Agony explodes through me with the pain of a thousand spears. I clench my teeth against the scream, my nails digging into the bark as the Forest seizes hold of my corrupted lines and strains to force them into a knot in my center.

Vogel’s power rears up, slashing Shadow against the trees’ power, and I gasp for air, my body spasming as I grip the spruce and the battle rages inside me with unbearable ferocity, my knotting lines about to give way to Vogel’s superior force. Knowing it’s now or never, I ready the elemental strike spell that will kill me.

Shimmering white light blasts over me from above, suffusing the woods with a starlight glow. Startled, I glance up.

Watchers. Looking down at me from the trees with serene focus.

And that’s all it takes, that split second of distraction.

Vogel wrenches my lines away from the Forest, brutally unknots them and links them back to my wand hand. A burning line of agony shoots straight through my arm and I cry out, his Shadow power knifing through me with heightened force. I glance down at my bound hands in disbelieving horror—Shadow seeps from the fastlines beneath my bindings, thicker than before.

A sense of devastating surrealness wends through my chest in an ever-tightening spiral. I lift my gaze toward the Watchers. “What do you want?” I croak at them, loss crushing me, my shoulders bowing under the weight of it. Lukas. Yvan. So many innocents in Voloi...

Outrage sparks, rising up in a fiery riptide. “Do you know what you’ve just done?” I hurl out.

They don’t budge. They simply sit there, being their unforgivably pristine, otherworldly selves.

“Why are you here?!” I rage. “To keep me linked to my power? Why? So Vogel can destroy everything?”

Nothing. No movement. No reaction. They remain still as fixed stars.

“What good are you?” I cry. “The Gardnerians are going to win! Everyone I love is going to die! One of the best men I’ve ever known just sacrificed his life to save mine, to try to save us all, while you sit there watching and watching while evil takes over and you do absolutely nothing!” I try to rise, but my broken ankle buckles with pain. “Vogel’s going to destroy the world,” I lash out at them, my voice coarsening with tears. “And he’s going to do it with your image plastered all over everything. Because your image is stronger than you are!”

And then the Watchers blink out of sight and the darkness rushes in, which only stokes my despair higher.

“Go ahead!” I rage after them. “Disappear! It’s what you do best!”

“Elloren!”

Shock surges through me and I whip my head in the direction of Ariel’s voice, blinking away tears as I squint into the darkness. Her bootsteps sound, rustling through the brush, and the sheer impossibility of the situation strikes me.