The thread shredded in my hands.
Then backlash slammed into me like a freight train. Marcus's scream echoed across dimensions as he dissolved into fragments that spun away into the collapsing void. His pocket dimension began tearing itself apart, this reality folding in on itself in ways that shouldn't be possible.
I should have felt triumphant. Instead, I just felt hollow as the last of my vampire essence burned away.
My vision dimmed. My supernatural senses—the ones that had defined me for over a century—flickered and died. No more heightened hearing. No more preternatural awareness of every heartbeat within a hundred yards. The shadows I'd always been able to see through became opaque walls of darkness.
I was dying. Or maybe I was already dead, and this was just the final moment stretching out before oblivion claimed me.
Then I felt it.
Through our bond—that silver thread connecting me to Talin—something poured into me. Not vampire strength. Not djinn magic. Something else entirely. Pure, radiant power that tasted like wildfire moss after a storm and…
Her.
Threadwalker magic flooded through me, weaving itself around what remained of my essence. Not replacing what I'd lost, but transforming it. I felt my body shifting, changing, becoming something else. Something not vampire or human, but entirely different.
The pain intensified. Every cell in my body screamed as mortality and magic warred inside me. My heart suddenly thundered in my chest with a panicked, human rhythm. My lungs expanded, desperate for air I hadn't truly needed in decades.
But underneath it all, I felt her. Talin's magic wrapped around me like armor, refusing to let the void take me.
Something in my chest clenched tight. Not my heart, though that was hammering hard enough to crack ribs. It was deeper than that. The bond between us, transformed but unbroken, pulsing with renewed strength.
The dimension continued collapsing around me. Chunks of Marcus's cavern broke apart and spun away into nothing. The void rushed closer, eager to fill the space where the djinn's magic had been.
I needed to move. To escape. But my body felt foreign, wrong. My muscles responded differently now, weak and sluggish without vampire speed backing them up. When I tried to stand, my legs nearly buckled.
Then, through the chaos, I spotted it. A shimmer in the air where the dimensional barrier had been. Talin had torn through it to escape with Alex, and the wound hadn't fully closed yet. But it was shrinking fast.
I staggered toward it, each step an exercise in relearning how to exist. The ground beneath my feet crumbled away with every step I took. Behind me, the void roared, consuming everything in its path.
Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten.
The barrier's edges began sealing, reality knitting itself back together. If I didn't make it through in the next few seconds, I'd be trapped here as the dimension finished tearing itself apart.
Five feet.
My legs gave out and I collapsed, hands scraping against stone that immediately disintegrated beneath my palms as I dragged myself away from the hole it created. The void's pull strengthened, trying to drag me backward into oblivion.
Elias!
Talin's voice rang through our bond, sharp with anguish. I felt her on the other side of the barrier, felt her power reaching back into this dying dimension, searching for me even as she mourned my loss.
Our silver thread blazed between us, brighter than anything else in this collapsing hell. I grabbed it with hands that didn't move the way I was used to. I grabbed it with whatever I'd become, this strange hybrid of mortal flesh and magical bond.
Talin pulled, and I hung on.
The force yanked me forward. I flew toward the barrier, my body tumbling through the air as the void's claws scraped uselessly at my heels. The dimensional wound was barely wider than my shoulders now, closing fast.
I hit it at full speed.
The world shattered around me. I was squeezed through a space that shouldn't have been able to accommodate a human body, every bone compressing, every muscle screaming. For one terrible moment, I existed in both dimensions simultaneously. Trapped between worlds, between life and death, between what I'd been and what I'd become.
Then I was through.
Solid ground brought me to a sudden stop, the impact driving the air from my lungs. Judy's protective circle glowed beneath me, the ritual markings pulsing with residual magic. Somewhere nearby, I heard Kenya sobbing, heard Alex's weak voice trying to comfort her.
But all I could focus on was Talin.
