“In the circle that is life and death, our world and the next, I invoke my power.” Snow opened the box with his left hand. “The circle has been cast, invocation made, and the wish shall begranted.”
He swept away his left hand like a maestro summoning to life an invisible orchestra. His right hand remained outstretched in front of him, perpendicular to his chest and parallel to the floor. Snow’s movements were measured and practiced, but rigid, as though he were a puppet moving along on invisiblestrings.
A gasp rose in Jo’s throat as the circle in the floor began to spark to life. Magic shimmered in the obsidian, a mess of color before a green, fire-like light blazed around Snow. Its tendrils reached for the ceiling. While there was no heat, Jo pressed closer to the wall behind her, as if pushed back by the force of the magic itself. Or, by the force of the sudden and extreme unease that came with an odd sense of impossible familiarity to what she wasseeing.
Snow’s left hand twisted, palm up. Rising from the fire was a second circle, one of leaves and twigs. It hovered atop the first, snowing magic down onto the fire and cooling it to a dull ember. From this second, glimmering circle, images solidified in the same leafyhue.
Jo saw the hospital, the nurse, Mr. Keller, all rising before exploding like fireworks and freezing mid-air around Snow. She saw different pictures of the nurse pouring over a textbook, a graduation, a new doctor. These fell into the remnants of the fire below, sparking to life as they were consumed into nothingness. Little embers danced off the magic flames, floating toward her like the last farewells of a world that could neverbe.
World destroyer, Pan had said. It looked more like world burner, from where Jostood.
She watched as the cost of the wish was consumed, a few images, a core possibility—gone forever. Everything stood in balance: the sacrificed world, the circle that Jo had no doubt mirrored what the nurse had used to make her wish, and the sparks of new possibility. It all hung together perfectly. Jo may not understand everything, but she knew that hers and Eslar’s efforts had been enough. The Severity of Exchange was perfectlymeasured.
In one sudden movement, Snow brought his left hand to his right in a wide arc. The magic followed in front of his fingers, quickly ushering itself into the box his right hand still held. The room flashed brightly, everything rising to a pitch, and then the box closed with a sound that resembled athunderclap.
It all echoed in her—a deep resonance in a void that Jo had never known she possessed until there was something attempting to fill it. Jo’s ears rang and her heart raced. Her eyes struggled to catch up with the sudden darkness that followed the brilliance of the magic. They settled on the silhouette of a man, hunched and heaving, wrapped in on himself, curled on the floor. Magic steamed off Snow’s shoulders with a faint glow that looked almost like the smoldering remnants of some fallenangel.
“. . . Snow?” Jo squeaked, finally. If her legs had gone soft before, the display had pulverized them. She wobbled against the wall, feeling tired, drained, as though she had somehow taken actual part in the ritual she’d justwitnessed.
He did notmove.
“Snow?” Jo tried again, making her way to him. “Snow, areyou—”
“Don’t,” he rasped, stopping her in her tracks. Jo noticed that he only seemed to gain the strength to speak, or move, the second she was about to cross the threshold of the circle. “Don’t come nearme.”
“What? Don’t be silly, are you allright?”
“Go!” He shouted, without looking at her. His left hand thrust out from where it had been curled against his chest. Jo followed the point of his finger to where the Door back to the Society had magically reappeared. “I shouldn’t have. I let you get too close. I don’t know why Ithought—”
“You invited me!” She was not about to let him push her away. “Let me help youback.”
“Jo, I—” Snow’s face shot up. His hair hung limply, slicked with sweat to his face, clinging in tendrils. His lips, usually red, were void of color, ghostly. His eyes. . . his eyes were the most alarming part of him. Their steely color had all but vanished, blanching into the white that was being infringed upon by gnarly, bloodshotveins.
He had said he died there, and now, as she looked at the corpse of a man, Jo believedit.
“You fear me,” hewhispered.
“I am the Shewolf, and I fear no man,” Jo replied with more confidence than shefelt.
Jo crossed over to him. Snow leaned away, swaying slightly, like a panicked animal. There was hurt and fear and all the weariness of seeing and consuming countlessworlds.
“Let me help you back,” she repeated, kneeling next tohim.
“Why do you not run?” He stared through her with those monstrouseyes.
“Are you myenemy?”
“Not in any lifetime.” It sounded like avow.
“Then I have nothing to run from.” Jo took his hand, sliding it toward her. The moment his palm left the ground, Snow tilted; Jo had to press her side into his, quickly slinging the appendage over her shoulders forstability.
Her thighs screamed in protest as she hoisted them upright. Snow’s head hung heavily, barely coming up long enough to pin the code back into the Door. They were ushered back through, him nearly stumbling again as the sound of pressurization echoed through the briefingroom.
“We’re almost there,” sheencouraged.
“We are not,” hewheezed.
“Do you even know how to not be a pain?” Jo laughed at her own forced levity. From the corners of her eyes, she could’ve sworn she saw a smile playing on hislips.
