I know I should be thinking a million things as I move through the wood, my boots sinking into the sandy muck that was once a dry path. I know I should be warring with myself over what I’m about to do, over how it will irrevocably change me—isn’t that what killing someone is supposed to do? Shouldn’t I be feeling something?—but all I can think about is my mom.
I wish now that I’d told her what I was doing. She wouldn’t have let me leave the house, of course, and we would have had a huge fight; and I would have stormed out anyway, and she would have probably followed me, resulting in an even bigger mess and putting her life in danger; but in a selfish, childish way, all I want in this moment is for my mom to know where I am, what I’m doing. To know that I love her, and that I don’t want to leave her.
It is my greatest fear, as I walk toward the place where instinct tells me Joe is waiting for me, that I will die in here, just like Dad, and Joe will tell my mom that I walked off the path, just like Dad. That she’ll never know what really happened to me. That she’ll drive herself insane with the not knowing.
Maybe that’s why I’m so numb, because I don’t really have a choice. This destiny has been laid out for me, and the only way I’m going to get home to the one person in the world who needs me more than anything is by not losing my nerve.
Joe stands in the same clearing I stood in just a few days ago, when I was trying to walk off the path. His supporters stand behind him, their blades flashing in the midday sunlight.
Joe’s brow arches. “Where is everyone?”
Breathe, I tell myself. Believe everything you’re about to say, so he’ll believe it, too.
“At council headquarters,” I reply. “I left them behind.”
“Come to fight me on your own, Winnie girl?”
I grit my teeth. “Did you mean what you said? Can you really save him?”
Joe studies me. “Yes,” he says. “I believe I can.”
“Swear it to me,” I say. “Swear to me you’ll save my father, and I’ll join you.”
He smiles. “Not so much of a monster now, am I?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but I know you loved my father. I know you wouldn’t have done what you did if he’d”—I force the words out—“if he’d just listened to you. And I know you’ll save him anyway, even though he didn’t believe in you. My grief got in the way of seeing that, but I get it now, and if it means getting my dad back, I want to help you.”
He hesitates.
Tears well in my eyes, and I don’t have to tell myself to believe in what I’m about to say. It’s been in my heart for twenty months and seven days, banging its fists against my valves, always making it so damn hard to breathe. “I can’t keep going on without him, Uncle Joe. I die a little every day he’s gone, and I’m afraid if it lasts any longer, there’s going to be nothing left of me. I need him to come home. I’ll do anything. Please, just … help me.”
Joe’s gaze softens. “Very well,” he says, his voice soothing, like one of the times I fell off my bike and scraped my knee on the sidewalk. Joe carried me into the kitchen and spoke to me in that same hushed tone as he cleaned the scrape and used three Sesame Street Band-Aids to cover it. My mom and dad would have told me I was fine, that the cut wasn’t that bad, but Joe was properly solemn about the whole thing, and I loved him for that. “But I want you to stand behind us, out of harm’s way. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, moving to stand behind him, my throat tight from the memory.
We don’t have to wait long for the others to arrive. My eyes immediately find Henry. His parents keep trying to push him behind them, but he refuses. He stands next to them instead, and when he sees me, he doesn’t look at anything else.
Alban leads them, and when Joe asks if they have come to their senses, Alban replies, “We’ve come to ask the same of you, Josiah. We are willing to give you this final chance to stop this nonsense.”
Joe laughs. “You’re giving me a final chance? You still don’t get it, do you? I’ve already won.” He claps his hands together, creating the same black smoke that choked out the sun the first day I saw him as Varo. “I do not wish for more bloodshed, but that does not mean I am not willing to do whatever it takes to make my vision a reality. Just remember, as you watch your friends and family die around you, that you chose this, and for what? For some ridiculous notion that our people could not use the thresholds that make up our world? That it would somehow break down the very fabric of time? We have been denying our legacy for over a thousand years. Well, no more. It ends today.”
Joe’s supporters pull out their weapons.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Alban shouts back at him.
“You’re right,” Joe says. “It didn’t.”
He thrusts the black smoke into the sky, transforming day into night. The wood changes immediately, monsters seeping from the trees to join the fray as Joe’s supporters rush the Old Ones, weapons drawn.
“Stay close to me, Winter,” Joe says, glancing at me over his shoulder.
I take a step closer to him. I can’t see anything past Joe, can only hear the screams of the Old Ones and the guardians as the Sentinels and other monstrous, nocturnal creatures descend upon them.
“Henry!” Celia shouts.
My heart leaps into my throat. My body tenses, every fiber of my being urging me to run to Henry, to find him, but I can’t leave Joe’s side without betraying my true allegiance. Please let him be okay, I pray, my eyes scanning the darkness, picking up nothing.
But then—there! A spark of light. Alban, the most ancient Old One on the council, must know at least some of Joe’s tricks, because he holds the light in his palm. It grows into a shield, throwing up an arc of light that hovers over the council members, keeping the Sentinels back. I see Henry lying on the ground at his parents’ feet, unmoving.
He’s all right, I think. He’s all right, he’s all right.
I squeeze my coin between thumb and forefinger and whisper, “Tierl’asi.” The Sentinels change course immediately, attacking Joe’s supporters instead. Thankfully, Joe assumes they are attacking his people to avoid Alban’s light. He doesn’t realize I’m controlling them.
But the Sentinels aren’t the only thing attacking Joe’s supporters now. The wood has come to life, paths turning into swirling eddies, growing larger and picking up speed. The trees try to grab at Joe’s supporters and Alban’s people alike, but their trunks are too rotten, and they shear in half, toppling to the ground. One of Joe’s supporters shouts as his leg is crushed beneath a fallen tree.
A black cloak enters Alban’s circle of light. Kamali lunges for him, stumbling back into the darkness. Her foot catches in the path’s whirlpool, pulling her legs out from under her. She screams. Ballinger tries to help her, but another black cloak is on them.