If you loved her at all, you should wish she’s in the afterlife, safe and sound. You should pack this whole thing up and join her there. Pass on to the next world, and free everyone else.”

Fergus’s expression hardened into pure rage. “She’s lookin’ for me! She’ll follow me trail here, one o’ these days!” He waved his riding crop as though it were some kind of magical wand and began to cry out. “Bain an t-anam seo. Tóg gach duine nach leis an saol seo. Níl fáilte rompu anseo. Déan iad a dhíbirt ón saol seo. Níl mé ag iarraidh iad anseo.”

Before I knew what was happening, my body lifted into the air. The pixies floated up with me, all of them flailing, battling the unexpected Telekinesis. But Nathan remained on the ground, having joined the zombie ranks in a way I hadn’t. I guessed that meant he could stay.

Lightning fast, since I had no idea how much time I had left, I whipped the specterglass out of my pocket and lifted the lens to my eye. The image that came back made the breath rush out of my lungs. A hazy collection of white and red mist swirled into the human shape of Fergus, revealing his dead spirit. And where the gaseous orbs of the Wisps floated, another shape hovered beside each one. Human shapes. Arms outstretched, holding the death candles. These were the spirits that had been enlisted to guide people to safety in the afterlife—a task they’d spat on for their own hijinks, like Boudicca had told me. However, as I scanned the lens over the rest of the crowd, my heart lifted slightly. Those in modern dress, including Genie and Nathan, didn’t have any mist at all, which I hoped meant they were still alive—they weren’t touched by specter dust, or haze, or whatever this misty stuff was. They’re not dead. We’re not too late. But I couldn’t say the same for the people in period clothing, from bygone eras. It was centuries too late for them.

I realized I might’ve spoken too soon. As Fergus flung the pixies and me across his pocket of paradise, the gateway roared open, and we sailed through it.

He was banning us from his personal heaven—maybe for good.

Thirty-One

Persie

The gateway spat us out into the bottom of the sphere, right back at square one. The twenty-strong band of pixies wheeled around and flew back at the now-closed Door to Nowhere, making rude gestures and hurling insults. I admired their spunk, but we had no time to waste on a gateway that would no longer open for us. It wasn’t as though it had a handle I could push, and the pooling light had disappeared back into vacant darkness. We were in a race against the clock, before that specterglass showed something I didn’t want to see—Genie, Nathan, and the other Institute abductees swirling in a death mist. I had no idea how long someone could exist in Fergus’s world without losing their hold on the living world. Decades, years, days, weeks, hours? I couldn’t risk delaying, either way.

But how do I get them out of there?

I stared at the thin, glowing outline of the doorway. It wasn’t like I could borrow some C4 and blow it open. Leviathan’s words came back to bug me—I had to be careful. But there was more to it than that. I had to be cautious, not just in the realm, but outside of it. After all, what would happen to the people that were taken decades and even centuries ago, once they set foot outside of the eerie paradise? The dead pixies hadn’t morphed back into Chaos mist to be returned from whence they came, but I would’ve bet good money that they would as soon as they were out of there. And that probably went for the other lost souls. If Fergus’s physical body had rotted away in that place, leaving him as a spirit, it wasn’t a huge stretch to think that the same might’ve happened to the older residents. They wouldn’t last out here in the real world, because they didn’t belong here anymore.

Does that mean I’d be killing them, in a way? I shivered uneasily, having a crisis of conscience. That kind of purgatory wasn’t living, but it wasn’t dying, either. And I’d be taking the choice away from the people who would likely die the moment they set foot outside. Or, perhaps, like Nathan had suggested, I couldn’t defy the order of things. Maybe it was their time to pass on, and Fergus’s realm was holding them back from that. It felt impossible to know which was the right way, but I had to save my friends. That part was clear. Plus, I had the added guilt of knowing that pixies had died for me, in there. The creatures I’d given life to couldn’t pass on and return to Chaos, and I didn’t want them stuck like that. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what happened to a Purge beast if it couldn’t return to the Chaos stream after death.

“Did you think you could hide from me? Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” A familiar voice cut through the silence, followed by the comedic squeak of someone sliding down the pole from above. A shadow descended, and I staggered back.

I clenched my jaw. “Not now, Charlotte. I’m busy.”

“Busy causing problems.” She hopped down onto the ground and raised her palms. “And I’m here to take you in.”

I ducked a lasso of Telekinesis while the pixies regrouped around me. “Then why are you here on your own? I thought you’d have gone straight to Victoria!” It seemed odd that she hadn’t brought a hunter entourage with her, so I decided to try and call her bluff. Maybe she wanted to take me to Victoria to get the glory, or maybe it was payback for toppling her in bear form.

“This is my family’s Institute. I let you

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