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No wonder Newton had panicked. No wonder he had stopped the ritual before it was complete.

But it was too late for Esta to turn back. The Book was ash at her feet, and released from its bonds, the beating heart of magic swelled, growing to fill the boundary delineated by the sigils.

Viola was screaming, and Jianyu was telling them to hold tight. Harte looked back over his shoulder at her. Esta saw the desperation in his eyes as she felt the boundary waver and began to realize how far over her head she was.

The serpent catches its tail… severs time… consumes.

If the beating heart of magic broke free of the boundary, it would destroy time—and in doing so, destroy reality itself. After all, what was time but that substance that kept the spaces ordered and magic’s power in check? But because of what Seshat had done, the power she’d taken from the Book was beyond time’s reach. If it escaped from the boundary of the sigils, it would do more than simply destroy the Brink. It would consume everything.

Swirling around her was chaos itself. Pure and filled with possibility. But possibility meant everything, not only the good. Possibility included the end.

Esta knew she had to hurry. She had to finish the ritual before the ritual could finish her.

The Brink had been made the same way Seshat had created a boundary for the Book those eons ago—the same way the other version of herself had created a ritual circle in the subway—through Aether. Through time. By pulling at the spaces within time, between time, Seshat and the Order had created a space that craved magic.

Esta would give the Brink what it craved. She would take the beating heart of magic, that piece of power protected from time, and push it back into the spaces left by the ritual, completing the ritual that the Order had left undone. And she would use Seshat to do it.

As the power welled, stronger and more urgent, she heard Viola curse and Dolph laugh in what could only have been amazement. But Harte was watching her as though if he looked away, she might disappear.

She had to get to Harte—to Seshat.

Slowly, Esta pushed through the nearly solid wall of chaotic power surrounding her. It felt like swimming through concrete, but eventually she was within an arm’s length of him.

“It’s time,” she shouted, and then reached out her hand.

But Harte only shook his head. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him.

“It’s time, Harte.” She held her hand out again as the boundary line continued to waver, trembling as her friends struggled to hold it steady.

“I hate this,” he told her. The gray of his eyes mirrored the storm around them. She could see herself reflected there. She could see everything they might be, if only they could make it to the other side.

“I know,” she said, and before he could stop her, she grabbed his wrist.

Immediately she felt Seshat lurch, and Esta threw herself—her affinity and her life—into the space between them. But the goddess would not go easily. Esta hadn’t expected her to. She focused her affinity through the stones of the artifacts and pressed her magic into Harte. There, she found the places where Harte ended and Seshat began. She let her magic flare within those spaces.

She felt the goddess’s power sizzling up her arm, felt the darkness beginning to swell as a desert night rose up around her. A woman whose eyes were lined with kohl stepped from the spaces into time, and as fire flashed in Seshat’s ancient gaze, Esta realized her mistake.

It wouldn’t work. Esta couldn’t force Seshat. She couldn’t use the goddess’s power like so many had tried to. Doing so would make her no better than Jack or Newton or Thoth. She could try all she wanted to control Seshat—to use her—but Esta understood in a sudden, terrible epiphany that it wouldn’t work.

With power willingly given.

That’s why Newton had failed. That’s why the Order had failed as well. The power sacrificed to balance magic and time, to make the two into one, had to be freely given. It couldn’t be stolen, as ritual magic had stolen power for so long.

But with the horror of that discovery came new understanding. Esta could see how to fix it—the Brink, the Book, all of it. Not by forcing Seshat, but by giving herself—her magic—in place of Seshat’s.

There was only one answer. She had to free Seshat. Even if it meant dooming herself.

Darkness was bleeding into the world, filtering through the spaces and starting to claw at her, but Esta wrenched her magic back. Focusing her affinity through the stones, she pushed Seshat away. Seshat lunged for Esta, tearing at her eyes and face with razor-tipped nails, but with the artifacts hot against her skin, Esta held her back. Held her caught in the Aether.

“I won’t use you as the others would have,” she told the goddess—the woman—struggling against her.

“Lies!” Seshat screamed. Her kohl-rimmed eyes were bright with a hatred that took Esta’s breath away. “But it will not work. You seek power for yourself, but you will unmake all.”

“I never wanted power,” Esta told her. “I just wanted Harte, but if I can’t have him, then I’ll leave the world safe.”

You could make the world anew.

Esta shook her head and shoved the thought aside.