I clutched the rusted gate, feeling the grit underneath my fingers. The yard was blanketed in fog that completely covered the grass. My ring pulsed, and the symbols vibrated. I was frozen in place, my eyes glued to the darkness now spilling from the open door. The house began to rattle and creak like a monster waking up from a long slumber.

“You have such a wandering mind, Maya” came a low, slippery voice. “Your father should’ve done a better job of teaching you how to protect it.”

I squeezed the fence harder, and the metal glowed underneath my hands. Papa had taught me how to keep the crossroads at bay if I concentrated hard enough, but it wasn’t working now. Instead, the yard between me and the old house was shrinking.

“You’re not really here,” I said through gritted teeth. “You can’t be.”

Purple and black ribbons clambered out of the door—at first a few, then a dozen, then two dozen. The Lord of Shadows’ violet eyes shined bright against the darkness like satellites in the night sky. “I am tired, Maya,” he said, and he sounded very ancient, like he was glass on the verge of shattering. “This war must end now for me to truly rest.”

“This war doesn’t need to happen,” I said, doing my best to sound brave. “The darkbringers are okay now. Why start another war that will kill countless people when you could let the past go?”

“I cannot fault you for being so naive,” the Lord of Shadows said, his ribbons climbing across the porch and down the stairs. “You think that I do this only out of revenge, but it isn’t that simple. It never is. This world belongs to the darkbringers. It always has, but your father and the others pushed them aside to make way for humankind. That cannot stand. It cannot go unpunished. For every action there is a reaction, a repercussion. That is the very nature of the universe.”

“You would let innocent people die so you can punish the celestials?” I asked. “Haven’t enough lives been lost already?”

“I’m only getting started,” he spat. “I’m going to reshape the universe in my own image.”

There it was. His true purpose. For all his talk about avenging the darkbringers, it came down to one thing: the Lord of Shadows was just like all the other power-hungry, diabolical, evil overlords with no regard for anyone but themselves. He was no different from the bad guys Oya faced in her comic books. No matter what I said to him, he’d find a way to justify his actions. I couldn’t believe that I ever thought he could be reasoned with. “Eleni was right; you are the king of petty,” I said under my breath.