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The words come to me as Ruskin’s voice. Whether it’s really him or not, I know what I need to do. I can’t worry about myself or my memories. I’m here to deliver the magic that will stop Evanthe. That’s all that matters.

The shadows of Interra are coming from somewhere. Like Ruskin’s mind, they must have a source, and I’m going to find them.

I sprint through the endless complex of rooms, dashing past the vicious vines as they swallow up everything behind me. My determination spikes when I pass the memories of the battle we’ve just left. There’s the moment I watched Maidar die, when Thatch cursed me…and there’s Evanthe by the lake.

I watch her call me a peasant girl, watch Ruskin’s blood spray across the mossy earth as the iron bites his flesh.

The portal is open at Evanthe’s feet just as it was in reality, but here in my mind, Interra’s black shadows don’t just collect around her, instead they pour out into my mind, streaming past me into the recesses of my subconscious.

My thoughts are still scattered by the shrieking noise echoing around me, but I can just about hold on to enough of them to realize that if the curse is coming from the portal, that must be the point of connection between me and Evanthe.

With my mind collapsing behind me, I don’t know how much time I have, so I shove my magic out towards the abyss.

What I find is familiar.

Evanthe’s power wasn’t just given to her by Interra and Cebba. The terrible blend of her magic has an element I know too well: the High Monarch’s. The feel of it pulls me back to the last time I was near the founding stone.

Something deep and ancient brushes against me as I struggle to hold on to the memory. It’s the founding stone itself, I’m sure of it—the source of the High Monarch power. And it’s calling to me. The first brush of its presence was like a greeting, and now it’s tugging at my own magic, trying to draw me along with it, pulling me towards…towards a seam of augium, rich and glittering. My magic latches onto it, reading it.

The founding stone is showing me its memories.

I glimpsed them before, the many hands that have been laid on its surface over the years, asking to be made king or queen. But this…I can feel the weight of stone above me, pressing down on the seam, enclosing it. It seems to stretch on forever, the augium buried far from any light or sound. Why is it showing me this, the stone in ancient times, before it was ever dug up and taken to Seelie? The memory is suffocating, like being drowned in airless darkness…or is that Evanthe’s tendrils finally choking the life out of me?

The stone doesn’t want the kingdom destroyed any more than I do, does it? So why is it overwhelming me with this memory, forcing the connection? I explored the depths of those mountains before, the same ones that surround us now, and it nearly cost me my sanity. Now I feel like I cannot catch my breath, cannot look away from a sight I do not want to see.

Maintaining the connection to something so old and big could destroy me…

But that’s happening anyway. Evanthe’s magic is attacking every aspect of my memory. I can feel it, still scratching and screeching away. So what do I have to lose? Maidar always told me to dig deeper. That’s what I have to do now, even if I might not be able to come back from it. I stop fighting the stone. Even as my mind cries out under the pressure, I let the stone guide me down deep into the seams of augium in the peaks surrounding me.

That’s when I feel it—the lifeline it’s trying to give me: this augium is the same metal that I’m using to communicate with the stone, and I can use it to literally ground me too. I feel the earth beneath me once more, as the ore’s presence allows me to scrabble back some awareness beyond the strange subconscious state Evanthe’s curse has pulled me into. I’m halfway between—the shrieking of the vines still echoes in my ears, but I can feel the damp air on my skin, can smell the grass.

Which means I can feel it when the mountains begin to shake.

I’m doing this, I think in astonishment, putting pressure on the augium running through its foundations so that the stone quakes around it. It must catch Evanthe by surprise too, because I feel the hold of her curse weaken, and my vision starts to come back to me. She’s staring up wildly at the soaring peaks.

I don’t dare look over my shoulder for Ruskin. I’m too afraid that whatever I see might bring my balancing act tumbling down.

Instead, I keep my eyes fixed on the Queen of Seelie, readying another tendril of my magic even as I continue pushing hard on the augium in the stone—the same kind of stone that forms the rock bed beneath us.

It’s like wading through a rushing river in lead boots. The memories of the mountain try to crowd in around me at the same time as the heavy stone resists the push of my magic. I think I must release some kind of primal noise, trying to hold on to what strength I have left. I told Ruskin, didn’t I, that it didn’t matter how badly the odds were stacked against us. You still had to try.

I give the stone a final, brutal shove, and the earth beneath Evanthe opens up.

I got the idea from Maidar—and it works like a charm. Evanthe sinks into a churning pit, faster than she can refocus her magic, releasing a cry as the stone closes up around her, burying her to her waist.

The shadows around her intensify, and I feel the curse on me withdraw. She’s pulling her power back to herself, trying to break free. Her beautiful face twists in frustration, and I sense the dark tendrils of her magic slithering away from me, leaving a battered but whole mind in their wake.

She’s not quick enough.

Evanthe clutches her chest. She knows something is wrong.

“It’s time we took that iron out of you, Evanthe,” I say.

When she was pulling her magic back, I buried my own spell within it—a small tendril of my magic, trained to make a beeline for whatever metal is left within her. At this moment, it’s burrowing its way into her heart.

A voice beside me speaks.

“Keep going, Ella.”