Maybe he really has changed. Or maybe he’s just waiting for the right moment to cause some beautiful disaster.
“The circle’s almost complete.” Phoenix’s explanation comes in breathless rushes as her eyes track between Layden and the other woman—the one with lighter hair who’s still frantically chalking lines. “And we just saw the AI start the sequence to launch nuclear codes in Russia and China.”
My stomach drops through the ground.
Nuclear codes. Nuclear. Fucking. Codes.
“It doesn’t want to control the world,” Phoenix continues, and her voice cracks on the words. “It wants to destroy it.”
The ground tilts under my feet. Remus’s hand shoots out, steadying me before I realize I’m stumbling. His palm is warm and solid against my lower back, and I lean into it shamelessly because holy shit,nuclear war. The AI—the thing they’ve been fighting, the reason we fled across the ocean—it’s not trying to take over.
It’s trying to end everything.
“That will never happen.” Abaddon’s growl vibrates through the courtyard, more feeling than sound. It’s the voice of someone who’s fought Death itself and won. Or... wait. Isn’theDeath? No, no, that’s Ksenia’s husband, Kharon. Abaddon’s just another of the Horsemen?
My brain is spinning too fast to keep up with the mythology.
“We have an idea to stop it.” Layden’s shout pulls my attention back. “But you have to trust us. Together.”
I watch the silent exchange between the brothers. Abaddon looks to Kharon—the big silent one who apparently carries soulsto the deathly plane or something equally nightmare-inducing—and then to Remus. Neither of them look thrilled about trusting their younger brother. There’s history there, layered and complicated in a way I don’t have time to unpack.
But what choice do they have? They can’t punch an AI to death. Can’t bomb a digital enemy that lives everywhere and nowhere at once.
Phoenix moves to the center of the circle, and something about her posture changes. She’s not just a young woman anymore. She lifts her arms toward the sky, and power radiates off her in waves I canfeelagainst my skin.
The other woman—the one I don’t recognize—runs forward with a knife.
“Wait, what—” I start, but Hannah grabs my arm.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, though she doesn’t sound entirely convinced. “Phoenix knows what she’s doing. Probably.”
Probably?
The woman slices along Phoenix’s palm, quick and efficient. Blood wells up, dark against pale skin. Together, they drip it in a careful line at Phoenix’s feet. The blood hits the chalk andsizzles, steam rising where it lands.
“Well who’sthat?And oh god,” I breathe. “Is this—are they doing actual magic? Like, blood sacrifice magic?”
[“Looks like it.” Remus’s voice is tight beside me. “And that’s Sabra. Phoenix’s best friend. A human witch.”]
Layden offers his hand next, and Sabra repeats the process. More blood. More sizzling. The metallic scent hits my nose, mixing with something else—ozone, maybe? That electric smell before a lightning strike.
Sabra and Layden take positions in front of and behind Phoenix, forming a triangle. Sabra starts chanting in a language I don’t recognize. It’s guttural and ancient, words that feel heavy with meaning even though I can’t understand them.
Phoenix lifts her arms even higher, and I swear her fingers are trembling.
“What is this?” The question escapes me in a bewildered whisper.
Yeah, everything with the boys up until this point has been wild—helicopters and missiles and finding out angels are real—but at least those were things I could wrap my head around. Weapons and vehicles and immortal beings were weird, sure, but they still operated on some kind of logic.
This? This is straight-upmagic.
The kind of magic I stopped believing in when I was eight and my mom told me fairy tales were for lazy girls who didn’t want to work hard in the real world. The kind that makes my skin prickle and my chest tighten because some deep, primal part of me recognizes that something fundamental is shifting in the air around us.
Thunder cracks overhead—sudden, violent, splitting the gray sky. I yelp and duck instinctively.
The chalk-marked runes around the circle blaze to life with blue light, the same electric shade that poured from Layden’s hands. But now they’re glowing on their own, pulsing like a heartbeat. And then—impossibly—they begin tospin.
Some of the interlocked circles rotate clockwise. Others counterclockwise. They move independently but in perfect glowing synchronization, like gears in some cosmic machine.
