Laying Virgil down at the side of the pit, Alex retrieved the Book of Jupiter from his bag and flipped to the correct page. Holding out a thin square of energy, he watched the glyphs morph into words, revealing the content of the counter-spell. Remembering a trick he’d seen Helena use, he fed more anti-magic into the edges of the square, causing it to remain, even when he took his hands away.

It was time, and yet something held him back.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Elias impatiently.

“I should get the others,” said Alex, having completely forgotten the promise he’d made to Aamir, in all the excitement of getting Virgil to the pit room. “I swore I’d go back to get them before I did the spell.”

Elias rolled his eyes. “You don’t have time to fetch them, Alex, not to mention the fact it’s not a good idea to have them around this kind of spell. I haven’t seen it done before, but I have seen spells like it, and I know there can sometimes be collateral. If a bystander is unworthy, or just happens to get in the way, they’re toast. You wouldn’t want something awful happening to your itty-bitty chums now, would you?” the shadow-man asked.

Alex glanced at Elias uncertainly. There was a lot of sense in what he said, but it didn’t feel quite right not to go back and tell the others. This conclusion was as much a part of their journey as it was his.

“I should go and get them,” Alex insisted.

Elias slithered toward the door, blocking the way. “You will put their lives at risk, Alex. I am not saying this because I am me, though I know that is likely what you are thinking—for once, I am saying this because I would hate to see them die so close to the end.”

“You really think it’s that dangerous?” Alex asked, realizing how stupid the question sounded. Of course it was dangerous. If it weren’t, he wouldn’t have had to run a gauntlet of challenges to attain the book that would allow him to do it.

“Is that a serious question?” Elias countered, raising a starry brow.

Alex shook his head. “No, I suppose not. I guess they won’t mind, if it all goes well,” he reasoned.

Turning his focus away from his friends, Alex knelt beside the slumped figure of Virgil, and began to feed the strands of his mind control into the Head’s brain. Alex made the skeletal figure get to his feet, like a macabre marionette, and move toward the edge of the pit. Holding him there with one hand, Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out the vial full of blood, resting it on the open page. That part came later.

Noting all the stages in order, Alex moved on to the incantation. First, he placed Virgil’s hand on the page, as instructed. For a moment, nothing happened, but then the book began to glow subtly, then burst into a fierce luminescence. The writing on the pages lifted up, swirling like a tornado before settling in the air before them, hovering just above the pit. The words were laid out in large, glowing lettering, making the incantation easier to read. Alex hoped this meant things were going well, if the book was responding as it should.

Taking a deep breath, he delved back into the depths of Virgil’s mind, making suggestions that forced strands of anti-magic to rise up from the Head’s palms. It was a strange, out-of-body experience for Alex, controlling somebody else’s energy, but he felt the strength of Virgil’s power.

Alex pulled the strings that made Virgil’s voice ring out across the cavern. The incantation had begun, the words moving through Alex’s mind and into Virgil’s mouth.

I come to thee with honesty and purity in my heart. My intentions are good and my motives are true. I stand at the precipice of destruction, knowing the price that must be paid. I come to thee with no hand forcing my path, and I seek redemption on behalf of those who seek to destroy. Where wounds have been cut, I shall repair. Where evil has traveled, I shall make amends. Where there has been death, I shall bring life. Where there has been war, I bring peace.

Alex paused at the end of the first paragraph, letting the words sink in. A slight rumble shook the earth, but he couldn’t be sure if it was the spell that had caused it. Overcome with nervous excitement, he pressed on, moving from second stanza, to third, to fourth, to fifth, to sixth, to seventh, to eighth, to ninth, to tenth, to eleventh, and, finally, to twelfth. Not once did he stutter, ensuring he took his time to feed the words carefully into the Head’s mind, so he could recite them precisely as they ought to be spoken. All the while, Alex was conscious of what he had been told about not making a single error. It was a terrifying prospect, to know that one false move could ruin everything, and it took everything he had not to focus on that fear.

Slowly, he came to the end of the twelfth and final stanza. Never had a finish line seemed so close and yet so far away. He could see the final line, but he was careful not to jump ahead and miss anything as he moved slowly through the final paragraph, Virgil’s voice speaking the words with a confident fluidity that Alex didn’t quite feel himself.

His heart was thundering in his chest as he reached the last line.

“With the blood of my enemies, I close the circle of pain,” said Virgil, speaking the words as Alex fed them into his mind. The Head had performed perfectly, but it wasn’t yet over. There was one step left.

As the final word echoed across the cavern, Alex leaned over to read the next step of the spell, looking over the section that said the spell’s performer must drink the blood at the very end of the incantation. Alex grasped the bottle from the page, removing the stopper and lifting the vial to his lips. A yelp from Elias halted him just before the liquid touched his mouth.

“You’re not the performer!” the shadow-man cried.

Alex faltered, his hands shaking, as he realized what a catastrophic move he had been about to make. Gathering his thoughts, pushing down his panic, he moved the vial toward Virgil’s lips instead. Tilting the Head’s neck back, he trickled the scarlet liquid into his mouth, watching as the gulp reflex took care of business.

With the blood swallowed, Alex knew it was just a waiting game. The spell was complete. There was nothing more he could do.

Stepping back, Alex watched the pit closely for any change, but nothing seemed to be different. He glanced at Elias, wanting reassurance from the shadow-man, but the wispy figure just shrugged. A few minutes passed, and still nothing happened.

“Did I do something wrong?” Alex whispered.

“Just wait,” said Elias.

Suddenly, the rumble beneath the earth grew louder, the ground shaking so hard it knocked Alex and Virgil backward. They sprawled to the floor, Alex getting up quickly to see what was happening. He gasped in horror as he looked back toward the edge of the pit. A blood-red swell had filled the room, undulating across the surface of the gaping crevasse. It didn’t look right, and Alex felt his whole body go rigid with dread. The blood-red waves bobbed there, in the center of the room, for what seemed like forever. Nobody moved. Alex hoped irrationally that if he stayed perfectly still, the swell would simply stay there, and everything would be fine.

Instead, the swell surged downward like a scarlet waterfall. A bone-shaking boom thundered below ground, as the last of the red waves disappeared into the pit.

In its place, a mist appeared, creeping slowly over the edges of the chasm. Alex felt the temperature of the room drop as the mist rolled over the lip of the pit, like clawing tendrils intent on reaching its prey. Alex saw, with a sinking feeling, that the mist was silver, and though he had never actually seen the fabled mist before, he knew what it meant.

Terror ripped through his body.

“You did it wrong!” shouted Elias, above the roar of the quake.

“I did everything it said!” Alex yelled back, his heart gripped in a vise as he snatched up the Book of Jupiter and shoved it back into his satchel.

“We have to get out of here!” Elias insisted.

“Yes—help me!” Alex said, grasping Virgil under the armpits. Glancing around, he saw that the mist was almost at the threshold of the exit. He didn’t know what to do, or how to reverse what he had done, but one thing was for sure—they couldn’t stay here to try to figure it out.

Just then, a figure burst in, rushing right toward the deadly hands of the silver mist. Alex’s eyes went wide with a horror so intense he couldn’t bear the sensation of it.

“AAMIR! NO!” he roared.

Aamir skidded to a halt as a wave of silver mist surged in his direction, drawn by his essence. Alex dropped Virgil and barreled toward his friend, desperate to put himself between the deadly fog and Aamir. They had to escape this place before the mist consumed them, before it reached everyone on the battlefield.

They had unleashed the Great Evil.