Her hands felt strange now.

Hadn’t she been holding on to something?

And wasn’t she supposed to be with…?

She couldn’t remember their names.

Sophie.

No—that wasn’t it.

She needed several beats to realize that was her name. And she tried to tell the voice it wasn’t being helpful, but it just kept repeating her name over and over—the sound echoing down the dark, empty hallway in front of her.

Urging her on.

Slowly she followed.

Counting her steps. Her breaths. The stones beneath her feet.

Anything.

Everything.

Millions of things.

Billions.

How long had she been there if she’d counted that high?

How many lifetimes had passed?

No—that couldn’t be right.

She shook her head, trying to clear it and…

Her ears felt strange.

Longer.

Sharper.

Ancient.

“No!” she screamed, reaching for her face, but she couldn’t feel it, couldn’t find it.

“Yes, Sophie,” a voice said behind her. “We’ve come that far. And this was always where we were heading.”

She spun around and…

There.

There in the center of the hall.

A tall figure in a hooded black cloak with white eyes glowing across the sleeves.

The sight of it made Sophie want to kick and punch and vomit all over the floor—but she couldn’t feel her body enough to do any of those things.

“Isn’t it time to stop fighting?” the figure asked, raising its arms—but not to strike.

To embrace.

“This was always the endgame,” it told her, no longer in a single voice.

A voice with four layers.

Gethen.

Vespera.

Lady Gisela.

The fourth she couldn’t—wouldn’t—let herself recognize.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

And it was the only tone she could hear when the figure told her, “This is our legacy.”

“NEVER!”

She screamed the word so loud that her throat tore, pain arcing through her as she turned to run and run and run—but there were cloaked figures everywhere.

Hundreds of them.

Thousands.

A lifetime of enemies.

Closing in.

Welcoming her home.

“Sophie. Sophie. Sophie.”

NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!

“Never is a very long time—but not long enough,” all the figures told her, and it was in that same voice again.

The one she hated but didn’t hate.

“Go away go away go away,” she begged, curling in on herself as the figures closed in—black fabric all around, flowing and fluttering and flapping.

“This is my legacy,” they told her. “Our legacy. Your legacy.”

No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Panic and fury flooded her mind—thicker and blacker than the darkness.

Like poison.

Like a weapon.

“I can stop you,” Sophie told them.

“We’d like to see you try!” they challenged.

And she would show them.

She’d show everyone.

“Sophie!”

The voice was new and not new.

Familiar but strange.

And much, much too far away.

But it called for her anyway, repeating her name over and over and over.

Growing more desperate.

“Don’t listen!” her enemies shouted. “Listen to us! We’re your endgame! And you will never be able to stop us!”

“YOU’RE WRONG!” Sophie screamed. “I’M THE MOONLARK!”

She dived into her consciousness, letting the poisonous darkness boil and bubble and burn around her.

But it wouldn’t be enough.

She needed to be so much stronger.

So she reached deeper.

Sank farther.

Past the walls around her heart.

To the reserves within.

Emotions so pure, so potent that there was no longer good or bad.

Only unending power.

Sophie. Sophie. Sophie.

No—she wasn’t Sophie anymore.

She was hate.

And love.

And victory.

And defeat.

And she was finishing this—once and for all.

Red rimmed the edges of her consciousness, and the darkness rose higher and higher, pressing against her mind, clawing out like a monster and—

“SOPHIE, STOP IT!”

The voice felt like a slap.

Or maybe she really had been slapped.

Her cheek stung and her breath was heaving and…

“Wait—where am I?” Sophie asked, feeling like she’d been dropped into a strange new body, and only parts of it were working.

She couldn’t see.

And her ears were ringing.

And her legs were so, so shaky.

And her head…

Her head was much too heavy.

She let it fall forward, and then every part of her followed—falling, falling, falling—until something squeezed her arms and dragged her back upright.

“We’re still on the King’s Path,” the voice told her, “so I need you to get it together.”

The sharpness of the tone gave Sophie the piece her brain had been missing.

Stina.

She was talking to Stina.

And this…

This was reality.

Everything else…

“What’s happening?” Sophie asked, shoving the lingering wisps of her nightmare to the back of her mind and trying to spot something—anything—to give her brain some focus.

But there was only the thick, endless black, and the more she stared into it, the more it stared back.

Looming over her.

Ready to devour.

“None of that!” Stina snapped as something squeezed Sophie’s arms again.

Hands, she realized.

Hands that were shaking her.

“Stop it!” she whined.

“Then stay awake!” Stina ordered. “I don’t think I can stop you from inflicting again.”

“Inflicting?” The word was a kick to the heart. “Did I—”

“Almost,” Stina corrected. “The pain knocked me out of the weird dream I’d been having. Something about unicorns and kelpies… and… I don’t really know. They were chasing me, and… it doesn’t matter.” There was a rustling sound like Stina was shaking her head. “Then I realized what was happening, and somehow I got my legs moving, following the feeling until I found you and tried to snap you out of it. I pulled your gloves off, but you still had those gadget things on, and I didn’t know how to work them. So I tried smacking you—”

“I knew it,” Sophie murmured, reaching up to feel her cheek—marveling that her arm and hand were willing to do that. It still felt like she was inhabiting someone else’s body—a puppet with ten million strings, and she didn’t know how to use any of them. “But… you stopped me in time?”

“I think so. I can’t see anything, but I don’t feel anyone in pain or anything.”

Sophie sank with a sigh, and Stina had to steady her again.

“Seriously, Sophie, I’m having a hard enough time—”

“You two shouldn’t be conscious,” another voice interrupted from somewhere beside them, and Sophie wondered if her heart was going to be permanently stuck in her throat from the shock of it.