'Two years to get stronger.'
The message had reached Ren Kagu a few weeks after the tower, and it had not come through any channel the Kagu security office knew about. It was simply on his slate one morning, written in Arthur Nightingale's plain, unfussy hand.
It told him the short version. Alyssara had taken a piece of a Demon Lord and walked away with it. She had given Arthur a deadline. When it ran out, there would be a real war, and Earth would need everyone who could stand in it. The last line was the only one with any weight on it:
'Ignore everything else. Get past your ceiling. We'll need you.'
Ren read it twice and found he wasn't surprised. He had already been standing at his ceiling for months, staring at it.
