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T ears mingled with snot slipping down her nose, but kept on.

She could still hear Imogen’s cries of pain, of terror. Hear Sonder bark orders.

This was it. She knew now what she had to do, and she was terrified. Determined.

She didn’t know what had connected her to Olivia, to the Fae, to another world, but it was all for this moment. She knew that with a stark clarity that terrified her.

went into her room. Olivia’s room. And pulled down the photo of Sonder, his smile making her heart crack. A sob hiccupped out of her, and she wanted to drop to her knees. Turn around and run back to him. Face the slow fade, the cataclysm. But she knew it wouldn’t do to run from Fate.

She was a tragedy, and he was her peace.

tucked the photo and a vial of black salt into the pocket of Sonder’s shirt, not bothering to change. There would be no point, and Sonder was too wound around her soul to be fooled for long.

The Fae would take Imogen, then Gibbs. Then they would take her and Sonder. Here, at the epicentre of it all.

Olivia Murdoch had begun to open a portal into another world with her fairytale book, Into the Faerie Wood . Her death, with her husband’s, would have opened the door fully. But Sonder, sweet Sonder, had buried his parents beneath the wrong hawthorn.

What called to Olivia called to , beckoning her to the old, twisted hawthorn, the one that would set them free and doom the world to die. The same faerie scuttled beneath her skin, singing lyrical nonsense, turning her blood to sludge.

But not if closed the door. Locked it. Threw away the last key.

With one last look in the mirror at the newly black veins in her neck, snatched the book from her bedside table and let the Faerie Songs of the Hawthorn pull her toward it.

The foggy wood grew around her, expanded, surrounding her with endless trees.

Terror gripped her heart, squeezed. And took off at a run, afraid she would turn back if she didn’t.

Behind her, someone was calling her name. They sounded more frightened than she was. She could feel freezing tears on her cheeks, her throat burning, her eyes stinging.

No , she thought. Stay back. Stay away.

“ !” The voice again, bellowing. It was familiar, that deep, resonant voice.

The tears fell harder, her legs pumping faster.

“ , no !” The cry was guttural, rife with pure agony.

Lights began flickering in the fog. Blue, like the hottest part of the flame.

Wills-o-the-wisp she heard her own fragmented mind say. Corpse Flames .

She darted further into the fog, chasing one. Breath heaving, she pulled out a vial of black salt and ran harder.

A piercing scream filled the misty night, and spun to face it, face the faeries she couldn’t see.

Teeth bared, she uncorked the vial. The screeching came again, like a banshee bent on escape.

clutched the vial in one hand, the book in the other, and stomped forward. She could still hear Sonder’s anguished cries for her to stop, but he wouldn’t be able to reach her. The Faerie Wood had already swallowed her up, gnarled branches tangling behind her, impassable.

She paused, the old, twisted hawthorn in her sight.

Keep coming, daughter of many worlds.

obeyed, a peculiar, terrifying calm washing over her.

She approached the hawthorn, opened the book, and read the last tale, the one they’d never gotten to.

The one of a maiden in search of more for her child. In search of magic and a world where purity and adventure were gods. A world that did not exist past a lie. A trick of the light. An illusion of the Fae. A lure.

The maiden found out the truth too late.

When the last word rolled off her tongue in the language of the Fae, it began to rain, a mirage of light and smog materialising before her.

The door.

Come through , too many voices sang—one within her lungs.

She stepped forward, the forest holding a collective breath, the Hawthorn Grove of Murdoch Manor peeking through.

But had another vial. Around her neck. It had been there for weeks. She saw it in a dream, this moment. It hadn’t made sense then. But now it did.

She pulled the cork and tipped the contents into her mouth. It burned her throat, made her eyes water, and her stomach heave. But she kept it down and walked forward through the door.