“Get your friends and drive to Drieborg as quick as you can. Two hours north of your position. My friends will be waiting for you there.” Evangeline’s voice trembled. “I love you, you mad, idiot girl. Over.”

“I love you too, you imbecile.” Simone managed not to choke. “Over and out.”

“I need it.” Tears poured from the soldier’s hollowed-out eyes. “I need the shadows. Why did you take them away?”

The soldier turned the gun on himself and fired.

Phillip yelped as blood and bits of brain sprayed the radio operator’s post, but then the soldier’s body slid to the floor. Simone rushed forward and kicked the pistol from his hand anyway—just to be sure. With shaking hands, she approached Phillip and leaned against the desk.

“A-are we ready?” she asked.

He snapped a casing into place. “Just waiting for Rebeka’s signal.”

LIAM

Pitr and Kreutzer turned together as the behemoth’s shadow fell across them. The behemoth stretched closer, and in its face they saw themselves.

“Liam—” Pitr gasped. “What are you—”

Liam stood now; the shadow beasts had shied away from him. They stepped back with low growls and plaintive whines, denied their feast.

“You told me once I was afraid of real power,” Liam said, voice ringing out clear in the darkness. “And maybe that’s true. But I’ll face it anyway.”

Dark tendrils wafted around Pitr—he was trying to fight back. But he was losing his grip. He was too afraid, and the behemoth fed on it, ripping away his control.

Liam stood taller. “Because I’m no longer afraid to let it go. Even if it means losing myself.” And then he raked the blade across his palm.

“Shit,” Liam wheezed. The blood was immediately pulled, forcibly, out of his skin—drunk up by the shadowy air all around them. If it took a sacrifice to open it, then maybe it took a sacrifice to close. If he could—Liam blinked, his mouth suddenly dry as his head went fuzzy from blood loss. If he could just hold out a little longer—

“Stop.” Pitr lunged at him, tendrils flailing desperately. “Stop! These worlds are mine!”

The tendril struck Liam across the face and raked deep into him, fishhook-sharp. Liam cried, his concentration breaking. His vision was blurring, sparking with red and pain—he couldn’t see from his left eye, and his hand was burning as the shadows drank more and more—

“What are you doing?” Pitr shrieked. “Stop this! You can’t close it!”

“I can.” Liam dropped to his knees. Blood marred his vision as the pain crackled through him. “If it takes every last drop of blood I have to give, I will.”

“You won’t,” Pitr seethed. “You can’t surrender it. You love it too much.”

“That’s—that’s why I have to let it go.”