“You do not belong here!” I tell it. “Your time was long ago, and you used your magic badly. You will not return to cause more suffering. I will not allow it! Go back into the Darkness, where your wickedness can do no more harm.” So saying I sing out again, at the same time flinging at him a spell of destruction that has come unbidden, unknown, into my mind, the words foreign and guttural and torn from the archaic memories that are now mine. Willoughby roars and writhes, but he is no match for me. Not now. Not ever again. As he plunges into the pit his furious bellowing can be heard growing fainter and fainter the deeper he falls.

Slowly, I turn my gaze upon Stricklend. At last, I see fear on the face of the Sentinel.

“You are right to be afraid,” I tell him. “You have abused the Great Secret; you have shown yourself to be unworthy of using the Lazarus Elixir. You have already done such harm. You have hurt those I love for the last time, Sentinel.”

“No, wait. Listen to me.” He crawls backward, struggling to maintain his spell over Louis and another to weaken Bram, who still fights against his stranglehold. “Think, Morningstar. Think what we could achieve together, you and I! A risen witch and a Sentinel … we would wield untold power. There is nothing we could not do. Nowhere we could not rule.”

“I have not come here to listen to you, Stricklend,” I state calmly. “I have come to finish you.”

I will the flames on the burning tree to grow hotter, fiercer, wilder. Suddenly the heavy bough above us cracks and falls, blocking Stricklend’s retreat. He casts around for another escape, but to his right is the rupture into the abyss, and in front of him I stand. He tightens his grip on Bram, whose strength is slowly returning the more alarmed and agitated Stricklend becomes. Louis is silent now, and I pray to the spirits I will not be too late to save him.

“Let Bram go, Sentinel,” I command, but he shakes his head. I narrow my eyes. “I said, let him go!” My words are accompanied by more leaping flames that catch Stricklend’s sleeves. He is forced to relinquish his hold on his prisoner. Bram slumps forward, clambering to his knees, gasping for breath, as the Sentinel beats furiously at his clothes to put out the fire. I begin to force him back toward the brink of the pit. He snatches at the gravestone, and then at Bram, grabbing hold of his ankle. Bram is still too groggy to fend him off, so that he too begins to shift toward the hole. For a dreadful moment I recall Violet at my inauguration and how I lost her.