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“I’m sorry, there’s so much to say—” A cacophony of screams pierces the air behind us. Supers emerge from the forest.

Ava sweeps my hair from my face. “Shhh. Fear not. We will help you.”

“We?” Tanner finally speaks. He is staring at Ava as if he can barely breathe.

She tilts her head and smiles at him. “You remind me of…” Her eyes widen, she blows on the flames I made, and they peter out into nothing but embers. Taking in the others—Mack, Luther, and Kole—she nods. Her eyes sparkle. “We found each other again,” she whispers. When she turns to me, she smiles like a mother looking at her child. Then she closes her eyes.

She stretches out her arms and turns her palms to face the ground. She doesn’t chant or wave magick beams of light, but her arms start to shake.

The ground moves. Vibrations trickle up into the soles of my feet.

All across the lawn, where the dust from the fountain pieces fell, the same glittering mist appears. The demons stop fighting, swiping at it with their arms, and claws, and teeth.

Figures shimmer to life. Women. Hundreds of women. Some with long hair and aprons, others in nightgowns or creased white robes. Among them, just five men. There is a moment in which no one and nothing moves.

The ghosts of our past move between the demons—who are frozen in time—staring at one another, at the burning Hollow, and the aching split in the earth. A figure, the image of Mack, finds the professor and stands in front of him. I watch, trembling as Tanner, Luther, and Kole are suddenly standing side-by-side with ghosts who look so much like them I can barely tell them apart.

There is only one without a doppelgänger to stand beside; the one who I thought looked like Sam but who—now he’s in front of me—I realize looks more like Nico.

Before I can tell him I don’t know where the brothers are, time speeds up again. The freeze-frame stops, and the fight intensifies.

The Hollow shakes. A skull-rattling roar bursts from inside it, making Luther’s flames tremble and the walls crack. Ava grabs my hand. “Together,” she says. But I shake my head. “No, I will go. You must protect them.” I gesture to our mages and to the supers of Phoenix Falls. “Protect them for me.”

Ava stares into my eyes, then she nods. A smile curls her lips.

As I open my arms and let my wings of fire burst free from my soul, I watch Ava stride into the center of the fight. I leave her with her army of ghosts, and the power of our mages, and follow the acrid stench of evil into the depths of The Hollow.

48

MACK

A ghost who looks like Nova throws a burst of blue light at the demon who’s about to take my head off. It hits the ground, rolls away, and falls screaming back into the hellish depths of The Split.

I hear Snow roar, and search for him through the chaos. I feel his heartbeat in my chest. I hear his thoughts in my head. Snow? Buddy? Where are you?

I find him fighting side-by-side with a female panther. He hates cats, but this one has some serious claws. As she ducks and yowls, Snow rips the arm of something with no eyes and eel-like tentacles growing from its back. The arm regrows instantly, but the panther goes for its throat.

“You’re separate?” The ghost who looks like me yells as he draws back his elbows and extends his palms so that, if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was doing Tai Chi.

I copy his movements, and the two of us push a torrent of air toward the pack of filthy League werewolves who are trying to grab hold of three wide-eyed young witches.

“How?” the ghost asks me.

“Long story.” I turn and use a gust of wind to bring down a tree full of Karakal demons.

“Can you still shift? Can ghosts do that?”

“We can do it, but right now I’m stronger than he is.” A pained smile crosses the ghost’s lips. “He doesn’t like that very much.”

I let out a loud laugh and glance at Snow. “He’d be pissed, too, if he caught me saying that out loud.”

We’re turning on another group of demons I can’t name when pain rips through my upper arm. I stumble and fall forward. The ghost catches me. “Snow,” I breathe, straining to stand through the pain. I look up to see him lying on the ground. Blood blooms on his shoulder, slickened by the rain that’s still falling, coating his white fur a deep ferocious red. A burst of red light sweeps toward him, hits the same place on his shoulder, and sends him skidding through the wet earth. Next to him, the female panther lies motionless. Her body shivers and she turns back into a human with long black hair. She’s not breathing.

I run to Snow as my alter-ego ghost roars and pummels the demons with slashing bursts of wind. They don’t even budge. They stand firm, at least ten feet tall, huge feet making indents in the ground.

Kole sees what’s happening and brings a tree down at the same moment they charge for us. A howl fills the air. From the other side of The Split, two shadows appear. They leap over it, taking it in one bound, and land in front of me and Snow. A wolf and a Hellhound.

Sam and Nico.