“Run!” yelled Baz.
A few things happened all at once then.
Freyia blinked wildly past the tears in her eyes, a look of utter bewilderment on her face as she took in the horrors around her. She glanced at the darkness beyond the bridge of stars, ignoring Baz’s plea to move. She simply stood there at the edge of the path, and though her face was stained with tears, there was something serene there, a sense of peace with herself as she looked up at them.
“I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused,” she said softly.
As if he knew what she meant to do, Kai moved toward her, yelling, “Don’t!” just as Freyia threw herself into the void.
She plummeted into darkness and stars, to the death she had always defied, a few umbrae trailing eagerly after her.
At the same time, Keiran let go of Artem, who fell limply on the star-lined path, eyes turned unseeing toward the rest of them. Virgil came out of nowhere, throwing a punch at Keiran with a snarled, “You should have stayed dead!”
Keiran stopped Virgil’s fist inches from his face and shoved him back with the strength of a bull. Virgil teetered toward the edge of the path, umbrae turning toward him gleefully. Nisha was upon Virgil in a second, helping him up, just as Kai shrugged off the umbrae around them as if they were nothing.
“Head for the door!” Vera yelled, motioning in the direction Kai had heard the song.
They had to make it through the next door, leave this place behind before thatthingthat was Keiran followed them out.
“Kai, let’s go!” Baz pleaded.
But now Keiran had set his eyes on Kai, the gold and silver in them flaring ravenously again. Kai seemed rooted to the spot. The blood leeched from his face. Whatever he saw in Keiran clearly had him scared beyond all logic. Keiran moved toward him, slowly, as if savoring the Nightmare Weaver’s fear.
Baz reached for the threads of time, willing Keiran to stop, and—
Oh.
The complicated tapestry of time burst into dazzling colors, as if the very fabric of time were changing, altered by this dark presence it was trying to reach for. Threads came apart and wove together again in dizzying patterns, wrapping around Baz until he was all tangled up in them. Baz tried to let go of his magic but found he couldn’t, not as the threads pulled him away from his friends like he was a fish on a hook.
Someone grabbed his hand then, wrenching him free of this pull that time had on him. Baz blinked at Kai, who’d finally snapped out of whatever hold Keiran had on him. The Nightmare Weaver clasped Baz’s hand tight as they both ran after the others down the star-lined path, toward a door none of them could yet see.
But there—the faint smell of earth and moss, so distinct that Baz nearly cried.
There is a world not far from our own where things grow wild and plenty.
The Wychwood. It was here, real, just out of reach.
Something wrapped around Baz and yanked him back, his hand tearing out of Kai’s grip. It wasn’t the umbrae or Keiran or anyone. Rather, it was time itself, pulling him toward its strange maelstrom of threadwork, as if whatever odd magic lived in this liminal space between worlds had other plans for him. Like it would not let him go where he wished.
Baz flung a hand out to the others—to Kai, who turned to him as Baz screamed his name.
The Nightmare Weaver’s eyes widened, fear like Baz had never seen in him flooding his features. Kai’s hand grabbed for his own again, fingers digging for purchase, gripping so tightly it hurt. The world around them squeezed in, sucking them backward. Baz and Kai held on to each other, their only tether to the here and now.
It felt to Baz like he was dying. Like his body was being splintered apart, pulled into a hundred different directions.
He wished then that Kai had not grabbed for him, that he would have stayed with the others so he could live.
“Let go!” Baz screamed, but Kai did no such thing. He only held on tighter.
They were going to die here together.
But then—the world expanded again as the strange tapestry of time crackled and burned and fizzled out.
Baz hit a body of water, the impact almost like he’d hit solid ground. He knew he was underwater only by how the force of it ripped him and Kai apart, and suddenly he inhaled a mouthful of salt water into his lungs, trying to scream out Kai’s name.
Everything went black. Baz fought to catch his bearing, to discern what was up and what was down. What was real and what was not.
He broke the surface with a great gasp.
