“I have it, Will,” I whispered. “I’m going to save you like you’ve saved me so many times. You’ll be all right, I promise.”

I felt a vice around my heart when my gaze found the silver cross his mother gave him around his neck. I was happy to know that they hadn’t taken it from him. He’d want it close to him. I touched my winged necklace at the hollow of my collarbone and remembered how lost I felt when I wasn’t wearing it.

When Sabina entered, I welcomed her calm presence. “What do you need?” she asked, her voice low.

I pulled the plastic bag from my pocket and removed the root. “A poultice needs to be made from this. Do you know how to do that?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I can do that for you.”

I handed the root to Sabina and she promptly spun on her heel and left the room. I gave a last look at Will before following Sabina. In the dark hallway, images flashed in my mind from the night my mother died, when I’d torn myself from that same room and down the stairs, screaming for Will. This house held so many wonderful and terrible memories for us all. I steadied myself on my feet and took a deep breath. As I descended the staircase, Cadan looked up at me from the same spot I’d left him in, a quiet pain in his expression. There was no telling how difficult it was for him to see my joy at seeing Will again, but there was nothing I could do to help Cadan except to not lead him on. I went into the kitchen, where Sabina took a bowl from the cabinet and set it on the counter. As she mashed the root, the others joined us.

“Glad to have you home,” Marcus said, stopping beside me.

I rested my head on his shoulder. “I’m glad too. And I’m glad all of this will be over soon.”

“What happened out there?” he asked.

“We found Antares.”

Ava rounded Marcus, her arms folded. “And she just gave you that thing?”

“No,” I replied and caught Cadan’s eye. “She wasn’t going to give it to me at all. And then she did.”

“You convinced her?” Marcus asked.

“I guess so,” I said. “I set her free. She gave me the root, I released her, and she went home. If I hadn’t been able to release her, then Sammael would have killed her. He has been hunting the living Grigori in this country, killing anything that might be a threat to him. We ran into some of his demonic reapers searching for her. But Antares is safe now and Will has a chance to live.”

“Hopefully this will work,” Ava said. “He hasn’t woken at all since you left.”

I moved to the pantry to look for plastic wrap to hold the moisture in the poultice and bandages to wrap it with. “Antares said it will take three days. We’ll need to make sure the root lasts that long. The tree disappeared with her, so this is all there is.”

“You won’t need much between bandage changes,” Sabina said over the bowl. “This root is potent. I can smell the magic.”

“Good,” I said. “However weird it is that you can smell magic.”

“The sun is rising,” Cadan said from the other side of the kitchen. “I’d better take off.”

I looked up at him, not failing to notice the sad and tired look on his face. “I’ll come say good-bye.”

I followed him through the house to the front door and out onto the porch. He turned to face me, smiling softly. There was a quiet gleam in his gaze, the fire in those gemlike eyes brightened by the reddening dawn.

“There aren’t words enough for how grateful I am,” I said.

He shrugged and grinned playfully. “It was nothing. Don’t mention it.”

I huffed. “Yeah, all right. Risking your life for me is nothing.”

The grin faded to seriousness. “Call on me for anything. I mean it.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, and threw my arms around his shoulders to hug him tightly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. For everything. I’m in your debt.”

When he pulled away, he pushed my hair behind my ears tenderly. “I’ll be back tomorrow night to check on you, okay?”

“Yeah,” I said with a nod and a sniffle.

He backed away and turned to leave the porch. Out on the grass, his silver birch-colored wings slowly spread. “Hang in there, kid.” With a final warm smile, he bent his knees and jumped into the air, his form vanishing into the Grim.

I hugged my arms close and hesitated another few seconds before walking back into the house. Even though Will had rebuilt everything that’d been destroyed during Kelaeno’s and Merodach’s attack, in my mind I saw the front door blasted open, the walls torn down, the staircase shattered—everything looking as if a bomb had gone off. I passed the spot in the hallway where Nathaniel had punched through the wall to retrieve hidden weapons, the place where he had said his final good-bye to Lauren before meeting his doom upon Merodach’s sword. Will hadn’t had time to replace all of the flooring in the hall and kitchen, and I glanced at a dark stain in the wood that was once someone’s blood. I didn’t know who it had belonged to. So many had died here that night.

When I reached the kitchen, Sabina turned to me. “The medicine is ready.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Let’s get to it.”

I marched back up the stairs to Will’s room and sat on the edge of his bed. I put the poultice and fresh wrappings on the nightstand and removed the dirty bandages from around his arm. The wound was even more vicious-looking than I remembered. I bit my lip as I peeled the cloth from his skin and he moaned in pain. The black spider-webbing of poison in his veins rippled through his arm and chest. With my fingers, I took just enough of the poultice to cover Will’s wound completely. Then I pulled the plastic wrap and wound it all the way around his arm before adding fresh gauze wraps.