"No, because I would die for nothing," Lark answered quite honestly. "To do what they did would require the power of at least ten mages, all caught in a single person. Which would mean power theft. Which would kill the mages, and possibly the one taking the power. The children should not have been able to do what they did. But their magics are great, beyond even the level I can achieve with the same gift when it comes to Sandry, and myself with a good many additional years of training and experience working with it, and being the best there is in the world with it, before Sandry. And even then, even with four young mages whose power should not have joined in the way it had, it still took an artifact level magical item of their own construction AND my energy AND that of a magic storing tree that was centuries old to just barely bring them back."

And in the months after all of them were almost too drained to live. And Rosethorn was like one with a brain shock. She had not fully recovered from it.

"I would never attempt what they did. No one sane and aware of what they are doing would. Sometimes people go where you are not yet meant to follow. This too is life."