( James Vellaroux's POV )
They came into that clearing in no order at all.
Greywall first, because they'd left first. Then Brightvale about four minutes behind them. Then us, last, thirty-seven people coming out of black trees into a piece of open ground lit white from the middle.
Nobody formed up. Nobody counted anybody. They just walked in and stopped, and stood there breathing, in a wood, in the dark, a mile from where they'd started.
Concord was gone. All of them. Out the eastern side and up the slope and standing well clear on the bare ground above the treeline, where everyone could see exactly where they were.
Halvern had left one person at the edge of the clearing to say so out loud, and then that person walked off after the rest of them.
***
Declair was in the middle with her hands at her sides.
