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“Parasites,” Vyxia spits, her lips curling. “Sitting on thrones they cannot sustain and feeding off the blood of their betters.”

“Serion knew,” I say, the memory of the laboratory and the sterile white tiles flashing in my mind. “He was researching a way to extract the essence.” I look at Cassia and then at Sera. “He was trying to replace us.”

Sera frowns with a flicker of dread in her eyes. “Replace you?”

“Like calls to like.” The words fell like stones into a deep well. “I am Balance. The order. Kael is Chaos. The storm. We are two halves of Hudvera’s legacy.” I step toward Sera, studying the wild energy that radiates from her. “Look at you. You are not merely a hybrid. You are a vessel of chaos. The fire. The rage. You were made to replicate Kael.” I turn to Cassia and meet her dark eyes. “And you,” I whisper, “are the perfect balance. The firstborn. Made to replicate me.”

Cassia’s face goes pale. “Serion wanted to put your essences into us.”

“Yes, and Lysanthe was a lab rat,” I say. “Michael wanted new containers. Ones he could control. Those who did not rebel.”

Sera lets out a low growl. The panther at her side mirrors it with its teeth bared. “He failed,” she hisses. “We are not containers. And we are definitely not controllable.”

“No.” A grim pride took root in my chest. “You are the solution.”

We collect ourselves and walk the last remaining few feet to the blazing tower. I step up to its barrier, where the wall of white light does not merely shine but breathes, exhaling a feverish, rhythmic heat that presses against my skin like the palm of a fevered god denying me entry. I reach into my pocket and withdraw the small iron key Calithra had pressed into my hand. It had been carved with runes that hurt the eyes to look at.

“Do it,” Vyxia says, her voice tight.

I press the key against the surface of the light, expecting a fissure or the sound of shattering glass. But the silence remains absolute. The tower continues its low and indifferent thrum while the key feels inert in my hand.

I grit my teeth and press harder and push until my knuckles turn white and the bones of my wrist creak under the strain. I feed my grace into the artifact, demanding it to wake. “Open,” I snarl.

But the light does not flicker. It simply absorbs my force and feeds it back into the static with a mocking indifference.

I pull back with my breaths coming in ragged gasps, staring at the useless shard in my hand. “It is not working,” I say, the words tasting like ash. “She said this was the way. She said it would open the door.”

“What if it is not a door?” Jareth says, his voice stripped of his usual humor. He walks toward the barrier, not looking at the light but at us. “I do not think they would use a simple lock for something they wanted to bury forever. What if it is an altar?” He points to the base of the tower. “They do not want a key. They want a sacrifice.”

I look at the shard in my hand and then at the runes carved into the bone and realize he is right. The grooves etched into the wall of the tower are not merely decorative lines but channels and veins waiting to be filled.

“A sacrifice?” Vyxia asks as she steps forward, gray dust swirling around her boots. “You think it calls for our essences?”

“Yes.” Cassia points at the ground, where the light meets the ash. “I am almost positive the grooves all lead to Kael’s resting pad.”

We track the lines in the stones and find the faint runes waiting at the terminus of each channel: Heaven, Hell, fae, the tether, the shard-shaped imprint of the Limbo key, and the rune of a void to bind them all together.

We are not the key holders. We are the offerings.

I look at Sera, who stands slightly apart with her gaze fixed on the pulsing light where Kael sleeps. She does not look afraid.

“He is the lock,” I say as the realization dawns on me. “And our combined essences can break him open.”

We move without speaking.

I take my place at the north and press my palm flat against the burning white light, letting the heat blister my skin. “Heaven,” I whisper, calling upon the bronze light of my mother to push my essence into the wall.

Vyxia takes the south. She draws a dagger from her boot and slices both of her palms open without hesitation. The blood wells dark and shimmers with violet light. She turns to Jareth, holding her other bloody hand out. He reaches out and smears his palm against hers, coating his skin in her blood. He then takes her dual heritage and disappears around the eastern side.

“Hell,” I hear Vyxia’s voice speak.

“The fae,” Jareth continues.

Cassia takes the west, to press her hand to the groove marked for the void. I see the shadows leaping from around the corner of the tower, so dark they drink the light.

“The void,” she breathes, and I feel the pain siphoning out of my body.

Sera steps directly in front of the pillar, where the keyhole waits. She takes the shard of bone from me, drives the sharp edge into her thumb, and lets the blood drip into the opening.