Nicolas looked to Sabriel. It was instinct for him to want to keep his younger brother from getting hurt, but he couldn't move. He finally just fell, the life slipping out of his body.
Sabriel's eyes widened. "Nikki..." he choked out in a pained voice. As soon as she put the spell on him, the young man turned back to the age he acted — thirteen. Even if he had become older, he was still that age in his heart. Ella dying, Nicolas dying, Camille going blind and Rikka being insane just weren't experiences he was ready for. He just wasn't ready for any of it...
He, too, fell to the floor in a heap. The shadows in the room triggered, knowing what they had to do. They wrapped themselves around Sabriel and the baby still in his arms and Sabriel disappeared, heading toward the hospital wing in the school. Usually, he couldn't go more than thirty feet, but this was an emergency.
Peter, however, hadn't been able to come the whole way. He wound up being dropped off in one of the safer areas of the forbidden forest.