A lot happened in the instant his palms met. First, with bracing clarity, the reverie snapped into gruesome detail: the desiccated flowers bobbing in the ash-laced breeze, the splintering wood of the gazebo, the estate overtaken by inferno, every particle of fog, every strung pearl.

Second, all around him, he felt Helena. She blinked at him with wide, bloodshot eyes, and he was forced to embrace her fear. Her grief. Her stunning, spinning hope, which had bloomed into a world of remarkable loveliness, then turned to ruin in the blink of an eye. That same world cracked open to breed unfeeling creatures of metal, stone, and rage. Exquisite and lethal, they defended their mistress, but now they had grown beyond even her control.

Third, there was a small explosion.

Kane’s whole body rang with pain. His hands, surprisingly, were still attached to his wrists, but the poplar trees had all snapped back. Sophia and the Others were strewn around him, stunned. Pale smoke rose from the ground.

Ursula crawled to him. “Kane?”

He coughed, tasting blood. “I can’t…”

He couldn’t unravel it. He couldn’t unravel Helena. This reverie wanted to live more than he wanted to kill it.

“Guys…” Adeline whispered.

Helena stood, swaying, her eyes finding them. The owl turned, too. Elliot’s illusions had been blown away, and now the viper lowered itself to the ground, as silent as snow.

Elliot turned to Ursula. “I hope you’re not spent.”

Ursula shook off her dizziness. “Nah,” she spat to the side, cracked her gloved knuckles, and walked right at the viper.

She didn’t make it very far when a cacophonous buzz shook the air and the beetle, fully re-formed, dropped atop her like a comet. In the same instant, the viper whipped forward, cutting them off from Adeline.

“Run, Adeline!” Elliot screamed, even as the owl battered the air with great, opalescent wings. Its eyes locked onto him, the meal it had lost.

With tears racing down her face, Adeline sprinted into the hedge maze. The viper slithered after.

Kane hauled up his sister, shoving her at Elliot. “Vanish! NOW!”

Elliot for once did not dispute Kane. As soon as Sophia was in his arms, they drifted behind a curtain of golden magic. Then they were gone.

There was a series of thrashes from Ursula and the beetle as she was thrown across the clearing. Kane waited for her to turn in midair, to get her legs under her and bounce back, but her body was limp as it sailed through one of the gazebo’s worn supports. He hobbled after her, his legs aching, his hands throbbing, and just as he reached her, the gazebo collapsed.

“Augustine!” Helena screamed, and she was right beside Kane as he dove into the mess of wood and vines. Together they tore away the mess, digging, thinking only of Ursula.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Helena cried.