He swallowed hard and his tears spilled over onto his cheeks. “Yes. Though I will hate myself forever for taking part in this.”

“Hey,” I said softly, hiccupping around the sobs reverberating through my chest. “Don’t you dare change, Alex. Not for a split second.”

He held the katana carefully, putting the tip over my heart and drawing a line across it. “For the furred, you bleed.”

Lark took the blade from him and shooed him backward.

Tears dripped from her eyes, down her cheeks, and splashed onto the slab beside my head. “Goodbye, my friend.”

“See you on the flip side, Lark.”

She drew the blade across my throat. “Rylee of the Blood. For the world, you bleed. For the world, you sacrifice. For the world, you die.”

I closed my eyes, the rush of warmth flowing over me as my blood slipped from my veins. Liam cried out and Lark yelled at him not to touch me. We’d said our goodbyes; not to say I wouldn’t have liked to hold him again. To whisper one last time that I loved him.

But if I did that, I might not ever let him go, or let any of them go, for that matter. Beside me, Alex sobbed, his cries turning into howls that shattered the night air and another piece of my heart broke.

I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave any of them behind.

Around me the world faded and the Veil slipped over me, flashes of each level as I slid through. Their meaning becoming known to me.

The first Veil hid the unseen world of the supernatural. The second level was of dreams and visions. I’d been there more than a time or two. The third Veil carried ghosts that couldn’t move on for one reason or another.

The fourth Veil stumped me, and I stayed for a moment to take it in. Books were everywhere, like a giant library that contained everything ever written in the world, both human and supernatural; a place to seek answers, I understood.

The fifth level was a dungeon . . . a place of penance for supernatural assholes. Several trolls hissed at me, including a one-eyed, dual-dicked prick I knew all too fucking well. I flipped him off as I passed into the sixth Veil.

The realm of heroes, those who would stand between the world and the evil that would swallow it whole.

I stopped moving and stared at the first person, unable to believe what I was seeing.

“Dox.” I whispered his name and he gave a roar, scooping me into one of his infamous hugs, his blue-skinned arms squeezing me hard enough he should have cracked ribs. I hugged him back, unable to stop the tears. “Dox, you’re going to be a father.”

“Rylee, I know. I know.” He set me down, grinning. The triplets, Sla, Lop, and Dev surrounded us, laughing, their smiles infectious. Their violet skin the same shade as Sas’s, but their attitudes couldn’t have been more different from hers. They each slapped me on the back.

“Goose feathers and fuck a duck, you did good, Tracker,” one of them said, and I shook my head. I would never get the hang of their cursing.

“Thanks.”

A laugh I would know if my ears were plugged made me push past them. Giselle smiled at me and held out her arms. “Well done, Rylee girl. I knew you wouldn’t falter.”

I buried my face in her neck, unashamed to cry in front of her. Of all the people in my life, she’d been there from the beginning. From the first salvage. From the first betrayal, and the first broken promises. The mother of my heart and the one who understood why I did what I did.

“Hush, you’re here now, and it won’t be long before you can rest.” She smoothed the hair back from my face. I looked up, wiped my face and sniffed.

“You mean it’s not finished?”

She shook her head and pointed at the horizon behind us. “You have to close the Veil still, my girl.”

She turned so I could look past her. Beyond her, the horizon seethed with darkness, glimmering and moving like a giant snake that had twisted its coils in on itself. From the ground, it rose far into the sky. It was a solid wall that seemed to have no end.

Here and there were flashes of bright light, like grenades popping within the darkness, and they lit up with thousands upon thousands of red gleaming eyes. That was the barrier between us and the seventh Veil, where the demons were supposed to be caged.

Giselle didn’t let me go. “We are with you, Rylee. The battle will rage on both sides of the Veil. It is why you had to lose so many of your friends and finest warriors. You need an army here, as well.”

“It’s why I was not afraid to die,” Milly said softly, and I spun to face her.

Her bright green eyes were clear of Orion’s influence for the first time since I’d known her. But her being in the sixth level surprised me. “You aren’t in the fifth level doing penance? Not that I want you to be!”

She shook her head. “No. I was a child when Orion took control of me. I fought where I could and that was enough to bring me here.” I grabbed her and hugged her tightly. Another coming home. A friend I thought lost forever only to find her again.

An arm slid across my shoulders and a rough voice spoke. “Niece. Tell me the babies are safe.”

I turned and let Erik hold me, seeing again his death at the hands of the mob of trolls and how he’d protected Marcella with his own body. “They are. Liam got them out of the battle.”

A big sigh slipped out of him. “Good. I could never forgive myself if something happened to them.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” I said softly. “You gave your life for her.”