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“Really? No shit.”

But I close my eyes and count to ten. I breathe in and breathe out, and a measure of calm washes over me.

“Good,” she murmurs. “Sink down inside yourself. Look with your inner eyes. Search for a break, an opening.”

I try my best to clear my mind, but it’s like asking the ocean to be still. Thoughts churn and crash, and underneath them, something lurks. Something I don’t want to acknowledge.

Except…it’s always been there.

At the thought, a pressure forms in my head. It feels as though I’m standing at the edge of a high cliff, staring into deep, black, bottomless water.

And now, Hecate wants me to dive headfirst into it.

My stomach knots. My breath comes too fast. Agh. I don’t want to do this.

But once again—it’s not as though I have a lot of choice.

I close my eyes and sink inward, peeling back the layers of myself. Deeper, deeper—

And then I find it. Deep down, something stirs. A flicker. A whisper. A crack in my defenses, thin and jagged, like fractured glass.

And through it—

Darkness.

Not just the absence of light. It’s a living thing, churning, slow and thick, like oil spilling through water.

Cold slams into my chest, as if I’m stuck beneath ice. My lungs seize. My hands turn numb. My pulse is erratic. My skin burns cold-hot. My heartbeat is everywhere—throat, fingertips, skull.

There’s something evil in there. I can feel it. Iknowit. And it recognizes me, calls to me.

What if I’m not meant to stop the darkness?

What if Iamthe darkness?

A violent snap—

The crack slams shut.

The world rushes back. My breath is a ragged, and I feel like I’m shaking apart. I open my eyes to find Hecate watching me, a look of resignation etched on her face. She knows me so well—she knows it’s going to be harder than that.

She stands up. “Come with me.”

I follow her out of the courtyard, through the kitchen to the corridor and then to a narrow staircase that leads off. Stone steps spiral up and up around a circular tower.

It seems to go on forever. And all the way up, I’m aware of someone following. I know it’s Khaosti, keeping close as promised, and the thought makes me feel...all warm and fuzzy. It helps me banish the fear back to where it usually slumbers restlessly.

Finally, when my legs are about to give out, Hecate pushes open a door and steps out into the open air. Outside, the sun is setting. We’ve been at this all day without stopping. Time has slipped away while I wrestled with my reluctant magic.

“This is the Mirador,” she says.

We must be on the highest tower in the city. Valandria stretches out all around us for miles. I turn ninety degrees, taking in the vast land, the plains, and in the distance, mountains.

“Look,” Hecate says. “See what the world is coming to. We’re an island in a sea of darkness, and each day we get smaller.”

I stare into the distance, my arms wrapped around myself as cold dread seeps into my belly. A blackness is creeping across the land from all directions, enclosing us. I can almost see it moving, like an ominous tide.

“Only you can stop this,” Hecate says.