The void closed up with a shudder and a great rush of darkness, leaving behind a pile of slumped bodies – all that remained of those who’d entered it. I stared at the blank spots on the circle where Blake and Isadora had stood.

“What happened?” I demanded, stamping my foot down on the ground where the void had been. My boot narrowly missed kicking Blake’s limp hand. “How did we lose two extra people?”

“Liah broke through the circle and leapt into the void,” Flynn said, his voice uneven. “Blake followed her. And Isadora followed Blake.”

“Why would Blake do something so completely fucked up?”

“We don’t have time to consider it.” Clara shoved her way to the center of the circle, a black bag slung over her shoulder. “Quickly now, we’ve got a lot of work to do to prepare the next part of the ritual. Bring all the bodies.”

Flynn grabbed Blake’s wrists and dragged him in front of the sidhe. Isadora was already slumped there, her arm shrunk away from me. As Flynn rolled Blake over, his glassy eyes stared at the sky, and a chill ran down my spine.

“We can bring him back too, right?” I asked Clara.

“We’re going to try,” she said. “If he even wants to return.”

A dark rage flared inside me. She had a point. After everything I’d accused Blake of, and the way we’d all refused to trust him even though Maeve did, he might’ve decided it was time to switch loyalties. I thought we’d made our peace, but maybe I underestimated just how much he’d been hurting. Guilt gnawed at my gut, and my bandaged arm flared with pain.

“We’ll need a likeness of Blake.” Flynn pulled a ballpoint pen and one of Corbin’s Post-it notes from his pocket and sat down, leaning the paper against his knee as he started to sketch.

“I’ll get the others.” I spun around and headed to the tree. I didn’t want to think about Blake anymore.

We’d wrapped Maeve’s body in a sheet, which was just as well, because if I had to look at her glassy eyes or touch her clammy skin I’d probably end up immolating her on the spot, and then we’d never get her back. I shoved my hands underneath her and gingerly picked up the stiff body, the way I’d always carried her up to bed when we’d lived at Briarwood.

“I’ll bring Corbin,” Jane said, reaching for the box. My chest heaved as I noticed again how small it was. I hadn’t looked inside, but there was no way it housed Corbin’s body intact. Could we even restore him if he was in pieces?

We’re going to find out.

Goosepimples prickled across my shoulders. I glanced behind me, scanning the trees for movement. But there was nothing, because the fear was from inside me.

I shook my head. You’re being stupid. You’ve got goosepimples because you’re carrying around your lover’s body.

I gapped it down to the sidhe. The others had dragged the bodies into the entrance, piling them up against each other. I laid Maeve down beside Blake, and Jane placed the box beside her. “As long as some of the body remains, we’ll be able to perform the spell,” Clara said, stroking the end of the box. “You can thank yourself for recovering the body, Arthur. ”

“Oh,” Corbin’s mother took in the box with wide eyes. She buried her head into her husband’s shoulders. Andrew glanced across at me and nodded. I wasn’t sure what the nod meant, but its significance weighed over my heart.

“We’re going to have to take the lid off,” Clara said gently. Andrew flinched. His wife wailed.

“Super,” Flynn gulped, looking up from his drawing.

My gaze snapped to Rowan. He stared at his feet, his lips moving as he counted something none of us could see. After a few moments, he nodded. “If it will bring Corbin back, it’s worth it.”

“I’ll do it,” Clara said kindly, pulling the box toward herself and pointing to a spot on the other side of the sidhe. “You take up that position in the circle, Rowan. Flynn, you’re over there. Arthur, stand between them. Andrew and Bree, you’re at the back. You won’t see anything, I promise. Gwen and Candice will stand beside me.”

“What about me?” Kelly piped up.

“Or Ryan?” Flynn asked.

“Can’t you do anything without your new boyfriend?” I shot back.

Clara waved her hand. “Ryan doesn’t have a magical bone in his body.”

“He changes into a fox!”

“That’s not magic. No energy transforms place. It’s just physiology, like a butterfly unfurling its wings. Ryan and Kelly will sit this ritual out. Witches only. Everyone link hands.”

I did as she asked. Rowan’s hand trembled in mine. I gave his fingers a squeeze. Hold it together, mate. We’ve only got this chance now because you never gave up on Corbin or Maeve.

If we could bring Corbin back… if we could bring them all back… even Blake…

“Our friends are now in a place where we cannot reach them with our minds. We have to trust that they will find each other in the darkness. What we need to do is create a beacon of power to light their way home. I need each of you to picture all the people in the underworld.” Clara sighed. “Even Isadora. Focus on the details of their physical form – what did Maeve’s eyes look like? How did Corbin’s hair fall over his eyes? How did being with Blake make you feel?”

Frustrated, I thought but didn’t say.

“You got to bring them to life in your minds, okay? Flynn, throw the artwork into the fire."

As I watched the flames curling around the paintings and reducing them to ash, I thought of Corbin. I remembered the first time I’d met him, when he came to speak to my lawyer on my behalf. His hair hadn’t been quite as long then. I thought he’d been growing it because he liked mine. A curl fell over his left eye, and he had to keep tucking it behind his ear as he spoke. He mentioned his age – a year younger than me – but the way he held himself he seemed much older.

The first week I lived at Briarwood was… odd. Corbin clearly had no idea how to live with someone like me. He always had his nose in a book and it made me feel stupid and I got frustrated a lot and burned things. We tiptoed around each other until one day I incinerated an old book of his and we gave each other a bollocking and then we got drunk and everything was cool.

Then I thought of Blake, his stupid smirk and his black hair that never seemed to have a strand out of place. I thought of his newfound fondness for curry, and that flicker of emotion in the corners of his mouth when we’d shaken hands, or when he watched Maeve while she wasn’t looking.

And Maeve… how could I ever forget what her eyes looked like? Deep hazel flecked with gold, sparkling with intelligence and mischief and kindness. Her short hair bouncing on her head. Her lips wide with laughter or curled around the end of my cock.

With her free hand, Clara flipped back the lid of Corbin’s box. Even from as far back as I stood, I could make out blackened shapes wrapped in plastic. Corbin was in pieces. Heat flared into my fingers. This isn’t going to work.

“Save your fire for the candles, Arthur,” Clara said sharply. I glanced down. My pants were on fire. Shite. I sat down in the grass, stifling the flames between my arse cheeks and the dirt. Beside me, Flynn burst out laughing.

“Boys, please, if we could focus,” Andrew frowned. Fire flared in my fingers again, that he dare tell me what to do when he was the one who abandoned Corbin and refused to speak to him after Keegan’s death, he was the one who let Corbin go on believing his brother’s suicide was his fault—

Get a hold of yourself. If I derailed this ritual, we’d lose our chance to get Corbin back, and Maeve and the others might remain trapped down there with Daigh…

I glanced down at the bandages wrapped around my forearm, recalling the cut beneath them that split through the Norse rune tattoo Corbin had translated for me. A line of neat sutures kept the wound closed, like I was some kind of Frankenstein’s monster – a beast made of pieces of the dead.

“Sorry,” I muttered, standing up again.

Clara lowered the tongs into Corbin’s box and placed the stone on top. She scattered the smaller stones on the other bodies, placing one with each. She stood white taper candles around the bodies, and added some other stones. “Arthur, light the candles.”

Grateful for a task that could siphon off some of the energy pulsing in my veins, I waved my hand and the candles flickered to life.

"Repeat the chant along with me," Clara said. "As you do, picture a cone of white light rising up from Corbin’s chest and encompassing all the bodies. This cone will help the spirits find their way back inside their bodies and undo the mortification that’s already taken place.”

“And it will put my son back together?” Andrew said, his voice wavering.

“According to Isadora, it will.” Clara glanced down at the frozen face of the Soho priestess. “Whatever happens, you must keep this vision in your mind. Let us begin." She paused, then spoke, “The clay steals the clay.”

I chanted the words along with the others, forcing the power through my hands. A noxious smell wafted across my nostrils. It reminded me of the time last year when Obelix hid a dead rat in the cellar and it took me three weeks to locate the source of the stench.

This was a hundred dead rats. A thousand rotting rodent buggers, all being shoveled at my mouth. I stumbled on the words as the malodor closed my throat and poured tears from my eyes.

“Don’t break the circle,” Clara screamed. “Keep chanting.”

“The clay steals the clay. The clay steals—” I choked as my mouth crawled with rot. The reek grew form, burrowing into every pore and soaking me in horror. I mashed my lips together in an attempt to hold out the fetid decay. If I opened my mouth again, I’d drown in it.

Keep going. I forced myself to picture that cone of power, to imagine it pulling my loved ones up from the earth. Do it for Maeve, for Corbin, for all of them.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tore my lips apart. Instead of being flooded by the unforgivable stench, I got a whiff of Maeve’s sweet perfume, and Corbin’s leathery book smell, and Blake’s crisp autumn scent.

“I can feel them,” Clara yelled. Magic surged through my fingers as the cone of magic over us vibrated. “We’ve got them. Now, everyone, pull!”