My sister stood on the opposite end of the stage with her arms wide as she opened a gateway of her own. A gateway was two-dimensional in the physical world, but in the nonphysical world—basically, the space where dark energy flowed—it was a tunnel between two locations. I directed my gateway to intersect with Eleni’s, where the Lord of Shadows stood.

A burst of god symbols spun around him—first only a few, then hundreds of them. He thrashed his ribbons out, batting them away, but they weaved around faster, dodging his attack. “What is this nonsense?”

“This nonsense is the end of you,” I said as sweat beaded on my forehead.

I could feel him resisting, pushing back against the god symbols. Blood trickled from my nose at the strain of holding the gateway open. Eleni wasn’t faring much better. Her face was twisted in pain. The god symbols started to link together in chains around the Lord of Shadows.

He yelled so loud that his voice cracked the stage in two. Eleni fell to her knees, but she didn’t lose her gateway. “I was the universe’s first creation, long before the celestials, and I will endure long after they are gone.”

He was expanding now, growing bigger and taller. His purple and black ribbons lashed out and broke some of the chains of god symbols. Pain cut across my temples, and I gritted my teeth. It wasn’t working—the bubble of god symbols was only half-complete.

“My gateway’s starting to collapse,” Eleni shouted.

“We were always going to arrive at this point, Maya,” the Lord of Shadows said, his voice laced with amusement. “You lose, and I win.”

My knees trembled, but I forced myself to hold on a bit longer. This was it. This was my endgame. “If we fail, there will always be people who stand up for what’s right no matter how much you try to intimidate us.”

“You have your father’s stubbornness,” the Lord of Shadows said. “Too bad you are irredeemable. I could have taught you how to use that darkness inside you, child.”

The thought of ever serving the Lord of Shadows sent a chill down my spine. I’d have rather stayed in after-school math tutoring with Ms. Vanderbilt for the rest of my life or eaten the horrible lumpy vanilla pudding in the cafeteria or listened to some of Winston’s bad rap on YouTube. No way, absolutely no way, would I ever turn into one of his cronies.

There was a flash of white light on the stage, and suddenly Papa was there in his human form. My heart swelled with joy. Papa was alive. He was okay! He stood tall with the wind blowing through his locs, his skin glowing with celestial light. “Fortunately, she has better role models,” Papa said, then he opened a gateway that intersected with Eleni’s and mine.