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“You can save your new-age lecture,” Ryan spat. “Meditation’s not going to fix anything.”

“My dear, you’re missing the point,” Lola replied. “I’m not telling you to breathe to calm down. I’m reminding you of the lesson I taught you long ago. Love is like breathing, Ryan. We can breathe together, but I can’t take your breaths for you. All I can do is lead by example and serve others by breathing in a rhythm they can follow. But you need to do your part and tune in. People can be by your side to help out, but no one has the ability to take your pain away but yourself.”

Ryan scowled. “Fuck off.”

Lola remained surprisingly calm as she closed her eyes to take another deep breath. “Breathe with me, Ryan,” she pressed, her tone growing more urgent. Ryan just sat there. “You aren’t breathing! Breathe, Ryan. Breathe .”

“I AM brEATHING!” Ryan screamed as he leapt from the bench and smacked his palms against the cell bars. The clang rang throughout the room. “You’d rather I suffocate?”

“I want you to see the lesson here,” Lola replied.

“I’ve learned my lessons!” Ryan seethed. “I know how this world works, and I’ve seen first-hand that no one’s going to watch out for you but yourself. I did everything for you, Gran, and at the end of the day, I’m still sitting in this jail cell with nothing to show for it. Who was the one who risked everything to raise the money to pay your doctor bills when you couldn’t work anymore? That was me . Everyone wants to know how a guy like me passed his Evoking Ceremony. It should be obvious to every goddamn person in this town that I did it for you! I didn’t get into dealing drugs because I needed the hit. I did it to keep you here, to keep you alive, to have more time with you , because someone had to pay the rent and put food on the table. I put my neck on the line for you and did everything the priestesses asked of me, because they promised me they could fix everything. You gave me the world growing up, and all I wanted was to give it back to you. And now you just want to tell me to breathe ? To just calm down and get over it? What a fucking insult to everything I’ve done for you.”

Lola took a step back. “I’m terribly sorry, dear. If you can’t understand that I’m trying to help you, but I need your consent to do so, then there’s nothing more I can do… no matter how much I love you.”

Then she turned on her heel and started for the door, breezing past Nadine and me. I witnessed the anguish on Lola’s face. She tried to hold it in, but tears spilled from her eyes before she made it to the door. She kept her back to her grandson so he couldn’t see.

“Gran. Gran!” Ryan shouted after her, but she kept on moving.

She paused for a beat at the doorway, but she didn’t turn back as she whispered, “Goodbye.”

Ryan sagged against the bars of his cell, until he’d fallen to his knees. A mournful cry filled the room, and his shoulders shook in agonizing sobs. “Gran!”

I’d never seen Ryan shed a tear in his life—didn’t know he was capable of it, to be honest. Despite the way he’d treated my friends and me throughout the years, and everything he’d done as an Executor, witnessing his breakdown was absolutely heartbreaking.

Ryan didn’t understand what his grandma was trying to say, but I heard her message loud and clear. He never would. More than that, I didn’t think he could understand her.

It occurred to me then as I watched Ryan sink to the floor of his cell, looking so helpless and drained, that he wasn’t the terrible, heartless person I thought he was. Ryan was everything I could’ve become—what any one of us could’ve become. Hell, some of the decisions I’d made weren’t so different from his. We both just wanted to protect the people we loved, though we disagreed on the methods.

Nothing excused the choices he’d made, but I realized that maybe from his perspective, he didn’t have the means to make any other decisions. He didn’t have the tools or resources, and he truly didn’t understand how. He was merely a wounded person who never learned that he didn’t have to settle with the hand he’d been dealt in life. It was wholly tragic.

I turned toward Nadine, who wore a sad expression as she watched Ryan’s cold exterior fracture before our eyes. I took her fingers in mine as the weight of the decision fell over me. “I know what we have to do.”

Her eyes glimmered as she looked up at me, and understanding crossed her features. “It’s a huge risk that could undo all our progress.”

“We need to,” I told her.

“All right,” Nadine agreed, before turning to the officers. “Unlock his cell.”

“Priestess,” the first officer protested. “He’s a dangerous criminal.”

Nadine lifted her chin higher. “Yes, and he’s going to get his chance to answer for his crimes. Open his cell door.”

The officer stepped forward to fit a key into the lock. Ryan just sat there on the ground, appearing completely defeated.

I stepped into his cell and grabbed him by the back of the collar. He was a big guy, but I managed to drag him to his feet. He didn’t even protest. The officers aimed their wands at him in warning.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said, clapping him on the back.

Ryan kept his gaze down as I led him out of his cell and down the hall.

“How are you going to do it?” he asked hollowly. “Are you going to draw the execution out—make me suffer ?”

We turned a corner, and power flooded through me again once we were far enough away from the noxite. “Who said anything about an execution? You and I are going to finish our warlock’s duel.”

My magic bloomed outward in an instant, and a portal opened beneath our feet. Ryan and I went tumbling through the portal.

We fell out of the treetops and into the middle of a dark forest far past the edge of town. I rolled on my side a couple of times, before coming to a stop at the base of a tree. I didn’t give myself a second to catch my breath before I was on my feet.

Ryan was already moving in for the attack, and a deathly battle spell flew in my direction. I ducked, and the spell exploded against a tree behind me, making such a loud boom that it rocked the forest. I threw a stunning spell in his direction, but he jumped behind a thick trunk. The spell missed him.

Ryan gave a deranged laugh. “Of course you’d want to finish me off yourself!”

Tree branches snapped from overhead, and Ryan used his telekinesis to send sharp branches flying at me like arrows. I threw up a shield, and the branches splintered against its surface.

I thrust my shield outward, causing trees to bow and snap under my power. Tall, powerful maple trees that had stood for at least a century toppled over. Ryan jumped out of the way, until the two of us stood in a newly formed clearing under the stars.

Ryan thrust his hand outward, catching my ankle with his telekinetic powers. With the flick of his wrist, I was swept off my feet and left hanging six feet above the ground. Ryan drew his arm back, and the intense power of a killing spell crackled in his palm.

“ Praeligo hostilis !” I shouted. The binding spell was a difficult one to pull off, and it nearly took all my strength, but I’d done it before and knew I could do it again.

Ryan’s spell died in his hand. His arms pinned to his sides, and he collapsed to the ground.

I fell from the air, doing a flip that landed me on my feet in a crouch. I jumped upward, conjuring my magical scythe as I raced across the clearing. The scythe glowed bright with the power of its enchantment. Within an instant, I was standing over top of Ryan, the tip of my scythe pressing into the side of his neck. Just one swing, and this weapon could take his head clean off his shoulders.

It reminded me so much of the position we’d been in before, when we’d first declared a warlock’s duel outside the Cat-fé all those years ago. Students had surrounded us and hyped up the fight before Professor Warren stepped in and called it off.

Ryan heaved heavy breaths. “Picking up right where we left off, eh? No one’s around to save me now, so I guess that means you win.”

My shoulders sagged in relief. “Finally. We can declare this duel over.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Ryan demanded. “Stop standing around and do it already!”

I took a step back and slowly lowered the scythe to my side. “I don’t have to kill you to end this.”

Ryan had declared my victory, which meant the duel was finally over. I knew it, because I felt an intense and powerful energy wash over me. I’d learned how to harness the power of Death magic, and just like the Death card in the tarot deck, Death was an energy of transformation. We had reached the end of a cycle, and a rebirth was already starting to take place with the power of one single decision. The magic pulsing through me now was more than enough to rip Ryan’s soul from his body in an instant, to destroy his soul completely from the inside out. But there was only one thing I wanted to destroy—and that was all the malice, hatred, and resentment we’d chosen to carry with us until this moment. We didn’t have to get along, but we didn’t have to keep fighting, either.

I released the spell binding him, and Ryan pushed himself to his elbows, blinking incredulously. “W—what is this? Are you trying to prove you’re better than me or something?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I’m better than you. I believe we all have our demons. That doesn’t excuse or condone wrongdoings, but I think that can help us understand each other better. I don’t believe we should ever use our demons to hurt each other, but I understand if you felt you didn’t have any other choice.”

“So… you’re letting me go?” Ryan asked warily.

“I’m giving you the chance to make a choice,” I said. “Your gran was trying to teach you back there that the path you walk is up to you. The question is, where are you going to go now, Ryan?”

I lifted my hand to conjure a small crystal. The transformational energy pulsing through the clearing began to concentrate as a pinpoint of light hovering above my palm. White light illuminated the entire forest, and Ryan had to shield his eyes from the intensity. The magic funneled into the crystal, until the power of our transformation manifested into physical form.

The light dimmed, and the magic pulsing through my body ebbed away, bound now into the crystal in my hand. I held the crystal out toward Ryan.

He hesitated. “What is it?”

“It’s a new beginning,” I told him. “I can’t do this for just anyone. This is once in a lifetime magic. The magic within this crystal was forged out of a choice we made just now to stop fighting with each other. This power belongs to us both. Our past is over, and this is a symbol of all the potential you have in front of you. This crystal contains some of my Death magic, which will be just enough to open a portal anywhere in the world. It’s a one-way ticket meant only for you. You can go anywhere you want, but you don’t ever get to come back.”

Slowly, Ryan got to his feet. “What reason do I have to trust you?”

“Trust isn’t based in reason, Ryan,” I said. “That too is a choice.”

“If this magic is real, then I could use my one chance to run back to the priestesses,” Ryan pointed out. “Why would you risk that?”

“Because I don’t think you ever wanted to help them destroy our people,” I answered. “You know they don’t have your best interests at heart, or you wouldn’t have been talking about them the way you did tonight. You followed them because you didn’t think you had any other choice, but now you get to make your own decision. What will you choose?”

Warily, he reached out, and I placed the crystal into his hand. He flipped it around, as if trying to decide if it was dangerous or not. “I don’t understand why you would do this for me, after everything I’ve done.”

“I’m not doing it for you,” I stated simply. “I’m doing it for all of us. I’ve got to take a breath myself so that others can, too.”

Ryan closed his eyes and took a long, deep inhale, letting his shoulders sag when he breathed out. “You could’ve killed me,” he said softly. “I had every intention of coming here and making certain you didn’t make it until morning. You’re a better warlock than I could ever be, in more ways than one. I never imagined you’d let me go. Didn’t even cross my mind that it was an option. Perhaps there are more choices in front of us than I thought.”

Ryan curled his fingers around the crystal. “Nadine didn’t know you were going to let me go. She said I’d answer for my crimes.”

“She knew,” I told him. “And you will answer for it. One day, when you stand before your reaper, you will choose Alora or the Abyss, and that’s when you’ll know if the choice you make now was worth it.”

Ryan looked deeply contemplative, like he couldn’t think of a place in the world he really wanted to go. Then he closed his eyes, and a single tear streaked his cheek. A portal bloomed in the middle of the clearing as he made his decision, and the crystal he held was reduced to sand. I peered into the portal, curious to see where he chose to go, but all I saw was a forest much like this one.

I glanced between him and the portal. “What is this place?”

“It’s a Midnighter settlement,” Ryan said, sounding wholly at peace with his decision. “I spent a summer there dealing nightshade. I met a vamp who was trying to get me off the stuff. She said if I ever returned, she’d be there to help me. I know vampires are dangerous, but I also know Octavia Falls is no longer my place. There’s nothing left for me here. If I’m going to find my place in the world, then I’ve got to go somewhere far away from here. The vampires will take me in.”

“If this is the choice you really want to make, then I won’t stop you,” I told him.

“I know you won’t,” Ryan replied. “Maybe I don’t understand what Gran was saying, but I’d like to try. I’m going to take my chance with the Midnighters, and maybe one day it’ll all make sense. Your power’s enough to get me there, but it’s your compassion that’s going to let me actually go. I guess what I’m trying to say is… thank you for giving me another chance.”

The transformational power we’d created had clearly been stronger than even I realized, because Ryan sounded genuine in his gratitude. Something glimmered in his eyes, a hint of the man he used to be before desperation dictated his descent into cruelty. For a brief second, I saw that guy who used to stand up to bullies in the hallways in high school, back before he became one of them. Beneath his cold exterior, there was still the kid inside of him who wanted to help people.

Ryan stepped toward the portal, but paused at its edge to turn back to me. “Before I go, you should know that the priestesses have been trying to read your minds to figure out when it’s most advantageous to attack. Whatever spells you’re working to keep them out of your minds must be powerful, because they can’t see anything. They plan on moving in before you can make any big moves.”

I furrowed my brow. “The golems we encountered said we have until Halloween.”

Ryan shook his head. “Those golems only repeated what the priestesses told them. Their plans have changed. It’s why I came here in a rage—I didn’t want to wait any longer, even if it was only a couple more days.”

My whole body tensed in panic. “How much time do we have?”

“Three days,” he said. I thought I detected regret in his tone.

Three days wasn’t enough time, but I didn’t express my concern to Ryan. Instead, I offered a kind nod. “Thank you.”

“You’re giving me the option to start over. The least I can do in return is give you a fighting chance. Tell Gran I love her,” Ryan requested, before turning to take another step. The portal encompassed him, until he had disappeared from the clearing completely. The portal vanished, and I was left standing in the dark alone.

I knew Ryan couldn’t be changed by a single act of kindness. There was still anger and bitterness within him, and that would take time to shift. But when I had him under my scythe, poised to take his life from his hands, and I chose not to, I saw a spark of hope flicker inside of him. I had despised Ryan with every fiber of my being, but now I wondered if all he ever wanted was that fresh start, and I could understand that. Now he had the chance at it. I didn’t know what choices he’d make from this point on, but I knew he’d taken a step in the right direction, and it was worth letting him discover who he could become from that decision.

Ryan had made the choice that was right for him. He’d taken a breath, and in turn I had to take my own.

I tried to create a portal to take me back to the police station, but not even sparks of magic emitted from my fingers. I’d exhausted everything I had with that final spell, and now the Waning had come back with a vengeance.

I started walking toward town. The police station was on the edge of the city, but it still took a good half an hour of hiking to get back. When I entered the station, my friends looked wholly relieved to see me.

“Thank goodness you’re back!” Grant exclaimed. “We were about to launch a search party.”

“What happened out there?” Chloe asked, though she sounded a bit scared to hear the answer.

“I let Ryan go,” I stated simply.

“You let him go!” Chloe demanded. “After he ruined my wedding ? That’s some nice wedding present there, Lucas. I know you and Nadine left the party early to fuck, but I’m sure not getting any on my wedding night!”

“Sorry, but you’ve got to seize the moment when you’ve got some spare time, since we never have any,” Nadine said with a shrug.

“Clearly, since you snuck out of my reception to screw around. I still haven’t consummated my vows, and now I’ve got to deal with this bullshit!” Chloe sneered back.

Grant quickly stepped in. “All right, we get it, Chloe. Your wedding was ruined, but you’re not actually mad at Nadine and Lucas. You’re pissed your ex showed up to crash your party. Let’s get back to the topic at hand.”

Miles crossed his arms. “Letting Ryan go is a big risk. He could come back to town, or run and get the priestesses. I know you all want to try a different way, but he’s a threat.”

“He won’t be back,” I promised. “Letting him go was the right call. We can’t keep fighting our own coven members.”

I told them about how Ryan had surrendered to the duel and declared me the winner, and how the transformational energy had created the spell to take him anywhere. I told them about the choice he’d made.

“I know my decision to set him free goes against conventional wisdom,” I stated. “But I could feel it in my bones what had to be done. I’m glad I listened to my gut, because even though Ryan’s my enemy, I got to give him the choice that everyone in the coven should have. In return, his decision made me realize that I’m done fighting who I really am.”

I sighed. “I keep going back and forth about taking pills because people are giving me this blanket statement that certain tools help everyone, but I have to consider what I need. So often we make the safe choice because we can’t see where our intuition will lead us, but I’m sick of not being in alignment with myself. Logically, it seems letting Ryan go is a bad decision, but I know it was the right choice for both of us. I have to do the same with my healthcare and my future. I can listen to other people’s experiences to gain insight and understanding I didn’t have before, but I can’t keep looking outside myself for answers. In the end, I know what’s best for me, and I need to start making the right decisions for myself. We’re all built to do things differently, and I have to listen to my intuition and do things my way.”

I expected my friends to protest, to tell me to give it more time and try new things, but they didn’t. Nadine stepped forward and looped her arm through mine. “Whatever you need, Lucas. We’re here to support you.”

“Yeah, I’m proud of you, man,” Miles added. “Pills are working for me, but they aren’t for everyone. I never meant to push this on you.”

“You didn’t,” I assured him. “You all meant really well, and I know you just want to see me get better. And I will, but I need to commit to my own process.”

“We’ll be here to support you the whole way,” Grant promised.

“There’s one more thing…” I added. “According to Ryan, the priestesses will be here in three days.”

Everyone started shouting over each other at once that I couldn’t make out what anyone said.

“The golems said we had until Halloween!” Nadine panicked.

“Ryan said their plans have changed,” I told them.

“Is his information credible?” Chloe demanded.

I nodded. “I believe Ryan was telling the truth.”

“That doesn’t give us enough time!” Grant cried.

“Then we have to make every minute count,” I said. “We need to find the Curse Breaker Wand, and we need to find it now .”