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The air sizzles around Rev’s hands next, a golden shimmer exploding into the atmosphere. He clenches his fists, flexes, and then does it again, muttering under his breath. I catch fragments of him muttering about control and princes, which probably will not matter. His face is set in an expression of focus I rarely see off-stage. Daybreak’s heir is going to win the battle against the Midnight Root if it goddamn kills him.

But I can’t only pay attention to him because my dark knight, Dezi, is affected as well. He’s not moving, despite being in the center of the guys, and his eyes are on the Worldroot. The only way I know he’s still alive is because his chest rises and falls in a perfect, silent rhythm. The longer I look at him, the more I realize he’s not just still—he’s holding himself back, as if he relaxed a single muscle, something monstrous would break through.

For a second, I wonder if he wants to set the tree on fire or if it’s planning to do the same to him.

As has become normal, the moon on my hand hums a low vibrato that matches the tree’s flickering glyphs. It tugs me forward—not a shove, but a strongly worded suggestion. Every step I take, the cold in my palm gets worse, the magic racing through my veins in both the tree’s color and the purple that seems to belong to me personally. I can’t see it, but I feel the colors battling within, vying for control of me as I get closer and closer.

Halfway to the trunk, my legs stop working. There’s no warning; they just fold. My knees hit the silver grass with a sound like breaking glass, and the pain slashes up my body, setting fire to my nerves. I try to shout, but all that comes out is a whimper. Every time this place pulls this shit, it introduces a new level of pain I previously didn’t know existed.

Tiernan and Khol lunge, hands grabbing for my shoulders despite their difficulties. They’re both moving fast, but the second they get close, a pulse goes out from the Worldroot. It hits like a sound wave, but there’s no sound. My vision whites out, and when it comes back, I’m in midair, thrown the last few feet toward the tree.

I hit the trunk with my outstretched hand, the moon scar flat against the bark. For a millisecond, nothing happens, and then the tree explodes in cerulean fire. The bark chars, then sloughs off in strips, falling in slow-motion to the ground. My hair lifts off my scalp, stands straight out, and turns a color I’ve never seen—ultraviolet, almost invisible except for the way it stains the air. Lightning races down my arms, burning patterns into the skin. I watch it happen, disconnected, as the runes spiral over my shoulder and down my chest, each one a little wound that glows as it heals.

Oh, we’re in the final boss battle now for sure.

My body locks up, every muscle rigid and trembling. The symbols crawl up my throat, over my jaw, blooming on my cheekbones, etching my lips. I want to scream, but there’s no air—the only thing left is magic, and it’s not in the tree anymore.

It’s in me.

The first thing I lose is my sense of gravity as I rise into the air. My body below is paralyzed in the pose of someone being electrocuted, but my mind—the part that cares about physics and dignity and holding my shit together—just floats up and out, leaving all that behind. I watch myself in a daze, like I’m having the world’s worst dental surgery, or maybe the world’s best orgasm, depending on whether you’re an optimist about pain.

Below, my body is rigid as a steel rod, hair ablaze, and eyes rolled back so far I can see the whites. Electricity continues to crawl up my arms, tracing a new set of glyphs into my skin, some so bright I swear they’re visible through bone.

I’m not sure there will be any room left on my skin when Midnight’s done with me.

The Worldroot is sucking me dry, but it doesn’t feel like dying. More like…exfoliation at a soul level. It’s a magical peel where every layer sloughs off the memories, the anger, and the fear until there’s nothing left but the filament of me that never allowed me to be broken.

That’s when the surrounding air fills with the scent of jasmine as it did the first time I floated back home, and I taste unbridled power on my tongue. The colors around me go blue and ultraviolet, until the tree is the only thing left in the universe.

A face emerges in the gnarly bark—at first, it’s a blur, then it’s sharp and real. The mouth is set in a proud, bitter line, and its eyes are full of triumph and warning. Then the face morphs into one much like my own—I don’t know if it’s my mother or me when I’m older, but it’s harder. Or maybe it will be me one day, if I screw this up.

Either way, I don’t want that to be what I look like—I want to be happy.

Somewhere behind me, the crew is losing their shit. Tiernan shouts my name—three times, the third time so guttural I almost respond. Khol’s voice is inhuman and furious, like he’s being pulled apart at the seams. Revelin sings—not words, just a wordless howl that’s half rock ballad, half primal scream. Dezi, of course, is chanting in a language that’s older than time, the syllables twisting the air.

They’re trying to bring me back, but I’m not sure it’s up to them. The magic builds and builds as I watch, and I’m not sure how much more my body down there can hold before it combusts and takes half the Court with it.

Then, suddenly, everything stops.

My physical form drops like a marionette with the strings cut and hits the silver grass. My spirit—or whatever—races back to the prone body, lying there as the mark on my hand sizzles with additional pain—not sharp, but deep and weirdly sweet. I lift my head, just enough to see the Worldroot.

The tree is different now. My moon mark is carved deep into its trunk, still glowing and burning like it’s going to turn the damn thing to ash. The glyphs are all rearranged; every rune I’ve ever seen here is now stitched into the bark in an order that makes perfect, terrifying sense.

I hear boots pounding the grass, and then four pairs of hands grab for me at once. The look on their faces is the same: fear, awe, a kind of reverence I’ve never seen before. Khol is the first to break, snatching me up and cradling me like a broken limb while Tier hovers, afraid to touch for fear of hurting me more. My punk prince looks at me, then at his own hands, and then at me again, like he’s not sure if I’m alive or dead. Dezi, usually a study in control, kneels in front of my basilisk, his fingers reaching but not quite making contact.

For the first time since we started this complete disaster, I don’t feel like I’m running on borrowed time. The mark on my palm is perfect now, blue as the dawn, and the rest of my body hums with something that isn’t just power, but belonging.

The Worldroot is silent, and the air is still.

For a moment, the only thing that matters is us—four badass supes and a girl who isn’t a witch anymore.

Tier is the first to speak. “Knuckles, talk to me,” he begs in a ragged voice. “Say something before I lose my shit.”

Trying to smirk, I croak, “Is it too late to bail? I’d really like to unsubscribe from my bloodline’s newsletter.”

The relief on his face is so fierce I almost cry. He lets out a half-laugh, half-sob, and presses his face into my hair. “You can unsubscribe from everything else whenever you want, babe. Just don’t scare me like that again.”

“Are you okay?” Khol says as he holds me. “Did that shit scramble your brain or can you tell us who we are? Snark isn’t really giving me the security I’d prefer.”