The Ouroborean redoubled its attack, slashing and stabbing instead of trying to grab. Helga’s axes rang, ice blade against solid darkness. Erdrodr grunted and went to her knees, thick white blood flowing from a slash on her thigh, and Flicker and Actinia fought side by side with whirling spears, knocking back the creature’s attacks as she limped away. Jen jumped clear of the thing’s hide just before two tentacles skewered her, and she landed in front of Michael, deflecting another pair of attacks with her claws. Isaac ducked and dodged, and spear points glanced off Dex’s armor with a metallic shriek as she slashed the tentacles away with her swords.

“Erdrodr!” Helga struggled to fight free and reach her daughter, but the Ouroborean’s onslaught wouldn’t let up. Ever more tentacles sprouted, hundreds of them, looping over and around until they blotted out the rest of the library in twisting, weaving darkness. They were all coming for Alice, to stab her, slice her, tear her apart for the temerity of what she was trying to do.

“I will drink all your lives,” the creature buzzed, “and I will save you for last, Alice Creighton, so that you can watch all the others—”

Come on, come on. Alice felt tears leak from between her eyelids. There has to be something! If you can make a spell, you have to be able to un-make it. But it was so complicated. Just trying to trace the flows of power made her head throb, one branch twisting and looping around the next, complex and interwoven, like—

—a labyrinth.

She let her tight grip on the spell go, letting her mind roam over its complex framework. Power flowed, and she flowed with it, from one junction to the next, through corridors and rooms. Something tingled, an echo of what she felt when she touched the fabric of the library. There has to be somewhere that it all comes together. Even the most complicated maze has—

Someone screamed, and then choked off abruptly. Alice’s heart double-thumped.

—a center.

She had it. A single junction, no different from any of the others. But all the flows united there. This has to be it. Alice reached down and tore it away.

“What?” the Ouroborean roared.

This time, the damage didn’t repair itself. It spread, blocks tumbling, dominoes falling, a house of cards coming down. The intricate network collapsed, slowly at first but building speed as it went. Alice pulled herself back to reality, opened her eyes, and released her grip.

“Not possible!” The creature’s voice rose to a frantic, buzzing shriek. “No Reader can destroy me! You—”

The Ouroborean had frozen in place, the silver thread woven through its black body flaring bright white. One of its tentacles had impaled Helga through the midsection, her hands gripping it where it punched into her stomach and came out her back. Erdrodr was screaming.

“Alice Creighton!” the Ouroborean wailed. “What are you?”