A wave broke over the railing of the Dona Maria. The ship was in peril. They were hundreds of miles from shore, and had no chance of outrunning the storm that had turned the sky black with unnatural speed.

Captain Albert Pereira had considered turning around when the first storm warnings came, but they were hauling in fish by the ton and they needed the catch. They hadn't been this lucky in months, and Pereira and his first mate both agreed that the kind of storm they were being warned about would take much longer to develop. Nor'easters couldn't come out of nowhere like that, not with modern weather satellites and radar.

Yet here it was, not just a nor'easter, but a monster hurricane the likes of which no one had ever seen before. The 75-foot fishing vessel was bobbing between waves that surged higher and higher and tossed it about like a cork, and although they were only at the outermost edge of the storm, the winds were already so strong that no one dared go out on deck.

The cook had already told them it was too rough to feed them, but now they were rocking so hard that even a seasoned sea hand would have trouble eating. The beast had come for them and there was no escaping it. Captain Pereira grimly tried to hold the ship steady, but there was really little he could do; they were at the mercy of the howling gale and the towering waves. If entire cities feared Hurricane Abraham's wrath, what chance did the Dona Maria have?

Alexandra flew across Roanoke Territory, no longer worried about being seen. Between MACUSA Regiments to the west and the storm to the east, she doubted anyone on the ground would notice a lone witch on a broom.

It had taken a lot of coaxing to get Charlie to return to her shoulder, but the winds were just too strong. Larry's broom was enchanted with the finest in weather-proofing charms, and Alexandra had cast her own charms against wind and lightning and rain, and they were barely enough. The wind was already howling in her ears and she hadn't even reached the coast. The storm stretched as far as she could see, from horizon to horizon, from the sea to the sky, a solid black wall of wind and water. What seemed like brief flashes here and there were actually massive sheets of lightning that dwarfed what she had unleashed in the Ozarks.

"Father," she said, "what have you wrought?"

Abraham Thorn had conjured this storm with a lifetime of hatred, and now all that was left of him was a raging, elemental monster the size of the ocean. Alexandra wasn't here to slay it or talk it into going away. She didn't have the power to undo what her father had wrought.

But there were other Powers who did. If they would listen to her.

She gripped the broom and plunged ahead. Her charms deflected most of the wind and the battering rain that flew sideways like a solid wave. A little bit got through, and even as she shot over the ocean on her charmed broom, she felt it shiver under the stress. It would eventually wear her down. She didn't know if she could actually fly through a hurricane, especially one like this, a storm like none ever seen before. Perhaps this was the reckless act that would finally prove her last.

She was suddenly thrown back, with a jolt like hitting a wall. She shook her head and blinked, and stared down at the waves below her. It was hard to tell in the rain and the darkness, but she thought she'd just been thrown back towards the coast.

She steadied herself and accelerated forward into the storm again. She plowed ahead for several minutes, and then once again, felt magical resistance slam into her, and this time she knew she had been cast back, perhaps miles, in the direction from which she'd come.

The Ban!

Alexandra screamed in frustration, a sound that was lost in the storm. She had forgotten about the Ban. She was recorded in the Confederation Census, like every other citizen of the Confederation, and the rest of the wizarding world had proscribed her from going further.

She still couldn't see any cracks in the world. Sometimes the air flickered, and sometimes she thought she saw lightning flashing beneath the waves, but since the Exodus, she'd been unsure whether she even could go to the World Away again. And if she tried, emerged far out to sea, and the Ban snatched her and threw her back again?

How did the Ban even know who she was?

My father may have given me his name, but he doesn't get to decide my fate.

Claudia was recorded in the Confederation Census too, but as Claudia Thorn. How could the Ban know that wasn't her name anymore? It was a magical curse; it wasn't reading people's passports. It let Claudia pass because her name—the name she answered to—was not the name her father had given her.

I have a Name too.

Alexandra didn't really understand the magic the Ozarkers had used to Name her Troublesome, but she knew the Name she claimed had more magical weight than anything written on a scroll. She had been recorded on the Charmbridge Registrar's Scroll as Alexandra Octavia Thorn, before she ever even knew that was her name. Dean Grimm had altered it to Alexandra Quick, but it had never been her name. Not really.

"My father named me," she said. "But that's not my name!"

She pushed forward again, and the Ban pushed back.

"I said that's not my name!" she shouted.

"I know what my name is,
I know my father gave me one.
But my name is Alexandra Quick,
My Name is Troublesome!"

The Ban wasn't a thinking being, it was just a spell. And yet it seemed to yield, even as a doubtful voice in her head told her that she couldn't just rename herself.

I'm not renaming myself. I'm claiming my name.

She didn't know if she had actually invoked Naming magic with her verse, or if the Ban found something different in her head, something different written upon her than what it had found before. She felt the resistance that had thrown her back twice give way. She also felt a sorrow that went with letting go of her father's name and claiming her own. In the face of her father's storm, his name no longer held her back, and he could no longer claim her, because her father was gone.

The ocean stretched before her, and land receded behind her. She had a long way to go, as the wind screamed and tried to tear her out of the sky.

After a while, she couldn't see land, and then she couldn't even see the ocean. She held onto the broom with sheer determination, willing it to go faster. She might have underestimated the distance she had to fly to reach the heart of the storm. She knew the ocean was big and this storm was monstrous, but she had not fully realized how much further she must fly than she had ever flown before.

A lesson from Charmbridge about the first wizard to fly across the Atlantic on a broom came back to her. It wasn't a feat that was repeated very often, and certainly not through a hurricane.

Despite the weather-proof charms of the broom and her own spells, cold and wet seeped into her, and the wind kept beating against her magical protection. Without it, she'd have been hurled seven leagues in an instant and then straight into the sea. But the effort of staying on course was exhausting. Once she saw something fly past her. Was it a ship? A plane? A whale? She didn't know what the storm could pick up and throw out here. Briefly she hoped it might be a Thunderbird, and she even sent her Patronus flying after it, but her Patronus returned, a dim spark in the storm, and whatever shape she had seen did not reappear.

She flew on and on, and grew more and more tired, and realized she might actually become one of those wizards who didn't make it across the ocean. There was a reason the feat wasn't repeated often. She was no longer sure of the direction she was going or how far above the waves she was flying.

She had done many reckless things in her life. This was probably one of the most reckless. She almost wished she could hear Anna's scolding voice right now. Or Julia's, or even Larry's, but she was alone at sea, surrounded by a storm of monumental fury, and there was no one here to scold or advise her.

That's when she saw something below. It was a brief glimpse of some shape that stood out against the endless gray-green of the sea, when she could even see the sea through the wind and the rain. She blinked, wondered if she'd imagined it, but no, there was definitely something down there. It was already behind her, so she slowed down, considered the wisdom of turning around when she might already be lost, and decided it couldn't make her situation worse. She swung about and descended, and there, ahead of her, was a ship.

A ship!

It was foundering and she had no idea how it had stayed afloat this long, but if she could keep it from sinking, she could use it to ride through the storm. Not as fast as her broom, but much less tiring.

She squinted though the wind and the water blasting into her face, and aimed for the vessel.

"We are in the hands of God," said Christopher, the bosun's mate and the most pious of the crew. He had been praying for a solid hour. So had most of the others. Captain Pereira had not been to church in a very long time, but he promised himself and God that he would head straight to confession if he ever set foot on dry land again.

The Dona Maria was in the hands of the storm, and there was no point pretending they had any control over it, or their fates. They spun and bobbed and rocked and more than once they stared into the depths of the ocean as the waves lifted them and pointed the bow nearly straight down. Each time they were a heartbeat from being sent to a watery grave, but each time they miraculously righted again, only to once more be tossed across the waves like no more than a bit of sea foam. The waves rising around them were like nothing any man had ever seen before, colossal things out of a nightmare. Never had they felt so small and perishable.

Captain Pereira knew it was just a matter of time. The storm was endless. It would take a miracle to keep them above the water much longer.

The Dona Maria tilted and a wave smashed into the deck. The main hatchway gave in.

Francis, the old cook, said, "Fellas, it's been good to know you."

Captain Pereira made the sign of the cross, along with most of the crew, knowing they were about to go down.

Then the ship abruptly righted itself once more, despite all the water it had taken in. And impossibly, the wind around them weakened, as if they had suddenly slipped into a bubble of calm in the middle of the storm.

Captain Pereira wondered if he really did believe in miracles. That's when a skinny teenage girl fell out of the sky and landed on the deck. She squatted in a crouch for a moment, seeming to catch her breath and gather her strength after the sudden descent. She was holding something in her hands, but it took Pereira several moments of staring to realize it was a broom. He exchanged glances with the rest of the crew, to confirm they were seeing this too, that the girl wasn't a hallucination. If she was, they could all see her, through the window of the deckhouse where they had all sheltered to avoid being swept overboard.

The girl straightened, dropped one arm and let the broom drag on the deck, and took something out of the jacket she was wearing. She turned to face them and stood there as if there wasn't a storm howling around her.

Everyone looked expectantly at Pereira. He squared his shoulders and opened the door to the cabin and stepped outside to confront this apparition. Despite their fear, the rest of the crew filed out as well. They looked around in awe and wonder. The storm still raged around them and the waves rose high enough to break over them and capsize them with ease, but the ship was somehow floating evenly, as if merely experiencing a brisk squall.

Pereira took another step towards the girl, and stopped. The thing she was holding in her other hand looked like a wand.

"Hi," she said. "Are you the captain?"

Pereira cleared his throat. "Yes, I'm the captain. Are you an angel?"

The girl, who looked no older than sixteen or seventeen, laughed. "Not even. My name's Alexandra. I kind of need your help. But if you'll let me, I think I can keep you afloat, probably."

Pereira was speechless. Then Christopher said, "You're a witch."

To Pereira's surprise, the girl nodded. "Yeah, I am." She gestured casually with her wand, and a large quantity of water went sluicing across the deck and back into the ocean. "Is that a problem? 'Cause I can always get back on my broom and fly away."

Captain Pereira had heard a lot of foolishness lately about witches and wizards and ghosts and devils, and he hadn't really believed any of it. Yet here was a witch who flew on a broom through storms and held back the sea with a magic wand.

Christopher made the sign of the cross. The girl frowned. "I'm a witch, not a vampire," she said.

"Miss… Alexandra," Captain Pereira said. "What do you want from us?"

"Just to borrow your ship. I'm too tired to keep flying on my broom. So I need a ride." She raised her wand above her head. "All you have to do is take me where I need to go, and I'll keep you from sinking."

"Probably?" Captain Pereira repeated what she had said a moment ago.

"Probably." She nodded. "But better than you were doing before, right?"

"Where exactly do you need to go?" Pereira asked.

The witch turned and looked into the blackness illuminated by lightning flashes that still raged around them. "That way," she said. "Into the heart of the storm."

It was strange to realize all these rough, rugged men were afraid of her. Alexandra had seen Muggles afraid of magic before. She had even scared a few herself, like those kids back at Old Larkin Pond. But the crew of the fishing boat (she thought it was a fishing boat—it smelled like one, anyway) kept their distance from her while constantly giving her apprehensive looks. She found this annoying, since her magic was the only reason they weren't at the bottom of the ocean now.

Of course it was quite likely that she'd also have drowned by now if she'd kept trying to push through the storm on her broom. So this had been a stupid plan. What else was new? She was tired and the task before her seemed impossible, and if she failed then probably New Amsterdam, and Greater Muggle New York, would be wiped out, along with much of the rest of the East Coast. Maybe even as far north as New England. Would Lucilla and Drucilla be safe, in their house by the river, only a few miles inland?

"Blow till thou burst thy wind," she muttered.

Captain Pereira cleared his throat behind her. Alexandra turned, to find him offering her a cup of hot liquid.

"Cocoa," he said. "Do witches drink cocoa?"

"We eat and drink just like you," Alexandra said, accepting the cup. "I'm a person. I have a family, and I went to school, and I buy things at stores and I use the Internet."

Pereira nodded. "We hear a lot of bad things about witches, though."

"Most of what you hear is nonsense. Also, I saved your lives. Doesn't that count for anything?"

"Oh yes. But it doesn't make you less scary. No offense."

Alexandra sighed and sipped the cocoa. "Whatever."

"Why exactly are we going into the storm?" Pereira asked. "I'll go wherever you want, but we'd much rather be going in the opposite direction."

"At the heart of the storm is a crack in the world," Alexandra said. "And if I can open that crack and enter the World Away, I might be able to talk to the Powers there and undo what my father did. Did any of that make sense?"

"No," said Pereira.

"I'm going to try to use magic to stop the storm."

The captain's eyes widened. "Can you do that?"

"Maybe, with a lot of big fat ifs."

"What if you can't?"

"Then you're no worse off than you were before." At the captain's nervous look, Alexandra gave him a thin smile. "Don't worry. I keep telling people I'll come back. I haven't lied yet."

Hours passed. The Dona Maria churned onward, with waves towering around her, yet never crashing over her. The winds abated, and the waves went from massive, mountainous things to merely enormous swells. A bit of sunlight broke through the clouds.

Alexandra, who had spent the time alternating between pacing the deck and trying to see through the storm, now stared ahead at the gulf of relative calm before them. Raging black clouds filled the horizon in all directions, but ahead was an almost normal-looking ocean.

"We're in the eye," Captain Pereira said, finding her at the bow.

"You should be okay here for a while, then," Alexandra said. She picked up her broom.

Pereira looked alarmed. "What? Are you crazy? We just passed through the eyewall, which we only survived by a miracle!"

"You survived because of me," Alexandra said.

"Yes, exactly! Are you going to fly away now? The eye will pass over us quickly, and we'll be caught in the eyewall on the other side!"

"This is the heart of the storm," Alexandra said. When she looked up, she saw writhing, twisting tears across the sky, mighty cracks in the world rivaling the one she had opened in the Ozarks. Once more they were visible to her. The heart of the storm seethed and crackled so brightly, it was a wonder to her that the others couldn't see it too, even without Witch's Sight.

The captain shook his head. "I don't understand. Can you really make a hurricane disappear? I think only God can do such a thing."

"Better hope you're wrong." Alexandra knew that wasn't the most reassuring thing to say, but she couldn't explain magic to him, or that the hurricane probably wouldn't disappear. She mounted the broom. The crew was watching her. Some of them made that crossing gesture again. She didn't know if it was a ward against her evil, witchy powers, or a blessing for her mission, but chose to believe it was the latter.

"I cast some more charms on your ship," she said. "If I don't come back, they'll protect you from the storm." She smiled. "But don't worry, I'll be back."

She was telling them only half the truth. Her charms, without her present, would not outlast the storm. But if she couldn't keep her second promise, the first one wouldn't matter.

She launched herself into the sky. The men on the deck gasped, and someone shouted something in Portuguese.

It felt harder to climb into the sky, here in the eye. She could feel how different the air pressure was, and there was a low booming sound rumbling in her ears. The air pushed against her, and the closer she got to the heart of the storm, hovering in the sky a mile above the ocean, the more she felt it resisting her. Her broom—Larry's broom—should have been able to fly that far in just a few minutes, but it felt as if the storm was fighting her nearly as much as when she'd been caught in its cyclone winds.

The cracks in the sky split the world, brilliant rivers in the air that stretched across the ocean. Some cracks extended down into the water, and some went so deep that from high in the air she could see down to the bottom of the sea, her Witch's Sight combining with the cracks in the world to make visible what should have been impossible to see. She was unnerved by how deep it was. When she looked all around her, she could see the cracks flickering in the storm, and really sensed for the first time what she was at the center of. A power greater than any Power, an elemental force that was even now ripping at the coast hours away. She felt what a tiny, insignificant thing she was at the center of this monster.

She squeezed the broom handle and leaned forward, making it zoom higher, closer and closer to the heart of the storm. She was not insignificant. She was a witch who could open the World Away and treat with Powers. Her father had called up this storm, and maybe she couldn't uncall it, but she could call on greater powers than herself, greater powers than her father. She'd use her own life to stop the storm, if that's what it took.

"Thunderbirds!" she called out. Her voice was lost in the wind, and she couldn't see any Thunderbirds. She had really been hoping she would. They were the Powers she'd most like to have treated with, but nothing answered her call, and she knew one would only if it were actually paying attention to her in the first place. You couldn't call Thunderbirds, and if none were about, she couldn't get their attention.

The roaring heart of the storm was before her now, a magical vortex immensely greater than anything she'd ever opened before. It was like a small sun, blazing with all the unearthly colors she'd ever seen in the World Away.

She reached into it and opened it, and felt a wind that was not physical slam into her with the force of a hurricane. It went through her without actually touching her, and though her body hadn't moved, she was disoriented, stunned, and blinded. When she could think again, she was staring into endless concentric circles, each one spiraling out from the one within. The world she'd left behind was no longer visible, and she was in the World Away, but no world like she had ever seen before. Air and lightning and magic spun around her in a storm as furious as the one she'd just passed through, but just as when she was flying on a broom over the Atlantic, she tumbled through the heart of the maelstrom without being touched by the unearthly forces.

"Thunderbirds!" she called again. "Please, hear me! I beg a boon! One more!"

But this was not the sky, and it was not where Thunderbirds came from.

She tried again.

"Wind!" she screamed. "Brother Wind! Remember me? I freed your sisters! Your father the Sun split the earth and cracked the sky, and took my friend from me! I claim a life debt!"

She seemed to be speaking into an uncaring void. What did she have to do? What else could she do?

Then the whirling of the maelstrom slowed, but simultaneously she felt wind blasting against her.

Something chuckled. It was a sound born in darkness and it raised goosebumps all over her flesh.

"That's not how it works," said a familiar voice. It was not Brother Wind.

A pair of eyes glowed in the spinning vortex between worlds that Alexandra had opened. The eyes were attached to a great black winged shadow. The shadow grew closer, filling the space Alexandra had been tumbling towards. She was no longer tumbling, and could not tell whether she was in some other world, or trapped in the space between worlds. The shadow filled the space around her, making her small in its presence, and once more she knew fear, the kind of fear only a few beings could instill in her.

"Typhon," she said. She felt her body trembling as if it were no longer her own.

"Hello, little girl," said Typhon. His voice was deeper than the ocean and full of ancient malice.

"I didn't summon you," Alexandra said.

Typhon's teeth gleamed in the darkness, a monstrous grin that was all terror and no humor.

"We are not Beings you can summon," Typhon said. "But you did call us, and we answered. Do you remember the last time, little girl?"

Alexandra fought to suppress a shiver. She sensed she was somewhere between the World Away and her own, in that same in-between place she had been before. Lost with Lucilla after escaping The Castle, only to find herself facing Typhon and his monstrous wife. She forced herself not to look around for the slithering presence she was sure was here as well.

"I remember," she said.

"You promised," said Typhon, "to open the way for us."

"That's not exactly true," Alexandra said. "I said I could open the way for you."

Typhon's face loomed closer. His teeth were bigger than her and it was all too easy to imagine disappearing between them.

"Do you think boasting that you tricked us will serve you well? Give me a reason not to devour you here and now."

Alexandra found gathering her courage in Typhon's presence was not terribly different from standing up to her father. And she had learned to do that, many a time. "Because I still can open the way for you, and if you devour me, you might wander long and long between the stars for much longer than my lifetime." Alexandra found her voice growing stronger, despite her fear. "You're a riddling monster and know the value of words. I didn't trick you; my words were true and you heard what you wanted to hear. It isn't as if you've dealt fairly with me."

She realized that last remark should perhaps have been kept to herself. But Typhon's terrible grin didn't change.

"Last time we aided you and you fled," Typhon said. "This time you will not leave without us."

"Then I won't leave. I didn't come here for you. I came seeking other Powers. I swore not to return if I fail. My life has to come to an end sometime." She flung the bravado and half-truths at Typhon. Knowing that she might very well be about to die made her fear sharp but also easier to control.

Typhon's eyes blazed and he roared with anger. The sound shook the darkness and Alexandra—though she was not standing on any ground—fell, covering her ears. When the roar faded, it was replaced with a familiar metal-on-stone scraping sound, as a gigantic serpentine shape slithered past her.

"I WILL DEVOUR YOU SLOWLY!" Typhon said. "I will gnash you between my teeth but only a bit at a time, and I will drink your blood and your screams!"

The fear began to twist in Alexandra's stomach, and she clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.

Another voice spoke, sibilant yet pleasant. In a much calmer tone, it asked, "What other Powers did you seek, and why?"

Alexandra avoided looking at Typhon's immense, shearing teeth, and tried to make out Edna's serpentine form in the darkness.

"Brother Wind," she said.

"A Power of Wind?" Edna asked. "Why?"

"To… to stop a storm," Alexandra said.

Typhon laughed. "Is that all? I am a Power of Storms, foolish girl. You need speak to no trifling Wind!"

"It's a really, really big storm."

"I AM A POWER OF STORMS!" Typhon repeated.

"A storm the likes of which hasn't been seen since the beginning of time," Alexandra said.

"That sounds very grandiose," said Edna.

"It matters not!" said Typhon. "I was there at the beginning of time! No storm is greater than me!"

"Okay," Alexandra said. "If you stop the storm, I'll open the World Away for you."

"Open the way, and I will stop the storm," Typhon said.

"No. Devour me now or devour me when I fail to keep my end of the bargain, but if I give you what you want first, I have no power to force you to keep yours."

Typhon and Edna both stared down at her, and then looked at each other.

"Such a charming, clever child," said Edna. "Don't you just want to eat her up?"

Typhon growled. Alexandra heard a howling sound pick up again. Behind Typhon, Edna rose up atop the massive coils of her serpentine lower body. Only a dark silhouette and her yellow reptilian eyes were visible in the shadows surrounding the two monsters.

"It is a great storm," Typhon said, with grudging respect. "What Power conjured it?"

"My father." Alexandra said this with a measure of pride despite her grief and fear.

Typhon's gleaming eyes focused on her and squinted for a moment. The monster didn't seem to believe her. Then he said, "I will stop this storm. But then you must open the way back for us. Give us your word, and know that if you break it, you will die, and not pleasantly."

As he spoke, Edna circled around her, and Alexandra was surrounded by her coils, not quite touching her but drawing closer and closer to her.

Alexandra nodded. "I solemnly swear. I will open the World Away for you, and send you back."

Typhon's teeth opened, and Alexandra thought maybe he'd thought better of bargaining with her, but then he roared, and the sound filled the universe. Alexandra almost blacked out. Typhon's roar went on and on and on, a sound that echoed out from the heart of the storm and across the ocean.

Minutes later, or maybe hours, Alexandra removed her hands from her ears. Typhon loomed over her, his eyes burning like dying stars in the darkness.

"Done," he said.

"Just like that?" Alexandra asked. Her voice croaked; she barely managed a whisper.

"No, not just like that, fool child!" Typhon grinned again, the grin that said he was contemplating the taste of her between his teeth. "No storm can be unwound in an instant. Look you."

And Alexandra could see—through the storm's heart, from wherever they were, she couldn't see back to the world from which she'd come, but she could see the other Powers that had gathered here, gathered in a great multitude, like a flock of birds. Like a flock of stormcrows.

Thunderbirds.

Dozens, scores, hundreds. It had to be all the Thunderbirds in the world, or maybe in all the worlds, because how could there be so many? They flew around Alexandra and Typhon and Edna, flashing lightning and thundering and spinning off into the distance, disappearing from sight.

"You can command Thunderbirds," Alexandra said.

Typhon made a rumbling sound. It wasn't quite a growl.

"No one can command Thunderbirds," he said. "But I can call them. I spoke to them in the language of storms." His great burning eyes rolled in her direction. "They know you."

Alexandra watched the Thunderbirds, still flying in circles, dragging small cyclones in their wake.

"They'll stop the storm?" she asked.

"Its death throes will last a while yet. It will not vanish with a whimper. But they will slay it." Typhon's face loomed closer. "Now, I have kept up my end of the bargain, so you do likewise. SEND US BACK!"

Alexandra nodded.

Julia, Livia, Lucy and Dru, Claudia and Archie and Larry and Brian, she thought. David and Constance and Forbearance—and Charlie and Nigel, who I didn't really give a choice. I'm so sorry. A tear trickled down her cheek.

"Why do you weep, child?" asked Edna, with a hint of suspicion.

"Because I'm about to die," Alexandra said quietly.

Typhon snarled. "Because you're going to renege on your promise?"

"No," Alexandra said. "Because I'm going to keep it."

She knew she couldn't send these two monsters back to the Lands Above, to her world, where they would be unbound and free to wreak havoc. There were things that should never have been set free. But she had made a promise.

She opened a crack in the world, to the Lands Below. She felt it resist her—the compact the Generous Ones had made still demanded a life to create such an opening, and without an obol, she had only one coin to give.

They were going to claim her life eventually anyway. At least she would send them a final gift of her own.

"Say hello to the Generous Ones for me," she said. Typhon and Edna were briefly puzzled, then their eyes turned round and luminous as they saw through the crack Alexandra had opened, to the place she was sending them.

Typhon roared. "YOU WICKED LITTLE-!"

The two Powers let out screams of fury as they plummeted like dark howling meteors into the Lands Below. Alexandra watched them falling, as if through a rapidly closing tunnel.

It was her own vision that was failing, going black around the edges and contracting, as the magic sealing off the Lands Below collected the toll. Life magic was what her father had called this, and she had learned more from him than he knew.

I kept one promise, at least, she thought, and died.