Fin thrusts out a hand. At first, I think nothing happened, but then I see Colin straining, every muscle in his body tightening. Fin is trying to control him telekinetically.

“More!” I shout to Rose and Kara, pouring my energy into the Shield. It brightens and Colin gasps, his movements returning to normal speed. He summons a knife and sends it flying. Fin brushes out his hand, meaning to deflect it, but the blade doesn’t stop and buries in his shoulder.

He hisses, the first real sign of emotion cracking his stoic expression. His telekinesis didn’t work on the Saint Knife.

“Hurry, Colin!” I can feel myself waning. Kara has already collapsed against the Shield, her ragged breathing wracking her entire body.

The Shield fades more, the cracks growing larger.

Fin rips the knife out of his shoulder, inspecting it. “I’d forgotten,” he mutters. Then the knife vanishes, reappearing in Colin’s hand.

“Do you really mean to kill me?” Fin presses his fingers against the wound without reaction. “I am, after all, the only family you have left.”

Colin’s hands tighten around the knives. “I think you’ve been trapped in hell too long.”

A wicked smile spreads across Fin’s face. “Not hell, my dear boy, but a forever in-between full of the creatures that have spawned every horror story across time. Hell would be paradise in comparison.” He pulls his hand away from the wound, spreading the blood across his fingers as if testing its texture.

“But no matter.” His voice is a gust of wind. “All will be right soon enough.”

My eyes narrow, my vision blurring with my draining energy. There’s something off about his face.

My knees buckle and I collapse to the grass. Fin’s smile spreads wider as Colin runs toward me, but I keep staring at Fin. Something isn’t right.

Colin drops beside me, but I can’t feel his hands as he shakes me. He tries to pull me from the Shield, but it won’t let me go. It feeds off my strength without mercy, desperate to keep itself alive. A distant thud behind me tells me Rose has fallen too.

Still I stare at Fin, my mind slow as dripping honey, and finally I see it. His face. It’s all glamour. The illusion falls away, revealing rotted gray skin and sinew, faded bone and decaying flesh.

Fin went into the Otherworld a living being and emerged in the same body. An ancient, decaying body.

“Anna!” Colin’s voice is distant.

I feel my lips moving, feel myself speaking words in a quiet whisper. “Fin’s still in his original body. It’s…a glamour. A…” Darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision, and in the back of my mind I’m vaguely aware that the house has gone silent.

Chapter 30: Colin