“What are you doing?”

Hnn. Too used to human language. His words sound strange now.

“I am ending this.”

“Ending what?”

Her voice rises, reaching my ears through the portal. Pain in each sound. The demonic words I helped her learn tremble, but she continues. The portal shimmers. Power builds, thickens.

“I learned how humans summon us. I will stop it now. Forever.”

Nazhivēr is silent.

Breathe. Focus. It is time.

My voice joins hers, loud in my ears. Strong words. Steady. They flow out of me, memorized from the amulet. Do not understand them all. Zh’rēil was old, smart, experienced. He knew magic I don’t. He created magic I will never learn.

Others are here now. Scents of many Houses. This place is close to the center of Ahlēavah. Close to the Naventis. Only there do Houses often cross paths.

Ignore them. Concentrate.

“Stay back!”

Nazhivēr’s sharp command. The others halt. Questions. Demands. Anger. They have seen the portal. They want to destroy it.

“Stay back!” Nazhivēr snarls. “He is breaking the human magic that summons us!”

Quiet falls except for my voice. Not much longer now. Words rush from my lips. Almost there.

A shudder ripples across the portal, coming from the other side. Xever damaged the ground and it is breaking. No time left. On the human side, her voice rises as she calls out the final words.

Now it is mine to finish.

The sky brightens as I flood the spell beneath my hands with power. All my power. All I have left. Pour it into the spell. Everything. Crimson blazes, burns. The portal ripples.

“Evashvā vīsh!” I roar in triumph, in despair.

Red light blazes off the spell. The same light rushes across the blue sky within the portal. And the same light fills the Ahlēvīsh all around me. A deep boom of magic too low to hear thuds in my ears.

The red glow dies. Silence sweeps in.

And the sun appears.

Golden rays streak across the red sand and fall on my skin. Bright and gentle and warm. Vayanin.

The portal darkens. Shrinks. It is closing, the outer edge rushing inward, the circle of human sky turning to crystal.

Vayanin.

The scent of home. The sand under my feet. The life-bringing sun. Ahlēavah. My world.

I do not want it.

I want her.

The portal is shrinking. The magic is almost gone. Seconds. Less than seconds. No time to move, to jump, to dive into the vanishing circle of sky.

But I can feel it. Like an Ahlēvīsh but not.

The infernus.

We are still bound.

Kish lēvh. Become spirit.

In an instant, my body softens into heat and light, and I leap toward the fading call as the portal disappears.

The strange emptiness of the infernus meets me. I leap out again, finding the ground. My body reforms, hard stone under my feet. Bright. The sun in my eyes, too sharp. Squint. Inhale.

Scents of the human world. Their rocks, their dirt, their trees.

And her scent. Robin. Fills my nose, sweet and alluring and layered with pain.

Look down. She is there, kneeling, hunched, bent under her sorrow. Her face is turned up to mine, her eyes wide. Eyes the color of the sky. Wetness marks her cheeks. Tears. She is weeping.

Amalia is beside her, dirty and injured, holding Robin’s shoulder. She stares too.

Sink to my knees, armor striking the ground with a sharp noise that echoes across the rocky terrain.

“Amavrah.”

My chosen.

She is trembling. Her hand reaches out but she does not touch me. “Zylas?”

She said my name wrong. Three sounds, not two. Sometimes she forgets.

Reach for her. Take her. Pull her to me, arms around her, her small, breakable body safe if I hold her. She trembles more.

“Zylas, you—you came back. You—” She looks past me at the portal.

Do not need to look to know it’s gone. Scents of Ahlēavah have already faded.

Her small hands grip my shoulders. Tears shine in her eyes, her face contorted. “Zylas, how will you go home?”

Home. The place I have always known, always hated. Always the weakest, always hiding, always fighting. I wanted more than what I could see in front of me. The payapis realized that. She taught me how I could be more, how I could have more.

And I finally found it—here.

“It does not matter,” I tell Robin, my fear of a future I never wanted slipping away. “Because I want to be with you.”

Epilogue

Four Months Later

My pen scribbled across the page, scrawling several quick lines before I closed the book. The leather cover shone under the yellow glow of the desk lamp, and I ran my fingers across it.

Last April, six weeks after Xever’s death, Amalia and Uncle Jack had accompanied me to the cemetery where my parents were buried. On the first anniversary of their passing, we’d sat together at their graves and talked. Really talked—about the past, the present, and the future.

As we’d left, Amalia had presented me with this book: my first grimoire.

“You’re a proper sorceress now,” she’d said. “You can’t uncreate an entire magic class and not have a grimoire.”

Smiling at the memory, I leaned over and tucked the grimoire into the large backpack beside me, then rifled through its contents, ensuring I’d packed everything. My grimoire traveled with me, but the Athanas grimoire and its deadly secrets were safely stored at home, where I’d resume copying and translating it when I returned.

With a loud chime, my cell phone lit up with an incoming video call. I tapped the screen and Amalia’s face filled it. Her hair was twisted into a messy bun, her fluffy housecoat wrapped around her.

“Morning,” she said—then clapped her hand over her mouth to hide a yawn. “Ugh, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I replied with a laugh. “Thanks for getting up early for me.”

“Didn’t want to miss you.” She rubbed her eyes. “It’s even earlier for you, isn’t it?”

“Five-thirty a.m., yeah, but I’m used to it.”

She muttered something about torture, then said more loudly, “So you’re heading out right away?”

“Yep, I’m all packed up.” I leaned back in my wooden chair. “The big party is this afternoon, right?”

She nodded. “Should be a riot. Everyone at the guild’s been whispering about it for weeks. I’m honestly surprised they haven’t blown the surprise.”

That sounded about right. The Crow and Hammer was terrible at keeping secrets, at least among its members.

“Tell everyone I say hi,” I said. “And don’t be late.”

She rolled her eyes. “I won’t be late.”

“You were so late to the last guild meeting that it was over by the time you got there.”

“I was focused on work! And Darius was completely unfair about it, too. He’s the one who ordered ten full sets of hex gear for the guild. And he bragged about me to the Pandora Knights GM, who wants a new prototype.”

I grinned. “So business is booming?”

“At this rate, I’ll need to hire an assistant.” She squinted at me. “Unless you’re planning to stick around for more than a few weeks after this trip?”