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Fucked. He was completely fucked.

The night was cool when they entered the square. Orpheus’ crutch dragged over the obsidian with every aching step, but that wasn’t the reason for the slowness of his gait. He shouldn’t be surprised. Fate had already made it clear his life was one enormous joke. That he’d been teased with the possibility of a future within Sanctuary meant what came next hurt all the greater, a repeating theme in his life that only continued to surprise him because he was naïve enough to still hope.

Regardless, he wished they could go back to the weeks prior, when he was no more than a rat in Sanctuary’s cage performing under her purview, putting her back together piecemeal rather than gambling not just his own future away, but Gwen’s.

The center of the square sprawled in inky shadows all around him, moonlight carving a shape from the obsidian’s very surface. Shadow-drenched, he couldn’t see the entirety of the symbol, but it swept across the square a man’s length across, furrows carved deep but narrow, like Sanctuary’s many canals.

“Will this spot work?” Atticus asked some yards away where the stone was clear of any ancient spellwork.

“There is fine.” Orpheus looked to Gwen. “Would you like to do the honors?”

He’d never seen Gwen’s eyes go so wide. On her shoulder, Soot playfully bumped her temple.

“What if I mess it up?”

“You think I’d let that happen?”

Really, he was more likely to mess things up. If spellwork was part intention, his was muddled. Oh, Orpheus knew what to do, but the fear of all he bargained was enough to taint his will. If there was anything left of his magic, he didn’t want it getting in the way of whatever slim chance they had at success. His life depended on it, after all.

They knelt on the stone together, Atticus holding Orpheus’ crutch while the quicksilver he’d shown Gwen how to make shivered in its vial.

“Pour it into the bowl and then choose your brush.”

Under the clear light of the stars, they copied the sigil from the piece of paper Orpheus had taken from their notes. “A shattering spell,” he called it, though it was meant to do much more than that. To rip open worlds, then combine them. Create not a chasm but a connection, like the one he had closed inside him.

But, if it all went wrong, it might simply bring Sanctuary down on all their heads.

“Draw them exactly as I’ve designed.”

Gwen’s eyes glanced off his before dropping to the stone. She redrew the shapes, brows together, tongue between her teeth. Her brush swept across the stones, silver flashing amongst the darkness, the spell coming together in tiny pieces, each rune a piece of a puzzle he could only hope fit together.

“The symbol for Earth. A second for Hell. And the molecular bonds that hold the physical realm together, and those that break it apart, and the singular element that transcends both—”

“—Netherflame,” Gwen whispered, filling in the sweeping arcs and circles and paths that connected one symbol to the next with the fabricated tether meant to represent the connection between both worlds, to be broken and remade by their spell. When it was finished, the brush lifted from the stone, hovering over the center where Netherflame’s little stars hovered, silver winking in the shadows like a dare.

“I think it’s right,” Gwen breathed excitedly beside him, eyes scouring the spell for any flaw, any mistake.

There were none. If the spell failed, it’d be entirely because of his faulty design. Whatever came next, it would change everything. For him. For Gwen. Even for Atticus. They would either restore Sanctuary or doom him to die for trying, and whatever hope for a future he may have—rescued by Fenrir, or as a perpetual prisoner of Sanctuary—he knew, in his heart, what was about to happen.

“All its missing is your magic.”

Gwen held out her hand and a fireball sparked atop her palm.

“Don’t forget your intention,” shouldn’t have come out so sad.

Gwen fired the spell and violet erupted, crawling through the sigil in a single sweep. Behind them, Atticus gasped, face bathed in light that made his awe resemble a ghost, shadows painted deathly in the flash of cold fire that had once been so critical to the city they knelt at the heart of. Once, twice, the sigil flared, but under the vast night sky, not even their combined will could power this spell.

Violet faded, Gwen’s Netherflame burning out with a silent, solemn sigh.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered when Gwen began to cry.

Chapter XXXIII

The Library

Orpheus didn’t see Gwen at all the next day.

He took his evening meal alone in the study, the chatter of Sanctuary’s denizens reaching him from the square below. Their sigil was a curiosity that had drawn a crowd earlier in the day. Now, as they filed towards the cathedral, Orpheus watched how they parted around it, avoiding it like it wasn’t the key to their survival, but rather a remnant of some ill-fated curse.