great apes.
As the night grew colder, the dessert wind began to pick up a bit. I was grateful to be lying next to the twins because they put out quite a bit of heat.
Being grateful for the twins' presence meant I began to think about them, not as fellow war refugees but as hot-blooded men.
We were all exhausted from being on the run for so many days, but exhaustion does not negate the fact that the three of us were lying in the same tent.
We were barely touching, but I was very much aware of the precise location where our bodies made contact.
The tension was made even more acute by the uncontrollable primal desires that was welling up inside of me—that natural reaction between male and female bodies in close proximity.
Yet, propriety and societal mores kept us immobile and obdurate. We were all pretending we were sleeping, all the while so wound up we could barely breathe in a normal manner.
After about an hour of this pretension, I sighed and sat up. I couldn't sleep with the twins next to me. I couldn't even lie still.
They were exuding such powerfully repressed sexual energies that my skin was crawling with electricity.
Their roiling energy was so intense that it was causing my hair to stand on ends and my ears to buzz and itch like mad.
I wondered if all mages exhibited these vortices of charged sexual energies. Or was this simply something only the twins gave off in spades.
I got up and crawled out of the tent opening. As warm as the day was, the nights were downright chilly. Grabbing a small blanket, I threw it around my shoulders and found a nearby boulder to perch on.
The sky was clear, and away from any light sources. Even with a quarter moon overhead, the stars were blazing bright!
I could see the milky way spilled out across the night sky in all its luminous glory, shimmering behind the rock crop, which made a strange dark silhouette against the bright sky.
There was very little wind and not much sound other than the distant howling of some lone malamute out searching for female companionship. Much closer to me was the gentle sawing of a snoring orangutan inside Simon's tent.
In that moment, I felt completely loved by the universe, and a welling of inner peace flowed through me.
I took a deep breath and cast my mind outward to see if I could locate a crow— any crow.
This deep into The Wastes, there was none to be found, but I did find a good number of moles, dessert foxes, a group of wolves, and a single kite flying high above looking for carrion to feast on.
I touch the kite's mind, looking for a friendly response. It was not open to suggestions, so I moved on to an elf owl that was out and about hunting.
Hello. My name is Nana. Want to talk?
It was inquisitive enough to fly towards me, and then it circled above me, calling out my name.
Nana, Nana, Nana
I stood up, arms outstretched so that I could non-verbally communicate with it in a way that was easier for it to understand me.
Come to me.
It showed me images of the next enclave of human habitat, which it assured me had many easy pickings for food, as the humans had plenty of trash lying about which kept the rat population very high.
I showed it an image of the primate group and the boy Tory.
Find them for me.
The elf owl circled around me a few more times before it responded.
Primate group, I saw. Boy, not see.
I asked again.
Can you show us how to get there if I feed you tonight so you don't have to hunt for food?
Yes.
I thanked it, waving my arms in gentle undulations, and then I hopped off the rock to go get the opened bag of dried beef jerky still in my backpack.
A little bit of dried meat was a cheap price to pay for information on the whereabouts of the primate group.
I opened the tent flap, reached in and grabbed my backpack. then I ran back onto the rock outcropping.
I waved to let the owl know I was back and then pulled out all the meat, holding it up with my fingers.
Be careful and don't hook my hand, please! I pleaded with the owl.
It laughed at me.
"Hoot! Hoot!"
And swooped down to grab the food.
With absolute precision, it took the meat without touching my fingers at all.
Professional food grabber, I am. Expert in the field, did you not know?
I laughed. Yes, I did know. Thank you so much!
You're welcome, Nana. It replied.
Then I stood there, gazing into the night sky as the owl took off with its payment for services to be rendered by daybreak.
I cast my mind out once again and found some male life forces much closer to me.
I smiled.
Silly men.
"Are you sly guys going to hide there all night or are you going to join me?" I murmured without bothering to turn my head.