“I found it,” Phillip said. “The frequency. I reversed the amplitude, sent the waves in a different direction, and it was just like—”

Simone clicked the safety on to her rifle, the sound riotously loud in the dead of night. “It was like they evaporated.”

“It shut the rifts,” Rebeka said.

That rectangle of blackness on the book’s illustration, the hands grasping out. The gate between worlds.

The gate that Liam sought to fling open for good, with the aid of the book at Wewelsburg Castle. If these other men didn’t open it first.

Rebeka looked into Phillip’s eyes, so brimming with hope, with pride. Her fingers crept up to cup his cheek. Like her, he’d only ever meant to do what was best. Like her, he couldn’t see the consequences beyond his periphery—the men who lost their jobs; the family members she couldn’t save for the one she did. It shouldn’t have to be this way, this zero-sum game of fortune and failure. Light and shadow. They shouldn’t have to trade darkness from their world with darkness from another. There had to be a force for good in this world, one that didn’t carry with it an equally bad cost.

But it would mean staying firmly planted in their world. No more shadow. No more connection to the other world. No more control for Liam—or anyone.

“I saw the book. At Wewelsburg. The Nazis know what it can do. They are going to use it to open the bridge, and soon.”

Phillip’s eyes had lidded as he sank into her touch. Now they opened slowly. She felt his regret, too. She wanted nothing more than to savor this moment with him—to look and really see what was right in front of her.

But she knew what awaited them.

“My brother wants to get there first.” Her next words sat heavy on her tongue. “But it will get him killed.”

Simone had been rummaging through the German woman’s discarded purse, but paused at that. “The book will kill your brother?”

“Yes—no. I’m not sure. The man who wields it. I’ve seen him in the shadow realm before. He’s been hunting us.”

Simone unearthed a packet of cigarettes. Her nose wrinkled as she read the label, but with a shrug, she fished one out and fetched her lighter from her bags. “And he will use its power for the Nazis, yes?”

Rebeka nodded. She didn’t trust her voice any longer. “Liam thought he could use the book to stop them. But he was wrong. No one can. The shadows will corrupt us all if we keep the rifts open. We can’t leave any sort of connection to the other world at all.”

“So we must stop him instead of help him,” Simone said with a heavy sigh.