Why hadn't the witches walked through the veil? Many of their spirits were old and prone to unsettlement, aggravation, irritation. But they weren't so old that only a few minutes in the living world would agitate them to the point of desperation. Or worse, violence.

Charlotte looked down at her hands.

Their magic. Hundreds of threads in shades of silver, brown, red, and blue twined around her fingers, her palms, and up her arms.

She had all of their magic at her command. Each witch's familiar was bound to Charlotte now. Mina, Nivian, along with her ancestors, had nothing to anchor them anymore.

That must have been the turning point. However willingly they surrendered their magic to Charlotte's care, the loss of it would drive them to extremes, whether they were aware of what they were doing or not.

Charlotte summoned the magic that had been bestowed upon her. A spell burned its way through every muscle, every bone, and every vein, alternating between cool as a breeze, hot as fire, gritty as the earth, and smooth as liquid. Finally, it reached her fingertips, more alive and shivery than any magic she had ever held before.

But she didn't get a chance to release the spell. Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.

The Endless One was rising to his feet, darkness boiling overhead, crackling with red lightning.

Something prickled at the back of Charlotte's neck like a bee sting. She couldn't slap at it for fear of breaking the spell taking shape between her hands. But she hitched one shoulder up in an attempt to block it out.

The sting grew to a vise-like grip, clamped around the base of her skull. The prickly feeling transformed to an itch, spreading down her arms.

Black veins twisted between the threads of magic. One by one, the threads guttered out and vanished from sight. In their place, boils bubbled a pale, sickly yellow beneath Charlotte's skin.

"Do you know why I was never challenged for so long?" The Endless One said.

Charlotte made no reply. She was whispering as fast as she could, conjuring magic to replace what was slipping from her grasp.

"I never let Šuná forget what they feared the most," The Endless One continued. "I wore what they dreaded—the English..." He patted Alexander's chest. "As well as disease and death."

Charlotte's chest felt heavy and tight, each breath of air a rattling wheeze in her throat. She coughed and the bitter taste of blood surged into her mouth.

"You tricked them," she choked. "If anyone spoke out against you..."

The plague they had tried to escape suddenly reappeared. Twice as nasty as before, too."

The Endless One's darkness crept along the ground in tiny rivers, nipping at the crows around Charlotte. Yulia met Charlotte's eye and mouthed an apology.

No.

Not an apology.

The stone.

Charlotte dipped her chin in the faintest nod of acknowledgement. She had to distract The Endless One somehow, only for a few precious seconds so she could grab the wraithstone.

"Do you feel it yet?" he said.

Charlotte's gaze darted back to him. Her hands were shaking. The spell was unraveling between her hands, not gaining strength as it should have been. A raging fever swept through her brain, churning her concentration to a sluggish crawl.

"For five hundred years," The Endless One said. "The world has been free of its fear of the Black Death. Medicine progresses and man forgets his gods. He becomes a god himself. That's why the disease eating its way through your body now is ten times uglier than any case of the plague that has ever been recorded in human history. Just for you, witch."

Mina had said that same word minutes ago with love, kindness, and tenderness—it was a word imbued with awe and power for what she was capable of, the lengths she could reach beyond anyone else.

To hear that same word come from The Endless One's mouth was jarring. He spat it out with such disgust, as if it was filthy and he couldn't stand to let it past his lips.

Charlotte was shaking so hard that her teeth clacked together until her jaw ached. Her magic was too scattered and spotty but it had to be good enough.

As she raised her hands to cast the spell, a small figure stepped in front of The Endless One. Even at this distance, Charlotte recognized the dark head of curls, the round cheeks, the wide brown eyes.

Zevvi.

But someone else was inside his body—the spirit of a witch.

Slowly, Zevvi's head turned to look at Charlotte. He blinked once and when he opened his eyes again, thousands of galaxies illuminated his dark pupils.

"No," Charlotte whispered, realizing what Mina intended to do.

That's why the witches hadn't passed through the veil again. They were staying with Charlotte to the last possible moment. That's why they gave up their magic. They weren't going to make it out of this alive.

Mina guided Zevvi's body towards The Endless One. The other people of Šuná, controlled by the spirits of the dead, fell in around him. Their mouths opened in a wide gape and let out an otherworldly scream.

The Endless One shriveled in pain at the sound. He withdrew his suffocating darkness, shrouding himself in shadow to form a shield.

For a split second, there was only the deafening screams of the witch spirits, pressing The Endless One further and further into the earth, smothering him, making him so tiny and small that soon he would vanish from existence.

Then he snapped a tendril of darkness out, sending shadows coiling through the ears, mouths, and eyes of the people of Šuná.

Charlotte couldn't tear her gaze away from the scene before her. There was still breath in those bodies, along with living hearts. Their souls might be gone but if he crushed their bodies and their hearts, it would be massacre.

The Endless One flicked his wrist.

The first body dropped—an old man, looking so similar to Jonathan with his head of white hair that it sent Charlotte's heart stuttering up her throat.

A wailing howl tore through the screams of the spirits. Squirming in the darkness was a pale, thin spirit, shrieking in agony.

"Mama, no," Charlotte said.

The Endless One continued to squeeze Nivian's spirit, crushing her until there was only a faint, gray impression.

Then even that was no more. The howling ceased.

Silence.

The Endless One spread his hands and raised them upwards. Spirits split from human flesh and the howling turned into screeches of pain.

Charlotte wasn't ready. Her magic was fizzling with her lack of concentration from the plague's infection, sputtering with her panicked heartbeat from seeing her mother's spirit extinguished.

She lashed out anyway.

The Endless One threw up a wall of darkness, blocking him from view. Distantly, Charlotte could make out Yulia's voice, calling...something...

But the darkness was hurtling towards her, weaving back and forth, spreading to either side like wings. All she could think about were the spells she fired off in rapid succession, one after the other, barely staving off the shadowed fingers grasping for her.

Then a hand grabbed her arm.

Charlotte turned, certain that the darkness had managed to sneak up behind her when she wasn't looking.

It was only Jonathan. He took her wrist and pressed the wraithstone into her hand—the same hand wrapped in threads of magic.

Nothing changed.

For a moment, Charlotte feared it wouldn't work, blind as she had always been to auras.

There.

A faint tremble of blue around The Endless One's head. The answer to his defeat.

Charlotte brought her hands up. Dozens of threads stretched between her hands, a rainbow of colors, pounding with magic like a war drum.

She breathed The Endless One's name into the threads.

His name shattered outward in a blast that snapped trees like twigs and sent the snow whisking off, leaving behind barren rocky ground.

The Endless One crumpled with a wail.

His name was gone, never to be spoken again. No one would worship him. No one would fear him. He was nothing now.

His shadows withered to a thin, delicate little trickle. Charlotte gave a short gesture and a plume of silver swallowed the last remnants of the dark.

An explosion of moths burst into the sky, pouring from The Endless One's blank face. Moths of every color—sky blue and rose red, sunshine yellow and lavender purple. Each soul drifted to its respective body.

A pale green moth landed at the corner of Zevvi's mouth, questing at his lips for permission to enter. Hesitantly, he opened his mouth and the moth slipped inside.

Charlotte sank to her knees. The disease faded away—no fever, no boils, no plague. But the expenditure of her magic left her so weak that she could barely stand. She had never held so much power before, much less used it.

The imprint of phantom threads remained pressed into her brown skin, though she couldn't feel her magic now. It must be there. However lackluster the threads might appear, she knew she could get them glowing again given the proper time and attention.

"Charlotte."

A voice, gentle and familiar, broke through her hazy thoughts.

She turned to see Jonathan by her side. She reached out a trembling hand and he clasped her fingers in a tight grip.

"Charlotte, look," Jonathan said.

Kneeling beside her was Alexander. His face, his body was intact.

Hesitantly, Charlotte brought her hand up, fingers tracing Alexander's features. The curse that had darkened his eyes was gone. He turned his head and kissed her palm with a faint smile.

"It's over," he whispered.

Charlotte released Jonathan's grip and placed her other hand on Alexander's face. But when she leaned towards him to wrap her arms around his neck, he sucked in a pained breath.

She drew back. "Are you hurt?"

Alexander didn't reply. He touched his hand to his heart and his palm came away bloody.

The crossbow bolt she had hit him with days ago.

"No," Charlotte said, her throat tight. Not after everything they had been through would she lose him now, by her own hand no less. "No, no, no."

She covered his heart with both hands, pressing against the wound to stop the bleeding.

"You'll be fine," she said. "It's...it's just a scratch."

Alexander rested his forehead against her shoulder and sagged. Charlotte caught him, pulling him close even as she felt him fading.

"You set me free, my love," he rasped. "I'm free."