I sense a shift in my own psyche. An alteration in my very self. The rage and frustration at what Stricklend is doing; the heartbreak at seeing my loved ones suffer so; the fury at what is being done with Lazarus magic—all combine to fire the transformation that had not yet fully taken place. I am revenant. I have been called back, taken from death, retrieved from the Land of Night to tread the earth again, and only now, now that the spark has been ignited, only now does the magnitude of what that truly means reveal itself. Deep inside me something stirs. Something ancient that has been awakened. It is the magic of hundreds of witches past, the enchantments of centuries. It is the wisdom of the sages who have studied arcane and long-forgotten arts. It is the strength of the skilled necromancer. It is the power of a risen witch. It is awe-inspiring and terrifying. And it is mine.

I fling my arms wide and Willoughby’s toxic fog vanishes from me at once. My hair begins to fly wildly, and my nightgown billows about me as if stirred by a swirling vortex. There is the sound of wind rushing through the branches of the great cedar and the somber yews. My feet leave the ground and I travel upward until I am standing a yard or more clear of the dry grass of the graveyard. I can feel magic coursing through my veins. My breath is loud as a sighing giant. My heart is the drumbeat of distant thunder, audible to all. My skin glows, luminous in the caliginous night. My eyes flash bright as emeralds caught in supernatural light.

Demons and ghouls stop their slavering and growling and cower before me, whimpering. With startling ease I push them back to the fissure, back, sliding across the gravelly ground, send them skidding and tumbling over the edge, returning them to the Darkness.

Willoughby will not be so swiftly dealt with. The Dark Spirit bounds across the space between us, hurling his fetid spectral form at me, aiming to stifle my own magic with his vile presence. Before he can reach me I open my mouth and let forth a single, pure note of noise. A similar sound, some years ago, rendered Bram’s studio wrecked and singed, but that occasion cannot begin to compare with this. This sound, this solid, white-hot noise, stops Willoughby in his tracks, blasting his own protective magic from him. Headstones nearby are toppled. A stone angel explodes into smithereens. Stricklend, still clutching Bram, is thrown off his feet, the pair landing heavily upon my father’s grave. Tongues of fire catch the dry grass and the branches of the cedar tree, so that soon the entire graveyard around us crackles and spits as it burns. The Dark Spirit is unnerved and disoriented and I seize my moment.