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Once, I'd told myself she shouldn't feel that way about me. But now, I realize I am not the monster my brother convinced me I am. Allison wouldn't fall for a vicious beast, but she loves me. That's all the proof I need that, despite all my mistakes, I am nothing like the Echo creatures.
Allison pushes up onto her elbows. "This isn't a complaint, but how am I not dead?"
I nod toward the girl. "Willow saved you."
"She did what?"
The teenager hunches her shoulders and bites her lip. "Don't know how I did it. I wanted you back, so I got one of those boxes, shoved my hand into it, and wished hard for you to come back to us."
"Willow shares our Echo power," Allison says. "I realized that right before Sefton attacked me. And I also realized that might mean more people out there have the same gift."
I help her sit up and brush hair away from her face. "But I don't understand how that power could resurrect you from death."
Her brows lift a touch. "I actually died, didn't I?"
"Yes. Please don't ever do that again."
"I'll do my best." She slings an arm around my neck and kisses me. "Don't you want to know my theory for how Willow brought me back?"
The girl raises her hand. "I do."
Pulling Allison closer, I hold her while I rise to my feet, then set her down. "Tell us your theory."
"Sefton told me that he wanted to reenact the moment of creation, when the world was born." She turns slightly to see both me and Willow. "Sefton also said alchemy is the quest for eternal life. I think both of those elements gave the three of us the power to bring me back. A new creation, as in a rebirth. Eternal life, which means to cheat death. I doubt I'm immortal, though the Echo power we all share brought me back."
"But Sefton hadn't achieved either of those goals."
"He was trying, and the magics he gathered in that quest became a part of me and you, and by extension, Willow and any others who have the same power. Sefton had also ensured that you and I were entangled on a quantum level along with him. But I severed his connection to us." She hunches her shoulders. "Do you mind being bound to me? I can sever that link too if you want."
"There's no one else I'd rather be entangled with."
I'm not certain her explanation of how she managed to stop the alchemy of worlds accounts for everything, but I don't care. She came back to me. Nothing else matters.
Footfalls pound in the hallway above the cellar.
We all glance up just as Grant appears in the doorway, breathing hard. "What did I miss?"
Allison shrugs. "Oh, just me dying and being resurrected. Plus, Dax offed his brother."
"Sounds like a good result."
"What took you so bloody long?" I ask. "You were right behind me."
"Yeah, sorry," Grant says. "The creature you skewered with your broadsword didn't quite die. He bounced back and attacked me. Damn, those things are tough."
Allison leads me and Willow out of the cellar, and Grant suggests we go outside to see what effect, if any, halting the alchemy of worlds has caused. Willow sidles up to me as we pass by the corpses of Sefton's minions. I find myself wrapping an arm around the girl. I hold Allison's hand too, which leaves me with no hands free to fight, if the need should arise, but I don't care. After five years of torment, I've found peace in the middle of an apocalypse.
We stop halfway across the lawn and tip our heads back to take in the sight above us.
Fireballs and lightning streak across the sky, slamming down to penetrate the earth. The concussions of those impacts vibrate under our feet, growing stronger every second as they draw ever closer to Fallenmouth. Darkness pours out of the Echo, rushing toward the estate in a tidal wave of dark energies that will soon engulf us.
Allison grips my hand more firmly. "The alchemy of worlds hasn't stopped. We failed."
"No, I don't believe that's what is happening."
"What, then? Looks like the apocalypse all over again."
I nod toward the sky. "Look. You can see the alchemical reaction hasn't started up again in the distance. It's only here at Fallenmouth. Sefton had created wards around the estate to protect it from the chaos. Now, with him gone, the last gasp of the alchemy of worlds needs to fill in the gap."
