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M y beast roars to the surface as I plunge through the clouds and into a dark night.

The impact of my attacker’s hit was so immense that he spiraled away from me, and then I lost sight of him. I’m certain he was aiming for the box, but I refused to let go of it, my arm clamped around it even now.

A vast field of yellow flowers rises rapidly up to meet me, and even though I know there’s no possible way for me to land safely, I manage to get my feet under me, crashing into the earth with a thump .

Rising slowly upward, I’m astonished to discover that I’ve landed without injury, not a single bone broken.

I sense my attacker soaring down to meet me, but I don’t look up yet, instead taking a moment to process my choices, feeling a new wave of acceptance.

First, I acknowledge the power I shouldn’t have.

I wasn’t aware of it until I stepped out of the tunnel to face the field of carnivorous roses that had sprouted from the blood and bones of monsters. I sensed their eagerness to obey me.

Then, within the final realm, the ancient magic trying to stop us from entering and exiting didn’t work so acutely on me.

I guess that’s what happens when the bone of a primordial deity, the so-called father of monsters, is lodged in the surface of your heart and nestling happily across your rib cage.

All this time, I was convinced I’d destroyed it, not assimilated with it.

I forgive myself for that assumption.

I had no reason to suspect it was still intact.

I felt no repercussions after I took it from Peyton.

It certainly didn’t control me or affect me in any discernible way.

I woke up after that battle just as angry as I was before.

I was no more or less prone to fury. It took me eight months to take control of my life, but there was no hint that the bone hampered or quickened my progress.

Even when it was outside of my body, this bone—the White Wand—never controlled me.

It was only when it had an impact on things external to me that I was aware of its immense power.

Right now, it may as well be any other part of my body.

But to the beast descending toward me, this bone and the bones within the box I’m carrying, it must be everything.

If they weren’t, he wouldn’t have come back for them.

My attacker lands on the grass ten paces away, his brown leather wings allowing him to control his descent and alight without cracking the earth like I did.

When he retracts his wings, his appearance is as ordinary as the first time I saw him in the boardroom back at Draven Industries. Average height, average build, medium-brown hair, pale-brown eyes, skin slightly tan. He has no aura, and his posture is completely relaxed.

I’m not surprised to see that he’s still wearing glasses, given that Rebella’s snakes poisoned his eyes.

“I’m disappointed, Striker,” Abel says, beginning to pace around me, keeping a wide distance between him and me. “I was hoping you would have opened that box by now.”

“You can’t open it yourself,” I say, drawing a conclusion from the fact that Abel bided his time for what must have been months instead of coming straight for me.

The way he has moved through the maze tells me he could have defeated the protective mechanisms of the Legion’s Realm.

He could have come after me much sooner.

Something has to have held him back. “I’m curious. Why not?”

His lips rise into a snarl. “Because you control my heart bone.”

“Heart bone?” I narrow my eyes at him. “There are no bones in a heart.”

“The forefinger of my left hand,” he says, holding up that hand, the fingers of which look to have been cut off at an angle. “The hand of my power.”

“If your forefinger contains the heart of your power, why would you voluntarily cut it off?”

Assuming it’s true that Typhon shaved off his bones himself.

Abel—or rather, Typhon—gives me a sudden grin.

“So that my enemies could never defeat me,” he says.

“I sent my finger bones out into the world so that through them, I would have a way to escape. I primed the bones to seek out a beast with the darkest heart, a creature within whose body they could incubate, revive, and grow in strength.”

Incubate? Fucking awesome.

I focus back on the things I need to know. Given that he’s confirmed he can’t open the box on his own, I have some small level of control in this situation, and I intend to make the most of it.

“You escaped eight months ago,” I say, taking even more of a guess this time.

He inclines his head in the affirmative. “The moment you assimilated my heart bone into your body, you gave me the power to escape.”

“What about these other bones?” I ask, tapping the box.

He paces around behind me, but I don’t let him out of my sight, twisting to keep my eyes on him.

“I wanted to wait until you assimilated them, too,” he says. “You would have done it under the mistaken belief that you were destroying them.”

He isn’t wrong. If I’d gotten the box open sooner, I would have tried to burn the bones in my fire.

Typhon grimaces. “It was fucking frustrating to discover that only a few supernaturals were still alive who knew about the other bones. Without knowledge of them, you had no reason to go looking for them.

“That serpent, who calls himself James Vanguard, he knew all about them, but he hid them well. I had my work cut out for me, ensuring that the dark entity of New York City would start looking for them to force Vanguard’s hand.”

“If you wanted them to assimilate, why come after them now? Why not wait until after I left the maze?”

He glares at me. “I’m no longer willing to take the risk. Vanguard is too cunning.” His focus flits to the box. “Right now, all of the bones are in one place. It’s time to strike.”

“What will happen once you have them all?”

“I will resume my full power,” Typhon replies, a gleeful light growing in his eyes. “I will reassert my true form.”

He paces around in front of me again, gesturing to the box and its outward-facing symbols.

Each side of the box has a different number of symbols on it. The first side has five. The next has three. The currently outward-facing one has two. The final side, the side with only one symbol, is the only one yet to glow.

Typhon points to the side with two symbols. “Love,” he says. “And power.”

He begins pacing again, but this time, he spirals subtly inward, a path that will eventually bring him right to me.

“True power comes from making people love you,” he says. “If they love you, they will overlook every sign of darkness. They will not question your greed, your hate, your manipulation, or your violence. They will believe what you tell them to believe.”

He gives a self-satisfied smile. “As long as they think you love them back. As long as they believe you’re fighting for them.

As long as they are convinced that your greed, your hate, and your violence are for their betterment.

They will ignore the things you do and justify your choices for you.

” He closes his fist. “To be adored is true power.”

His pacing has brought him much closer to me now, only five feet away, if that.

“Did you figure out the last symbol’s meaning?” he asks.

I understand what it means. Its meaning came to me when I stepped out from the final realm during those moments when Peyton’s trusting hand remained in mine.

But I don’t yet understand how it fits with the others, and for that reason—well, I assume it’s for that reason—it hasn’t yet lit up.

Once it does, no doubt, the padlock will break and the lid will open.

“It means silence,” I say quietly, thinking again of Peyton.

I take a breath and acknowledge how much it meant to me that she chose for me to be a part of her life for the last few hours.

“Correct.” Typhon’s lips stretch into a smile. “Once you attain power, you must silence all who could oppose you. When their voices are no longer heard, final power is yours.”

His next three steps bring him closer to me still.

“You understand this, yes?” he asks when I remain quiet. “From what I’ve heard about Bloodwing Academy, you lived it.”

I did.

I lived it with the other students. Peyton saw it before I did—that I was their leader. I had power over them. I used violence as a tool. And in those final months there, in my mistaken attempt to protect Peyton, I forced the students into silence.

But the thing is…

They didn’t fall silent.

They fucking wouldn’t.

I can’t help but smile as I remember the moment they revealed to me that they’d simply gone about planning their rebellion without me.

I hadn’t silenced them. Far from it.

Risking taking my focus off Typhon, I turn the box around to study the last symbol. Even with his explanation, it hasn’t lit up, which tells me he’s got it wrong.

Silence is a tool of oppression, that’s true.

But silence can never be complete.

There is always a sound, even if it’s a whisper, even if it’s the faintest hum. Voices will always break through.

At that, the symbol on the box begins to glow.

My time is up. But I knew it would be.

My beast doesn’t protest. He’s calm and accepting within my mind.

Thank you, friend , I say to him.

Raising my focus from the box, I’m unsurprised to find Typhon now standing only three steps away from me, his location putting him in front of me but slightly to my left, closer to the location of my heart.

“What will you do about your eyes?” I ask him.

His grin grows even broader as he removes his glasses and discards them into the flowers. “I will take yours.”

Complete serenity fills my body and my mind. It’s a peace I never thought I’d attain.

I’ve done awful things. Hurt people who didn’t deserve to be hurt. I’ve struck back at those who cared about me.

I’ve also fought beside them. Endured cruelty for them. Given my life for them.

I have a dark heart, but there is goodness in there, too, and finally, the light has won.

Carefully, I place the box down on the grass in front of me before I stand tall and let my arms rest at my sides. I don’t draw on my claws or my fire or my beast.

I’m vulnerable, and that’s the hardest fucking thing of all.

Violence was always my answer, but not anymore.

Now, my strength comes in other forms. It comes in restraint. It comes in empathy. It comes in forgiveness. Above all, it comes from knowing that every choice I make is mine. Mine to take responsibility for. Mine to own. Mine to know that I can fucking do better.

“Then take them already,” I say to Typhon. “Take your heart bone. Take my eyes. See what you feel. See what you see.”

He glares at me, and I don’t need Peyton’s power to know that he’s highly suspicious of my apparent surrender, but I’m also certain that his greed for power will prevail.

Just as I thought, he leaps forward, and I brace for the pain.

As his claws cut through my chest and his hatred tears my ribs apart, the box clicks open.

Then there’s silence.