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Asha does the same—but even with her additions, there aren’t enough allies, not by a long shot.

“I got this.” I channel my strongest emotion—anxiety over Valerian’s fate—into pushing everyone I know back into REM sleep.

By all rights, this shouldn’t work. I’ve just learned this skill, and I’ve only been able to do this to one person, not hundreds.

Yet it happens.

Felix, Rowan, Ariel, Napoleon, the siren, and the rest of the New York Council reappear in the path of the subdream abominations—and recover their wits quickly enough to attack.

This might buy us a little time.

“Now or never,” Asha says, echoing my thoughts.

Dropping our weapons, we hug.

I close my eyes and visualize myself made from molecules. Then I will them into becoming a single person with Asha.

“How touching,” Phobetor’s booming voice intrudes, but I banish it from my mind, instead visualizing our molecules intermixing. “A hug and a chance to see your friends for the last time,” he continues mockingly. “What’s next, the last meal?”

I channel all my emotions into the desperate merging attempt.

Nothing happens at first.

Then I feel a familiar wooziness.

Asha’s arms are no longer around me.

I open my eyes—or, hopefully, our eyes.

Nope.

Asha is still separate from me. She’s just stepped away to dry-heave, like the last time we tried this.

I also feel sick, but I hold it in as a wave of exhaustion smashes into me.

“This is as far as your parents got,” Phobetor says, and I have to crane my neck to see the malevolent expression on his ethereal face far above me. “You know what happened after that.”

As a macabre underscore to his words, Rowan and Napoleon get disemboweled by the nail-swordsmen.

I glare up at the god of nightmares. “Shut the puck up. I have a promise to keep.”

He scoffs. “This is your last chance to become my servants willingly.” His voice evokes all my fears, like it did when I faced him in Mom’s dreams. “Kneel.”

Like that time, my whole being demands that I give in—only this temptation is exponentially worse. In his embrace, there will be solace. Our whole family will reunite. I’ll no longer feel this overwhelming exhaustion. I’ll—

“No!” both Asha and I exclaim at the same time.

I channel my wrath into my power, and just like that, I throw off his vileness and feel like myself again—except completely drained and on the verge of a panic attack.

Judging by my sister’s angry glare, she’s also thrown off his attempt.

“So be it.” Phobetor advances toward us, hand outstretched.

Two massive bolts of magma snake down toward our heads.

Asha lifts her hand, her features contorting again, and I mirror her gesture, though I have no idea what I’m doing.

I focus on the tendril that’s coming my way, willing it out of existence with all my might.

The fiery tendril shimmers in the air and dissipates.

Only mine, though.

The second one smashes into Asha’s head and swirls, growing to tornado proportions until my sister’s eyes begin to stream a fiery light that forms a brain hologram in the air.

No. Please no.

I strain my power to sever the horrible link for her—but to no avail.

All the parts of Asha’s brain are taken over by the fire, and a pained cry escapes her lips as she disappears.

I stare at the empty spot uncomprehendingly.

On some level, I must’ve believed the cursed prophecy.

I thought—or hoped—that the two of us were somehow destined to win.

Meaning we’d find a way, against all odds.

My heart feels like it’s imploding as I lift my gaze to meet Phobetor’s black-hole eyes.

The prophecy was a pleasant fantasy.

Now it’s just me, alone with the god of nightmares.

In a moment, he will kill or Overtake me—and that’ll be the end.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Puck that.

I’m not letting that happen before I at least smack the bastard in the face.

I visualize myself as made out of molecules again, then will them to grow, channeling everything into this last-ditch attempt: the weariness, the agony of defeat, the desire to save Valerian and my family, the grief over Bebe’s demise.

To my shock, I grow to Phobetor’s size in an instant.

Here we go.

Balling my hands into fists, I lumber toward him.

“Nice try.” He gestures at me.

This time, the fiery strand isn’t a bolt but a twister. Swirling like a tornado of fire, it leaps for my giant head.

I extend my own ginormous hand and will the strand out of existence.

It reaches me anyway.

A searing pain smashes into my nerve endings.

Whatever I did to thwart this attack before clearly didn’t happen this time. Unless… I didn’t do anything, and it was Asha.

She protected me instead of herself.

That’s why Phobetor was able to Overtake her.

Too bad her sacrifice was in vain.

Fire streams out of my eyes and forms an epic hologram of my jumbo brain behind Phobetor.

It looks odd, different than the others—and not just because of the size.

There’s a network of vein-like tentacles inside my brain. Furry tentacles.

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