“I followed Fin into the Otherworld,” Liam explains with an apologetic grimace. He indicates his shoulder. “He thought he’d killed me, but I survived. His attack broke my amulet, though.” He holds out the shattered remains of a tree of life amulet, a twin to the one I first summoned when I bonded to the journal. “I couldn’t get back until the Shield was weak enough for me to cross.”

This is why Elaine was able to contact him: he was in the Otherworld, but not as a spirit.

He’s alive.

Fin’s snarl cuts through my rising elation. “You boys just don’t know when to die.”

A wicked grin spreads across Liam’s lips. “You’re one to talk, you sack of rotted flesh. You can barely hold yourself together, can’t you? Let’s see what you can do in a fair fight.”

Liam shoots forward. I move after him and together we confront Fin. My brother has always been my sparring partner, never my teammate, but in that moment our teamwork is flawless. When Liam attacks, I defend, and when Fin blocks my blows, Liam takes the opening to land his own.

We drive Fin back, landing punches and slashes. The Shield cracks again, and I drive my knife into Fin’s leg, deep enough to reach bone. He howls, his fist striking out and catching the side of my face with bony knuckles. I stumble, but Liam holds me upright.

Fin’s once-regal clothing is nearly in tatters. I can see his entire body working where bits of muscle show through torn and bloodied skin.

Then suddenly we’re awash with light.

Gran, Nora, Elaine, and Roy have arrived. They must have defeated the wraiths in the ballroom and gotten the guests to safety, though some have come with them that I recognize: Dilara, Alice, and the Andrades. They thrust their magic into the splintering Shield. The black cracks recede, the light growing brighter.

Fin wheezes, struggling to stay standing. The color drains from what little bits of his skin are still fully intact and he sways, dropping to one knee.

“It’s over,” I tell him. “Return to the Otherworld and take your wraiths with you.”

Fin laughs, a loud wheezing sound. “I’ll never go back there. I will bring my people home.”

Something about the way he says it pulls at me. Fin and his people were driven out of Ireland. They were forced away from their home into a place that they hated, and everything he’s done since has been to get them back.

To get them home.

But it’s too late now. The people crossing the veil aren’t who they were when they entered it. Their bodies have long since faded, magic all that sustains them now, and their minds and spirits have turned dark.

Still, I understand.