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My shadow-claws dig into the van’s roof and I launch myself forward, over the windshield, through the air. Preston’s eyes go wide as I slam into him, driving us both into the mud. His magic dissipates as he hits the ground hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs.

We roll, grappling in the muck. His translucent skin tears under my claws, black ichor mixing with the mud. He’s stronger than he should be, fed on stolen power from the barrier, but he’s never been a fighter. I have his throat in my hand before he can gather another spell.

“You destroyed everything,” I growl into his face.

He laughs, the sound wet and desperate. “I freed us. I freed all of us from the old ways, from hiding, from⁠—”

The van’s engine roars behind us, drowning out his words.

I twist to look and see Kaia through the windshield. She’s wedged something against the gas pedal—a flour bag, heavy and white. The van is accelerating toward the breach, and she’s still inside.

“Kaia, no!”

The driver’s door flies open and she throws herself out, hitting the mud and rolling. The van keeps going, picking up speed, heading straight for the massive swirling vortex.

I release Preston and run toward her, but the Rot are faster.

They pour out of the breach in a wave, hundreds of them, thousands, an endless tide of starving mouths and grasping appendages. For a moment I think they’re coming for us, that this is the end.

Then the van hits the edge of the breach and tips forward, the glowing dough in the back visible even from here.

The Rot change direction as one.

They swarm the van like ants on sugar, covering it completely until the white paint disappears beneath writhing mud. The shrieking intensifies, becomes something almost ecstatic. They’re feeding, gorging themselves on the concentrated magic Kaia poured into that dough, and nothing else matters to them.

Not the town. Not us. Just the feast.

I reach Kaia and haul her up from the mud. She’s covered in it, breathing hard, but alive. Her hand immediately goes to her stomach, checking.

“I’m okay,” she gasps. “We’re okay.”

The van is completely submerged now, dragged down into the breach by the weight of feeding Rot. But they’re not spreading anymore. They’re contained, drawn to the one spot, and that gives me a chance.

Maybe the only chance.

I stagger toward the edge of the breach, Kaia close behind me. The tear in the earth is massive up close, a wound in reality itself. I can see through it to the other side, to the place where the Rot were imprisoned, a darkness so complete it hurts to look at.

I need to close it. Pull the earth back together, re-weave the wards, seal the breach before more can pour through.

I reach for my magic, for the connection to the Hollow that’s sustained me for centuries.

It’s barely there. A thread where there should be a rope. The severed wards have left me hollow, and fighting Preston burned through what little I had left. My shadow-claws flicker and fade. The darkness I pull from the air around me dissipates before I can shape it.

I try anyway.

I slam my hands into the mud at the breach’s edge and push my will into the earth. Close. Seal. Come together. The same words the old guardians used when they first created the barrier, spoken in a language that predates human civilization.

The earth trembles but doesn’t move. The breach keeps spinning, keeps pulling, and I don’t have enough left to stop it.

Behind me, Preston laughs. He’s on his feet again, covered in mud and ichor, but still standing. “You’re too weak! The Hollow is dead! The old ways are dead! You’re nothing but a relic trying to hold back progress with broken magic and⁠—”

Kaia’s hand closes over mine.

Her fingers are warm, muddy, trembling. But they’re solid and real and suddenly I can feel her magic flowing into me. Not just hers. The baby’s too, that immense, untamed shadow-magic that shouldn’t exist.

“You’re not alone,” she says, and her voice is steady despite everything. “You were never alone.”

The magic hits me like lightning.