He was missing a shoe, and he had a bruise turning purple on his arm and one on his cheek. Overwhelmed, Henry hurried away from the disaster with Lukas. “Move out of the way so we can get more people out.” “Go on,” a man by the window said to Henry. He disappeared into the shack to look for his daughter. Sean used his sleeve to clear out the rest of the glass, then helped a few others get through the window. “Henry! Over here!” Sean Ranger was inside, holding his young son out the broken window and looking frantic.

Then he got up and pushed through the growing crowd around the shack. Henry clutched his chest and tried to breathe, blinking the tears away. Alexander Stowe, head mage of Artimé, is dead. A horrendous sob exploded from him, the sound of it lost in the chaotic din. He slowed and stumbled forward, crumpling into the agony of the realization. For good.Ī sharp pain speared through Henry. His breath caught as he thought about how scared everyone must be.

Henry looked around frantically as it dawned on him that his and Thatcher’s adopted young Unwanteds were probably somewhere in the disaster. It was impossible to know where to start helping. His heart sank.Ĭries and shouts rose from all over the property. He reached into his healer’s coat pockets to see what medicines he carried with him, but those magical products had vanished too. As he went, he realized that his hospital ward and everything in it would have disappeared along with the mansion. Henry stared for an instant, trying to comprehend what was happening, and then he dropped the weeds and ran toward the chaos to help. The walls strained and bulged as if they were about to explode. Hundreds of Artiméans who’d been inside the mansion spilled out of the shack’s doorway and burst through its windows, trying to keep from being crushed. The enormous mansion swirled and disappeared, leaving a small shack in its place. The medicinal herbs he’d been picking turned to weeds in his hands, and the ground beneath his knees became hard and cracked. When the world of Artimé turned gray, Henry Haluki knew that Alex was dead.

Dragon Ghosts by Lisa McMann