Nora’s already shaking her head, but Anna protests. “It’s the only way to find out who he is!”

“No. Out of the question,” Nora says. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Ah, come on now, Nor.” Roy slings an arm over his sister’s shoulders. “We’ll have her back.” He snaps his fingers, and a tiny flame appears, hovering just above his palm. The house shudders, disgruntled.

Nora pushes his arm off, and the fire vanishes along with Roy’s cheerful expression. “It’s not just Anna,” she says. “We’ll be putting everyone at the party at risk.”

Kara leans over her knees to look Nora in the eye. “We don’t have a choice. Fin’s coming no matter what.”

Rose stares distantly out the library windows. “The trees can feel it.”

“What if I left?” I ask, thinking of my plan in the motel parking lot. “Maybe he’d follow me. Then everyone here would be safe.”

“Or maybe he’d send wraiths after you and still come here to try to destroy the Shield, and we’d be down a Raven,” Kara replies with a shake of her head.

“And we’re not sending you off again,” Nora adds. Roy and Elaine both nod their agreement.

“Hmm,” Gran says. Everyone turns to her, but she looks at me. “Only a weapon as powerful as the Saint Knives will be able to wound Fin, and only you can wield their magic. Without you, we have no hope of stopping Fin. You have to stay and defeat him.”

Defeat him. Wound him. I realize now some part of me hadn’t thought this through. Fin isn’t a wraith. I can’t just shake him free from his body with the Saint Knives for Max to glean. He’s real, flesh and blood, no matter how messed up, and the only way to defeat him is to do the same thing he was trying to do to me: kill.

Why does that bother me so much? Fin murdered my parents, maybe my brother—he tried to kill me, and hurt Anna in the process. He has to be stopped.

But could I be the one to do it?

The wall sealing off my emotions begins to break. Anxiety slips through the cracks, threatening to make my head spin.

My first instinct is to hold my breath, to control the emotions until they fade. But then I catch Anna’s concerned gaze, and I let the impulse go, allowing the feelings in.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” I say quietly.

“You don’t have to be,” she whispers. “You’re not doing it alone.”

Hearing those words is like unsealing a vacuum, and I let them wash over me. She’s right. I might be the one to face Fin in the end, but the others are here for me.