“I have the staff!” I shout at them. “You answer to me now! Including you.” I point the blade at Gaia. “And you’ll stay the fuck back, if you know what’s good for you!”

Gaia shakes her head, her voice pitching low enough for only me to hear as she stalks closer. “This will not end in any way you can possibly imagine, Douglas. It takes two eyes to see clearly—two hearts,” she says, her breath hitching. “And I will never serve you.” Her voice hardens as she steps over Lyon’s ashes. “You are now, and will always be, alone.”

Gaia leaps straight for the scythe’s blade. She gasps, her body lurching to a stop as it sinks into her chest.

Our eyes catch. I didn’t see this coming. Hadn’t looked beyond Lyon’s last breath in the lamp’s surface. I never planned for this. But Gaia had. She knew. . . . So why hadn’t they tried harder to stop me? I search her eyes for an answer as their lids grow heavy. A hazy vision flickers through the slits. No . . . a memory. No voices, no sound. Only an image.

Lyon sits, wrapping the sash around the eye of the staff. Gaia rests a hand on his shoulder as a smaze rolls in an orb on Lyon’s desk. His lips move around the words: I can still save him.

The memory winks out as Gaia’s eyes flutter closed. A strange peace seems to settle over her.

I swallow hard, still puzzling over the memory when I’m thrown violently off my feet. With a deafening boom, Gaia ruptures into an explosion of ash and light. The ground shakes and a shower of plaster rains from the ceiling.

The Guards retreat to the outer edges of the room, their eyes turned up as the chandelier clinks overhead. A storm of magic gathers near the apex, forming a loose funnel. The Control Room monitors flicker with static. The screens die, one by one.

“You!” I shout to one of Lyon’s Guards, pointing the scythe at him. “Unlock their restraints.” I jerk my chin toward the four Guards of the old regime who still have their magic. “Now!” Lyon’s Guards all snap to attention, each of them rushing to free someone in a jumpsuit. When the last set of shackles hits the floor, I order Lyon’s Guards to get down on their knees. “Cuff the traitors,” I tell the others.

Michael’s Guards—my Guards—don’t hesitate. Lixue is first to snatch up the restraints and fire mitts. She barks out orders, and the others respond, chaining Lyon’s Guards to one another as the quake shakes the floor.

“What now?” Lixue hollers.

“Kill them.”

Her eyes snap to mine. The slender column of her throat bobs, her mouth falling open in protest. “But Doug. They’re—”

“Now!”