He screamed as he fell.
The cry rang through the courtyard, off the castle walls and back into the rain. Then all fell silent.
King Boo hung in the air, frozen halfway to the well. Purple jolts tainted his aura and his crown glowed dully—its last dribbles of power bleeding out through the cracks in the gem, turning the rain to a halo of steam over his head. Soft tremors juttered through him as he stared, half blind, through the glow hanging before his vision. The notion that Mario would come bounding out again fluttered in his dazed mind. But no such thing happened.
The reds and purples of spilled magic reflected off puddles and lit the faces of the statues. Boos floated aimlessly in the air or lay panting against the ground, burned out by the overflow of magic they had saved him from. The King felt empty, cold, and tired.
He couldn’t remember the last time he felt tired.
