Up close, the strange stone huts I’d noticed from the Flats looked almost like toadstools. With their droopy roofs and gritty stones, they didn’t just seem like they’d come from a different time than the other buildings, but an entirely different world. It was no wonder Flora had chosen one as a hideout. The few fiends on this step didn’t give them a second glance.

Of course not. They’re clearly tombs for the ancient dead. No one enjoys a haunting unless they are the ones doing it themselves.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Nell said finally. Both of us were hunched over to avoid banging our heads on the low ceiling.

Truth be told, I wasn’t exactly sure what she liked. Aside from a blanket on the ground, a tiny potted sprout, and a fading lantern, there wasn’t much to see, never mind admire.

Wait.

I rubbed my eyes, clearing the crust from them. I hadn’t imagined it: along the mud-packed walls and ground, someone had carved swirling vines. The flowers blooming on them were so detailed that when I reached out to touch one, I half expected the petal to feel soft. There was a sun, clouds, mountains, rivers. It must have been Earth, because it certainly wasn’t Downstairs.

“Wow, those are cool,” I said, leaning in for an even closer look. “This must have taken you a long time.”

The elf was silent, watching me with those glowing eyes. “I did not make them. Fiends do not understand art, so do not pretend you do. They only see beauty in pain.”

Not true. I also see it in the gleam of blackpennies, the dark horizon of Downstairs, and the steaming blood of my enemies. Oh! And in hats. A hat of good structure and balance will take you far in this vast eternity.

“I’m not a fiend,” I reminded her.

“That is exactly what a fallacious fiend would say—”

“Flora,” Nell interrupted. “You were going to tell us about the Void. Do you know what it is? What’s causing it?”

Flora gave me one last long look, then moved to sit on her blanket. She stroked the wilting leaves of her plant. “The Void is the fiends’ punishment for what they’ve done to this realm.”

Sensing this might be a long story, I lowered myself to sit cross-legged on the floor, leaning my head back against the wall. Nell did the same, dragging her pack around. She unlatched it, setting out food and water for all of us. Flora gratefully took a bit of water for her plant but did not eat.

“Every realm has its intrinsic magic, which is the magic the Ancients used to create it,” Flora explained. “It’s a current that flows through everything, binding it all together. It brings up the sun, renews vegetation with passing seasons, and nurtures its creatures. That magic is the deep roots from which everything in a realm flourishes. The Ancients were careful architects and gave their realms no more or less than they needed to sustain themselves.”

It almost sounded like the Ancients were creating each realm the way you’d build a world from scratch in a computer game. “Even Earth?”

Flora refused to look at me and instead answered at Nell, as if she’d been the one to ask. “Earth’s magic is in its people, in their shades. That is why fiends can draw magic from human emotions—those feelings originate in the very core of who that person is.”

This is dull, Maggot. Get her back on the subject of the Void.

But Flora wasn’t finished. “The human world is a realm, but not one that the Ancients created. They found it in their explorations across realities and decided to use it as a seed world to build other realms. That’s why all the remembered realms connect back to the human world. Its stability makes it a good anchor.”

That wasn’t at all how Uncle B—how Henry Bellegrave and Nell had explained the realms to me, and judging by Nell’s face, this was truly brand-new information to her as well.

She may very well be lying, Alastor agreed, a note of bitterness in his voice, but the Ancients loved and favored the elves. They might have the true knowledge that was denied to the rest of us.

“Wait—but the Ancients gave witches their power and duty,” Nell said. “And witches draw their power from the moon.”

There was a small tug at the back of my mind at her use of their and not our.

Flora reached for the lantern, opening its small door. Drawing out a small thread of magic, she stroked the leaves of the small plant.

Feeding it, I realized, in the only way she could in a realm with no water or sunlight. As the plant soaked in the magic, its leaves perked up and its color deepened from an unhealthy yellow to an emerald green.

“Did the Ancients create witches,” Flora said, “or did they merely find them and ask for their aid to protect the human realm? It has all been forgotten by time.”

“But they gave witches the changelings, didn’t they?” Nell pressed.

Flora nodded. “As companions and fellow protectors, to thank them and to apologize for—” The elf looked up, eyes bright in the dark. “Well, it does not matter. Earth suffers and sickens with malicious misuse by hardheaded humans, but the fiends have done something far worse. They have drained this realm of all of its magic, and so they went into the human realm to steal magic from there, too. It still was not enough to sate their greed. So they dug deeper and deeper into the depths of this realm to find the last traces of magic in its foundations, and took that as well.”

No wonder they’d been forced to ration magic.

“The life here has died, and now the whole realm dies with it,” Flora said, her expression hardening. “And for what? To avoid having to sew their own clothing? To power their streetlamps? To move their carts? To have their fun in markets like Neverwoe? The ruling fiends imprisoned the others, forced them into service, and held human shades hostage, making them do the rest—all while the magic stored in their vaults secretly dwindled as the so-called king indulged himself fighting pointless wars, rearranging mountains to suit his taste, filling closets with clothing he never once wore.”

How dare she! Alastor growled. It is our realm! We can use our magic as we see fit!

“You know,” Flora said with another glance at Nell, “that once magic has been used, it is gone. There is no hope for this realm now. The Void is the world collapsing onto itself when the last bit of magic in those places goes.”

That is . . . that is impossible . . . Alastor said weakly. A realm cannot collapse.

“No wonder they love Pyra,” I said, finally putting all the pieces together. “She’s shaken up the old ways and is the only one giving them hope that she can solve this problem.”

“She told us that she’s creating some kind of key to open the realm of Ancients—to take their magic,” Nell said.

Flora sat up straighter. “I do not see how she could create one. A blood key can open a realm otherwise sealed off, but it requires the sacrifice of magic—an act these mercenary monsters are incapable of. The magic they possess inside of them is their life force. All other magic they use and control is stolen.”

Nell and I seemed to realize it at the same moment. We looked at each other in the dim glow of the hut.

“She’s already gotten the ‘sacrifice’ of her other brothers’ magic and life forces,” I began.

“Because she used their true names to compel them to sacrifice it,” Nell finished. “Wow, that’s evil but . . . also kind of genius, I have to say.”

It is suitably cunning, Alastor admitted. I might appreciate it more, were I not an intended victim of it.

Nell instantly sobered, though, when something else occurred to her. “Pyra said she’d learned Alastor’s true name from their old nanny, and that she originally only wanted to take Alastor’s magic to manifest her own animal form. She must have given the name to Goody Prufrock or Honor Redding, but the spell didn’t work the way she needed it to. As the Void got worse, her need for Alastor’s power changed. And now she’s realized she doesn’t need a spell at all to compel her other brothers into making their sacrifices. She only needs their true names.”

“But the spell Pyra asked you to do,” I began, trying to push the image of the storage room out of my mind, “it seemed similar to the one Goody Prufrock tried. You were going to permanently trap him inside of me, right?”

Nell looked down, and her expression made my whole chest clench. “She needed a way to ensure that Alastor couldn’t escape your body and get away. Now I see she wasn’t going to kill you just to kill him. Pyra needed him trapped long enough to compel him to give up his life force—which is all he has right now, until he’s strong enough to regain his physical form.”

“Oh, so I wasn’t going to die after all?” I asked. That was weirdly relieving.

Nell winced. “The extraction probably would have killed you, too. Because of the nature of Alastor’s curse, the two of you are bound together.”

Yes, Alastor said darkly, but not for much longer.

Maybe I was imagining it, but the sensation of his anger was suddenly more pronounced, hardening into something with jagged, sharp edges.

“It does not matter,” Flora said, pushing up to her feet. “They will never open the realm of Ancients, with or without the key. The fiend realm is lost. We only have to make sure we are no longer in it before it collapses completely.”

“How soon is that?” I asked. Each passing second felt like the last beats of a dying heart.

The elf made her way to the door of the hut, drawing her cloak tighter around her and her hood up over her sprouts of hair. “Days. Maybe less.”