Rowan stepped out of Lucia’s sleek black Mercedes, stretching his arms as the night air cooled his skin. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Next time, call before you drop in,” Lucia said, a hint of exasperation laced in her tone.

  “That reminds me,” Rowan patted his pockets. “I think I lost my phone.”

  Lucia shook her head. “Goodbye, Rowan.”

  “Goodbye!” Sofia shouted from the backseat, her small hands waving wildly.

  It was only then that Rowan noticed the bright green feather clutched in her grasp. His brows knit together. That was one of his. From this morning, when he’d been glowing like a neon highlighter. But how? Hadn’t his feathers vanished when he changed forms?

  Weird.

  He shut the door as Lucia pulled away, Sofia still waving until they disappeared down the street. Sofia waved from the back seat the entire time she could see him. Rowan watched them go, a smile still plastered on his face. That kid represented the only good he had ever done. It was mostly Gretta’s doing, but he knew he had been part of it, and Sofia was living proof that he was on the team with the good guys. The god of chaos teaming up with a disciple of the goddess of savagery to save the child of darkness and secrets from the goddess of justice and… Okay, so it didn’t sound like a good thing when you put it that way, but he knew he had done the right thing.

  Rowan exhaled, the last traces of his grin fading as he turned away from the retreating car. The gas station loomed around him, its cracked pavement littered with discarded receipts and cigarette butts. A rusty NO LOITERING sign swayed slightly in the wind, its peeling paint barely legible under the flickering glow of the station’s dying fluorescents. The smell of gasoline and distant fried food clung to the air.

  Not the worst part of town. But not a place to linger, either.

  Rowan toyed with his new earring, fingers tracing its smooth curve as he headed for the parking lot.

  With a practiced breath, he gathered his will and pulled.

  The world thinned around him, color bleeding away into a space of shifting light and shadow. The air hummed with distant whispers, the echoes of thoughts that weren’t his own. The Astral.

  He took a steadying breath. That part was getting easier now. The hard part was what came next.

  He turned toward the familiar, writhing dark vortex—the doorway to the Void. His grip tightened around the walking stick as he stepped forward.

  Nothingness swallowed him whole.

  He drifted in the Void for a moment, taking in the changes. Abby’s light wasn’t just green but had hints of orange and blue. Nadia’s typical purple had golds and blues. And Ellie, her normally pure white was a pale blue. Huh. He looked down at his own ethereal blue form. That might not be a coincidence. They all looked brighter and stronger for the moment, which was something, though he wasn’t sure if they would thank him or not.

  He needed to find where the demons had gone. As he focused on each god, the feathers on the walking stick shifted, pointing away as if caught in a breeze. More than that, he could feel the presence through his connection with it, even without looking. He closed his eyes, concentrated on Purgatory, and felt its pull. When he opened them, he was already facing the right direction—the feathers tilting in an unseen wind. He thought of Thadius and the demons and the feather whipped around aimlessly, as if caught in an eddy. Then just Thadius, and the feather steadied.

  Rowan shifted to raven, absorbing the walking stick, and followed the feeling. It was a greasy, rotting sensation, like something spoiled but still moving.

  The Void stretched around him—a vast, endless absence. No up, no down. No sound, no air.

  He moved, or maybe he didn’t. The magic of the walking stick wasn’t something he held anymore, but sensed—a pull at the edge of his awareness, like the wind before a storm. He followed it, letting instinct guide him. Then, suddenly, the pull shifted.

  Shit.

  He’d overshot his destination. Spinning midair, he adjusted course, this time moving with more care.

  When he turned around, it helped that from this angle he could see the other gods’ stars. He moved more cautiously toward the feeling and noticed that it subtly got stronger.

  After a few passes, he drifted to a stop at the point where it was strongest, but there was still no visible opening. No tear, no door, nothing. This patch of the Void looked like any other.

  Rowan slowed as the pull concentrated into a single point—something was there. He pulled his form back together, shaping himself into a body, and willed the walking stick to separate from his essence. It reformed in his grasp as he tested the space in front of him.

  The feathers twitched in an unseen breeze. He waved the staff—solid resistance. Yet, through his connection with it, he could still feel the void's pull around it, like the barrier wanted to swallow it back into him. He reached out—nothing. A door without a handle. There was a door here, but it was closed.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  He pushed forward, reaching for the unseen door.

  For a breathless second, something gave—a pull, the sensation of falling into something deeper. Then, with brutal force, the magic snapped back.

  Rowan slammed into something unseen, the force of the rebound sending him careening backward. His stomach lurched as he twisted midair, weightless and disoriented.

  Thadius?

  The thought barely formed before the Void swallowed him again, his body weightless as he struggled to regain control.

  Rowan tumbled through the Void, trying to steady himself, but he still hadn't figured out how to navigate without his raven form. He was mid-thought, mid-movement, mid-everything when reality grabbed him by the collar and yanked.

  The Void vanished.

  One moment, he was adrift. The next, he was somewhere—yanked into existence like a fish hooked from the depths. His body twisted, momentum refusing to cooperate, and then—

  Ground. Face-first. Again.

  He groaned. Why is it always headfirst?

  He bounced a few times, tumbled, and then came to a stop at the feet of a tall angry woman with blue hair and blue skin.

  “Rowan, you better have a great explanation,” Abby said. Her scowl looked murderous.

  Rowan groaned and blinked up at her. Blue skin. Glowing eyes. Angry. Oh, right. Abby. That probably wasn’t great.

  He ran a quick mental checklist—nothing broken, just bruised pride. And maybe his dignity, but that was already a lost cause.

  He pushed himself up, wiping orange-and-blue grass from his face as he swayed on his feet.

  “Hey, Abby! Thought I’d check in and see how—”

  Her scowl broke into a grin, and she closed the distance, hugging him. “Thank you so much for saving us.”

  “Careful, you’ll crack my ribs,” he said, giving her an awkward pat on the back.

  She was easily a foot taller than him now, and her blue skin was something to behold.

  “Nadia is going to be pissed,” Rowan said.

  “We’re alive,” a second blue woman said. She was reclining against an orange and teal tree trunk. “And while the chaos isn’t ideal, as you master Purgatory, it should get better.”

  “Ah, about that,” Rowan said.

  Both women looked at him, their pleasant expressions shifting to wariness.

  “Um, yeah, purgatory needs demons to run cleanly, and only a demon can sit on the throne.”

  “There’s a throne?” Abby asked.

  “There’s not much else left there,” he said. “A small patch of dirt, a portal to the heart of magic, a tear back to the void, and a giant iron throne in the middle.”

  “And how do you know you need demons?” Nadia asked, curiosity rather than irritation.

  “An old guy told me,” Rowan said lamely, but he hurried on. “But I could feel that the magic filtering through me was coming out wild, and it was clear that I wasn’t going to do much more than make a mess.” He gestured around.

  “An old guy?” Nadia asked. “What old guy?”

  “He was the brother of the lady who gave me the stick,” Rowan said. “Hmm… where did I put that? Must be still in the Astral.”

  “An old guy told you you need demons to fix Purgatory, and his sister gave you a stick?” Abby asked.

  “Yeah, it had feathers,” he said.

  Nadia shook her head. “I have no idea why he’s your best friend, but it’s clearly not because of his intellect.”

  “He’s funny,” Abby said. “He helps keep me grounded.”

  “Are you saying I’m dumb?” Rowan asked.

  Nadia looked at him. “If you have to ask…”

  Abby smiled—her teeth were now a brilliant pink. “Okay, so, for the sake of argument, you need demons, where are you getting them?”

  Rowan shrugged. “That’s just it… they went through a place in the Void, and when I tried to follow, I got blasted, and that’s how I ended up here.”

  “You followed them?” Nadia asked.

  “I followed a feeling,” Rowan said. “And I’m getting pretty good at navigating the Void lately.”

  “You’ve been there often?” Nadia asked.

  “Well, I was there this morning before the throne blasted me back to Earth—got this great new earring—and again this evening when I—”

  “Got blasted here,” Nadia finished for him. “Are you sure that qualifies as good?”

  Rowan rolled his eyes. “What I’m saying is, thanks to my new stick, I’m pretty good at feeling where places are, and I’m pretty sure the demons have left the Void to a new reality.”

  Nadia started to pace. “There are other pantheons, but I didn’t think their realities touched the Void.”

  “The Void is a massive place—feels endless—and there might be millions of other gods or realities out there, and we just don’t have the ability to see them,” he said. “In all the time I’ve been on Earth, I’ve never felt the magic from another pantheon. I’ve met two different people today, who are clearly gods, and I didn’t sense them or their magic at all. Maybe you have to somehow be in tune with their magic to see them?”

  “Transcendents,” Nadia said. “They weren’t gods. They were Transcendents.”

  “Oh, so now you believe me?”

  Nadia didn’t even look up. “I don’t believe—I know.” She finally met his gaze. “I’m the goddess of knowledge. Sometimes, when I look at something, I just see the truth. And Rowan—your magic came from a Transcendent.”

  “These are beings who are more powerful than a god?” Abby asked, more curious than anything.

  “From what I see woven into Rowan’s being, they are an order of magnitude more powerful, or at least the one who gave him a stick was,” she said. “Who knows, maybe she is more powerful than others of her kind.”

  “Or maybe she’s the weakest,” Abby said.

  Nadia laughed. “Maybe, but either way, I think she was trying to help us.”

  “Why do you think that?” Abby asked.

  Nadia smiled. “You don’t give a piece of your soul to somebody you don’t trust, and you certainly don’t take that risk on somebody you think will be destroyed.”

  Rowan opened his mouth, ready with some flippant remark—then shut it again. His fingers tightened at his sides.

  A piece of a Transcendent’s soul? Just handed to him, like a party favor. No strings. No deadline. No way to give it back.

  Nobody trusted him like that. Not even Abby—not really. She trusted him to be predictable, reckless but well-intentioned. But the Weaver? She trusted him beyond that.

  She had tied a part of herself to him. Staked something real on him.

  It wasn’t a trick. It wasn’t a gamble.

  That wasn’t terrifying.

  That was dangerous.