Page 126 of Academy of the Wicked: Year Three

I take what might be my last breath in this life, tasting the particular flavor of ending on my tongue.

Then everything explodes.

Not inward, toward me, but outward in every direction simultaneously.

Fire—dragon fire, hot enough to reduce paper to less than ash—erupts in coordinated streams that intercept the attacking books mid-flight. The flames don't just burn; theyerase, removing the hostile texts from existence with prejudice that speaks of personal offense at their existence.

Strings of blood—impossibly thin but impossibly strong—weave through the chaos like a net cast by invisible fisherman. They wrap around books that try to escape the flames, binding them together before constricting with force that turns knowledge into confetti.

Shadows—not the passive darkness of absence but the active void of Duskwalker magic—spread across surfaces that shouldn't exist, swallowing entire shelves of hostile literature into depths from which nothing returns.

And through it all, moving with desperate purpose, is Gwenievere.

She came.

She actually came.

Not alone—I can see tiny figures on her shoulders, and is that Grim floating nearby—but she's here, in my trial space where she shouldn't be able to exist, fighting books that want to unmake us both.

"Zeke!" Her voice cuts through the chaos, and hearing my name in her voice makes something in my chest unlock that I didn't know was sealed. "Drop the barrier! We need to combine magic!"

The instruction goes against every instinct—the barrier is the only thing keeping me from being immediately shredded. But I trust her. Trust her more than I trust my nine lives of experience.

I let the barrier fall.

The books surge forward, victory finally in reach?—

And meet a wall of combined power that makes my frost magic look like winter's first snowflake.

Gwenievere's hands glow with impossible combinations—dragon fire in one palm, Duskwalker void in the other, vampire vitae running through her veins and enhancing everything. She doesn't just cast spells; shebecomesmagic, each gesture reshaping reality according to will that refuses to accept failure.

My frost responds to her fire not with opposition but with harmony. Where ice meets flame, instead of canceling out, they create something new—steam that freezes into crystals of pure magical force, each one a weapon that seeks hostile knowledge with unerring accuracy.

Dragon glyphs manifest in the air—Mortimer's contribution, though I can barely see his miniaturized form hovering above Gwenievere's head. The symbols don't just float; theyhunt, each one seeking specific books that contain knowledge too dangerous to exist. When glyph meets book, both cease—mutual annihilation that leaves reality cleaner for their absence.

Duskwalker void spreads like oil across water, but instead of remaining passive, it actively consumes. Every shadow cast by every book becomes a mouth that devours its creator. The darkness doesn't just absorb light—it absorbs the very concept of the books, unmaking them from reality's memory.

And threading through it all, Atticus's blood strings create structure from chaos. They don't just bind—theyorganize, forcing the hostile knowledge into patterns that reveal their weakness. Every book has an opposite, a contradiction, and the blood strings bring these oppositions together with devastating effect.

The synergy is perfect.

Not planned—we haven't had time to coordinate—but instinctive. Each power complements the others, covers weaknesses, amplifies strengths. It's like watching a symphony where every instrument knows exactly when to play despite never having rehearsed together.

The hostile books don't just lose—they cease.

One moment the space is full of attacking literature, death by a thousand paper cuts made manifest.

The next, there's nothing but sparkling dust raining down like snow made of dissolved possibility.

We did it.

We actually did it.

The thought arrives with exhaustion that drops me to my knees. Not just physical tiredness but something deeper—the particular depletion that comes from spending life force rather than just magic. I can feel it, the hollow space where my eighth life used to reside, burnt out like a candle that gave everything to keep burning just a little longer.

Gwenievere is beside me instantly, her hands on my shoulders, checking for injuries with desperation that makes my chest tight.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt? The books?—"