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“You’re disposable, Penny!” I yelled. “They won’t keep you around once they have what they want.”

“I only want Elmer. They can bring him back to me. They promised to bring him back.”

“They lied!”

“I just need Isaac’s body, then I’ll have my Elmer back.”

Jesus. “Can you hear yourself? You’re willing to kill Isaac to get what you want? Everything you’ve done, Penny, it’s wrong. You can’t do this.”

“You don’t know me! I’m done being the one everyone forgets. Amy and her friends treated me like garbage, they deserve what’s coming to them. But not Elmer, he loved me.”

There was no reasoning with her. Penny had traveled down this path and there was no going back now.

Wood splintered behind us, and the door crashed open.

Charity walked in, her face distorted, twisted, as she screamed in rage. I could see the sun rising behind her. It was time. She was going to take my soul, my powers. My body was about to die in Draven’s arms.

Her form flickered as that incredible boom sound hit again, the ground shaking so hard she had to grab for the doorframe. Righting herself, she used her magic to lift shards of splintered wood from the door and screamed, firing them at me. I rolled and they smashed through the floor and into the basement below. I threw up my hands, our magic colliding with an earsplitting crash.

My magic was working here, the barrier had to be incredibly thin now. Charity screamed louder.

Growls and snarls came from outside.

The crones were shrieking.

I scrambled to my feet. Draven had placed my body on the ground behind him, and he’d partially shifted, attacking their still reanimating bodies, tearing them to shreds.

“You won’t win!” Charity cried as crows, so many they were a wall of black feathers, burst through the door, through the windows, the glass exploding all over us.

I didn’t know if I’d called them from here in limbo or the mortal realm, but they went straight for Charity. She screamed as they attacked. Pecking and clawing at her, plucking the eyes right from her head.

Penny scrambled back, but the crows were only focused on Charity.

I twisted to where Draven had been. He stepped back from a pile of bones on the ground that had been Charity’s reanimating body and lifted me again, looking down at me. I could hear him calling me back, begging me to come back to him.

That awful, deafening boom came again, the sound louder and closer together, and the barrier flickered faster.

Charity and the crones were severely weakened, but it was only a matter of time before they regained their magic and strengthened the ward again.

“I’m not going back,” Penny cried.

“It’s over, Pen.”

Someone screamed from the basement.

I shoved Penny aside, hurried down the ladder. And there they were. Amy, Marina, and Kristi’s souls were locked in cages, and through the wavering barrier, I could see their bodies laid out on the floor like I could see Draven on the other side. I needed to get back to the mortal realm, to their bodies. I had to reunite them with their souls before it was too late.

That’s when I saw Penny’s body. It was near the others, and the thick wooden shards from the door Charity had fired at me had pierced the thinning barrier completely and were embedded in Penny’s chest. There was no surviving that. Her soul was here, still talking to me, but there would be no bringing her back now.

“You ruined everything!” Penny yelled.

I needed to get out of here. Now. I ran for the ladder, scrambling up—

Penny grabbed my ankle. I kicked back with my other foot, then fired a burst of power at her. It knocked her back, and she screamed, coming after me again.

The barrier flicked faster, the booming sound so loud now it hurt. The crones’ ward in front of the door shattered, and I sprinted from the cottage, running at full speed for Draven.

His head snapped up, looking right at me. “Iris!” he roared.