Before she could begin practicing her water magic, Luke began to stir. Despite it being nighttime, the three moons in the sky provided them with plenty of light to see by. 

“I see you are already awake.” Luke mumbled.

“Yeah, I did a little practice. I can now make a 5 minute restraint. But, no luck with the lightning. 

“That’s still pretty good progress. It may be best to move while it is still dark out. Are you feeling up to it?”

Truthfully she didn’t. Her body was exhausted and Warlen drained her quite a bit with his testing. However, resting any longer would only put them in more danger. Staying on the move would make it that much harder for Warlen to find them. “Yeah, let's go.”

The two stuck mainly to the shadows and by dawn, they had managed to reach the outer wall of the capital city. All of the gates were heavily guarded at their entry so they would have to look for a better way out. However since the suns were beginning to rise, they decided that the best option would be to sleep during the day and travel at night. They find a fire escape located on one of the buildings that led up to the roof. The two of them picked a spot that was mostly hidden from view and fell asleep almost immediately. 

This time, Luke woke up before Hallie. He felt awful. He got her into this situation and he was determined to get her out of it. She looked so frail and pale and without food or other provisions, they would be unable to continue traveling for long. He decided that he would leave her a note explaining where he went and go to get some of the basic supplies that they would need. And maybe he could even find someone who knew of an inconspicuous way out of the capital. 

He took the fire escape down and strode out of the alley with purpose, quickly blending into the rest of the crowd. Making his way to a local general store, he made a quick mental list of things that they may need or could be useful for traveling. A backpack for Hallie, a lantern, matches, some sort of knife or weapon, food, some basic clothes, and blankets. It isn’t so bad during the day, but the nights are beginning to get cold.

He managed to grab everything that he could possibly think of and still had plenty of money left to spare. However, the one thing he couldn’t find was information. He didn’t see anyone that looked as though they would know of a good way out of the city. He returned to the alley and went up the fire escape, doing his best to remember all of the maps of the capital that had been in the main library. 

Hallie woke up to the sound of someone climbing the fire escape. She immediately looked over to find that Luke was gone. What if the person had attacked him? Why hadn’t she woken up before? It was almost dark. How long had he been gone? Hallie immediately called water to her and assumed a fighting stance in the center of the roof. However, she quickly realized that there was really no reason to be alarmed. She quickly recognized the head that poked over the top of the fire escape, before placing down a few bags on the rooftop. She immediately dispersed the magic and ran over to help with the bags. 

“I thought you were an enemy or one of the guards.”

“You didn’t get my note. No, you left one?”

“Yeah I did.” Luke said as he walked back to where they had spent the night and held up a sheet of paper triumphantly. 

“I guess I must have missed it.”

Luke chuckled. “Yeah. Hey look, I got us some supplies. This is for you.” Luke said, handing her a backpack. 

“Thanks.” Hallie realized that everything she had acquired since arriving here was gone, except for what she had on. Thankfully, she was still wearing the matching friendship bracelet from Alice. It would have been awful to lose that so soon after getting it.

The two of them divided the supplies and ate for the first time in almost 2 days. By the time they had finished eating, it was already dark out. From the rooftop, they could see a huge stretch of the wall. After scanning it for a bit, Luke pointed out a small hole in the wall. “The wall doesn’t seem to be holding up well there. There is already a small hole and it looks to be crumbling. Let's check it out.”

Upon arriving at the hole, they realize that it was actually much bigger than either of them had realized. Hallie could already fit through, and Luke could probably squeeze through with a little bit of work. The two of them spent a few minutes expanding the hole a bit more and once it was wide enough for each of them to fit through comfortably, they went through. On the other side was an open field and past that was a small forest. The two of them begin walking towards the copse of trees with the knowledge that the trees would provide them with some much needed cover and would give them a place to rest in the morning. 

After an uneventful trek to the woods, the two of them began to walk under the boughs of some of the most magnificent trees that Hallie had ever seen. Everything here seemed to be a little bigger than on Earth, but the trees were breathtaking. The closest one to her was easily a few hundred feet tall and was covered in bright orange leaves. Looking around, she realized that none of these trees had any green on them whatsoever. The leaves were all varying shades of red, orange or yellow.