I shake my head against the knowledge, but the truth cannot be denied. I was brought here, not by the Souls, but by my own fear… my own thoughts when traveling.

Thoughts have power, Lia. Especially in the Otherworlds.

The memory of Sonia’s voice shakes me from my stupor. I close my eyes and picture my father. In my mind, I make room for nothing else.

Father, Father, Father.

I am lifted, the frozen landscape below becoming distant. As I rise, I see the faces… so many faces trapped under the ice, stretched as far as the eye can see. A multitude of souls, banished and frozen for all eternity.

And then I am back in the vortex. Back into darkness.

When I open my eyes, I am floating just over the grass, moist with dew. I know I am near Birchwood in the parallel plane of the Otherworlds, though there is nothing but fields and trees in every direction. It is evening, and when I look to the sky I see that it is not the gray sky under which Alice made her threats, but the deep and darkening violet of my first, invigorating travel over the sea.

I recognize the large oak that shades the clearing by the river. Father often brought me here when I was a child, reading to me in summer under the shade of the leafy giant. I lower my feet to the downy grass.

I am not afraid.

Walking to the tree, I have the greatest sense of expectation, as if I am waiting for something wonderful that I cannot quite name. When they emerge from the forest, I understand why.

Father appears younger than I remember, though Mother looks just as I have imagined, a young wife and mother. Her laugh travels to me on the breeze as they approach, hand in hand. She looks up at Father with adoration. I feel an intruder, as if this moment is theirs alone. But it lasts only a second. When they see me, their faces light with smiles.

In an instant they are standing before me. I throw myself into Father’s arms.

“Father! Is it you?” My voice is muffled in the shoulder of his overcoat.

His big laugh surrounds us, reverberating through his chest. “Of course it’s me, love! Who else would be walking, arm in arm, with your lovely mother?”

The mention of my mother is a reminder that Father and I are not, after all, alone.

“Mother. I… I cannot believe it. I cannot believe it’s you.”

She smiles, tipping her head in a gesture that reminds me of Aunt Virginia and a little of Alice. “I had to come. It seems you need us now more than ever.” Worry colors her eyes.

I nod. “I have come to know the prophecy and my place in it as well. I must find the list of names, but I don’t know where Father has hidden it.” I turn my face to him. “Was it you? When we spoke through Sonia… through the… the Spirit Talker?” I remember the word used while Sonia was in the spirit trance.

He hesitates before nodding. “I tried to tell you about the list, but I couldn’t hear you clearly. And then He came.”

The words bring a chill to my blood though the wind is as soft as ever. “Yes.”

“I was forced to leave or risk being held and taken to the Void. I would be there now if not for your mother’s power. She intervened when the Souls tried to banish me there. We have been running from them ever since.” He turns to look down at her, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close in a gesture of deep affection that brings a lump to my throat.

He turns back to me. “I knew you needed me. That is why I haven’t crossed… why neither of us has crossed.” He looks around, lowering his voice. “Word has gone out across the worlds, Lia. Word that you are to be stopped if anyone sees you. Samael is feared above all else, and his Army ensures that the weaker spirits among us do his bidding. They have spies in every corner. We have allies… those who will help us if they can, but it will not be possible to hold the Souls at bay for long. It is not safe for you here, or for us.”

I take a deep breath. “Then we must move quickly. Tell me where the list is, Father, so that I can find the remaining keys.”

He leans forward, his lips near my ear, and whispers. “I left it in care of the one I love. In my chamber.”

I try to decode his words as I remember our search through his room. “But I have—”

He holds a hand up then, as if to stop me from speaking further. Placing a finger to his lips, he looks around us. I understand his meaning; we may be spied upon, even now.

I shake my head, trying to tell him that the list is not there. That I have looked and looked, but the list still eludes me.

But he nods firmly, as if to say, Yes. It IS there. You must look again.

I repeat his words in my mind: I left it in care of the one I love….In my chamber.

The image comes to me suddenly, as easily as if it were there all along. I look into his eyes and nod, feeling a welcome burst of hope.

He looks up as the sky darkens, casting shadows about us where before there were none. “We must go, Lia. Our time is nearing its end.”

My chest tightens at the thought of their leaving. Against my wishes, I have grown accustomed to the responsibility of my role in the prophecy. I have grown accustomed to going without Father’s comforting embrace, his steady hand. But being with my parents again, if only for a moment, has reminded me of all I have lost.

“I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you.” I am not ashamed to sound like a piteous child.

My mother steps forward, pulling me into an embrace. “Lia.” She breathes into my hair, and I smell the jasmine on her neck. “I’m sorry I’ve brought this upon you. But you are the Angel, the one sister who can end the prophecy forever. And it is meant to be so, however much we wish it were not. It was always meant to be you. There are no mistakes, Lia. Not ever. For ages and ages, the sisters have been waiting only for you.”

I want to deny her words, even now after all I have seen. But there is truth in them. And so I nod, staring into the eyes that are so like the ones I see every morning when I look into the glass above the basin in my room. I nod to tell her that I understand. That I accept my duty in the prophecy, the duty that she passed on to me. That I am not afraid.

Father looks up into the sky. It is still blue, but the cold wind has returned and with it the vaguest sense of danger.

He looks at me with apology. “We must go.”

I lift my chin. “Yes.”

I nod, already sensing the futility of trying to keep them with me. Even now they are less vivid, less present, than they were only a few moments earlier.

My mother gives me a last embrace. “I knew it was you, even in the beginning, but I saw something in your eyes, something that gave me hope. I’m only sorry I was not strong enough to fight it for you.”

I shake my head. “Remember, Mother. There are no mistakes.”

She smiles through her tears, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “No mistakes, my angel.” They turn to go, more quickly than I would like. Mother turns back once more, her face clouding over with worry. “Watch out for Henry, Lia. Will you?”

She does not wait for my answer, but I nod anyway, shouting after them. “I love you. I love you both.”

It is all I have time to say. And then they are gone.

Emotion courses through me as I travel in the direction of Birchwood. There is great sorrow at the parting with my mother and father but great happiness as well. It fills me so totally that I feel as if their love pushes me through the sky.

I marvel at the control I have gained in the Otherworlds in so short a time, the new assurance I feel in the direction and speed with which I fly.

But that is before a distant crack sounds from the sky behind me.

It begins as a vibration, and I feel sure the ground shakes though I am not touching it at all. With it comes a low rumbling from the earth, as if it might break open from the sheer force of the thing that thunders toward me.

A looming mass lies ahead. I feel quite sure it is Birchwood, but when I look behind me I see the Souls roaring toward me in a great, black horde. From a distance they seem a buzzing cloud of insects, but I know they will be here all too soon and will be anything but easy to swat away.

The call of Birchwood, of familiarity and safety, is powerful, but I do not trust myself to outrun the Souls. I stop flying, having made the only decision that offers any hope of escape, and imagine myself hovering over the ground until I am doing just that.

And then I wait, watching the cloud get bigger, darker, louder, as it makes its way toward me. I shall have to face them here, in the skies of their own world. I would like to say that I am not frightened, that I stand brave and firm in the face of the Souls. But it would be a falsity, for who could stand without fear before the roaring legion making its way toward me? No, I am more than frightened. I am terrified to the point of shaking, even in my astral being. But I stand fast, forcing myself steady.

My plan is not clever, but it is all I have, and so I wait until the exact moment when the Souls will be near enough that I may call on the power of Sonia’s instructions. I must time it carefully, early enough to stop the Souls’ advance but not so soon as to waste what little time I may have to escape. I think of Sonia’s voice in my head, counting.

One… two… three…

Not just yet.

Four… five… six…

They are close now, close enough that I can see their tortured, angry faces, their long beards vanishing over black waistcoats, torn and falling from their hulking bodies.

Seven… eight…

The howl that emanates from the mass is inhuman, a battle cry belonging to a savage animal. As they come nearer, they spread out, over and above me, to either side, even under my hovering body until I despair that I have waited too long. Until I am sure they will devour my soul completely.

There is nothing to do but close my eyes and imagine the seed, tiny and closed in the deepest, most secret part of my body. I see the layers peeling back, revealing ever more layers, lighter and lighter in color until I reach the lush, living entity at its center. It breathes. It throbs. It pulses with life.

I still hear the Souls, but their shrieks are part of another place entirely, for I have retreated into a hushed and muffled world of my own. The only sound I hear clearly is the beating of a heart. At first I think it comes from my own chest, but then I open my eyes and see the red light pulsing at the center of the mass, the thunderous wings beating the air with an ominous whoosh from within the shadowed form of the Souls. From Samael at their center a red glow emanates outward, his heart beating in time to my own, his many, great wings spreading up and out over his Army.

I must force my mind back to the seed, to the thing at its center. I see it opening, unfolding, bursting, filling up every crevice of my body. When I look down, a lavender light spills from my skin, my eyes, my mouth, intensifying with every passing moment as a power I have never before felt or imagined undulates from my body, flowing outward in small ripples that grow to echoing waves.

If the Souls make any sound at all it is lost in the music of my own power and the still-beating heart that throbs between Samael and me. I think this may be the moment, my only moment to flee to the safety of Birchwood while the Souls are held at bay with whatever authority I have managed to tap. But then I hear the voice.

“Mistress… Let chaos reign….Open the Gate.”

I shake my head by instinct, afraid to utter words that may shake whatever foothold I have gained with my small show of force.

“Power and peace will be yours….Open your arms, Angel of Chaos, and let the havoc of the Beast flow like a river….Open the Gate…”

The voice slithers to me through the Souls, through the silky sky. It makes its way through the lilac light as the Souls themselves cannot. It is only a voice. They are only words. But they call to me in a way that is both a warning and a caress.

The light still flows from my body, but my strength wavers as the words of Samael find their way past my ears, past my mind, ever deeper into some ancient place that has been waiting, only waiting, for their call. In the voice is the promise of release. Release from the fight that seems never-ending, though it has only been mine a short time. Release from a future continuing that fight, from a future that will not hold the things I most desire—security, love, hope.

But the seed unfolds ever more, past the point at which I think it can further grow, until it feels as if the power of it will split me apart, body and soul. And with that last burst of strength I find the resolve I need.

I do not take the time to look back. Instead, I turn within the light and call to the mystical power that is mine. I call on it to hurry me home with as much speed as is possible. I call on it to see me back to Birchwood, to hold Samael and his Army at bay long enough for me to fall back into the body awaiting me on the sofa in the library.

I race on the swell of light toward the looming thing in the distance. It does not take me long to confirm that the building ahead is, indeed, Birchwood. There was a reason, after all, that Father wanted to meet me in the world closest to home. He knew they would come.

A great roar erupts in a mad screech behind me. I do not turn and look, though the urge to do so is powerful. I only fly, the fields racing below me as I near the house. It is only when I am close to home that I begin to lose strength. It does not happen all at once. Rather, it is a slow exhaustion that seeps into my bones, weakening the light that flows from my body. I am so near, near enough to make out the diamond panes in the leaded windows. Near enough, even, to see the glow of the lanterns as dusk fast approaches. But a resounding clamor resumes behind me, and when I turn I know why I have fallen just short of the time needed to make a complete escape.

Samael has come for me. He has risen to the front of the Souls, the still-beating heart growing louder as he makes his way to me. The strength of the Souls is nothing compared to that of Samael. His power, his fury, is primordial. It rises in a swell of evil that steals my ability to move.

I am hovering at the library window, my will leaking from me like rain, when I remember something Virginia said. Was it just this morning?

… If you call on them when the time comes, there are those who will help you.

My body is too weak to continue. But my mind… my mind has just enough fight remaining to call for the help I need.

“Sisters… those of Sisterhood past…” My voice does not sound like my own. It is tinny and far away, but I continue anyway, closing my eyes and trying to block from mind Samael drawing closer, closer. “I call on you, Sisters, to help one of your own. To save me that I may save us all.”

I cannot even feel the ridiculousness of asking for such help in the face of the thing roaring toward me. As the moments tick on—are they seconds, minutes, hours?—I resolve to close my eyes, to wait with dignity for whatever will come.

But then I feel a fierce, warm wind, followed by a crack that makes me look to the heavens. When the woman comes into view, Samael and his Souls seem to slow their progress. She stands a few feet away, somewhere between me and the swiftly approaching Army. There is something familiar about the stubborn set of her jaw, the green pools of her eyes.

The nameless woman stands between me and the Souls as other women appear from the sky as if out of nowhere, fanning out and forming a circle around the Souls and Samael. Ethereal gowns billow around their translucent legs as they raise their hands until they are almost touching. White-hot flames spark and burst from their palms, forming a circle of mystic fire between the Beast and me.

The first woman hovers nearest me, the weak lavender light that poured from my body a brilliant purple pouring from hers, extending, rushing outward until it echoes through the circle in which the Souls’ steeds rear on panicked legs.

Her mouth does not move as her voice comes to me from a distance. It resonates in my mind, and I realize she is not speaking aloud at all. “Go, child. Gather your strength. We shall meet again.”

Samael howls, raising a sword through the center of the circle. It glows orange, sparks hissing off its blade, crackling against the light of the sister’s circle, and though they are clearly powerful, I’ve no wish to test their strength against Samael’s for an extended length of time. I nod to the woman in acknowledgment of her words, pushing through the walls of the house in what feels like my last moment of strength.

Sonia and Luisa sit on the floor near the sofa, Sonia holding my limp hand with her eyes closed, her mouth moving in silent prayer. I drop into my waiting body with a gasp felt in both worlds, sucking in air as if I have been deprived of breath for a great while and have only just been revived.

“She’s back! She’s come back!” Luisa’s voice bursts from the floor next to me.

I only vaguely feel Sonia’s smooth touch on my hand, as if all of my senses have not fully re-engaged with my body. I try to speak, to tell them that we must go back to Father’s room to look for the list, but what comes from my mouth is a series of noises and sounds that do not resemble real words. I shake my head in frustration as Sonia speaks harshly.

“Lia? Lia? Look at me, Lia. Listen to me.” She takes her hand from mine, turning my chin so that I am forced to face her, looking into my eyes with such authority that I am forced to look back. In them is the peaceful sea of the Otherworlds. “You must be calm. It is natural. It is natural to be unable to speak when returning from such a journey, all right?”

I can only stare, not trusting myself to speak again.

“All right, Lia? You must trust me. Your speech will come back in seconds. The feeling in your body will come back in seconds. You must slow your breath and wait. You must allow your mind to process all you have done, all you have seen. You must allow it a few moments to return to its physical state. Look at me, Lia! And nod that you understand.” Her voice is harsh. I feel suddenly like a child, but there is safety in the firm command of her words, and I look her in the eyes and try to nod.

“Good. Now, stay still. Just stay still and breathe.”

I give myself over to the utter helplessness of my body. When I look at Luisa, the fear in her eyes frightens me further, so I force myself to turn back to Sonia, to look into the blue depths of her eyes until I am breathing more normally.

I test my fingers, commanding them to move and am grateful when they do as ordered. I follow the same procedure with the rest of my body, making small demands of it until it seems all is in working order. Only then do I try to speak. Sonia and Luisa are held in rapt attention as I try to form the words.

“H-h-his chamber. The list is in his chamber. Behind the picture of my mother.”