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Show me how to stop the alchemy of worlds.
The thought repeats in my mind over and over, almost like a prayer. I suppose I am praying—for the power and wherewithal to end the worst of the horrors one man unleashed.
Click. Click.
My lids fly open, and I scan the shelves. Two boxes have sprung open.
Noises erupt upstairs. The pounding of feet. The shouts of male voices. The metallic clang of blades connecting. The inhuman roars of Echo creatures.
I force myself to block out the melee upstairs and focus on my task. Spreading my arms, I lay one hand inside a box to my right and settle the other palm within a box to my left, with two closed boxes directly in front of me. Magic slithers into me, cool and electric, winding its way through my veins to spread into my entire body. From head to toe, hairs lift and goosebumps pebble my skin.
Yes, almost there, almost.
A portal opens right beside me.
Willow stumbles out, whipping her head left and right as if she's confused. The portal closes. "Holy cow! I did it."
I have no time to consider the ramifications of what she has done. I need to focus on the boxes. Symbols light up on each box in a rotating sequence. The power within me rises and expands, tingling down my arms and into my hands.
Peripherally, I see Willow staring wide-eyed at the boxes.
The sounds of the battle upstairs grow louder.
"Stop this now!" Sefton roars from behind me. But his enraged cry crumbles into wheezing.
He must have opened a portal to get here, and the action drained him. That gives me an opening. I summon everything I have to ramp up the energy in the boxes and funnel it into me.
Willow clamps her hand around my forearm. A surge of power rushes into me from her.
Someone tumbles down the cellar stairs. Though I hear Sefton shouting, my awareness of his angry words has retreated into the recesses of my mind. Only the boxes matter. Only the power they have. Only what I can command them to do.
A scuffle erupts behind me.
"Hurry!" Willow says. "That guy looks really mad."
With a suddenness that steals my breath, the flow of magic stops. I have what I need, and I know how to do it. I raise my arms high and release the magics.
My head falls back, my body stiff and immobile, as the power I'd consumed floods out of me and straight up through the house into the sky. I don't need to see the sky to know what happened. I can feel the change in every cell in my body, the seismic shift that first slows the alchemical reaction and then grinds it to a halt.
Silence yawns around me in the pitch darkness.
The overhead light flickers on again, but I'm breathing too hard to speak or move. Willow still has her hand on my arm, though she gapes at me like I've turned into a human-size light bulb. I'm not glowing, though.
"Wow, Allison," she says, her tone as awed as her expression. "You stopped it, didn't you?"
"I think so. With help from you and Dax."
Though I hadn't consciously taken power from them, I had experienced an invigorating sensation of feeling them both inside me, more so with Dax than with Willow. Only now that we've completed our task do I understand what I felt. Dax has been a part of me since before we ever met, thanks to the Tria Prima, and we will remain connected in a deep and irrevocable way. Willow holds the Echo power inside her too, though not as deeply as Dax and I feel it. She is a part of me too. The alchemical reaction that created the Echo and started the apocalypse bound her to me, which makes me wonder if others out there share the same power and the same link to the Tria Prima.
"Allison, you faithless bitch."
The harshness in Sefton's voice spurs me to whirl around and face him. He stands a few yards away with every muscle in his body bunched up, his entire demeanor electrified by a fury that warps his face into a hideous mask. He clenches his fists so hard that his hands tremble.
Sefton takes one step toward me, his teeth clamped shut and his lips peeled back. Sweat trickles down his temples. "You tricked me, Allison. But you've done worse than that. You have stolen my power."
"It's over, Sefton. The alchemical reaction has ground to a halt." I can't explain how I know that or exactly how I did it—or rather, how I, Dax, and Willow did it. "The alchemy of worlds is over, and I disentangled you from Dax and me. No more quantum connection. You've lost."
"Stopping the process won't reverse what has already been done."
