“I am death. I am the pile of bones and the skeleton with a crown, and I will drag you down to your end,” Soren snarled.

“We are one,” we said together. “We are many. Bow to us and perish.”

The ground started to rumble again as Fjalar gave out another deafening cry—not one of its magical cries—a cry of pain and agony as the world mist swirled around it closer and closer, the ice cutting deeper and deeper, until the liminal creature was no more.

I fell to the ground, landing on my knees. The earth was still shaking and a crevice was cracking open the ice where the cave and Fjalar had stood. The cave crashed into the next world, the fires of Muspellheim and the hot lava burned underneath me, rising up from the ice. I scrambled back from the lava as quick as I could, only for the plate of ice I was on to break. But before I could plunge into the heat below, Soren had me by the hand and pulled me to safety.

“Okay, now what?” he asked, panic creeping into his voice at the incoming heat.

“Trust me,” I said and took out Diaval’s chalk, drawing a marking on the palm of my hand and another on Soren’s. Clasping them together, I shouted. Not a word I knew or a word I didn’t; no one had taught me it and it sounded foreign to my ears, but I knew what I’d be able to do when I said it and that was enough to trust it.

Slamming our clasped hands to the ground, the snow began to dance around Soren and me, around Diaval and Lydian, Rose and Seppo, faster and faster and faster until I had to close my eyes before I threw up. I held on to Soren as tightly as my muscles allowed.

Then suddenly it stopped, and we were all spewed out back into the courtyard of the Erlking’s palace, exactly where Diaval had created her original portal. From there, a bunch of people, goblin and human, rushed up to us as Tanya called everything to order.

Soren was lying on the ground with his face toward me, and he had a bloody grin from where he split his lip on the landing. His eye shone. “How did you know how to do that?” he asked, nearly giddy.