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Before I could ask what she meant by 'tear everything apart’, my phone rang. It was Sarah again. I hadn’t even realized I had hung up on her. "Sarah? What's happening at the center?" I asked as I answered.

"Six more pregnant women just arrived," she said, tension clear in her voice. "They're all showing marks similar to yours. Phoebe, this is spreading. Whatever's happening with these powers, it's accelerating."

"The Song recognizes its chance," Helena nodded as if this confirmed something. "It's trying to restore itself through every compatible magical pregnancy it can find. But without proper guidance, without the heart..."

"The babies' powers could literally tear through the rest of them," Nina finished. Her new sight let her see something in the magical frequencies that made her face go pale. "Mom, these energy signatures aren't random. They're trying to destroy the barriers between bloodlines. All of them at once."

The kitchen darkened suddenly as Nyssa's power surged and turned half the space into swirling shadows.

"And what about this?" I asked, gesturing to the spreading darkness.

"What are the shadows trying to do? And how do we stop her?

And her brother and sister. We need to head them off before they can start in. "

"She’s creating paths between worlds that were meant to remain separate," Aidon growled. "If this continues..."

A new portal opened. This one showed a vast chamber filled with singing crystals. The sound they made resonated with something deep in my soul. And with the babies, the mark, and magic itself. It was captivating.

"That's it," Persephone breathed as she stared through the portal. "The heart of the Song. They're showing us where it's hidden."

The portal snapped shut as another contraction hit.

This time, the mark's light split into their distinct beams. "The ritual must be performed before this gets worse," Helena said urgently.

"And before you go into labor. If they enter this world before that, their powers will be beyond containment.

They'll be set on a path of destruction. "

"How long do we have before things go haywire?" I asked while I ate. The brief glimpse we’d gotten of the chamber where the heart of the Song was located didn’t tell us where to find it.

"The next full moon," Helena replied. "Three days from now. It must be done before then, when the veils between worlds are thinnest. If we wait any longer..."

"Reality goes boom?" Stella suggested helpfully as she walked in with Selene and Mom behind her.

"Among other things," Helena said dryly. "The destruction of the known universe would only be the beginning."

"Wait..." Jean-Marc looked up from the stack of ancient texts Nina had managed to grab from the lighthouse's archives before we fled.

He and Nina had spread them across the coffee table and were frantically searching through the weathered pages.

His fingers traced over a section of faded text.

"Nina, look at this reference to the heart of the Song. It's... oh gods."

"What?" we all demanded.

"It's in the deepest part of Tartarus," he said slowly. His face paled as he translated the ancient script. "It’s in a place so dark even the Titans feared to tread. The heart of the Song has to be hidden there."

"Of course, it is," I sighed as another contraction hit. Clio's healing magic flowed through me, easing the tight band around my womb. "Because this wasn't complicated enough already." I did not want to go back into that prison. I’d barely survived the first time.

"There's more," Jean-Marc said as he scanned further down the page.

"The ritual has to be performed by someone carrying the three-fold power, but it can't be done alone.

It requires representatives from all three factions of Keepers.

We need a destroyer, a controller, and a protector.

Their combined power is needed to safely release what their ancestors sealed away. "

"Which means we need the people actively trying to kill us to help save reality," Stella summarized. "That should be a fun conversation."

The discussion was interrupted as Mom pointed out the large picture window. "We've got company incoming. The destroyer faction just breached the outer wards."

"Well, isn't that perfect timing," Nana drawled, hefting her battle-ready walking stick. "Nothing like some assholes trying to murder us when we need to head to the Underworld. Anyone want to place bets on whether they'll listen to reason or if my stick needs to do some persuading first?"

I snorted as Nina said, "They're not alone. I'm picking up controller faction energy signatures, too."

"Desperation makes people stupid," Stella observed. "Even magical zealots who should know better."

"Or incredibly convenient," Jean-Marc said thoughtfully, looking up from the ancient texts. "We need representatives from all three factions for the ritual. Helena's here for the protectors - we just need to convince one destroyer and one controller to help. Preferably before they try to kill us."

The babies chose that moment to kick me so hard they sent tricolored light blazing through the room.

Nyssa's shadows twisted into protective formations while Thaniel's temporal energy created a bubble of slowed time around us.

Melaina's resonance made every magical item in the house hum the tune to It’s a Small World, distracting everyone momentarily.

"Their power is growing exponentially," Jean-Marc observed. "According to these ancient texts, that's exactly what happened before the Song was originally bound. The magic kept building until magic buckled under the strain."

"Which is why we need all three factions," Helena explained.

Her aged hands sketched complex patterns in the air that seemed to stabilize the energy fluctuations.

"The ritual requires destroyer energy to break the original bindings, controller power to channel the release safely, and protector magic to guide the Song back to its natural state. "

"And if we can't convince them to help?" Mom asked as she readied battle magic, her eyes fixed on the weakening outer wards.

"Then we lose everything," Helena said simply. "The Song will try to restore itself through the babies, but without proper guidance, the power will tear apart the world."

Mom's expression hardened. "Layla," she called out, "get Murtagh and grab us a destroyer and a controller. If they won't help willingly, we'll take their power and do it ourselves. I'm done playing nice."

A crash from outside made us all jump. Through the window, I could see figures in dark robes advancing across the lawn.

Their magic burned around them like cold fire as they prepared to attack.

Something extraordinary happened before they could strike.

The pregnant women from Sarah's birthing center had arrived.

They formed a line between our house and the attackers.

"You want to bind our children?" one mother called out. "To break them like you broke magic itself? Not happening."

"The old way is finished," added another whose temporal distortions made the air ripple around her. "We're taking back our birthright."

The destroyer faction's leader stepped forward. His voice carried centuries of bitterness. "You understand nothing. The Song's power nearly destroyed everything once before. We did what was necessary to preserve life."

"By shattering it?" demanded yet another mother. "By breaking magic so fundamentally that it's taken centuries just to begin healing?"

"Look around you," Helena called out as she stepped onto the porch.

Several of the attackers actually stumbled back in shock at seeing her.

"The world is already unraveling. The Song remembers what it should be.

It's trying to restore itself through every compatible bloodline it can find.

We can either help guide that restoration safely or watch everything we sought to preserve tear itself apart. "

Another contraction hit then. Clio was on it and her healing powers cut it off before the pain could fully register.

The tricolored light blazed like a beacon as the babies' combined power reached out to something vast and ancient.

For a moment, every portal in the house aligned and showed the same scene - a vast chamber of singing crystals.

"That can't be in Tartarus," I said, frowning as I studied the crystalline chamber through the nearest portal. "Stella and I went all through there when we were trying to save your stubborn ass," I told Aidon. "This feels... different. The energy signature isn't the same."

"You're right," Stella confirmed. “It doesn’t feel like Tartarus.”

"Jean-Marc," Nina called out. "Check that text again. Are we sure about the location?"

Before Jean-Marc could answer, the First Song's power surged through the room.

I felt it calling. It reached out to me, to the babies, to every magical mother it had marked.

Even the destroyer faction felt it. I saw it in their faces as ancient power resonated through their magical cores.

I hoped it reminded them of what they'd helped break so long ago.