During the Dakhor attack on Elantris at the climax of the novel, a young Elantrian girl named Matisse - caretaker of the children in New Elantris - leads fifty frightened children out of the burning city and into the old, ruined sections of Elantris to hide them from the soldiers. Her adopted father Dashe fights a rearguard action and is impaled, becoming Hoed, while Matisse uses a newly-working Aon to blind her pursuers long enough to draw the soldiers away from the children herself. In the final moment before a soldier can harm her, the restoration of Elantris heals every Elantrian simultaneously - Dashe rises from the ground whole, sword in hand, and defeats the last soldier - and Matisse is reunited with her father as the city's silver light floods back.