Liam’s mouth tasted cottony. Blood loss—he felt like he was swimming, like he was teetering on the edge of sleep. If he just let go—but he couldn’t, not until the rift was closed, the counterfrequency and sacrifice sealing everything—

“I’ve got you.”

Daniel’s arms wrapped around Liam from behind, dragging him away from the vortex, from Pitr. “No matter what happens,” Daniel said, “I’ve got you.”

Rebeka strode forward, her eyes burning. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

She stopped before Pitr, darkness like a cold fire around her. Shadows bending. Retreating. Slowly, the tendril released its hold on Liam, leaving a slick smear of blood in its wake. Surrendering under the force of Rebeka’s fearlessness.

With a howl, Liam covered his left eye where the shadow had raked across it.

Pitr fell backward, sucked into the roaring vortex of darkness—

“Now!” Rebeka cried, her words amplified by shadow, ringing throughout the castle, all the way up to the radio tower.

They breathed as one. United. Solid.

And then a wave of static hit them as Phillip unleashed the counterfrequency, cutting through the opening to the other realm. The entire castle jolted like a generator coming back online. The mountain ridge grew hazy, as if viewed on a foggy day. The worlds were beginning to sever.

“Together,” Rebeka said. “It’s the only way we go forward.”

Liam clenched his jaw. He felt Daniel’s presence to his left, even if he could no longer see him. The throbbing pain in his left eye socket fueled him for one last act. One hand in Daniel’s, the other in Rebeka’s, the shadows pulsing in time with his agony, with his determination, as he forced the openings closed, and closed—

And then the shadow world collapsed in a torrent of dust and howling cries. Darkness ripped out of the soldiers where they stood, leaving only empty skins that crumpled to the ground. The behemoth tottered and fell, and then everything was static and cold.

Liam’s power—gone. The other world—fading. His eye—ruined. He was empty, as empty as those soldiers had been. Everything that was special about him, everything that gave him control—

Nothingness.

Daniel squeezed his hand, grounding him to their world. Reminding him.

He was more than the power he’d stolen.

His hands sturdy in Daniel’s and Rebeka’s, they pushed back. Together, they’d transmuted into something more, pushing against the wave of anger and fear and sorrow. The shadows melted from the beasts where they had fallen; the retreating fog revealed Kreutzer’s and Pitr’s bodies. With the shadow gone, all that remained of Pitr was a lump of discarded skin. He was nothing without his hate.

The dusty book sparked and smoked on its pedestal, then suddenly burst into flame. Liam held tight as the wind raked at his face, stinging the empty socket of his left eye.