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We touched down in the courtyard, Millard first and then finally Olive, as so spent that she landed on her back and stayed there, breathing like she’d just run aher

Her eyes got big and she pointed up "Look!"

In the air behind us, where the top of the tower had been justsilver, like aloop We watched hypnotized as it shrank, spinning faster and faster When it became too small to see, there issued from it a sound like the crack of a sonic boom:

"ALMAAAAAAAAAA …"

And then the inked out, sucking Caul’s voice aith it

After the loop collapsed and the tower fell, eren’t allowed to stand shell-shocked and gaping--at least not for long Though it seeers were behind us and most of our enemies had been felled or captured, there was chaos all around and work to be done Despite our exhaustion and bruises and sprains, the y what yed into hue The coht, and Addison discovered another--a round

She ca foranu while they harine and Miss Avocet, but after just a few , they were satisfied that he was merely a mercenary, not a secret operative or a traitor Sharon had seemed as shocked by Benthahts’ prisons and laboratories were emptied and their machines of terror sht out into the open and attended to Dozens ed fro thin and ragged Some wandered in a daze and had to be corralled and watched, lest they walk away and get lost Others were so overwhel us One s fros "You don’t knohat you did for us," she kept saying "You don’t knohat you did"

It was iave thehs I could not begin to ih,Compared to that, my bruises and traumas were inconsequential

The rescued peculiars I’ll remember most were three brothers They seemed in fair health but were so shocked by what they’d experienced that they would not speak At the first opportunity they retreated from the crowd, found a bit of rubble to hunker on, and stared hollowly around theer two As if they could not quite square the scene before them with the hell they had accepted as reality

E "You’re safe now," she said gently

They looked at her as if they didn’t know theto the a barely conscious wight behind her, a white-coated lab worker with his hands tied The boys recoiled