Still no one answered. No life stirred, beyond the beasts in the deepest shadows.

  “Please,” Bryce begged, her voice breaking.

  Silently, she prayed for any one of those six other gems to light up, to show that just one person, in any district, would answer her plea.

  But there was only the crackling nothingness.

  She was alone. And Hunt was dying.

  Bryce waited five seconds. Ten seconds. No one answered. No one came.

  Swallowing another sob, she took a shuddering breath and let go of the disk.

  Hunt’s breaths had grown few and far between. She crawled back to him, hands shaking. But her voice was calm as she again slid his head into her lap. Stroked his blood-soaked face. “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “Help is coming, Hunt. The medwitches are on their way.” She shut her eyes against her tears. “We’re going to be all right,” she lied. “We’re going to go home, where Syrinx is waiting for us. We’re going to go home. You and me. Together. We’ll have that afterward, like you promised. But only if you hold on, Hunt.”

  His breathing rattled in his chest. A death rattle. She bent over him, inhaling his scent, the strength in him. And then she said it—the three words that meant more than anything. She whispered them into his ear, sending them with all she had left in her.

  The final truth, the one she needed him to hear.

  Hunt’s breathing spread and thinned. Not much longer.

  Bryce couldn’t stop her tears as they dropped onto Hunt’s cheeks, cleaning away the blood in clear tracks.

  Light it up, Danika whispered to her. Into her heart.

  “I tried,” she whispered back. “Danika, I tried.”

  Light it up.

  Bryce wept. “It didn’t work.”

  Light it up. Urgency sharpened the words. As if…As if…

  Bryce lifted her head. Looked toward the Gate. To the plaque and its gems.

  She waited. Counted her breaths. One. Two. Three.

  The gems remained dark. Four. Five. Six.

  Nothing at all. Bryce swallowed hard and turned back to Hunt. One last time. He’d go, and then she’d follow, once more brimstone fell or the demons worked up the courage to attack her.

  She took another breath. Seven.

  “Light it up.” The words filled the Old Square. Filled every square in the city.

  Bryce whipped her head around to look at the Gate as Danika’s voice sounded again. “Light it up, Bryce.”

  The onyx stone of the Bone Quarter glowed like a dark star.

  92

  Bryce’s face crumpled as she lurched to her feet, sprinting to the Gate.

  She didn’t care how it was possible as Danika said again, “Light it up.”

  Then Bryce was laughing and sobbing as she screamed, “LIGHT IT UP, DANIKA! LIGHT IT UP, LIGHT IT UP, LIGHT IT UP!”

  Bryce slammed her palm onto the bronze disk of the Gate.

  And soul to soul with the friend whom she had not forgotten, the friend who had not forgotten her, even in death, Bryce made the Drop.

  * * *

  Stunned silence filled the conference room as Bryce plunged into her power.

  Declan Emmett didn’t look up from the feeds he monitored, his heart thundering.

  “It’s not possible,” the Autumn King said. Declan was inclined to agree.

  Sabine Fendyr murmured, “Danika had a small kernel of energy left, the Under-King said. A bit of self that remained.”

  “Can a dead soul even serve as an Anchor?” Queen Hypaxia asked.

  “No,” Jesiba replied, with all the finality of the Under-King’s emissary. “No, it can’t.”

  Silence rippled through the room as they realized what they were witnessing. An untethered, solo Drop. Utter free fall. Bryce might as well have leapt from a cliff and hoped to land safely.

  Declan drew his eyes from the video feed and scanned the graph on one of his three computers—the one charting Bryce’s Drop, courtesy of the Eleusian system. “She’s approaching her power level.” Barely a blip past zero on the scale.

  Hypaxia peered over his shoulder to study the graph. “She’s not slowing, though.”

  Declan squinted at the screen. “She’s gaining speed.” He shook his head. “But—but she’s classified as a low-level.” Near-negligible, if he felt like being a dick about it.

  Hypaxia said quietly, “But the Gate is not.”

  Sabine demanded, “What do you mean?”

  Hypaxia whispered, “I don’t think it’s a memorial plaque. On the Gate.” The witch pointed to the sign mounted on the glowing quartz, the bronze stark against the incandescent stone. “The power shall always belong to those who give their lives to the city.”

  Bryce dropped further into power. Past the normal, respectable levels.

  Queen Hypaxia said, “The plaque is a blessing.”

  Declan’s breathing was uneven as he murmured, “The power of the Gates—the power given over by every soul who has ever touched it…every soul who has handed over a drop of their magic.”

  He tried and failed to calculate just how many people, over how many centuries, had touched the Gates in the city. Had handed over a drop of their power, like a coin tossed in a fountain. Made a wish on that drop of yielded power.

  People of every House. Every race. Millions and millions of drops of power fueled this solo Drop.

  Bryce passed level after level after level. The Autumn King’s face went pale.

  Hypaxia said, “Look at the Gates.”

  The quartz Gates across the city began to glow. Red, then orange, then gold, then white.

  Firstlight erupted from them. Lines of it speared out in every direction.

  The lights flowed down the ley lines between the Gates, connecting them along the main avenues. It formed a perfect, six-pointed star.

  The lines of light began to spread. Curving around the city walls. Cutting off the demons now aiming for the lands beyond.

  Light met light met light met light.

  Until the city was ringed with it. Until every street was glowing.

  And Bryce was still making the Drop.

  * * *

  It was joy and life and death and pain and song and silence.

  Bryce tumbled into power, and power tumbled into her, and she didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care, because it was Danika falling with her, Danika laughing with her as their souls twined.

  She was here, she was here, she was here—

  Bryce plunged into the golden light and song at the heart of the universe.

  Danika let out a howl of joy, and Bryce echoed it.

  Danika was here. It was enough.

  * * *

  “She’s passing Ruhn’s level,” Declan breathed, not believing it. That his friend’s party-girl sister had surpassed the prince himself. Surpassed Ruhn fucking Danaan.

  Declan’s king was still as death as Bryce smashed past Ruhn’s ranking. This could change their very order. A powerful half-human princess with a star’s light in her veins…Fucking Hel.

  Bryce began slowing at last. Nearing the Autumn King’s level. Declan swallowed.

  The city was awash with her light. Demons fled from it, racing back through the voids, opting to brave the glowing Gates rather than be trapped in Midgard.

  Light shot up from the Gates, seven bolts becoming one in the heart of the city—above the Old Square Gate. A highway of power. Of Bryce’s will.

  The voids between Midgard and Hel began to shrink. As if the light itself was abhorrent. As if that pure, unrestrained firstlight could heal the world.

  And it did. Buildings shattered by brimstone slid back into place. Rubble gathered into walls and streets and fountains. Wounded people became whole again.

  Bryce slowed further.

  Declan ground his teeth. The voids within the Gates became smaller and smaller.

  Demons rushed back to Hel through the shrinking doorways. More and more of the city healed as the Horn closed the portals. As Bryce sealed the portals, the Horn’s power flowing through her, amplified by the firstlight she was generating.

  “Holy gods,” someone was whispering.

  The voids between worlds became slivers. Then nothing at all.

  The Gates stood empty. The portals gone.

  Bryce stopped at last. Declan studied the precise number of her power, just a decimal point above that of the Autumn King.

  Declan let out a soft laugh, wishing Ruhn were here to see the male’s shocked expression.

  The Autumn King’s face tightened and he growled at Declan, “I would not be so smug, boy.”

  Declan tensed. “Why?”

  The Autumn King hissed, “Because that girl may have used the Gates’ power to Drop to unforeseen levels, but she will not be able to make the Ascent.”

  Declan’s fingers stilled on the keys of his laptop.

  The Autumn King laughed mirthlessly. Not from malice, Declan realized—but something like pain. He’d never known the prick could feel such a thing.

  Bryce slumped to the stones beside the Gate. Declan didn’t need medical monitors to know her heart had flatlined.

  Her mortal body had died.

  A clock on the computer showing the Eleusian system began counting down from a six-minute marker. The indicator of how long she had to make the Search and the Ascent, to let her mortal, aging body die, to face what lay within her soul, and race back up to life, into her full power. And emerge an immortal.

  If she made the Ascent, the Eleusian system would register it, track it.

  The Autumn King said hoarsely, “She made the Drop alone. Danika Fendyr is dead—she is not a true Anchor. Bryce has no way back to life.”

  93

  This was the cradle of all life, this place.

  There was a physical ground beneath her, and she had the sense of an entire world above her, full of distant, twinkling lights. But this was the bottom of the sea. The dark trench that cut through the skin of the earth.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered at all. Not with Danika standing before her. Holding her.

  Bryce peeled away far enough to look at her beautiful, angular face. The corn-silk hair. It was the same, right down to the amethyst, sapphire, and rose streaks. She’d somehow forgotten the exact features of Danika’s face, but…there they were.

  Bryce said, “You came.”

  Danika’s smile was soft. “You asked for help.”

  “Are you…are you alive? Over there, I mean.”

  “No.” Danika shook her head. “No, Bryce. This, what you see…” She gestured to herself. The familiar jeans and old band T-shirt. “This is just the spark that’s left. What was resting over there.”

  “But it’s you. This is you.”

  “Yes.” Danika peered at the churning darkness above them, the entire ocean above. “And you don’t have much time to make the Ascent, Bryce.”

  Bryce snorted. “I’m not making the Ascent.”

  Danika blinked. “What do you mean?”

  Bryce stepped back. “I’m not making it.” Because this was where her homeless soul would stay, if she failed. Her body would die in the world above, and her soul that she’d traded away to the Under-King would be left to wander this place. With Danika.

  Danika crossed her arms. “Why?”

  Bryce blinked furiously. “Because it got too hard. Without you. It is too hard without you.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Danika snarled. “So you’ll just give up on everything? Bryce, I am dead. I am gone. And you’ll trade your entire life for this tiny piece of me that’s left?” Disappointment shuttered her caramel eyes. “The friend I knew wouldn’t have done that.”

  Bryce’s voice broke as she said, “We were supposed to do this together. We were supposed to live out our lives together.”

  Danika’s face softened. “I know, B.” She took her hand. “But that’s not how it turned out.”

  Bryce bowed her head, thinking she’d crack apart. “I miss you. Every moment of every day.”

  “I know,” Danika said again, and put a hand over her heart. “And I’ve felt it. I’ve seen it.”

  “Why did you lie—about the Horn?”

  “I didn’t lie,” Danika said simply. “I just didn’t tell you.”

  “You lied about the tattoo,” Bryce countered.

  “To keep you safe,” Danika said. “To keep the Horn safe, yeah, but mostly to keep you safe in case the worst happened to me.”

  “Well, the worst did happen to you,” Bryce said, instantly regretting it when Danika flinched.

  But then Danika said, “You traded your place in the Bone Quarter for me.”

  Bryce began crying. “It was the least I could do.”

  Tears formed in Danika’s eyes. “You didn’t think I’d make it?” She threw her a sharp, pained grin. “Asshole.”

  But Bryce shook with the force of her weeping. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t take that risk.”

  Danika brushed back a piece of Bryce’s hair.

  Bryce sniffled and said, “I killed Micah for what he did. To you. To Lehabah.” Her heart strained. “Is—is she over in the Bone Quarter?”

  “I don’t know. And yeah—I saw what happened in the gallery.” Danika didn’t explain more about the particulars. “We all saw.”

  That word snagged. We.

  Bryce’s lips trembled. “Is Connor with you?”

  “He is. And the rest of the pack. They bought me time with the Reapers. To get to the Gate. They’re holding them off, but not for long, Bryce. I can’t stay here with you.” She shook her head. “Connor would have wanted more for you than this.” She stroked the back of Bryce’s hand with her thumb. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to stop fighting.”

  Bryce wiped at her face again. “I didn’t. Not until now. But now I’m…It’s all just fucked. And I’m so tired of it feeling that way. I’m done.”

  Danika asked softly, “What about the angel?”

  Bryce’s head snapped up. “What about him?”

  Danika gave her a knowing smile. “If you want to ignore the fact that you’ve got your family who loves you no matter what, fine—but the angel remains.”

  Bryce withdrew her hand from Danika’s. “You’re really trying to convince me to make the Ascent for a guy?”

  “Is Hunt Athalar really just some guy to you?” Danika’s smile turned gentle. “And why is it somehow a mark against your strength to admit that there is someone, who happens to be male, worth returning to? Someone who I know made you feel like things are far from fucked.”

  Bryce crossed her arms. “So what.”

  “He’s healed, Bryce,” Danika said. “You healed him with the firstlight.”

  Bryce’s breath shuddered out of her. She’d done all of this for that wild hope.

  She swallowed, looking at the ground that was not earth, but the very base of Self, of the world. She whispered, “I’m scared.”

  Danika grabbed her hand again. “That’s the point of it, Bryce. Of life. To live, to love, knowing that it might all vanish tomorrow. It makes everything that much more precious.” She took Bryce’s face in her hands and pressed their brows together.

  Bryce closed her eyes and inhaled Danika’s scent, somehow still present even in this form. “I don’t think I can make it. Back up.”

  Danika pulled away, peering at the impossible distance overhead. Then at the road that stretched before them. The runway. Its end was a free fall into eternal darkness. Into nothingness. But she said, “Just try, Bryce. One try. I’ll be with you every step of the way. Even if you can’t see me. I will always be with you.”

  Bryce didn’t look at that too-short runway. The endless ocean above them, separating her from life. She just memorized the lines of Danika’s face, as she had not had the chance to do before. “I love you, Danika,” she whispered.

  Danika’s throat bobbed. She cocked her head, the movement purely lupine. As if listening to something. “Bryce, you have to hurry.” She grabbed her hand, squeezing. “You have to decide now.”

  * * *

  The timer on Bryce’s life showed two minutes left.

  Her dead body lay sprawled on the stones beside the faintly glowing Gate.

  Declan ran a hand over his chest. He didn’t dare contact Ruhn. Not yet. Couldn’t bear to.

  “There’s no way to help her?” Hypaxia whispered to the silent room. “No way at all?”

  No. Declan had used the past four minutes to run a search of every public and private database in Midgard for a miracle. He’d found nothing.

  “Beyond being without an Anchor,” the Autumn King said, “she used an artificial power source to bring her to that level. Her body is not biologically equipped to make the Ascent. Even with a true Anchor, she wouldn’t be able to gain enough momentum for that first jump upward.”

  Jesiba gravely nodded her confirmation, but the sorceress said nothing.

  Declan’s memories of his Drop and Ascent were murky, frightening. He’d gone farther than anticipated, but had at least stayed within his own range. Even with Flynn Anchoring him, he’d been petrified he wouldn’t make it back.

  Despite registering on the system as a blip of energy beside Bryce, Danika Fendyr was not a tether to life, not a true Anchor. She had no life of her own. Danika was merely the thing that had given Bryce enough courage to attempt the Drop alone.

  The Autumn King went on, “I’ve looked. I’ve spent centuries looking. Thousands of people throughout the ages have attempted to go past their own intended levels through artificial means. None of them ever made it back to life.”

  One minute remained, the seconds flying off the countdown clock.

  Bryce had still not Ascended. Was still making the Search, facing whatever lay within her. The timer would have halted if she had begun her attempt at the Ascent, marking her entrance into the Between—the liminal place between death and life. But the timer kept going. Winding down.

  It didn’t matter, though. Bryce would die whether she attempted it or not.

  Thirty seconds left. The remaining dignitaries in the room bowed their heads.