Felix was sobbing, cradling Gerald’s limp body, begging him to wake up as he crawled on the ground toward Kashvi, unable to get to her through the throng of spirits encircling her.
The bark was burning hotter. The cold fire spreading. The curse fighting back with everything it had. Ramona’s magic was failing, the words slipping away from her, her concentration shattered by the screaming and the cold and the terror.
“Zara,” Ramona called. Her voice was ragged. “Use your power to banish them.”
“I can’t.” Zara’s face was anguished. Her hands were clenched so tight her nails drew blood. “If I use demonic energy now, after we just cleansed the convergence point, it’ll corrupt it again. All of this will be for nothing. The park will collapse anyway. Everything we’ve done?—”
“But Kashvi?—”
Kashvi’s eyes were rolling back. Her struggles were getting weaker.
Gerald still wasn’t moving.
The fox was pressed against Ramona’s leg, whimpering. Actually whimpering. A sound she’d never heard from him.
The bark was burning but not breaking. The curse was too strong. Too old. Too deeply rooted in a lifetime of believing she was broken.
Everything was falling apart.
They were going to fail.
Kashvi was going to die.
Gerald was already?—
No.No, she couldn’t think that.
But the ritual was failing and there was nothing she could do, her magic was too weak, the curse was too strong, and?—
“Ramona.”
The voice came from the edge of the clearing.
Ramona turned.
Eleanor stepped out of the woods.
Iris behind her.
For a moment, Ramona forgot how to breathe.
“No.” The word came out broken. Disbelieving. “No, you can’t be here?—”
But they were.
Eleanor in a ritual robe Ramona had never seen. Iris in practical clothes, face drawn with exhaustion and guilt and determination. At the sight of them, Ramona’s magic went completely chaotic.
The curse — recognizing Iris, recognizing the one who’d cast it even accidentally, even as a child —surged. Like it had been waiting for this. Like it knew.
Ramona’s magic exploded outward in every direction. Wild. Uncontrolled. Exactly like the incident at Thornwood, but worse. So much worse.
Objects around the clearing flew into the air. Stones. Branches. Felix’s dropped flashlight. They spun in circles, faster and faster, a maelstrom of debris.
The cold fire jumped from the bark to the grass. Spread in a ring. Ramona could feel it — her magic out of control, the curse amplifying it, using it, turning her power against everything she was trying to save.
“Ramona.” Zara grabbed her, hands on her shoulders. “Ramona, you have to control it — “
“I can’t!” Ramona was shaking. Shaking apart. “I can’t, and the curse is… It’s using Iris… It’s using the connection?—”
