IT SEEMED THAT, with Snow, there was always another moment to feel like she was on the set of a movie.

Jo stepped through the Door into the crumbling husk of a great structure made of obsidian and stone. Twilight streamed through the collapsed holes in the rooftop opposite where she stood. A billowing mist accompanied the low-light, shrouding the room and blurring the details at the edges. Vines stretched out leafy arms toward the moisture, collecting the dew before rolling it down onto the carpet of moss below.

She turned in place, looking to see Snow closing the Door, and could not contain a gasp. The circular room had no exits, so the industrial portal floated a finger’s width off the ground and in mid-air, connected to no other walls—as though it could not touch anything. The moment the Door was closed, it faded from view.

Jo reached out, holding her hand, expecting the Door to be there, merely invisible. But there was nothing. There was no collection of magic, no firming up of the essence of the Door at her will.

“It won’t work for you,” Snow said softly, as if trying not to startle her. The sudden sound breaking the silence startled her anyway, though, and Jo swiveled. “Not here.”

“This place. . .” Jo struggled to form complete sentences. She’d thought she’d understood magic, felt magic, but everything paled in comparison to the atmosphere here. Like the low hum of a speaker, the world seemed to buzz with an energy that rattled Jo to her core. The Door was gone now. It usually disappeared, but this time it left only the skeleton of a window beyond where it had been. There was nothing but fog to be seen through its panes—so dense that it gave birth to a waking fear of what it might obscure. “What is it?”

“It’s the room where I died.”

“What?” Her heart was in her throat at the mere mention of Snow’s death. Whatever weird things he made her insides do aside, he was still their leader and—as far as Jo could tell—a very important glue holding the Society together.

“It was here that the Society of Wishes was born.”

“Do you even know how to speak in a way that isn’t cryptic?” Jo tried to laugh, but like a spark to wet tinder, the sound didn’t catch. It was as hollow as the crumbling, circular room in which they stood.

Circular.

Jo took the room in once more—the vaulted ceiling, collapsed in over a quarter of the room, single tiles of obsidian glittering on the floor. Three windows were obscured by fog, glass hanging onto them like snaggle-teeth. She walked forward, toward the center.

There, at the center of the room, was a line—so thin it almost blended in with the cracks of the stone. The obsidian circle hid behind the shards of roof tile (what civilization in history used obsidian for roof tiles anyway?) and the patch of moss. She already knew what she would find but, using the toe of her shoe, Jo cleared away the debris and greenery to confirm that the circle of inlaid, shining, black stone was complete.

“A circle.” Jo looked back to the man with questioning eyes. A man who, despite his modern attire, looked like he truly fit in more here than he ever had at the Society.

“The very first.”

“What happened here?” She had so many questions, but they were sluggish to roll off her tongue. In some odd, impossible way, the place seemed almost. . . familiar?

“What happened here is no longer relevant. It’s what happens here now that’s important.” Snow started for the center of the room himself, but Jo did not stand and wait for him to meet her.

She spurred her feet to motion, meeting him at the edge of the black circle. Her hands reached up, clutching the opening of his shirt. He was taller than her, likely physically stronger, and quite obviously magically superior. But Jo held on anyway. She held fast like her life depended on it.

“Don’t say that!” She gave him a small shake. “Don’t say that,” she said, softer. “What happened is relevant. What happened in the past is all we have now. We don’t exist anymore, right? So, the only things that really make us are our memories and our magic.”

Snow seemed startled, unsure even. He stared down at her with those steely eyes that suddenly felt as though they were seeing a new corner of her very essence. A place Jo hadn’t even known existed before that moment.

She swallowed hard, but she didn’t back down.

“You don’t have to tell me the details of it. . . Not now, not ever, not if you don’t want to.” Jo eased back onto her heels, not remembering when she’d risen to her toes. “But don’t act like it’s not important.”

She felt the muscles of his chest tense under her knuckles. Snow’s hands rose, no doubt about to push her away. Jo uncurled her fingers. She had at least a little bit of dignity; she wasn’t going to force herself on someone who very clearly did not want her touch.

His hands closed around hers, holding her there. With the wrapping of those long, elegant fingers, it felt as if he’d woven a spell across her whole body. Jo swallowed hard.

Would her heart ever catch a break around this man?

“Very well,” Snow whispered. “I will, so do not despair.”

Jo wanted to question if it really was that simple. Jo wanted to question why her despair mattered. Jo wanted to know everything about this man and how she measured against him. His height, compared to hers. Their closeness, barely touching along the entire lengths of their bodies. The electricity that began to fill in the void that something in her ached to close.

“Now, I must begin.” Snow released her, as though he hadn’t felt the fever pitch he’d been working her toward with just his proximity. Jo’s knees felt like gelatin—likely for the best he’d let her go before they completely turned to jelly. “There is a wish to grant.” He looked back to her, gaze falling to her feet. “If you don’t mind stepping out of the circle?”

“Oh, no. . .” Jo shuffled back until she met the wall. She leaned against it, arms folded, as if defending herself from whatever odd sensations he’d just begun to provoke in her.

Snow gave one nod, and one last, long look at her. Jo had never felt a man stare at her with such intent. It wasn’t like some creepy stalker, and wasn’t like Wayne’s eyes, seeing her body first when his own hungered. These were the eyes of someone who was taking in every detail, cataloging it, storing it for a memory that would be cherished. Jo recognized the stare, because she’d given it countless times to strings of code whizzing by on a command prompt. But she’d never aimed it at another person.

She swallowed again, her throat still dry, and gave a nod of her own.

As if on her command, Snow looked forward. He reached into his pocket, producing what Jo fully expected to be a watch—it seemed the M.O. of the group. But instead, it was a small snuff box, no bigger than his palm. Jo squinted her eyes, trying to make out the details of the gold gilding and silver metalwork, but she couldn’t from her vantage.

“In the circle that is life and death, our world and the next, I invoke my power.” Snow opened the box with his left hand. “The circle has been cast, invocation made, and the wish shall be granted.”

He swept away his left hand like a maestro summoning to life an invisible orchestra. His right hand remained outstretched in front of him, perpendicular to his chest and parallel to the floor. Snow’s movements were measured and practiced, but rigid, as though he were a puppet moving along on invisible strings.

A gasp rose in Jo’s throat as the circle in the floor began to spark to life. Magic shimmered in the obsidian, a mess of color before a green, fire-like light blazed around Snow. Its tendrils reached for the ceiling. While there was no heat, Jo pressed closer to the wall behind her, as if pushed back by the force of the magic itself. Or, by the force of the sudden and extreme unease that came with an odd sense of impossible familiarity to what she was seeing.

Snow’s left hand twisted, palm up. Rising from the fire was a second circle, one of leaves and twigs. It hovered atop the first, snowing magic down onto the fire and cooling it to a dull ember. From this second, glimmering circle, images solidified in the same leafy hue.

Jo saw the hospital, the nurse, Mr. Keller, all rising before exploding like fireworks and freezing mid-air around Snow. She saw different pictures of the nurse pouring over a textbook, a graduation, a new doctor. These fell into the remnants of the fire below, sparking to life as they were consumed into nothingness. Little embers danced off the magic flames, floating toward her like the last farewells of a world that could never be.

World destroyer, Pan had said. It looked more like world burner, from where Jo stood.

She watched as the cost of the wish was consumed, a few images, a core possibility—gone forever. Everything stood in balance: the sacrificed world, the circle that Jo had no doubt mirrored what the nurse had used to make her wish, and the sparks of new possibility. It all hung together perfectly. Jo may not understand everything, but she knew that hers and Eslar’s efforts had been enough. The Severity of Exchange was perfectly measured.

In one sudden movement, Snow brought his left hand to his right in a wide arc. The magic followed in front of his fingers, quickly ushering itself into the box his right hand still held. The room flashed brightly, everything rising to a pitch, and then the box closed with a sound that resembled a thunderclap.

It all echoed in her—a deep resonance in a void that Jo had never known she possessed until there was something attempting to fill it. Jo’s ears rang and her heart raced. Her eyes struggled to catch up with the sudden darkness that followed the brilliance of the magic. They settled on the silhouette of a man, hunched and heaving, wrapped in on himself, curled on the floor. Magic steamed off Snow’s shoulders with a faint glow that looked almost like the smoldering remnants of some fallen angel.

“. . . Snow?” Jo squeaked, finally. If her legs had gone soft before, the display had pulverized them. She wobbled against the wall, feeling tired, drained, as though she had somehow taken actual part in the ritual she’d just witnessed.

He did not move.

“Snow?” Jo tried again, making her way to him. “Snow, are you—”

“Don’t,” he rasped, stopping her in her tracks. Jo noticed that he only seemed to gain the strength to speak, or move, the second she was about to cross the threshold of the circle. “Don’t come near me.”

“What? Don’t be silly, are you all right?”

“Go!” He shouted, without looking at her. His left hand thrust out from where it had been curled against his chest. Jo followed the point of his finger to where the Door back to the Society had magically reappeared. “I shouldn’t have. I let you get too close. I don’t know why I thought —”

“You invited me!” She was not about to let him push her away. “Let me help you back.”

“Jo, I—” Snow’s face shot up. His hair hung limply, slicked with sweat to his face, clinging in tendrils. His lips, usually red, were void of color, ghostly. His eyes. . . his eyes were the most alarming part of him. Their steely color had all but vanished, blanching into the white that was being infringed upon by gnarly, bloodshot veins.

He had said he died there, and now, as she looked at the corpse of a man, Jo believed it.

“You fear me,” he whispered.

“I am the Shewolf, and I fear no man,” Jo replied with more confidence than she felt.

Jo crossed over to him. Snow leaned away, swaying slightly, like a panicked animal. There was hurt and fear and all the weariness of seeing and consuming countless worlds.

“Let me help you back,” she repeated, kneeling next to him.

“Why do you not run?” He stared through her with those monstrous eyes.

“Are you my enemy?”

“Not in any lifetime.” It sounded like a vow.

“Then I have nothing to run from.” Jo took his hand, sliding it toward her. The moment his palm left the ground, Snow tilted; Jo had to press her side into his, quickly slinging the appendage over her shoulders for stability.

Her thighs screamed in protest as she hoisted them upright. Snow’s head hung heavily, barely coming up long enough to pin the code back into the Door. They were ushered back through, him nearly stumbling again as the sound of pressurization echoed through the briefing room.

“We’re almost there,” she encouraged.

“We are not,” he wheezed.

“Do you even know how to not be a pain?” Jo laughed at her own forced levity. From the corners of her eyes, she could’ve sworn she saw a smile playing on his lips.

Be it fate or luck, they ran into no one else on the way back through the mansion. Both recreation rooms were void of watches. Her back ached and her legs wobbled, but Jo wasn’t going to let the man down. He didn’t really deserve her loyalty, a logical part of her mind insisted. But Jo couldn’t forget what she’d seen.

“Here’s far enough.” Snow raised his head, outstretching a shaking hand to support himself against the wall.

“It’s right—”

“Here’s far enough,” he repeated, looking down at her warily.

Jo looked back to the last two doorways at the end of the hall. She put her hands on her hips, opened her mouth, and then Snow stole the last words.

“Leave me here, for both of our sakes.”

Jo opened her mouth to fire back. There was a strong urge to put the man in his place. But no retort came.

Instead, Jo’s feet pulled her away. She felt his eyes on her as she traversed the length of the hall. She didn’t look back once the whole walk to her room. It wasn’t even until she was behind her own closed door that a deep sense of overwhelming dread collapsed on her, dropping her to her knees.