Once Charlotte had finished recounting the events, Jonathan was silent for several minutes.

"Well," he said, slow and drawn out as he deliberated. "That's...complicated."

"Yes, it is," Charlotte replied, weary, exhausted.

"You're certain The Endless One is a god?"

"A dying one. The spell affected him to an extent. I was close but I didn't get all the proponents correct."

"Shouldn't his power be waning then? Wouldn't that work in your favor?"

Charlotte shrank further into his coat in an attempt to hide from the wind that had risen to a high-pitched wail of mourning.

"That's why he takes the souls of others," Charlotte said. "Normally, a soul would be devoted freely to a god through worship. For some reason, he has no one to worship now and if he doesn't wish to die, then he must take those souls he requires from the living."

"With every soul he takes, he becomes stronger. That was the reason he was relegated to one night and one soul."

Charlotte nodded and glanced down at her hands, fingertips devoid of the characteristic silver threads she had grown used to. Now her fingers were merely tinged a blueish purple from the cold, rimmed with red welts, a cruel reminder that her witchcraft had been torn away from her and she wasn't likely to get it back.

"I don't feel my magic anymore, Papa," she said. "I poured as much of it as I could into the spells. What vestiges remained were used to protect myself from the fire."

Jonathan didn't even blink. Part of her wanted to sob that he didn't understand the severity of the situation, that this was on her shoulders. The other part of her wondered if his lack of reaction was to hide how disappointed he was in her.

Jonathan's hands slid away from her. He fiddled with the handkerchief, rubbing at a soot stain with his thumb.

"And your mother?" he said. "As you said, the crows disappeared, the spirits of your witch ancestors along with them. But you've never needed them close to sense their presence. You've traveled around the world and still managed to maintain a connection to Nivian's familiar while it remained behind at Laeves Keep."

Charlotte shook her head. "There's nothing. It's just...so quiet."

She plucked at the scratchy weave of Jonathan's coat as her overworked mind trundled along the same well-worn paths she had been through a thousand times before, desperate for an answer.

"He said Alexander chose this," she rasped. "Alexander wanted it."

Jonathan scrubbed a hand over his face with a sigh.

"Do you think that's true?" he said.

Charlotte hesitated. She didn't want to believe it of course. But there was a time for recognizing the nature of a situation, addressing all sides even if certain angles were hideous to contemplate.

"I don't know," she said. "I relied on my magic to handle things like this and now it's—it's not there. I feel as if I'm falling and there's no end in sight apart from emptiness and darkness."

Jonathan released a heavy exhale and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Charlotte buried her face in the crook of his neck, screwing her eyes shut tight against the threat of tears. If she started to cry now, she feared she would never stop.

"The horses," she said as she drew back. A change of subject. That's what she needed. Anything to get her mind onto something else. "We should find them. It might be wise to leave the mountains in case The Endless One is nearby."

What good would it do? They couldn't outrun him. Eventually, he would track them down and leave them as hollow and listless as Zevvi. Especially once he realized Charlotte wasn't dead.

But she had no desire to spend another moment with the destruction of Laeves Keep before her.

Jonathan nodded. "Wait here."

"I'm coming with you."

"Charlotte," he said gently, putting a hand on her arm. "You can barely stand. You're in no fit state to be tramping all over the woods in search of skittish horses."

Charlotte sagged onto a nearby stone, the chilled surface leaking through her skirts. If she had her magic, she could catch their attention and draw them to her.

If she had her magic, she could do any number of things. But she didn't.

"You're right," she admitted at last. "Just...come back as soon as you can."

I don't want you be alone any longer than necessary.

Not that she could do anything to shield him now if harm should find him.

Charlotte watched Jonathan slip into the forest, swallowed by the thick, dark pines, dusted with snow. His voice echoed softly as he called to the horses, coaxing them to return. She hardly dared to breathe, listening for some sound that something had gone wrong, that danger had found him.

All too soon, Jonathan's voice faded. She couldn't hear his footsteps, couldn't see the pale, ghostly visage of his shirt floating between the shadowy tree trunks.

A harsh gust of wind sent ashes skittering into Charlotte's face. She grimaced, putting up a hand to shield her eyes and mouth. She pulled Jonathan's coat tighter around her...

She stopped.

Her hand curved around the base of her throat where the wraithstone should have been.

Nothing.

"No, no, no," Charlotte whispered.

Had it burned in the fire along with the rest of Laeves Keep? Had it fallen from her neck in her rush to search the house?

Or had The Endless One prompted Alexander to take it from her while she was unconscious?

Panic squeezed Charlotte's lungs tight. She dropped to her knees amid the ashes of Laeves Keep and began searching through the debris with shaking hands.

It had to be here. After everything—losing Alexander, losing Laeves Keep, losing her murder of familiars, losing Nivian's spirit to gods only knew what fate—she couldn't believe the wraithstone was lost, too. She couldn't allow that horrible, terrible thought to rest in her mind that the wraithstone was in The Endless One's possession now.

The longer she searched, the only thing that slid through her fingers was ashes.

Charlotte swallowed hard against the tightness in her throat. She knew the answer she refused to face.

It was gone.

She sat back on her heels, her dress stained black with soot, streaked grey with ashes. She felt like a ghost, a shade of herself and what she used to be, what she had been capable of before. What was it Nivian had said only a few hours ago?

It's not necessary to push the boundaries all the time.

Charlotte had pushed. Too hard and too far. She had become so focused on defeating The Endless One, getting Alexander back, that she had refused to recognize when her craft needed her attention.

Instead, she continually demanded more and more from it. Running it ragged until there was nothing left. Her magic was a gift, something precious she should have guarded like the treasure that she always knew it to be.

Two hours later, Jonathan found Charlotte still kneeling in the middle of Laeves Keep. She heard his voice as if from a great distance but she couldn't bring herself to turn and face him. Her movements were slow, sluggish. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and forget that the past few days of this nightmare ever happened.

Jonathan knelt beside Charlotte and brushed a lock of hair away from the corner of her mouth.

"Charlotte?" he said with concern. "What are you doing?"

"The wraithstone," she croaked. "I lost it. I don't—I don't know if it's with The Endless One or...destroyed. I don't know."

Jonathan placed his hands atop hers to cease her restless movements.

"Charlotte," he said gently. "Look at me."

Charlotte shook her head. Her fingers combed through the ashes over and over.

"Charlotte," Jonathan repeated, more sharply than she'd ever heard him speak before.

She glanced up, startled at his tone.

"I have it with me," he said.

He reached into his pocket and withdrew the stone. Charlotte gripped Jonathan's wrist with both hands with a sob of relief. But when she moved to touch the stone, he curled his fingers over it and withdrew his hand.

"I'll keep it safe for you," he said. "Until you're well enough to use it."

"Papa, that won't be necessary," Charlotte said.

She smoothed a hand over her face, wiping away the tears that stained her cheeks in an attempt to calm herself and appear more presentable. But she merely succeeded in mixing her tears with ashes and making even more of a mess.

She must look half-crazed. Her hair had come loose, tumbling and tangled down her back. She hadn't slept in days, apart from a short bout of unconsciousness that hardly counted. She had let her desperation take control of her and as a result, she had almost destroyed herself in the process.

"I need that stone," Charlotte continued. "It guarded my witchcraft when I was too weak to do it myself. I can take my magic back now. I can nurture it to its full strength again."

Jonathan nodded. "I wouldn't have it any other way. Magic is a part of you."

He paused. Charlotte eyed him, waiting for the lingering words he wasn't saying.

"Then give it to me," she prompted, stretching out her hand.

"I can't do that yet," he replied.

A coil of dread took root in Charlotte's stomach. That wraithstone held the tiny remnants of her magic. Without it, she was only human. Weak. Without any sort of defenses. Without it, she couldn't warn the other witches that The Endless One was free to roam wherever he pleased.

A witch learned, at a young age, to control magic. Normal humans never did. It was too much power, concentrated to the mind that couldn't bear to wield it.

Magic was willful, stubborn. It didn't like to be controlled, used, manipulated, and sought every opportunity it could to sneak out of a witch's grasp.

With a human, there was no grasp to escape. If Jonathan wanted Charlotte's witchcraft for himself, it would ruin him.

"Why?" Charlotte said, wary. She hated the sour taste of doubt in her mouth.

But she knew Jonathan wished he could do more for his wife and daughter when it came to their craft. He wished he could be useful. By taking the last of Charlotte's magic as his own, it was an attempt to forge his way into a world that he could never be a part of but he had desired for so long anyway.

"I watched this whole place burn," Jonathan said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "And you were inside it. I feared that ending for you, Charlotte. Ever since the day you were born and I knew you were a witch, I dreaded this death for you."

"Papa," Charlotte said softly. "I'm right here. I'm fine."

Jonathan shook his head. "No, you're not. You won't stop either. I can't—"

His voice cracked and he bit the inside of his cheek.

Carefully, Charlotte covered his hand with both of hers. Through his skin, muscles, tendons, and blood, she felt the pulse of her witchcraft in the heart of the wraithstone—faint but steady and alive.

Charlotte closed her eyes and bowed her head. Her magic wasn't gone. She hadn't lost it.

"If you want to protect me, Papa," Charlotte said. "Then you must give me my magic. You have to."

"The moment I do, you'll go after The Endless One. Again."

Charlotte nodded. "Yes, I will. Because that is my duty. Because I'm one of the very few who can stop him."

"How can you be so certain of that?"

"I was close, Papa. I was so, so close to the solution. I scared him. I rattled him enough that he stopped possessing Alexander's body. He reduced himself to that tiny smudge of a curse in order to survive my spellwork."

For several minutes, Jonathan was quiet. Charlotte thought he might protest further.

But then his fingers opened, just a little. She waited, despite the urge to dig the wraithstone out of his grip and reclaim the comfort of her craft once again.

"You used nearly all of your magic," Jonathan said. "How do you propose to rework the spell when you hardly have any witchcraft left?"

Charlotte considered for a moment. He had a point. She couldn't afford to wait around until her magic regained its full strength. That could take months, even years. She didn't have that kind of time. The longer she sat here, the more souls The Endless One took.

What little magic she had left had to be used sparingly and in exactly the right manner.

"The road," she said. "The legend says on every reaping moon, he came down that road in the forest where I met him."

"But he's no longer bound by trivial details as that. He can appear anywhere in the world now."

Charlotte grimaced at that reminder.

"Yes, but I'm not looking for him yet. I'm looking for a weakness."

Jonathan frowned. "What sort of weakness?"

"At every reaping moon, The Endless One was on that road without fail. He was connected to it in some way. Whatever agreement he forged to connect him to the Prescott line started there."

Jonathan glanced down, his thumb skimming over Charlotte's knuckles. He nudged his fingers open and deposited the wraithstone in her palm. The jagged edges bit into her hand as if to admonish her forgetfulness.

Magic, smooth and liquid, seeped into her skin, warm and light, chasing away the cold and the emptiness.

"I'm coming with you," Jonathan said. "And this time, I'm not leaving your side."