“You can’t help her!” Al shouted, and I pulled my head up, shaking as I saw the demon holding Trent back. Jenks and Bis were with him, both frightened. Nina had broken her bonds and was creeping to Ivy with the singular intent of not being noticed. As frightening as she looked, I knew Ivy would be safer with Nina than with me. It had always been so.

“She needs help, you coward!” Trent said, and Al yelped, letting him go.

Trent lunged for me, yanked back as the Goddess shot a bolt of living energy at him, exploding the floor in a shower of splinters—right where Trent would have been.

He fell back, face pale. I managed a clean breath at the brief respite. For all her strength, she couldn’t think of more than one thing at a time. I met Al’s eyes, knowing this was the end. At least the demons would survive, I thought, and then I blinked. The demons ...

Maybe ... The Goddess was here with all her mystics. I’d need them to reopen the lines. But I couldn’t do it alone. I needed the demons. I needed Al.

With a savage howl, the Goddess turned her attention back to me, and I jerked as great chunks of my memory went numb, connections to it sliced cleanly by the Goddess. “Al ... ,” I groaned, hand outstretched, then clenched into myself as the Goddess laughed, her head thrown back as her mystics beat at me, burning me from the inside out.

“I will not become!” she howled, eyes glowing. “You cannot stop me!”

“You can’t help her!” Al thundered, shoving Trent behind him.

“Then you do something!” Trent raged. “Or have you learned nothing?”

“Fine!” Al shouted, and I gaped, unbelieving, as Al picked Trent up and threw him right at the Goddess.

The Goddess shrieked. A burst of light blinded me as Trent struck her, and then I screamed as the cold of death touched me.

“No! No!” I exclaimed, frantically trying to push away, but it was Al, and I took a grateful sob of air in as he pulled me from the floor and into his arms. He’d reached me. Bis was with him, and a tiny part of me marveled at the glowing glints of gold in his eyes. He was growing up.

“Stay down,” Al muttered. “She’ll just knock us over again. Trent is fine. Beneath her notice. You, though ...”

“You both die!” the Goddess shrilled, and I jerked, head spinning. Shit, she was headed right for us, her pace leaving flaming steps of rubber behind her as her shoes burned away.

“Hang on. This might be tricky,” Al warned. “I’m not used to this elf slime.”