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“Don’t be sorry,” he says fiercely. “You did it.”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?”

At that moment, Grimlet crawls into my lap, and I close my eyes and stroke his hard little head. It’s not so bad. I got to meet my mom. I fell in love. I made new friends. Pretty good for nineteen years. Some people don’t get to do that in ninety. I’m just sorry I won’t see Zayne and Josh again. Zayne is going to be so pissed at me. And that I brought Khaosti to this. Though without him, I couldn’t have done it, so there is that.

The sound of sniveling shatters my attempt at a peaceful end. I blink open my eyes. “No, no, he can’t be gone,” Hecate is kneeling in the ashes where my father once stood. “We were meant to be together. He can’t be gone. I waited so long.” She digs her fingers into the gray ashes and wipes her face, leaving streaks across her cheeks. Ugh. She’s weeping now. She turns to look at me. “We could have all been together. We could have saved the world from Khronus, taken it for ourselves. And instead, you brought us to this. You killed your father.”

Yeah, I did. And I’m sort of proud of it. But I don’t have the strength to answer.

“And now you will die in Hell with the rest of us.”

I feel Khaosti shift behind me, his arms tightening for a moment and a growl rumbling in his chest. “No! I won’t let you die,” he growls.

He puts me gently away from him and then rises to his feet. I shuffle around so I can see him, and Grimlet scrambles onto my shoulder.

Above us, the sky is falling.

And all around us, the shadowguard are fading to nothing—the magic that sustained them, gone.

I catch a movement at the edge of my vision. One remains. He stands at the edge of the forest, motionless amid the chaos, his armor scorched, his weapon hanging limp at his side.

For a heartbeat, our eyes meet. Then he bows his head slightly. Just once.

“Thank you,” he says. His voice is rough. Real. Like a man waking from a long sleep. And then he’s gone—like a smoke in the wind.

Only the three of us remain.

Hecate is still groveling in the dirt. I wish I could feel sorry for her, but I can’t. Because right now, Hell is coming apart around us—stone fracturing, fire tearing through the air like it’s trying to consume the world that created it.

I push myself to my feet; it takes all my energy, but I don’t want to die on my knees. I can barely stand. My magic is gone, and the rest of me isn’t much better. I’m not sure I can move, but I don’t exactly have anywhere to go, so…

Then Khaosti steps in front of me.

His eyes are wild—gold and molten, blazing with something ancient andwrongandrightall at once. Beneath the devastation, I can feel the shiver of shifter magic in the air.

His body trembles, veins glowing with power that has nowhere else to go. His breath stutters.

“Khaos,” I whisper. “What—?” But I have an inkling; I just try not to hope, because I don’t see how it can help.

He meets my gaze. “Hold on to me.”

But before I can do anything at all, heshifts.

Not into the wolf.

The air explodes outward, and I’m forced backwards, barely keeping my feet. Grimlet tightens his hands around my hair, and I brace myself.

Heat, wind, light. His body stretches, expands, bones cracking, wings unfurling—massive, black and gold, like fire forged from shadow. His scales shimmer, runes burning beneath them like veins of sunlight.

He lets out a roar that shakes what’s left of the dying world.

My heart stops.

The dragon rises.

And before I can think, claws curl gently around me, wings snap wide—and we launch into the air, flying through the collapsing ruins of a kingdom built from shadows.

Hell falls away below us.