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But this time, we understood the shape of it. Martha and Zelda would work the Queen side. I didn't need to cross anything. My job was precisely what the instructions had always said, once we'd finally learned to read them right.

Stand between Below and the Queen.

A symbol was carved into the floor on my side of the barrier. It was the Guardian mark, worn smooth by God-only-knew how many centuries. I stepped onto it.

It lit up beneath my boots.

“Well,” Roy said.

“Don't start.” Wouldn’t ya’ know that’s when he would show back up again.

Old Magic recognized exactly what it had been waiting for. Everything we'd uncovered over the last four months had led us right here.

Zelda's mark had crept to her elbow by the time we got into position. Carol took one look at it and said, tightly, "Minutes. Maybe less."

Martha didn't panic. I felt her fear through the bond. It was sharp and real, but she didn't hesitate for even a second. She just walked to the Queen symbol carved into the ancient seal and held the crown against it. Gold light immediately started crawling through the old grooves in the stone like it had been waiting all this time for that touch, and that touch alone.

Zelda took her place over the Witch symbol.

I was still on Guardian.

Three points. Three people.

"Everybody knows their job?" Martha asked.

"Bind the homicidal Dragon Queen," Zelda said.

"Keep the homicidal Dragon Queen away from you," I said.

"Close the damn Door." Martha took a breath. "Easy."

"You and I have very different definitions of easy, Love." I was proud that my voice didn’t crack.

Zelda gripped her marked wrist and reached for her Magic. The black and silver line along her arm flared brightly. It looked painful. The whole chamber seemed to hold its breath around her.

The old Door appeared. It wasn’t a literal door, not wood or iron, just a black, impossible seam splitting open in the middle of reality where the old carvings had always pointed.

Zelda pulled.

Nothing happened.

She pulled again.

Still nothing.

"Come on, bitch," Martha said, low and furious. "You wanted me. Here I am."

That got a response.

The tether jerked so hard Zelda nearly went down. Carol caught her by the shoulders. The black seam split wider. Something was coming through.

I'd braced for Swamp Barbie. For the layered, impossible thing from the Between.

I wasn't braced for what appeared.

A woman stepped through the seam. She was beautiful, dark-haired, the same family bones I'd have known anywhere by now. She was Dellencourt down to the cheekbones. An old scar ran across her brow where a crown should have sat for centuries and never had. Silver and black Sorcery crawled beneath her skin like something living just under the surface. Her eyes flickered, Dragon gold one second, wrong the next. Broken, half-formed wings shuddered behind her shoulders.

I understood. In that one horrible second, I truly understood why Margaret had never stopped calling her sister.