"The interplanetary spell was not designed to do that," Lumi explained. "Even if I were to drain all the ghouls in here for their power, it still wouldn't be enough to pierce such a hole through the fabric of the universe."

The Soul Crusher frowned. "We can leave the spell and make our way across, but we certainly can't take any of you with us, I'm afraid."

"Would Thieron be able to help?" Taeral replied, looking at the scythe in his hand.

Phantom shook her head. "Not unless you're Death. The powers it gave us are no longer available because we're not bound to its pieces anymore. Killing a Hermessi was an incredible feat, but you certainly don't have the knowledge or the skill to get us into whatever dimension the tracking spell is taking us to."

Panic soon gripped us all, and we gave each other worried looks. What would we do? How would we do it? There was no time for a plan B, even if we did come up with one. We had maybe a few hours left on the clock, at best.

Most of the day had already passed, and we'd spent it searching for Death.

"This can't be it," the Widow Maker grumbled. "I did not come all the way here to have my ass handed to me by the Spirit Bender. No way."

Silence took over for a few moments as each of us tried to adjust to this unexpected and unfair new reality. Widow was right. We hadn’t made it this far to get bogged down in the basic laws of quantum physics. We'd broken barriers before. There had to be a way for us to break another one before it was too late.

Lumi lit up from the inside, sucking in a ragged breath as she lost herself. Her eyes burned white and brighter than ever, and pure, untamed energy rippled out from her body like a trembling, shimmering aura.

Before any of us could say anything, Nethissis transformed in a similar fashion, taken over and hijacked by what I dared to assume to be the Word. Nothing else had that kind of power over the witches. Nothing else could change them like this…

"What is going on?" Riza murmured, her eyes wide.

"All rules have been suspended." The Word spoke simultaneously through both Lumi and Nethissis. "Given the Spirit Bender's wrongdoings and actions against one of us, I now see fit to intervene."

"Whoa." Varga gasped. "Wait, one of us… What do you mean by one of us?"

"The forces of the universe," Taeral said. "We learned this earlier, back on Mortis, when we first met Death. There are a few of them. The Word, Death, and others, though I don't know anything about them."

"The Spirit Bender took my sister," the Word replied, using Lumi and Nethissis's voices in a way that made my blood run cold and my heart jump in my chest. "I cannot stand for that."

Blinking rapidly, I tried to make sense of this. The old me would've wondered why the Word had not stepped in earlier, when we'd first learned of the Spirit Bender's deeds, but I'd grown up since that previous version of myself. I knew now not to question the universe or the entities that animated it, forces older than time itself. They reasoned and did things in their own way. Our minds were simply too small and were unable to comprehend all the variables, the factors that formed the bigger picture. For us, the bigger picture had been, at most, saving a galaxy or an entire dimension from one evil thing or another. For something like the Word, the bigger picture meant something else entirely. Something greater than all of us put together and multiplied by a billion.

Lumi and Nethissis put their glowing hands through the interplanetary spell bubble's incandescent fabric. That was a first. They wouldn't have been able to do that before. Clearly, the Word was working here.

We were but a blip in all of existence, yet this incredibly powerful entity had chosen us to move forward, to push through.

Light erupted from the witches' hands and shot through space until it stopped and flattened into a disc. Everything warped and trembled around it, the fabric torn wide open. Lumi and Nethissis cried out, their hands as white as the disc. Sweat beads dripped down their faces, but they didn't stop. They kept pushing, fueled by the Word itself, until our spell bubble shot through the white disc and the In-Between opened up before us in all its colorful splendor.

"Death is in the In-Between," Seeley said, his breath short.

The interplanetary spell darted across the realms of ethereal creatures and rivers of pink and purple and orange stardust. Lumi and Nethissis pulled their glowing hands back, which they gathered into fists, whispering magic on behalf of the Word.

Something surged through the bubble. The five ghouls that had volunteered began to shine as though liquid light had filled them to the brim. The unconscious ones didn't move, but the fifth growled softly, looking at his own hands. He seemed shocked, but not in pain. Not from where I stood, anyway.

The glow intensified until the ghouls' forms melted, revealing what I could only assume were their Reaper selves, before their descent into madness and endless hunger for the souls of the living.

"They're reverting back to their old selves," Kelara exclaimed.

The fifth, still conscious, looked at me with his galaxy eyes. He smiled, before the light took over again and consumed him and the others from the inside. They dissolved like droplets of pigment in water and seeped into the spell bubble.

Suddenly, we moved faster. Much faster.

Hell, we were well ahead of light and sound and anything else that crossed the universe in mere minutes or years. Everything vanished around us. I held on to Raphael with all my strength. Nothing had changed inside the spell bubble, except my perception. I had a feeling I'd fall apart and disintegrate from the speed, but I was okay. It was merely the shock of experiencing it, of seeing something like this with my own eyes.

Raphael held me close, and we all gazed out into the flickering distance.

The spell bubble hummed, powered by the Word and the five ghouls it had sacrificed, and steered by the tracking spell embedded into the magic.

"Holy crap. I should've seen this coming!" Taeral managed, his eyes bulging.

Ahead, the In-Between's oldest solar system unraveled, with its twenty planets and dozens of small, pearlescent moons, as they all orbited around an ancient, reddish sun. I recognized Yahwen first, then Aledras.

We seemed to be headed toward the latter, and my pulse went on a vicious race through my body, making my limbs tingle with an even mixture of dread, hope, and excitement.

"We're going to Aledras, it seems," the Word said through Lumi and Nethissis. "It's where the ritual is fated to end, after all."

"Rather fitting, if you ask me," the Time Master replied.

Indeed. It was where the ritual's final stage would unfold. The beginning of the end, in a most literal sense. Once the last fae was touched by the Hermessi, the apocalypse would be unleashed, and it would start right there, on Aledras.

We just needed to get there before that happened. Easier said than done, I thought.

A bright flicker enveloped the small planet for a fraction of a second. A pulse spread outward from its core, and we all felt it in the pits of our stomachs. The universe reacting, as the five millionth fae finally came down, somewhere in the In-Between.

The grief was insurmountable, my stomach clenching in agony as I understood what this meant. Five million fae had been affected. After weeks of turmoil and racing against what Brendel had often referred to as the inevitable… it was done. The Hermessi had finished it.

Vesta

Zeriel and I looked at each other, with no need for words.

We'd said everything we'd had to say, and we both knew our love would transcend everything, including death, life, and all that was between them. Now, we only had to wait—for salvation, or for our last breaths.

The sanctuary's hum persisted, but I'd already learned to ignore it. Rudolph stood by my side as whispers rustled across the great hall. Our bodies glowed brighter than ever, sealed inside the charmed crystal casings. Light rushed across in bold accents as a dull pain settled in my chest.

"Vesta, what's wrong?" Zeriel called out.

It was as if he'd sensed my attention had been grabbed by something terrible. The reality was impossible to ignore at this point, as I first looked down at him, then at the Novaks, whose expressions of dread mirrored mine. The Reapers gathered closer to our spirits, shadows nestled beneath their eyebrows as they stared at us. Waiting.

"The last fae has fallen," Rudolph announced, his voice echoing through the sanctuary. First, he addressed the Reapers. "Brothers, sisters, the moment we've all been dreading has arrived. I am not sure how we came to this point, or what we can expect of Taeral and his mission, but we cannot forsake our duties, regardless of how we might feel about this situation."

"What… what are you talking about?" I murmured.

"Five million fae have been taken by the Hermessi's influence," Rudolph said to me. "No matter what happens next, we must be ready and at peace with our fates—mine, to reap you, and yours, to let go and move on."

"No!" Grace screamed. "I'm not moving on. I'm not going anywhere. It's not over yet. No! Dammit, no!"

Ben held her close, though he wasn't in much better shape. Vita and Caia sobbed, hugging each other. Lucas had an arm around Kailyn's shoulders. All the other fae in the sanctuary looked broken and abandoned, barely visible wisps plagued by hopelessness and despair. It hurt me deeply to see them like this, and I couldn't do anything to help them.

"Vesta!" Zeriel shouted from below. "Something is happening!"