My world became darkness, dust, and a loud, insistent voice ringing inside of my aching skull.

—ity!

No. I wanted to sleep. I just needed to . . . to rest. . . . My body felt like one big bruise. Inside, it felt as if I’d been hollowed out.

Prosperity!

Not yet . . .

Awaken! Prosperity, awaken now!

Awaken . . . Awaken the singing bone . . . A familiar voice wove through that thought, and bit by bit, the words began to change. To sharpen. I awaken thee, singing bone—no, not singing bone. But close . . .

MAGGOT! I WILL NOT PERISH HERE CRUSHED LIKE A WORM AND NEITHER SHALL YOU! WAKE! UP!

My eyes snapped open. Two things quickly became very clear:

1. I was somehow still alive despite falling back into a collapsing house.

2. There was a massive wall of stone hovering an inch above my face.

“Holy . . .” I croaked out, “crap.”

A flickering net of magic was the only thing keeping thousands of pounds of stone from turning me into a bloody splatter. I was too scared to even blink, on the chance it could upset the careful balance of things around me.

Can’t . . . hold . . . much . . . longer . . . Alastor warned. GET. UP.

Pain sang through me from the top of my head down to a toe that might actually have been broken, but I scrambled out from under the magic. I crab-walked back until I bumped up against the remains of the dining table, cutting my hand on a stray piece of glass.

Alastor let out a heavy sigh of relief as the magic dissipated and the stones thundered down.

“Thanks . . .” I breathed out.

Alastor’s voice was faint. I saved . . . myself . . . do not . . . insult me with your . . . sentimentality.

I looked around. The plant house had shredded Grimhold down to its foundations; we’d fallen into one of its lower levels, but there was only vapor-filled dark sky over my head. The vines covered nearly every surface of its remains.

A few feet away, rubble shifted. I jumped as stones scattered across the fractured ground, rolling to a stop just short of my feet. Alastor sniffed once, then again.

“Jeez, who’s the emotional one now?” I asked him.

Alastor’s presence trilled in me like an alarm. That was not me.

I turned slowly, only to be met with the sight of a howler pulling himself free from the wreckage. The shaggy dog shook the dust out of his coat, his eyes blazing red as he bared his teeth.

I pushed myself off the ground, heart jumping into my throat.

Up! Alastor urged. Climb!

As Grimhold collapsed, it had buckled inward, creating what looked like a staircase for giants. There was nowhere to go but up.

I scrambled onto the broken table, then gripped one of the nearby vines and used it to haul myself up onto the next flat section of stone above me. With adrenaline surging, it was easier to ignore the throbbing pain all over my body.

On your right!

I gripped the vine again and kicked my feet off the stones, swinging left. The second howler wailed as it caught only the edge of the debris. Its claws scored the stone, fighting desperately to hang on.

Breath slammed in and out of me as the dog gave one last whimper before its paws slid down and it fell through the vapor, into the pit below.

The other one nears, Alastor warned.

Even if I couldn’t see the demon dog, I heard its heaving pants. Its smell, like rotting pumpkins, came next. I fought to find my footing against the house’s broken foundation, climbing the vine one hand over the other.

It was the craziest thing, because that whole time, even with the howler bounding from one section of stone to the next, all I could think about was that rope hanging from Peregrine S. Redding Academy’s gym ceiling. The one I’d never been able to climb, even with Coach Tyler screaming at me from below, telling me to engage my biceps.

I sank into the task, walking my feet up the side of the stones.

Finally, my fingers found a ledge—the place where the house had once connected to the maze of steps from the street below, I realized. My legs shook with the last quivering effort it took to half crawl, half push myself onto the flat surface of the landing.

A cold hand clamped over the back of my neck, wrenching me up off the ground.

No!

“I knew that the queen’s roach of a brother wouldn’t let you die,” the bounty hunter sneered, “like I knew the realms would not be cruel enough to deny our queen the chance to kill you herself.”

Blue blood oozed from a jagged cut down the side of his terrifying face. Up close, his splotchy skin resembled a slowly rotting corpse.

“Listen, Sirsang—” I began.

“It’s Sinstar!” the ghoul hissed.

“Okay, Simsaw,” I said. Panic had drained every useful thought out of my head but the one I needed most of all. That one rose coolly from the depths of my memory, where I’d stashed it years before, back when Grandmother forced Prue and me to take self-defense lessons after someone had tried to kidnap us on the way home from school.

I stopped scratching at his hand and instead reached around, jabbing my thumbs into his eyes.

The ghoul screamed in pain, dropping me to clutch at his face.

Well done, Maggot, Alastor said.

I shoved myself up and ran for the stairs, jumping down them two and three at a time. Sinstar’s steps pounded behind me, picking up speed. The remaining howler let out a sharp bark from somewhere behind us, but the stairs were so uneven, and I was moving so quickly down and down and down to the street, I didn’t look back.

I should have.

The ground began to tremble once more. Loose debris clattered across the stairs, and the sky boomed with a phantom thunderstorm. The realm sounded like it was about to erupt from within . . . or something mammoth was creeping up to consume it.

The Void.

I’d been scared before when Sinstar had grabbed me, but it was nothing compared to the terror that pumped through me now.

Rats fled up the mountain in a thrashing river of crimson. As the quaking intensified, chunks of the towers’ remains smashed down, crushing half of the rats in one bloody go.

Can’t die, I thought desperately, won’t die, can’t die, won’t die—my mind fixated on the words with each step, until I couldn’t even hear Alastor’s frantic cries ringing in my skull. I risked a glance back, unsurprised to find Sinstar closing in, too focused on catching me to take in the wave of pure darkness sweeping in behind him as it devoured Grimhold and the towers we’d already passed.

It’s not stopping, I thought, trying to pump my legs faster. But there was nowhere to go.

I threw one last look over my shoulder as the Void rolled over Sinstar, devouring him with a satisfied growl.

Air swirled around me in a sudden hard gust. Something snapped in place around me, and my feet left the ground.

Dead—I was dead—

“Prosper! Prosper!”

My gaze shot upward at the sound of my name.

Toad had grabbed me between his two enormous front paws. Nell leaned around the side of his neck, shadowed by the dark sky.

“Are you okay?” she called down. “Hold on!”

Toad flew in a wide, smooth arc around the curve of the mountain. A castlelike fortress came into sight, magic fires roaring inside the imposing lanterns hooked along its jagged gates. Rows of skulls clattered and bobbled from where they balanced on the pikes above them.

It was as if the Void saw the magic burning at the same moment I did. As quickly as the stormy force had arrived, it abated. The quakes eased off, but not before one last tremor sent a bolt of power up through the street, fracturing it.

The Void had spilled forward like ink, consuming everything but the back half of the Crown. The fortress sat on the end of a long offshoot of the mountain. There was a deep ravine between the street and where the structure was situated, making it impossible to cross the distance on foot.

A few stones at the edge of the street marked where the old walkway must have stood. With the prison’s facade carved to resemble a screaming human skull, I could almost picture how the bridge must have passed through the circular gate that served as the mouth, swallowing inmates forever.

Skullcrush Prison. It was the realm’s final hope, and it stared down the Void with all the reckless courage that came with being the last of its kind. Enormous glass containers of magic burned bright like gemstones in the sockets of the facade’s skull, its presence the fiends’ only defense against the encroaching darkness.

But the Void was satisfied—for now.