All eyes turned to her as she entered.

  This was it. Time to see who would follow her into certain death for the slim chance of saving their world. By this time it ought to be easy, she’d asked them so many times, but this would be the last. Finally, the last…

  Blair took a breath and stepped forward.

  Chapter 15

  Pain dragged Rafe back to consciousness.

  Stone pressed down on his chest and legs, and each breath came shallow and sharp. He tested his limbs carefully, trying to assess what was broken and what would still work. His left shoulder refused to move properly, and when he tried to shift his ankle, pain shot up his leg. Blood ran warm down his temple from a cut somewhere above his hairline.

  The shield had held. That was the first coherent thought that surfaced through the pain. The desperate barrier he’d thrown up around him as the anchor fractured, had actually held. He was alive. Buried under rubble and broken in half a dozen places, but alive.

  His next thought was Vesper. He had to find Vesper.

  Rafe shoved at the debris covering him, ignoring a fresh wave of agony. Stone scraped against stone as he worked, the sound harsh in the unnatural silence. His injured shoulder screamed when he had to use both arms to shift a section of timber, but he gritted his teeth and kept moving. He couldn’t afford to stop…not until he found her.

  By the time he pulled his legs out from under the final piece of rubble, his vision had started to swim and the blood from his head wound had soaked the collar of his shirt. His magic was gone, burned away first by the shadow mages and then by whatever hell had torn through the liminal space. Only the faintest flicker remained in his core.

  Rafe hauled himself upright, using what remained of a wall for support, and looked at the devastation.

  The Rowe Estate stood before him in ruins, but it stood. The east wing had collapsed entirely, its stones scattered across the formal gardens in a chaotic sprawl that buried hedges and crushed pathways beneath tonnes of rubble. The roof had caved in along the southern section, leaving massive holes that exposed rooms Rafe had never known existed. Furniture lay visible through the gaps, expensive pieces now covered in dust and broken timber, but the main structure remained intact. The west wing still stood, as did the central hall with its ancient foundations. The stone walls that had been here for centuries showed cracks and damage, but they hadn’t fallen.

  Rafe stared at the wreckage of his ancestral home and felt nothing. No grief for the lost heritage, no anger at the violation. Only a cold, focused determination.

  He had to find Vesper.

  The estate grounds stretched before him. Trees lay torn from the earth, their massive root systems exposed to the grey sky. Stone walls lay scattered in pieces, some thrown hundreds of feet from their original positions. Pathways led nowhere, ending abruptly in piles of rubble or gaping cracks in the ground that showed darkness beneath.

  Rafe limped forwards, testing his weight on his damaged ankle. It held, barely. Pain shot up his leg, sharp enough to make his vision blur. He forced himself to breathe through it, to push past the agony and keep moving.

  Magic bled from everything around him. It pooled in the cracks in the ground like water, leaked from broken stones, and hung in the air as visible distortions that made the space shimmer and warp. The liminal space’s destruction had fractured reality here, left it thin and unstable. He could feel the wrongness against his skin, the sensation making his stomach turn.

  Then he felt something else.

  A pull, faint but unmistakable, threaded through the broken magic. It tugged at something deep in his chest, below where his damaged core flickered weakly.

  Vesper.

  Rafe stopped and looked around, his heart pounding. The sensation scattered across the wreckage, confused and difficult to follow, but it was there. She was somewhere in this destruction.

  “Vesper…” he rasped.

  He forced his damaged body forwards. The pull grew stronger as he crossed what remained of the east wing’s courtyard. Rubble crunched beneath his boots. Dust hung so thick in the air that each breath tasted of ash and pulverised stone.

  Movement flickered at the edge of his vision.

  Rafe turned and saw her standing between two broken columns. Vesper’s form wavered like heat shimmer, translucent and not quite real. A ghost, an echo, something bleeding through the distorted magic. She moved as though searching for something, her head turning slowly from side to side. Then she vanished, dissolving into the air as though she’d never been there.

  “Vesper!”

  Rafe stumbled towards where she’d stood, his breath coming harder now. The space was empty when he reached it—there was nothing but broken stone and the faint residue of magic—but the sensation was stronger here. She was calling to him through the fractured reality, leaving traces of herself for him to follow.

  He kept moving, following the pull deeper into the estate grounds. His ankle threatened to give out, but he shifted his weight, using the scattered rubble for support when he could. Blood loss was making him lightheaded. He could feel it in the way his thoughts kept slipping, in how the world seemed to tilt at odd angles.

  None of it mattered.

  The western gardens opened before him, or what was left of them. Flowerbeds had been destroyed, plants torn up and scattered. Stone benches lay in pieces. A fountain was cracked clean through, its basin empty and dry.

  Vesper appeared in the middle of the destruction.

  This time, she was more solid. Rafe could make out individual details that had been blurred before. The exact shade of her hair, the way her clothes hung on her body, the expression on her face as she turned in a slow circle. She looked lost, confused, as though she couldn’t quite understand where she was or how she’d got there.

  Rafe took a step towards her. The ghost flickered, wavered, then vanished.

  The pull exploded outwards, so strong it nearly drove him to his knees. His damaged ankle buckled and he caught himself on a section of broken wall, breathing hard. She was close. Somewhere in this wreckage, she was getting closer.

  Rafe pushed away from the wall and kept moving. The pull led him past the collapsed east wing, through sections of the estate where reality felt particularly thin. The air shimmered with colours that didn’t belong in the natural world. The ground seemed to shift beneath his feet, solid one moment and strangely insubstantial the next. Magic pooled in every crack and crevice, leaking upwards in streams that twisted through the air.

  He reached the old stone wall that marked the estate’s boundary and found it breached. A section had collapsed entirely, leaving a gap large enough to walk through. Beyond it, the Spirefields stretched in a chaotic jumble of mismatched architecture and temporal confusion.

  Vesper led him through the gap.

  The destruction beyond the estate was worse. Buildings had collapsed entirely, leaving only foundations and scattered debris. Others stood at impossible angles, their walls warped by centuries of magical decay now compounded by whatever hell the liminal space’s destruction had unleashed. The cobblestones beneath Rafe’s feet were cracked and broken, some sections lifted entirely from the ground to hover at chest height.

  Magic was everywhere here, thick enough to see. It hung in the air like fog, pooled in the streets, bled from every surface. Rafe’s damaged core couldn’t process it, couldn’t filter it properly. The sensation made his skin crawl with the wrongness of it.

  But the pull towards Vesper was stronger.

  He followed it down a narrow lane between two buildings that leaned against each other. His breathing had gone ragged, each inhale a struggle. The cut on his head was still bleeding, running down the side of his face and dripping from his jaw. His shirt was soaked with blood from wounds he couldn’t remember getting.

  Rafe ignored all of it and kept moving.

  Vesper’s ghost appeared at the end of the lane, standing in what might have been a small square. She was almost solid now, real enough that Rafe thought he might be able to touch her if he could just reach her. Her eyes swept across the ruins, and for a fraction of a heartbeat, they landed on him.

  Recognition flashed across her face.

  Then she was gone.

  He pushed on through the square and down another street. This one was wider, lined with the remains of shops and businesses. Their windows had blown out, leaving jagged teeth of glass clinging to the frames. Goods lay scattered across the cobblestones, trampled and ruined.

  A sound made him stop.

  Footsteps, running hard and fast, coming from somewhere ahead. Multiple sets, moving quickly through the wreckage. Rafe pressed himself against the nearest wall, his hand going automatically to where his dagger should have been. It wasn’t there. He must have lost it somewhere in the rubble of the estate.

  Three figures burst around the corner, running flat out.

  Shadow mages. Darkness bled from their skin and trailed behind them, their power torn away by the unstable magic. They were running from something with the kind of terror that overrode all rational thought.

  The lead mage saw Rafe at the last second. Too late to stop, too late to change direction. They collided hard, both of them going down in a tangle of limbs. Rafe’s damaged ankle burned as they hit the cobblestones. The shadow mage scrambled back, eyes wide, one hand already moving in the gesture for a spell.

  Rafe stared at him.

  The shadow mage stared back.

  For a long moment, neither of them moved. The mage’s hand stayed raised, magic flickering weakly around his fingers. Rafe didn’t reach for a weapon he didn’t have. He didn’t reach for his magic. He didn’t do anything. They simply looked at each other, two people caught in the aftermath of something neither of them fully understood.

  The other two shadow mages had stopped and turned back. One of them shouted something Rafe couldn’t make out. The mage on the ground flinched, then scrambled to his feet. He took one more look at Rafe, something like recognition passing across his features, then turned and ran.

  All three of them disappeared around the corner, their footsteps fading into the distance.

  Rafe pulled himself upright, using the wall for support. His hands were shaking. He forced himself to breathe, to focus, to push past the exhaustion trying to drag him down.

  Vesper was still calling to him. Stronger now. Much stronger.

  Rafe limped forwards, following her call. She led him through streets that made no architectural sense, where Georgian townhouses bled into Roman foundations and Tudor beams jutted from Victorian brickwork. Where Nightreach’s past bled into its present…and perhaps its future.

  Vesper’s ghost appeared ahead, standing in the centre of a narrow alley between two collapsed buildings.

  She was completely solid now. Real enough that Rafe could see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, the exact colour of her eyes, every detail of her face. She looked directly at him, and this time there was no question. She could see him.

  Her lips moved, forming words he couldn’t hear.

  Rafe took a step towards her, then another. The pull was overwhelming now, consuming everything else. She was here. Right here. All he had to do was reach her.

  The ghost raised one hand towards him.

  Then she vanished.

  “Vesper!” He stumbled and caught himself against the alley wall, forcing himself to keep moving.

  The alley opened into a small courtyard.

  Buildings surrounded it on all sides, their walls warped and twisted by the magical devastation. In the centre, where the cobblestones should have been, reality had torn open. A rift hung in the air, its edges shimmering with opalescent light that hurt to look at directly. Magic bled from it in waves, warping the surrounding space.

  And beyond the rift, barely visible through the distortion, Rafe saw her.

  Not a ghost. Not an apparition.

  Vesper.

  She stood with her back to him, but even through the warped air, Rafe could tell something was wrong. The way she held herself, the unnatural stillness of her posture. She wasn’t alone. Something else was there with her, something that made the magic around the rift twist and recoil.

  Rafe moved towards the tear in reality, forcing his damaged body forwards. His ankle buckled and he went down on one knee, catching himself before he fell completely. Pain tore through his leg, white-hot and consuming. He ignored it and kept moving, dragging himself closer to the rift.

  The pull strengthened and became almost painful. Every nerve in his body screamed that she was right there, just beyond that shimmering barrier. All he had to do was reach her.

  Rafe pulled himself to his feet and took another step.

  The rift pulsed, and Vesper turned.

  For a heartbeat, Rafe saw her face clearly. He saw her eyes…her silver eyes. The Echo.

  Then the rift collapsed inward, folding reality back on itself with a sound like tearing fabric.

  Vesper vanished.

  The courtyard stood empty, the rift gone as though it had never existed. Only the warped cobblestones and twisted walls remained, showing where the rift had been.

  Rafe stared at the empty space, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He could feel her resonance. Her power, the opalescence he’d come to know as intimately as his own magic. The sensation shifted direction, pointing away from the courtyard, deeper into the Spirefields.

  He started walking.

  His body protested every step. Blood loss and exhaustion were taking their toll, making his movements clumsy and uncoordinated. His ankle threatened to give out completely. His vision kept greying at the edges, and he had to stop periodically to keep from falling.

  None of it mattered. It didn’t matter if he dropped dead right here. He wouldn’t stop until he found her.

  In life or death, he would find her.

  Chapter 16

  Threnos had been moving toward the Spirefields for the past hour, drawn by the bond that connected him to Threnody. As he drew closer to the eastern quarter, he finally sensed it. An anchor point pulsed over the Spirefields, thick with shadow magic where Tenebrae held her in his liminal prison.

  Power flooded through the bond, so much it burned.

  Then the anchor exploded.

  Threnos staggered as the ground bucked beneath his feet. He caught himself against a wall that groaned under the sudden onslaught, and somewhere above, glass shattered and rained down into the street.

  Above him, the sky tore open.

  Threnos looked east and watched reality fracture above the Spirefields. The heavens split apart and light poured through the wound. Divine power unleashed without restraint or control, the kind of raw magical force that hadn’t touched this world in millennia.

  He knew that signature the way he knew his own name, the way he knew the weight of grief that had carved itself into his bones over thousands of years of existence.

  Threnody.

  The grimoire burned against his side, hot enough that he pulled it out of his bag with shaking hands. The leather cover scorched even through mortal flesh, and the pages turned without wind or touch, ink blazing across them. The connection between them flooded open, no longer suppressed or filtered or choked by whatever Tenebrae had been doing to keep them separated.

  She was free.

  The messages came in fragments, chaotic in their intensity. Her consciousness was no longer trapped or tortured. She had broken Tenebrae’s liminal prison and destroyed it utterly, torn it apart with the same devastating force she’d once used to end their entire world.

  She had destroyed him.

  Threnos felt the absence where Tenebrae’s existence had been, the void where another Arcana had stood only moments before. Threnody had unmade him, erased him from existence as if he’d never been at all. The corruption that had driven Tenebrae to madness, the shadow magic that had sustained him…all of it simply gone.

  His hands tightened on the grimoire as the pages kept turning, burning with her presence. She was awake and alive in a way she hadn’t been since before she’d chosen to end their people.

  Fear and hope warred in his chest, both emotions so fierce they stole breath from his mortal lungs. He had spent millennia believing her lost to the Echo, her consciousness fractured and imprisoned in stone beneath this cursed city. He had walked through the long centuries carrying the weight of what she’d done, what they’d all done to each other, knowing she bore that burden alone in her cage built from sigils and memory.

  But freedom for Threnody meant rage. It meant power unbound. It meant the possibility of another cataclysm if she couldn’t control what she’d become.

  The grimoire flared again in his hands, and he caught impressions through the link. Rage that burned like the heart of a star. Grief so old it had worn grooves into reality itself. And underneath it all, Vesper’s consciousness fading, her mortal soul being consumed by the divine presence that now controlled her body.

  He’d protected Ash, but would she protect Vesper? He’d watched the Resonant grow and flourish through his vessel’s eyes. Helped her pass the Concordat’s trials, helped her understand her magic… Threnody wouldn’t see her the same way.

  Threnos moved without thinking about it, shoving the grimoire back inside his bag as he started to run. All the careful planning fell away in an instant. The deception with Blair, the tracking through damaged ley lines, the patient gathering of information while pretending to be nothing more than a helpful academic. All of it collapsed into desperation. He had to reach her before everything went wrong.

  Fermata and Fortis would have felt the explosion. They would converge on the Spirefields, both of them hungry for revenge against the Arcana who had destroyed their world. Threnody, newly freed and possibly enraged beyond reason, might tear reality apart in her fury. Or she might hunt them down, unmaking them as she had unmade Tenebrae. Then the souls belonging to their vessels would be lost forever, if they weren’t already gone.