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Come back, I pleaded silently. Please. We need you.

For a moment—just a moment—she responded. Her essence began to coalesce, to remember what it had been. The scattered pieces of her soul stirred in the darkness, drawn by my call.

Then August's hand closed over mine.

“Just one more second!” I tried to pull away, desperate to maintain the connection.

But his warmth was already breaking the fragile thread between me and the void, yanking me back to the physical world with brutal finality.

The effort left me gasping, hollow. I don't know how long I had been trying—seconds? Minutes? But when my eyes opened, sweat stinging my vision, August was pulling me to my feet with desperate urgency.

“Lily.” His tone hoarse, urgent. “We have to move. Now.”

My eyes snapped open, and I saw Elias walking toward us across the courtyard.

No rush.

Just him. Calm. Cruel. Certain.

The last traces of Ysella's essence slipped away from me like water through cupped hands, dissolving back into the endless dark.

“No! ” I gasped, turning back to the void, reaching desperately for that fading flicker. “I almost had her. I almost⁠—”

Please.

But the void was empty now. Silent. The warmth of her soul, the fierce love that had driven her sacrifice—all of it gone like it had never existed at all.

She was truly gone. I had failed.

The realization hit me like a physical blow, doubling me over with grief and fury and the bitter taste of my own inadequacy.

“I could have saved her,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face.

“Lily, we need to go.” August's hands gripped my arms, pulling me forward.

Elias was fifteen paces away now, that terrible dark magic already beginning to coalesce in his palm again. Behind us, Abigail's barrier cracked with a sound like breaking glass.

“She wanted you to remember,” I said urgently, struggling to my feet. “Your mother. What she was. What you are.”

August's hand moved to the pistol at his belt, drawing it in one smooth motion. “Then let's live long enough for me to figure out what that means.”

Ten paces.

“Go,” I said, pushing him toward the tunnel mouth. “Get the others clear.”

“No.” August's aim never wavered from his father's chest, but his free hand found mine. “We go together or not at all.”

Five paces.

“Lily! August!” Mira's yelled from the passage entrance. “The barrier's failing!”

I looked up to see Abigail's golden shield spider-webbing with cracks, her face pale with strain.

We had seconds.

Elias raised his hand, the Unraveling magic crackling between his fingers like dark lightning.

“Don't,” August shouted, the word tearing across the distance between them. “It doesn't have to end this way.”