Theo’s face appeared behind her closed eyelids. Not as she’d last seen him, crystallising and screaming at her to run, but earlier. Days earlier, when they’d been training in one of the sanctum’s practice rooms. He’d been trying to help her control her magic, patient despite her frustration when the power wouldn’t behave the way she wanted it to.

  “You’re thinking too much,” he’d said, that familiar half-smile on his face. “Magic responds to intent, not conscious thought. Stop trying to force it and just let it flow.”

  She’d snapped at him. Something cutting about how easy it was for him to say when he’d been born with magic and understood it intuitively. He hadn’t taken offence. He’d just stepped closer, placed one hand on her shoulder, and told her she was stronger than she gave herself credit for.

  “You’ve survived things that would have broken most people,” he’d murmured. “You’ll figure this out too. You always do.”

  Blair opened her eyes. The fractured sky bled purple light above her. The world was ending. Praxis was scattered, reduced to twenty terrified people hiding in safehouses. Everything she’d built, everyone she’d tried to protect, all of it was collapsing.

  But she wasn’t done yet.

  Blair pushed herself up onto her hands, cobblestones rough and gritty beneath her palms. Her head pounded, a relentless spike of pain that radiated from where the stone had struck her. Blood ran down her face in warm, sticky trails that dripped from her jaw onto her jacket. Her arms trembled as she tried to hold her weight, but she managed to get one knee under her, then the other, swaying as the world tilted sideways. The nausea rose sharp and sudden in her throat, but she swallowed it down and forced herself to breathe through the dizziness until the street stopped spinning quite so violently. It took three attempts before she could push herself all the way to her feet, and when she finally stood upright, she had to grab the broken wall beside her to keep from going down again.

  She swayed, vision greying at the edges. Her hand shot out, catching the broken wall beside her. She stood there for long moments, head bowed, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

  London. She remembered London, before all of this. Walking the beat as a detective in South London, when magic had been something she’d heard about in fairy tales. A life she could no longer get back to, even if there was a way to bridge reality again.

  That world—a world of mundane human existence—felt impossibly distant now.

  Then she thought of her partner. The one who’d died in the Fold, pushing her toward safety while something with teeth and shadow dragged him backward. Fold Hunters. Nightmares that had hunted them though that awful limbo reality. She’d heard him screaming long after the darkness swallowed him.

  Blair touched the ring on her finger, her grandmother’s silver band with its small garnet stone. The metal burned against her skin, reacting to the overwhelming magic saturating the surrounding air. On her other wrist, her enchanted watch hung broken, its face cracked and dark. Both objects were useless now, but she kept them anyway. Had her grandmother known about this world? Or was it just a coincidence that she somehow ended up with a magical ring? The ring that had allowed her to mistakenly cross into the Fold that awful day.

  Blair knew that she would probably never find out the answer to that. There were so many things that would never be explained. Things in her life that would never have closure, and she had to be okay with it. Life was not fair. At all.

  Saint Aldwin’s rose in her memory. The cathedral where Praxis had tried to protect the Echo fragment hidden in the crypt below. She’d been there when Fermata and Fortis had descended on them. She’d watched as Praxis agents had been turned to ash in seconds. Praxis, the Concordat and the Covenant all gone in a matter of seconds. Powerful witches and mages, snuffed out just like that.

  There had been nothing she could do. She’d hidden in the shadows while people died around her.

  Then Theo and Faith. Tenebrae’s betrayal. The crystal that had consumed Theo and Faith. She’d watched them scream and crystallise and finally shatter into dust with so much left unsaid.

  There had been nothing left to bury. Nothing left to mourn. Nothing at all.

  All those deaths. All that loss. And Blair was still here, still breathing, still fighting a battle she couldn’t win.

  Her friends were still out there. Reed, Denny, Barnes, Ellis, Finley, Sienna. Rafe. All of them were counting on her to lead them through this nightmare.

  And Theo.

  The grief hit her. Blair’s knees went weak, and only her grip on the wall kept her upright.

  She’d never told him how she felt. Never found the courage to say the words that mattered. There had always been another crisis, another emergency, another reason to wait, but there was no later. Time had run out while she’d been afraid.

  He’d died believing she saw him as just a friend. Did he know? Did he feel the same way about her? The not knowing ate at her just as much as his loss did.

  Blair’s hands clenched into fists. Her nails dug into her palms. Blood from the cut on her forehead dripped onto the stones at her feet.

  Theo would have told her to get up. He’d be offering his hand, telling her to keep fighting until the last possible moment. There was no surrender, not while there were still people who needed saving.

  But Theo wasn’t here. He’d never be here again…and that was exactly why Blair had to keep moving.

  She pushed off from the wall. Her legs held her weight. She bent slowly, carefully, and retrieved her sword from where it had fallen.

  Blair straightened. The world tilted slightly, but she breathed through it. Then she started walking.

  Each step sent pain through her skull. Blood continued its steady trickle down her face. Her body could hurt later, after she’d done what needed doing.

  She broke into a run, slower than before but still moving. Her magic guided her through the chaos, showing her the paths that were still safe to cross.

  Buildings groaned around her as she ran. Stone grinding against stone, foundations crumbling, but she kept moving, making her way back toward the battle where the Echo would either stand defeated, or be waiting to hear her plea.

  She rounded a corner, boots slipping slightly on loose rubble, and stopped.

  “Rafe?”

  He stood in the middle of the street ahead.

  Blair faltered as she took a step toward him. He was covered in blood and dirt, his clothes torn in multiple places. Ash streaked his face and matted his hair. He swayed where he stood, one hand braced against a crumbling wall for support. His eyes were unfocused, staring at something she couldn’t see.

  Her artificial Resonance showed her the truth immediately. His magical core was depleted, burned down to almost nothing. She could see it in the way the ley lines bent around him, in how little energy remained in his body. He’d used everything he had, pushed way past him limits, and now he was running on nothing but fumes.

  One more spell would kill him. Maybe even one more step.

  Relief flooded through Blair despite everything. She’d found him. He was alive. She could get him to safety, get him back to Edmund and Aldrick.

  Blair took a step toward him, opening her mouth to call his name again.

  Then she turned her head and saw where they were. Where her own desperate journey had led her.

  The panic hit her so hard that for a moment, she forgot how to breathe. Her lungs seized as her heart stuttered in her chest.

  Every instinct she possessed screamed at her to run. To grab Rafe and run, to get as far away as possible.

  But her feet wouldn’t move. Her body had locked up.

  No! This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not after everything they’d already survived.

  Her Resonance screamed warnings, showing her power on a scale that made the battle in the Spirefields look small by comparison.

  And Blair understood, with horrible clarity, that they were all going to die…unless she did something incredibly stupid.

  So she chose to be stupid.

  Chapter 25

  Rafe’s lungs burned.

  The air in the Spirefields was so thick with ash and pulverised stone that each inhale scraped against his throat like broken glass. His legs trembled beneath him, muscles pushed beyond their limits days ago, now held together by nothing but stubborn refusal to stop. Blood had dried in a crust down the side of his face from the wound at his temple, and when he blinked, his vision swam with dark spots that took too long to clear.

  None of it mattered.

  He followed the resonance that had been his compass for days. That faint, persistent tug in his chest that said she’s here, keep going, don’t stop. It was stronger now than it had ever been, pulling him deeper into the heart of the ruins where magic had gone catastrophically wrong.

  Rafe’s injured ankle buckled and he caught himself against what remained of a shop wall. The stone crumbled under his weight and mortar turned to dust. He waited for the spike of pain to fade, then pushed away and kept walking.

  Every part of his body screamed at him to stop. He was broken in ways that couldn’t be ignored. His left shoulder hung wrong, the joint damaged beyond what he could heal on his own. His ribs ached, at least two of them were cracked from impacts he barely remembered. His magic was gone, burned away to nothing but the faintest flicker deep in his core.

  But Vesper was ahead. Somewhere in this nightmare of warped reality and collapsing buildings, she existed. He could feel her calling to him through the chaos.

  So he walked.

  The ground trembled beneath his feet. A low, rolling sensation that built in intensity until the cobblestones began to rattle and jump. He pressed his back against the nearest wall, breathing hard, and waited for it to pass. The tremor grew stronger instead, spreading outward in waves that made the buildings around him groan and crack.

  Something big was happening. Something that made the previous days of magical devastation look like a minor disturbance.

  The sky above fractured.

  Rafe looked up and saw colours that shouldn’t exist bleeding across the storm clouds. Purple giving way to silver, then to something that hurt to look at. The air seemed to tear, revealing glimpses of spaces beyond spaces, realities folded on top of each other in ways that made his mind recoil.

  Then the world exploded.

  A surge of power tore through the Spirefields with enough force to flatten everything in its path. Rafe had no time to brace, no time to throw up any kind of defence. The shockwave hit him like a battering ram, lifting him off his feet and sending him crashing backwards into the rubble.

  He hit hard, his damaged shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. Pain tore through his arm, so intense it whited out his vision for several heartbeats. When it cleared, he was lying on his back amongst broken stone, his ears ringing, dust settling over him in a choking cloud.

  He tried to breathe and couldn’t. His lungs wouldn’t expand properly, his ribs burning. He forced air in through his nose, shallow gasps that tasted like blood and ash, and focused on not passing out.

  The ringing in his ears faded slowly, replaced by sounds that didn’t belong in the natural world. Deep, resonant crashes like thunder that were too close. The groan of buildings collapsing, stone grinding against stone as structures that had stood for centuries gave up and fell.

  And underneath it all, a vibration that he felt in his bones. The hum of magic unleashed without restraint, power so vast it made the air tremble.

  Rafe rolled onto his side, biting back a cry as his shoulder flared with fresh agony. He got his good hand under him and pushed, dragging himself upright through sheer force of will. His vision greyed at the edges, threatening to pull him under, but he fought it back and made himself look toward the source of the devastation.

  Four figures stood in the distance, outlined against an impossible sky.

  They weren’t human anymore. They couldn’t be, not with that kind of power radiating from them. Light and shadow collided around them, each impact sending shockwaves that rolled outward to level buildings and tear open the earth.

  Reality bent around them. Rafe watched as a tower collapsed inward on itself, its stones compressing until they simply ceased to exist. A street twisted into a spiral, cobblestones lifting and spinning in a pattern that made him nauseous. The fabric of the world was coming apart under the assault of their magic.

  The Arcana.

  He could see them clearly now despite the distance. The monsters that’d stolen his friend’s bodies, Fermata and Fortis.

  And standing against them, two other figures. One blazed with opalescent power that made the air shimmer and fracture. The other moved like shadow given form, their presence somehow both ancient and familiar.

  The one who’d taken Ash, Threnos… and then, through the chaos and destruction, he saw her.

  The Echo.

  Vesper stood at the heart of the battle, her body outlined in silver light that flickered and strained against the onslaught. Her power barely held against the storm raging around her, defensive shields fracturing and reforming with each impact. She was fighting for her life, caught between Arcana who wanted to destroy each other and didn’t care what was consumed in the process.

  And she was alive.

  The realisation hit Rafe with enough force to make his knees buckle. For days he’d been following a pull that might have led to nothing. Chasing ghosts and echoes through a dying city, driven by desperate hope and nothing more. But she was real. She was here. Standing impossibly far away, but undeniably alive.

  The pull in his chest that had been guiding him for so long broke into something painfully real. No longer a distant tug but a connection that felt like it was tearing him apart from the inside. He could feel her resonance, strong and unmistakable even through the chaos of divine magic. Could sense the strain in her power, the way she was burning herself out trying to hold against forces that no human should have to face.

  She needed him.

  Rafe forgot about the pain. Forgot about his broken body and exhausted magic. Forgot about everything except the overwhelming need to reach her. To get to Vesper before the battle consumed her entirely.

  He took a step forward and his ankle gave out completely.

  The joint collapsed beneath him, sending him crashing back down to his knees. Pain shot up his leg, but he gritted his teeth and tried to stand again. His body refused to cooperate, muscles simply giving up after days of abuse.

  Rafe braced his hands against the broken ground and pushed. His arms shook with the effort, his damaged shoulder screaming in protest, but he got one foot under him. Then the other.

  He needed to move. To find a way through the destruction between him and Vesper. The buildings had been reduced to rubble, the ground torn open in massive fissures that glowed with unstable magic.

  He couldn’t see a clear path. There was no way to cross that distance without being caught in the crossfire, but he would try anyway. He had to.

  Rafe took a step toward the battle. Then another. The air grew thicker as he pushed forward, magic so dense it felt like wading through water. His damaged core couldn’t process it, couldn’t filter out the chaotic energy that pressed against his skin and made every nerve scream.

  He didn’t care.

  Vesper was ahead. That was the only thing that mattered. The only thought his exhausted mind could hold on to. Everything else fell away until all that remained was the desperate need to reach her.

  “Rafe!”

  A familiar voice cut through the chaos. Rafe turned and saw Aldrick emerging through the smoke.

  “Aldrick?” he rasped.

  Dust covered his clothes, turning his dark coat grey. Blood streaked across his cheek from a wound that was still bleeding, and his hands glowed faintly with the residue of defensive wards, but it was his face that made Rafe hesitate. The expression there was one he’d never seen before in all the years they’d known each other. Fear.

  Aldrick closed the distance between them in several long strides and gripped his good shoulder.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Looking for you.” Aldrick’s gaze swept over him, taking in the damage. The blood, the way Rafe was favouring his left side, the trembling in his legs that said he was seconds from collapse. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m fine,” Rafe lied.

  “You’re not fine.” Aldrick’s grip tightened. “You’re bleeding. Half-dead. Your magic’s gone and you can barely stand.”

  Another explosion tore through the city, closer now. The shockwave rolled over them in a wave of heat and pressure, forcing both men to brace against the wall beside them.

  When it passed, Aldrick’s attention snapped to the battle ahead. His expression darkened as he saw the four figures clashing with world-ending force, reality fracturing around them with each impact.

  “The Arcana,” Rafe said. His gaze found Vesper again, tracking the flicker of her power as she fought to hold her ground. “Vesper’s there. I have to get to her.”

  “I know you think you can do something, Rafe, but you can’t.” Aldrick’s voice was tight. “We need to leave. Now.”

  “No.”

  “Rafe—”

  “No!” Rafe pulled free from Aldrick’s grip, stumbling but staying upright through sheer stubbornness. “I’m not leaving her.”

  Aldrick moved to block his path, both hands raised. “Look at yourself. Really look. You don’t have any magic left. You can barely walk. Your body is falling apart. If you go in there, you will die.”

  “Then I’ll die!” he cried. “But I’m not leaving without her.”

  “There’s nothing you can do!” Aldrick’s composure fractured, his voice rising. “The Echo is on control of Vesper’s body now. We don’t even know if she is still in there. If you keep going, you will die. At full strength, you would still die. You can’t help her now.”