Wade noticed that the bones... were all unusually slender. Those stark white skeletons did not look very large, either.
Drayne turned his head, his voice still clear and cold through the torrential rain:
"We tracked them here. This Church was once one of Prometheus's strongholds."
"In the past, the Church used the pretext of adopting war orphans to gather children with Magic Power from everywhere... In the end, they all came here."
Through the curtain of rain, within the deep pit, those bones seemed to be silently accusing the world of their tragic fate.
"Where are the people from the Church?" Wade asked.
"There." Antoine raised a hand and pointed. "They're all over there."
Not far from the pit lay a patch of freshly turned earth, forming a low mound. The downpour washed over it as murky yellow mud flowed freely, pooling into a muddy puddle on the ground.
Wade withdrew his gaze and stared at the small, tangled bones in the pit.
After a moment, he spoke softly, his voice extraordinarily calm. "Bury them."
Antoine let out a heavy breath and raised his Wand. The surrounding earth rolled over, covering the bones once more and concealing that horrifying sight.
"Damn it!" Antoine wiped his face and said through gritted teeth, "If only we could go back in time! I'd kill those bastards! Every last one of them!"
"Didn't you get the names of anyone else involved from the Church priest?" Wade asked.
Drayne shook his head. "The most recent skeleton was buried at least ten years ago. All the nearby residents moved here within the last decade, and no one knows what happened before that... The Muggles destroyed all the records, too."
"What about the guy in there?" Wade gestured toward the crude "grave" nearby, drenched by the rain.