“No, he isn’t.” Gran sighs, settling in her chair. “There was some truth in what that creature said: Colin is descended from Fin, and they possess a bond. It’s how his wraiths were able to find him despite his warding, but he cannot use that connection to act through Colin.”

“But my vision of the Jabberwocky?”

A sorrowful look fills her expression. “It was a false memory that the wraith planted in Colin’s mind, through me. Kaden killed the Jabberwocky, not him.”

Colin had looked so devastated when he thought he’d killed Max’s friend, but he hadn’t had anything to do with it. None of this was his fault, and we’d sent him away.

“There’s more.” With a wave of her hand, Gran summons a book from atop a nearby stack. It hovers before her, flipping to a page toward the middle, before spinning midair to face me, revealing the thorn-covered Triskelion.

“Most spirits who reach the Otherworld do so through death. But Fin and his people crossed over not as spirits, but alive in their mortal bodies. Bodies that have long since withered and died, leaving their spirits trapped for thousands of years. The Otherworld is not a kind place. Fin’s people may have been like you and me when they walked in, but if they come out, there will be nothing left of who they once were. The impact their spiritual presence will have on the balance of the three realms will be disastrous.”

“The three realms?” I ask.

The book’s pages flip of their own accord. “Creation, preservation, destruction,” Gran reads. Then beneath it in Irish, “The celestial world, the human world, and the Otherworld. The meanings among the Triskelion are intertwined, as are the three worlds. There is a delicate balance among them that if broken would mean disaster for all three.”

The book closes and settles on a nearby stack. “I remember bits and pieces of my time possessed by that wraith, and from what I’ve learned, I suspect that Fin’s true plan is to destroy the Shield and free his people’s spirits.”

That’s why they’ve been killing Ravens: to weaken the Shield enough that Fin will be able to destroy it on Samhain, when he and his wraiths are at their most powerful and the Shield is at its weakest. But if the Shield falls, it won’t just be Fin’s people who are freed: it’ll be every spirit and dangerous supernatural creature in the Otherworld.

“Maybe he won’t be recovered in time,” I suggest hopefully. “Liam wounded him badly enough that he had to return to the Otherworld to recover. Maybe he’ll be too weak to complete his plan.”