Sera patted her friend’s shoulder. Her movements felt so slow, so sloppy. “Did you see which way he went?” she asked.

The echoes of spirit magic were messing with her equilibrium—and her tracking magic.

Naomi pointed down an ashen path bordered by prickly black bushes, and then Sera saw it: Alden’s magic trail, a green-silver stream of glowing light.

“Wow,” she gasped.

“Alden has so much magic that it’s leaking off of him at a rapid rate here. The spirit realm is chomping down on it, the best meal it’s had in years.”

“So that means he’ll be weaker,” Sera said.

“Yes, but he still has a lot of juice left. Don’t forget that.”

“This place is eating my magic too,” Sera told her.

“Not as fast as it’s eating his.”

Nausea rolled over Sera like a rocking boat. She staggered to the side and threw up. “He has a lot more to lose.” She coughed out a few times, trying to clear her throat.

“You never turned away from a challenge before,” Naomi reminded her.

“And I won’t now. Let’s do this.” Sera wiped her mouth. It still tasted like acid and ash. Yum.

“How much will you be able to help me against Alden?” Sera asked Naomi as they followed Alden’s glowing trail of magic.

“It’s taking all of my magic to keep me here and to keep the demons at bay.”

It was then that Sera noticed the demons floating above them, bouncing off an invisible barrier. Naomi was holding them off. Dozens of them. They dove at the barrier like a sky of falling stars—stars of dark, demonic magic.

“How long will you be able to hold them off?” Sera asked.

“I don’t know. They are strong here. And their numbers are growing with every passing moment. They know we don’t belong here. And, worse yet, they know I can make a portal back to earth. They want to come with us.”

“I’m glad you learned to create a portal,” Sera told her. “I don’t want to be stuck here.”

“As soon as Makani told me of his idea to defeat Alden, I’ve been very motivated. I am not losing you, Sera, not even to kill Alden.”

A cold chill cut down Sera’s spine, and she shivered. Her body was hot and sweaty, but her magic was slowly freezing to death. Sera kept walking, pushing through the chills and sickness. Stubbornness kept her going. She threw up a few more times along the way. And more bushes caught on fire.

“Is that normal?” Sera asked.

Naomi glanced at the burning bushes. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. I’m not sure anything is abnormal when in hell.”

“This feels stranger than the last time I was here.”

“This time, you entered hell while your dragon side was split from you,” Naomi said. “Your dragon half is on the other side, separated by the veils of the spirit realm.”

“So I can’t draw on her magic. I’m split between realms.”

Naomi nodded.

“That will make me weaker,” Sera said. “I’m going into this fight without my full power.”

“So is Alden.”

Sera tried to take comfort in that, but persistent nausea had a way of sucking the optimism right out of you. She followed Alden’s trail. He was slowing, weakening. She could feel that the drain of hell on him was growing stronger. He was bleeding more magic.

As they came around a rocky hill, she saw him. He was leaned up against a charred tree, breathing heavily. When he saw Sera, he straightened, though, and a haughty expression slid over his face, replacing the pain.

“You don’t look so great, Sera,” he commented.

She leaned to the side to throw up again, then continued walking toward him. “You don’t look so great yourself.”

He laughed. “I have more than enough power left. Sera, you are fading. But it’s not too late.” He extended his hand. “Come with me. Join me. There’s no need for us to fight each other. We both want the same thing.”

She thought about all that he had done. The manipulations, his need to enslave people’s minds, what he did to Kai, his plans to use her magic to take away their free will. Flashes of old memories echoed off the plane of the spirit realm, the memories of those he’d tortured and killed. Their voices were loud here, their hatred potent.

She glared at him. “There is every reason to fight.”

Sera blasted him with lightning, but he threw up a barrier, dissolving her spell. He was still too fast, more powerful than Sera had expected him to be here in hell. And she was not at full power. Not even close.

“It is pointless for you to fight me,” he said.

Sera glanced up at the demons banging off of Naomi’s barrier. They were getting closer. Soon, she’d have a bigger problem than Alden.

Sera, break Alden’s pendant, Naomi’s voice said in her head.

Sera looked at the pendant around his neck, a gold chain dangling an emerald that pulsed with green magic. Stored magic. He was drawing power from it. That’s how he was still so powerful, Sera realized.

She moved in, trying to get close enough to break its spell, but Alden’s hands were as fast as the wind, deflecting her attempts to reach him. He landed a blow in her side, cracking several of her ribs. Another strike broke her arm. She swallowed the pain, continuing to fight, drawing on thoughts of the people she had to protect. She could not fail them. She was their only hope of defeating Alden. Only here in the core of hell, cut off from the magic of his devoted followers, could he be killed. Her thoughts turned to Alex and Riley, Kai, Naomi, the commandos. She hardly felt it when Alden’s magic burned across her leg, consuming the leather, scorching her skin. Her mind drifted to memories of people she loved. Her father.