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I want to cover my head with my hands and pretend I’m not here, but I can’t. I have to watch the outcome of what I have done. I have to see the end. The magic flares out of me,unstoppable, and all around us, the light dims as a pulse of power ripples outward, tearing through the ground, the air, thefabric of Hell itself. The trees groan. The shadows flinch. The sky fractures like a mirror struck by lightning.

Lucifer staggers back.

He’s staring at me. Rage and fury fill his emerald eyes. “What have you fucking done?”

I brace myself for his attack. If this is going to work, it had better be soon. The power is still pouring from me, as though the spell split me wide open and is draining every last drop of magic from me.

Then Lucifer goes still, and a change sweeps over him. He clutches his chest and crashes to his knees in front of me, eyes wide in confusion as he stares into my face and our gazes lock. Horror. “Oh, God, what have I become?”

And then pain—I’m guessing both mental and physical—twists his perfect features into something monstrous. Something real.

“It’s over,” I say.

“No,” Hecate screams from somewhere in the darkness.

“Finished.” My chest rises and falls like I’ve just run through every battlefield in every world at once.

“You gave it back,” Lucifer whispers, reaching out a hand. “You gave itbackto me.” His voice cracks, and for a single, terrifying moment, he looks…not like the devil. Not a monster. Just a man—one who’s finally seeing what he’s become.

His eyes—green like mine—stare in horror. And this time, there’s no malice in them. No rage. Only grief.

“Ravenna,” he screams. A name, a memory, a plea. Then he closes his eyes.

Cracks form in his skin, turning into deep black crevices that burn from within. Crimson light glows from beneath. I push myself up and grasp the hand that reaches out to me. His eyesflash open, and I catch a glimpse of the father he could have been had the world been a different, better place.

But it’s too late, as my mother knew. Because behind the grief, I can see the horror—the revulsion of what he has done, not least to his beloved Ravenna.

And in that final moment, I feel it. His guilt. Raw, unrelenting, devastating. There is nothing left of him but guilt. It reverberates in my mind, echoing my own. He will never break free; he’s damned in his own mind for eternity.

And Iwill notmake that mistake.

I’ll own my guilt—but I’ll use it. I’ll let it remind me who I am, what I’ve done, and how I must use the powers bestowed on me.

Not to destroy. To heal. To make the worlds a better place.

Hey, a girl has to have ambitions.

His end is near. I couldn’t stop this even if I wanted to. This magic is not mine, but from the gods themselves. I’m but a vessel being drained.

His skin splits like it can’t contain the magic. The light explodes out of him in blinding waves, and the walls of Hell begin tocrack. The air howls.

A final surge of power roars from within me, and I sway. I feel arms coming around me, holding me, bracing me against the destruction. Khaosti. He wraps himself around me as the world tears open.

“Hold on,” he growls. “I’ve got you.”

But I’m not afraid.

I watch as my father disintegrates before my eyes, turning to ashes and dust. Not destroyed—redeemed.

And my destiny is done.

Which is a good thing because I’m done as well. Finished. I’m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open to watch the end of the world. Or at least, the end of Hell. It’s splintering around us. Isearch inside myself for the strength to go on, to get us out of here, but where my magic dwells is just an empty space.

I feel Khaosti’s lips on my forehead in the softest of kisses. “Sweetheart,” he says. “We have to go. This place is dying. Can you make a mirror?”

Not in a million years.

Okay, maybe in a million years I could, but right now—it’s not happening. “There’s nothing left,” I say. “I’m sorry.”