Morgan glances around the circle and warns: ‘Once you follow me into the portal you must be prepared for anything.’

Thiten drops my hand and steps forward. ‘No, I will go first. If Merlin’s set a trap on the other side then the others will need you to lead them.’

The women shake their heads, each insisting they will take her place, but Thiten is adamant. A memory flashes into my mind – Thiten standing in front of me and shouting at the others. I had tried to do a fire spell, but it had gone badly wrong and I ended up burning the back of my wrist. The others were angry, saying I was foolish to attempt something so difficult. Thiten told them they should be helping me to improve, not telling me off for trying. It didn’t matter whether I was right or wrong, she always took my side.

She strides towards the optic, and I touch her arm. ‘I know I’m not the sister you remember, but I hope we can be friends one day.’

She sighs and gives me a half-smile. ‘Let’s see if we survive first.’

I watch her climb onto the raised metal platform, standing in the same spot as my mum before she was taken, and my pulse quickens. What if she really is walking into a trap? I don’t want to lose her, or any of them.

Suddenly the red optic darkens as shadows fill the glass and spew out into the room. Within the swirling mass are shifting forms: arms and legs and monstrous faces. Instead of climbing out one by one like before, they issue in a steady stream. There must be hundreds of them. The witches take to the air and I beat my wings and rise with them.

A swirl of darkness rises up and two shadowy arms clutch at Mazoe’s legs. She throws bolts of blue energy, but they wrap around her waist, dragging her down. She cries out and Glitonea grabs her and pulls her free.

Morgan releases a huge ball of green light then lands on the walkway and runs at the optic, but she’s knocked sideways by a swarm of shadows. Thiten shouts and fires a bolt of black energy that makes the walls of the tower shake, but the shadowy creatures disperse and reform. She tries again, blood streaming from her nose, but she can’t push them back.

Beating my wings fast, I rise higher into the sky. Everywhere I look, streams of darkness are wrapping around the witches, entangling their limbs and stopping them from reaching the portal. At least when the demons were physical we could use magic to turn them to ash. Now they simply reform, the flow of shadows never seeming to lessen.