I took off to the side while my captor was distracted, heading for Calen as quickly as I could. I crashed into him at full speed, putting my full weight into the tackle. Both of us hit the ground and rolled through the dirt while he screamed, trying to push me off as I clawed at his face, my nails leaving slashes over his skin.

I managed to get the better of him, sitting on top of his chest while he lay on the ground. I had no idea how to throw a punch, but I threw the strongest swing I could right at Calen's nose.

It hurt my hand, and I didn't care. It felt good.

I pulled back for another swing, but never managed to hit. Someone pulled me off him from behind, holding me under my arms so my feet dangled. I kicked back, but whoever it was had calves and kneecaps of steel, apparently, and was unaffected by my struggling.

I managed to get a glimpse of him while I flailed, and I recognized one of Calen's high-tier enforcers. I didn't know his name, but I knew he was a vampire, and that he really, really didn't like me.

"Can we kill her now?" he asked, glancing at Calen as though he was bored.

"Unfortunately, no," he muttered, wiping a streak of blood off his face. "I need her alive for a while longer. Restrain her, and for the love of the Moon Goddess, keep her from fucking this up."

I shrieked as Calen took off into the fray, hoping to draw attention from someone who could either take off after him or help me get down.

He hoisted me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, still ignoring my kicking and flailing. He did, for the record, flinch when he took an elbow to the base of the skull, but that was about all I got out of him. I wasn't sure what he planned to do when he put me down, but it couldn't be good.

My captor wove his way through the fray like I weighed nothing. I tried to come up with a plan, but I just wasn't strong enough to break his grip on my own. Maybe if I concentrated on my elemental magic-

"Hold on, Sunday!"

An arrow pierced the shoulder of the vampire who was holding me, and a second quickly followed. He screamed, finally dropping his hold, and I crashed to the ground. I wasn't sure who exactly shot it, but I was grateful. Groaning, I rolled to the side and ran, trying to orient myself in the chaos.

There were swarms of people everywhere, but I couldn't quite tell who was with us or against us. It seemed like some of the tattooed cult members were fighting against Calen's enforcers, and I could tell that there were Sylvans on Calen's side.

This could be a very, very big problem that I hadn't planned for. Some of the Sylvan army had official banners or seals, but others wore fighting leathers that weren't too different from Calen and his elite guard. It was pretty obvious who I was, what with the violently purple hair, and I could pick out Elise and Callie, but there were too many people out here without identifying garb.

"Violets, it's time- get your charges to the healers!" Elise screamed, ducking low as shots of fire and lightning rang out. "Go, now! You're with us or against us!"

That must have been what they were waiting for.

I knew we had a number of people on our side, but I had seriously underestimated exactly how many. The rallying cry was almost deafening. Nearly half of the group of a hundred that Calen brought with him pulled out purple bandannas, purple ribbons, or purple headbands and tied them on, shouting as they ran to the Sylvan side.

Violet, I realized. Purple.

My hair.

It was a sweet sentiment that would have probably made me cry in another moment, but we didn't have time for it now. I tried very, very hard not to think about the fact that Dante was not with the group at the Veil break. He could be somewhere else.

He had to have made it. I wouldn't accept the idea that he didn't.

Finally, I located Calen on the battlefield. He was hiding behind a tree, tucked behind a barricade of enforcers like the coward he was. I wasn't close enough to attack him from here, but I could see him, and I could hear what came out of his mouth.

"Not today," Calen said, eyes glowing red as he snapped his fingers.

All the living ink tattoos that I could see suddenly glowed red, along with the eyes of anyone who possessed them.

Oh. Oh, no. That was very, very bad.

I wasn't sure exactly how the living ink worked or how long it had to work its way inside the bearer's body before Calen could take full control, but it was frightening to watch. Some people seemed to lean into it, embracing a sense of strength and berserker style battle. Others, mostly those with purple markers, stopped mid stride, screaming as individual limbs or whole sections of their body seemed to move without their consent.

My stomach turned as I watched the scene, calculating the quickest way to get to Calen. As I tried to wind my way around the fighting as best I could, dodging and jumping, another arrow streaked by.

Shooting Calen's head wasn't a permanent death, but damn if it wasn't disturbing as he fell to the ground. That would hold him for approximately sixty seconds, but that wasn't the most important part. As he fell, the red glow faded from the living ink, the spell broken for the moment with its focal point dead, even temporarily.

This time, I looked up to locate the shooter, surprised and delighted to see a familiar face peeking out from one of the nearby trees.

"Keep him busy!" Shouted Callie, hooking a bow across her chest as she started to scramble down from the branches. She must have been the one who shot me free earlier! "He can't hold control if he's distracted."

"On it!" I cried, pressing my palms into the dirt.

With most of my Weaver magic muted, it was easier to dig down and access the earth elemental magic that all the Threads had buried. Roots pulled up from the ground, wrapping around the feet, ankles, and legs of Calen's strongest enforcers at the front of the pack. A few of them fell to the ground, and others tried hacking at the roots, but it gave the wave of people trying to run to the Sylvan healers time to get through.

With their independence regained, the people with purple markers ran towards the Sylvan healers and their freedom. Even though only a few minutes had passed, I could see a few purple-marked recruits with Sylvan swords and bare forearms where tattoos had been before. Those healers worked fast.

"Come on!"

Someone yanked at my arm, and I looked up to see Callie pulling me to my feet. Taking my hand, she pulled me away from the chaos, weaving through the crowd as quickly as she could. I knew where she wanted to go.

We had to find Calen.

My job in this fight wasn't on the front lines. I couldn't heal, and my combat magic was limited. My job was to corner Calen in any way I could and finish what I'd started... and then hope that it worked.

I still wasn't sure that cutting his Threads would completely do the job, but I had hope.

"There he is!" I skidded to a halt, motioning for Callie to go on. "Help the others that need tattoos removed. Go!"

"I can't leave-" Callie tried, brandishing a sword that I didn't even know she could use.

A scream ripped through the air. I couldn't tell from where, but in any case, it wasn't good. The longer I took to deal with Calen, the more people were in danger.

"They need you! Go now," I said, pushing against her shoulder.

Then, I focused all my attention on Calen.

Scrambling backwards, away from the melee, Calen wiped his hand across a bloody scratch on his cheek. His nose was bleeding, too, and his pants were torn. At the least, someone had managed to get a hit in.

He took a deep breath, reaching out to put a hand over his tattoo once more, but I didn't plan to give him the chance to activate his magic again. Lacking anything else, I picked up a massive pinecone from the ground and threw it at his head.

"Hey, fuck face!"

The pinecone hit him in the eye at about the same time I shouted, and he turned to look at me. His expression turned from annoyance, to shock, to utter hatred, jaw ticking and teeth bared as he looked at me.

"Why don't you rewind so you'll have the advantage?" I said, purposefully goading him. "Oh, wait. You can't, can you?"

Calen's hands clenched into fists, shoulders tense and gaze steely as he slowly turned to me. That was when I knew, without a doubt, that my slow snipping away had done something. He hadn't lost all his magic yet, but he was so weak that he couldn't rewind time in any kind of useful way.

"You're losing your magic," I continued. "Poor little baby taken out by a few snipped Threads and a whole boatload of overconfidence."

His face visibly went red. That was good- I needed him to focus on me so I could get him away from the crowd. If I could lead him on a chase away from the fray

Unfortunately, even though Calen didn't have the magic of the Hourglass, he clearly had other tricks up his sleeves. Just as I had access to other kinds of magic, he did, too. I was expecting the sheer rage, but I wasn't expecting Calen to conjure fire in his hand... and then throw it at me.

Oh, that was bad.

On instinct, I tried to back away, but Calen's fireball forced me to hit the dirt. It was ironic that this circled back around to fireballs, in the end. I hadn't really thought it was him that conjured the fire in the first place, just someone he hired.

Apparently, I was very wrong.

I rolled to the side in the grass and dirt, clambering to my feet as I tried very hard not to look at the scorch mark in the grass that could have been me. The manipulations were over. Now, Calen wanted vengeance.

"You did this," Calen hissed. "You-"

Calen cut off with a grunt, toppling to the ground as someone slammed into his side. The two figures rolled together, but I recognized the white hair and wings.

"Dante!" I cried, a wide smile on my face. I couldn't help it- he was safe.

"Good to see you again," Dante said, smirking as he scrambled to his feet. "Thanks for bringing my girlfriend home."

It was a relief to see him, but he wasn't keeping up the banter for nothing. He was trying to buy me time. Calen picked up a sword from a fallen Sylvan soldier and brandished it at Dante, which did not help my current frazzled mental processes.

Plan, plan, I needed a plan! I needed to isolate, to get Calen where it was just the two of us. I'd like to get that sword away from him if I could, but I'd worry about that later.

Pressing my fingers into the ground, I reached out and begged the earth to respond. I'd never done anything this big before, never tried to grow anything quite this fast before, but I didn't have another choice. This had to work.

And it did, though it was slower than I wanted. A wall of thorns grew from the ground, rising exponentially faster with each passing second, but it took a moment for Calen to notice the growing plants. Dante had him distracted, lashing out with water magic to counter Calen's fireballs and long, wickedly curved scimitars against his borrowed sword.

It only took one second for Dante to get the better of him, kicking him back inside my barrier as I encouraged the thorns to grow. By the time Calen got to his feet, there was a thickening, living wall rising between him and Dante. He rushed towards it, but the thorns were too tall.

He slashed futilely at them with his sword, then desperately tossed a fireball at Dante, clearly trying to eat through the thorns with magic to burn him, and my rage finally boiled over.

"HEY!" I snapped, willing the thorn wall to grow higher. "You don't get to touch him!"

I flicked my wrist and a bramble lashed out, wrapping around the sword and snatching it away, the thorns slashing into Calen's clothes and skin in the process. He seemed stunned for a moment, pausing in a way that was unsettling as the wall set into place in front of him.

I wasn't done, though. The thorns kept growing, spreading, and climbing, forming a massive cage around us, twenty feet high on all sides.

Calen turned, eerily calm, one eyebrow raised as he looked between me and the thorns. He let out a low whistle as they continued to climb and the wall extended, growing wider with each passing second. It was done. I had what I needed. The plants were primed and responding to me, and I wouldn't let Calen escape.

"Well," he said slowly. "You've finally managed to surprise me."

"There's more where that came from," I said, eyes narrowed.

I needed to keep him from moving around if I wanted to finish this. Flicking my wrists, I extended the thorn wall until it made a circle around the two of us, driving back anyone else who tried to come close. It only took a few seconds to grow something tall enough and strong enough to hold, wicked thorns spiking out from the tall vines.

"Cute," Calen snorted. "Not cute enough."

I jumped to the side, but he wasn't even aiming for me. The fireball slammed into the thorn wall, and I realized he was trying to break out and run...

But the plants didn't catch flame. There was a scorch mark where the fire landed, but no real fire managed to break out. The wall held, and Calen's eyes went wide.

"What was that again?" I snarked, smiling as the brambles held strong. The bark was thick, and healthy enough that it didn't catch fire in the explosion like Calen had planned.

He was trapped. It was just us now, just like I wanted it.

"I'll just turn back," he snarled.

"You can't," I shot back. "If you could, you already would have. I've been snipping away at your magic for weeks. You can't rewind time more than a few seconds now, and you took too long to notice the wall growing. You're done."

Now it was my turn.

It was partly catharsis, yes, but it was also because I was the only one who could do it. If Calen and I were inevitabilities of each other, that meant that one had to be the other's undoing. I just needed to take the step to make it happen. Calen wouldn't destroy himself to destroy me. He was greedy, power-hungry, and afraid, and he wanted to live.

I wanted to live, too, but I wasn't afraid. I was willing to risk it.

And so I called up the Threads, and I started snipping away at them. Some of Calen's Threads were already unraveling, while others looked strong and decently healthy, but none of them would stand in my way.

I didn't have to move my hands to work, but I did, a little. Just to help me see, just to brush away the Threads as I snipped them. At first, Calen didn't react. Most people didn't notice when one of their Threads changed, but most people never had dozens of Threads changed at once.

And Calen... Calen felt it.

"You know as well as I do that this is-" he groaned, clutching at his chest as I clipped away another Thread. "This is a pointless, endless loop!"

I didn't care what the cost was, not this time. Whatever it was, I'd handle it, I'd pay it. This wasn't just about me anymore. It was about the whole world, about all witches and Sylvans making it to the next generation, about making sure that magic stayed in the world.

"It's not," I said calmly, snapping another Thread. "I won't let it be one."

I was done with finesse. There wasn't time for that. It was time for brute force.

I had to snap all of his Threads.

It should kill anyone to be disconnected from the fabric of the very universe in that way, but the additional problem remained that Calen's magic was a balance-related inevitability of my own power. If I really, truly, wanted to make sure that he was gone without a way to ever return as the Hourglass, I needed to snap all of my own Threads, too.

I'd left them in place until now. I had to make sure I didn't weaken my own magic until the last possible second. Calen's had to go first, and then mine.

In that moment, I was glad for the thorn wall. Though I could hear the clamor outside, I couldn't see anyone that might make me change my mind.

I started pulling, tearing, ripping at every single Thread I could find. I pulled away every past, present, and future connection I'd ever had, every single connection that the universe wove into the very fabric of my being. I yanked away every choice, every misstep, every accident, and every inevitability wired into the core of me that I could get my hands on, mercilessly ripping away at the Threads of my being.

I ripped at Calen's Threads, too. I pulled at the ones going forward and backward, ignoring the pain and the burning in my blood and my bones. I even tore apart the new Thread between us that I wove together, just for good measure. It was painful, but it was freeing, too.

Calen held up his hand and launched towards me with a scream, but then something happened: he stumbled.

His step faltered, and the pitch of his scream changed as he clutched his chest. It almost seemed like he was clawing at his heart, trying to pull out something he couldn't reach.

"You feeling something, there?" I gasped, trying to keep the pain out of my own voice as the fight raged around us. The Sylvan army and our group of rebels did their best to make a barrier around me so I could focus, but I didn't know how long it would last.

"What- what are you-" he tried, but he cut off again with a cry, falling to his knees as spiderweb cracks began to appear across his skin, sparkling and golden and burning.

It hurt. I know that it hurt him because ripping my own Threads like this was painful like nothing I'd ever felt before. I felt more than saw the spiderwebs appearing on my own skin, an itching, searing sensation that was hard to describe. If ripping the soul mate Thread was enough to take me out for a few days, this was enough to tear me apart.

That was good, though. I needed to tear away everything, every single Thread that lead to the Weaver. I cut away at the wispy lines tethering Calen to those few past incarnations I had yet to free, and I cut them from myself, too.

I was my own person. They had their time, and it was mine, now. I'd make a better future for all of us, even if cutting my own Threads destroyed me.

I left the lifelines, though.

Or, rather, I left my lifeline. I didn't touch Calen's lifeline because I didn't have to.

As I cut away at his other Threads, moving in order from weakest to strongest, I realized that his lifeline was unraveling already as I worked. His life was so tied to his magic that the Thread seemed to burn and fade away as I tore away his access to the power.

Without his time magic, Calen couldn't live. He was much, much older than a mortal life would ever allow. His magic was so inherently connected to him that it was keeping him alive, and as I cut him off from it, Calen started to crumble.

His hands went first. They seemed to decay in front of me at a speed that was impossible, turning to rot, to bone, to dry dust as he screamed.

I kept tearing at his Threads. I kept tearing at mine. I wondered if I would also turn to dust as tears blurred my vision from the pain, but I had to keep going. If I didn't remove all the Weaver's magic from myself, he'd just come back again.

Then Calen's feet started to decay as he collapsed to the ground, attempting to crawl towards me as I scrambled back. My own legs gave way as my vision swam. I had to focus on the Threads, but it was difficult to do so while the world seemed to spin. I wasn't sure if I was on the ground or floating, if I was falling or flying, but I kept tearing away at them.

The worst part, though, was when the screaming stopped.

Something about my hearing was muffled, my heartbeat louder than anything else, black spots in front of my eyes as I watched a pile of rot turn to bone, from bone to dust between discarded clothes and a familiar motorcycle jacket.

I kept checking my Threads, snipping away at the very last of them that I could, desperately trying to release anything that connected me to the Weaver... Which was, unfortunately, most of them. It felt like my entire body was on fire and electrocuted at once. I couldn't breathe, my chest aching and eyes bulging as I pulled away at the last few connections, the last vestiges of my fated magic.

I hoped that keeping my lifeline in place might be enough to keep me here, but I wasn't sure if I'd love through this anymore. The physical pain was unbearable, the emotional separation was pure agony, and I couldn't imagine waking up from something like this to see the next sunrise.

It was too much for me.

The only other Thread I couldn't bear to rip away was that last, persistent line that I knew connected me to Dante. That one was there of my own doing. That was not a mark of the universe, of destiny, or of anything else that was predetermined long before my birth. That Thread was mine.

That love was mine, and I would not give it up so easily. Not for anything in the world.

I thought I saw the outline of a butterfly above the thorns before my vision finally went dark.