Caleb didn't say anything as the other man took him, but his eyes when they met Ezra's briefly were panicked. It was very like him to go quiet when he was overwhelmed with feeling. He'd barely said a word in the two weeks after his parents had died in the park collapse. He was still shy around strangers even at the best of times. He wasn't making a sound now, but he was terrified. There was nothing Ezra could do to reassure him, because he was already being lifted up and out of reach, and because there were no genuine words of reassurance to offer. This was entirely terrifying; he had the right of it.

"Applegate," he answered, and it occurred to him that if the man was asking he was already thinking about a future where Ezra didn't end up coming out of this mist right behind him. "That's Caleb."

Was he going to die here?

His half-disappeared foot was still slowing him down. The stranger, with Caleb close to his chest, was already pulling ahead significantly. They were going to get out of this. The crowd was thinning, opening up the way for them to run faster. Ezra's half-shoe had fallen off and he hobbled on as fast as he could on what remained. Maybe it was a mercy that he couldn't feel it, because pain would have only slowed him down more.

A shadow flitted in front of him and he flinched. He tried to tell himself it wasn't real, but that had never worked. They felt real, no matter what he said. It was fitting for the shadows to be here now, if this was going to be the end.

Wait — he didn't have to die here. He was a wizard. He had a wand. He could apparate to safety — why hadn't he already done that, with Caleb? He just needed to get his wand out... but as he hazarded a glance over his shoulder he saw the mist rolling in fast behind him.

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