Familiar features within the chaotic swirl of souls caught her attention.
Hisfeatures.
Keiran Dunhall Thornby, his boyish face distorted by whatever purgatory-like hell he was held in. What choice had he made on the path, she wondered? Had he decided he was worthy of forgiveness for every vile thing he did, worthy of a chance at a new start, a clean slate—but had been denied eternal rest like all these other wayward souls now eager to feed into Emory’s power?
She would bedamnedif she let him anywhere near her again.
Recognition seemed to flare in his hollow, ghostly eyes. He redoubled his assault against the shadowy dome, the souls around him doing the same, and suddenly they burst through, rushing toward Emory, as if they were giving her no choice in the matter. She screamed as they whirled around her, seeking a way in. They wouldmakeher draw their power inside her, if only just for a chance to feel magic—life—again as they tore through her.
They felt like the umbrae, growing stronger with her fear. Maybe it was best to give in to this dark force. To use it however she could to bring an end to the one who’d started this.
Even if she knew with utter certainty that there would be no coming back for her if she did, no healing the stain they would leave on her.
Keiran’s ghost smiled at her as it drew closer. It was a twisted lover’s smile, tauntingly seductive, as if he’d been waiting for death to reunite them.
“Emory.” Sidraeus was holding her face in his hands, snatching her attention away from Keiran. He was in his true form again, no longer the crowned umbra. They stood together in the middle of this hurricane of souls, nearly all his shadows gone, nearly all her light faded. The runes on his skin were bright with pain—an echo of her own?—but his face was calm, like the eye of a storm that soothed everything inside her. “You have to go. The nature of your magic should let you walk freely out of the abyss. I’ll hold the souls back while you—”
“No.” She wouldn’t leave him, and she was fairly certain that if they let their barrier down, the souls would rush right up the path and wreak havoc on the world. An idea suddenly crossed her mind. “What if we ferry them up the path?”
The souls were doomed to feed on pain and fear and guilt and chaos because the cycle of life and death was broken. That was why they were here. With the fountain depleted of its magic, souls weren’t being reincarnated. They were trapped here in the only part of the afterlife that could host them. But if they could ferry the souls up the path to the godsworld, if they could put them in the empty fountain and find a way to replenish it with magic—to make divine power flow through it again—maybe they could be laid to rest.
She shared this with Sidraeus through the bond in their mind. As ferrier of souls, he had the ability to lead them up the path. But they were both depleted, outnumbered by these tortured souls. That didn’t seem to deter Sidraeus in the slightest as the language of gods spilled from his mouth. Whatever words he spoke made the souls perk up and flock to him.
Sidraeus tugged on Emory’s hand with a sense of urgency.We have to move quickly.
They went up the roots and began to run for their lives up the path, the souls at their backs. There were too many for Sidraeus to ferry properly, and these souls were wilder now that they were on the path, as if the prospect of heading to the godsworld—or perhaps escaping into the realms of the living—sent them into a total frenzy.
The moment Emory spotted Baz, Kai, and her mother farther up the path, she shouted at them to move, to get out of here before the onslaught of ghosts could reach them.
So why weren’t theymoving?
Her gut sank as she noticed her mother’s limbs. Kai’s, too. They were turning to stone just like before. But hell had no such hold on Baz. In a swift motion, he grabbed the hourglass that hovered above the obsidian altar, and time stood frozen.
Three threads of ethereal light shot out of the hourglass. Kai and Luce looked down at their chests, where two of these threads connected. The third thread disappeared down the path toward the godsworld.
Emory had no idea what was happening or how Baz was keeping time frozen for everyone on the path and all these ghosts at her back. She was struck again by how powerful he was—and more so, how unafraid he appeared to be wielding this strange power.
She watched, mystified, as Baz turned the hourglass over, ever so slowly, gritting his teeth as if it were the heaviest of objects. Wind tore at his hair, tore through the path. It felt like the darkness and stars of the sleepscape; it felt like the sooty desolation of the sea of ash. And when it lifted, it revealed a new figure on the godsworld side of the path.
Clover, black veins stark beneath his ashen skin, turquoise eyes lit with that unnatural glow.
Baz finished turning the hourglass over and set it back down on the altar with a grunt. There was a soundless, breathless pausebefore the world seemed to flip on its head. Where Kai and Luce had stood next to Baz on the left of the altar—on the abyss side—they now stood on the opposite side. Hell no longer had its roots in them, and their limbs were flesh once more.
And standing where they had stood was Clover, face etched in surprise, then in fury, as the roots of hell wound around him, keeping him in place.
Something like smug satisfaction played on Baz’s face. But whatever hold he’d had on time seemed to have vanished, and the souls at Emory’s back were on the move again, their wailing loud and visceral.
Clover’s head whipped toward the sound. His eyes rounded as he beheld the souls that erupted past Emory and Sidraeus. Before she could stop them from engulfing everyone on the path, their words sounded in her mind again.
Tidecaller. Use our power as your own.
Clover met Emory’s gaze a second before she realized he must have heard it too.
The path started to tremble, crumbling at the edges, obsidian columns disintegrating before their eyes. There were faces in the chaos, a thousand souls taking shape within. Emory caught the slightest motion from Clover, standing with his arms open as if to accept death itself.
He was calling the souls to him.
Desperation sang through Emory. If he took control of these souls, he would become unstoppable. So Emory called to them too, now desperate to grab hold of them before Clover did. But around her, her friends were screaming in pain, and she had to protect them. Power tore through her, the veins under her skin glowing bright silver as she reached her limit. Maybe this place made her not as limitless as she thought—maybe she actually would Collapse this time, and doom everyone to this purgatory.
