Time will be carried in strange hands,

across the realms and through stranger lands.

What is done will be undone,

a battle lost is a battle won.

When midnight rings on a child’s betrayal,

your every success is doomed to fail.

His magic had been trying to tell him for months, back when it burst from the fortune orb he had helped Tavia build, when it finally reunited with him in Granka, and now, as he stood before his father.

Wesley wasn’t going to end the world.

He was going to save it.

The syringe of time swelled in bright blue waves.

Ashwood swallowed.

“You can’t kill me,” he said. “You’re my boy. My flesh. It’s why I’ve never taken your life, even after you’ve constantly disappointed me. Don’t you see, Wesley?”

Ashwood’s voice was quick and pleading.

He was desperate, trying for any way to survive.

“Family does not give up on each other,” Ashwood said. “And I’ve always wanted my son to be great.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Saxony said. “He’s just trying to get inside of your head. Malik … Wesley. Please just—”

Wesley held up his hand to stop her. “Enough,” he said.

It was the awful truth he never wanted to face.

Wesley thought that hearing those words spoken out loud would send him off-kilter somehow, making him doubt all that he was and imbuing him with some kind of misplaced loyalty to the Kingpin.

But it didn’t.

It didn’t matter whether it was a lie or if he and Ashwood were blood. Either way, the Kingpin had always been his father. He had raised Wesley and taught him everything he knew and a few things he wished he’d someday forget. He was kinder to him than Wesley’s other father had been and he had shaped Wesley into the man he was today.

Blood or not. Dante Ashwood was always going to be a part of him.

And Wesley surprised himself with how much he just didn’t care.

“You don’t get to claim him,” Tavia said. “Wesley is his own person and he gets to choose his family.”

Wesley looked up at her, no longer blood-soaked, the illusion faded to give way to the wonderful cherry bark of her eyes.

She gave him a hard smile and Wesley’s heart jarred.

She was right: Wesley had chosen his family long before he found them.

“I’m pretty much related to everyone nowadays,” Wesley said to Ashwood. “You’re really not that special.”

He stabbed the syringe directly into the heart of the doll.

Ashwood screamed.

The doll screamed.

The world screamed.

His body shook and convulsed, head twisting from side to side. His broken arm snapped back into place and the shadows around him blinked and staggered, like they were struggling to keep ahold of him.