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"What?” He snapped his head to the side with so much gusto that his ears kept swinging even after he’d stopped. “I'm a child."

I didn't have time to appreciate that properly, because the Wayfinder in my palm went hot.

Not enough to make me let go. I wasn't letting go even if it took the skin clean off my hand. But hot enough to hurt, a slow-building burn that crept up through my palm and into my wrist.

"Do not remove your hand," Carol said, her tone sharp and demanding.

"Wasn't planning to."

"Your hand is smoking," Barney said, several octaves higher than usual.

"Still not planning to."

I understood, in that moment, what being the Guardian actually meant. Not standing between danger and the woman I loved. It meant holding a door open with my own two hands while something on the other side tried, patiently and deliberately, to burn me off it.

She wasn't attacking Martha first. She was attacking the way home.

Because if I fell– if I let go– Martha and Zelda would be trapped on the other side of that mist, just as Margaret had been when her Guardian fell centuries ago. Except this time, there'd be nobody left standing to remember why.

I saw movement through the portal before I heard anything.

Mist, first. Then two shapes, running hard, and my heart slammed once, painfully, when I recognized them.

Martha, crown clutched against her chest like she'd sooner lose an arm than drop it. Zelda just behind her, throwing Magic backward over her own shoulder without breaking stride.

And behind both of them, something enormous moving through the mist that had no business existing.

I caught pieces of it. A woman's silhouette, tall and wrong. Wings that flickered in and out like they weren't entirely sure they belonged to this world. Silver light crawling under thick, oily, blackened skin. More than one face, layered over each other, none of them settling long enough to be real.

Talk about Uncanny Valley, I was sure we were in the whole damn county.

It was fast. Faster than anything that size had a right to be.

"MOVE!"

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK I'M DOING?" Martha's voice carried through the passage. It sounded strange and distant. Quite frankly, it scared me out of my mind. I was so damn frightened, I nearly laughed.

That's when the ground under my boots cracked.

Black and silver veins of Magic pushed up through the stone floor of the Vault, wrapping around my ankles like it had been waiting for exactly that moment to make its move. She'd done this before. She knew precisely where the weak point stood, and she'd come for it directly.

Carol threw everything she had at it. It barely slowed.

Barney– Barney, Great Goddess love him– flipped to a page in his journal and pressed his palm flat against some old symbol I didn't recognize. For one shocked second, it actually worked. The black Magic hissed back like it'd touched something it didn't like.

The dogs went berserk, barking and snarling at something none of them could touch.

I couldn't move. That was the whole horrible truth of it. If I pulled my hand off the Wayfinder to fight back, the portal closed, and Martha and Zelda were on the wrong side of it. So, I stood there and took it, every bit of black Magic crawling up my legs, and understood in a way I never fully had before exactly what four months of Martha getting thrown into swamp water had actually been training her for.

This was mine. Not punching. Not fire.

Holding on.

It finally hit hard enough to matter. Black tendrils wrapped tight around one ankle and yanked. I went down hard on one knee, the impact jarring up through my whole body.

My palm never left the Wayfinder.

Carol gasped.