The Daemon led them through the decaying building.

They followed around several corners, until the space widened out into what must have been the mall’s main center. Wallpaper peeled in long strips, and the fog had slipped between the broken cracks in the walls. It hung low to the ground, making this place look as though it had no floor—as if they strode atop clouds.

The Daemon rounded another corner, turned so that they faced what might have once been a food court.

Dee saw the figures.

They stood, silent sentinels, side by side, their faces staring straight ahead. As if they had been placed there by some enormous child, putting his toy soldiers in a row. They were just the same as Dee remembered—all desiccated flesh and yellowed bones, horrific jigsaw puzzles of human pieces. Each was different, a sculpture shaped by individual hands—some had too many fingers, others were built thick and heavy like tanks, while others were thinner and smaller, lean as skeletons.

This is what comes of wishes.

Two smaller figures sat on a table. They maintained the illusion of humanity, even if their otherworldly beauty gave them away.

One of the other demons was the female, the one whose homunculus had been lost to the void in the field. She was straight-backed, her shaven head gleaming in the moonlight. She looked over the three teenagers with an air of grudging indulgence. “Heart-Monger,” she said, inclining her head to the Daemon.

“Cobbler,” replied the Daemon.

The last demon, this one blond and male, slid the Daemon a cool look. “I see you brought your flimsy little constructs.”

Riley snorted. “Flimsy my ass,” she said. “We’ll see who gets to the prize first and whose Franken-freaks end up in tiny pieces.”

The demon looked vaguely scandalized.

“Your creature is talking to me,” he said to the Daemon.

“Yes,” replied the Daemon. “That’s what happens when they have mouths.”

The male demon snorted and turned away.

Dee was only half listening; her gaze swept over the large room, looking for the smudge of unreality. It was against the far wall, larger than any of the other voids they’d faced. The distorted ripples made it look as though the entire food court’s floor was heated, but the air remained chill and damp.

“Hey,” said James softly. “I don’t know what we’re going to face in there.”

Dee turned to look at him. “No last speeches,” she said firmly. “We’ve done this before. We’re getting out of this.” She pointed at herself with their linked fingers. “Survivor, remember?”

A smile flickered across his face.

“That is what I love most about you,” he told her, and when he pulled her close, she shuddered with relief. For a moment, the mall ceased to exist, the demons weren’t there, and the breathless danger was gone. There was only the scent of paint, the familiar closeness, the top of her head tucked beneath his chin, and the silence in his chest.

This was all that mattered.

“Come,” said the Daemon. “It’s time.” He gestured to Riley. “You will stand half in, half out of the void. Without you, the void will collapse too quickly for the others to escape.” He slid a look at the other demons. “They may not care about losing their servants, but I like to keep mine intact.” He gazed at the three of them. “You are short-lived things, but you have served me well and I would not like to see you destroyed.”

Dee supposed that was his idea of a pep talk.

Riley went first. Her chin was lifted high, her shoulders rigid. She pressed her fingers to the void’s shimmering surface, then she stepped through, angled herself so that she was half in, half out.

One of the demons spoke an unfamiliar word.

The homunculi all moved in unison. Jerky, stiff steps. Their gaits were rigid, as if their joints and tendons were dried up, but the sheer size of their strides made up for it. One by one, they shambled into the enormous void, vanishing through it.

“They will fight, and that will distract the burrowers,” said the Daemon quietly. “Here.”

He held out a duffel bag.

Dee took one strap; James took the other. Her own backpack was still slung over her shoulder, its contents clinking. A lighter was in her right pocket. A knitted heart was in her left.

“Let’s get this done,” said James quietly. His hand found hers, squeezed.

They held on to each other as they stepped forward.

Dee squeezed her eyes shut as they passed through.

And opened them to chaos.

The wind tore the shout from her lips. James shoved Dee sideways and they stumbled, staggered out of the way as the shuddering body of a burrower slammed into the ground beside them.

It had been torn in half, twitching like some squashed beetle, all legs and jerky spasms. Utterly inhuman.

Dee and James lurched away from the creature, out of reach of those claw-tipped legs. Dee tried to catch her breath, but the air was thick and hot and heavy with the taste of burning metal.

This void resembled the interior of the mall—complete with the hollowed-out shells of the food court’s booths and tables. The walls and floor were raw, too new to be real, but that was not what caught Dee’s attention.

All the other voids had been terrifying, but it was because they were voids. Places of screaming wind and emptiness, where her own memories were dragged out of her, as if the void needed them in order to crystallize. But this—this void was not empty.

A battle took place before them.

There were alien creatures with too many legs, some resembling underwater animals, while others looked vaguely insectoid. They were enormous, straight out of a nightmare. And the homunculi—slow-moving but determined—were using their massive, ill-formed hands to slam the creatures out of their paths.

“Do we hang behind?” shouted Dee over the screaming of the wind. Beside these massive beings, she was small and insignificant. The void tugged at her mind, and she could feel the beginnings of a memory, a sickening twist—

She was young and too small and helpless—

And then James’s hand was on her cheek. His fingers were cold. “Dee, stay with me.”

She blinked several times. Focus, she thought. Focus.

Gazing into James’s face, she saw the same struggle in his eyes. The push and pull of then versus now. He swallowed, shivered, and she wondered what memories the void tried make him relive.

Dee’s hand raised to cover his. A moment of understanding passed between them, an acknowledgment. “We can’t rely on the other demons,” said James, speaking above the wind. He was scanning the area, and Dee could see the thoughts working behind his eyes. “We need to move farther in, get the explosives in place.”

She nodded. “We should try to keep to the edges,” she said. “Out of sight—”

A clawed leg emerged from one of the half-formed booths. James cried out, leaping backward, but then a burrower was scuttling toward them. It had no eyes—but a wide mouth, snapping at James’s leg.

But whatever these creatures were, they were not prepared for Gremma’s homemade Molotov cocktails.

Dee’s shaking fingers took two tries to set the wick alight and then she threw. The glass shattered upon the burrower’s armored hide. The flame caught and her eyes watered, blinded by the sudden glare of light.

Did such a thing as fire exist in this creature’s world? Had it ever felt the heat of a flame, the searing agony of a burn?

Probably not, judging by its reaction.

The burrower screamed. It sounded like no creature she had ever heard, no animal cry. It was the screech of metal being rent apart.

Dee reached for the fallen duffel bag and sprinted off, James at her side. They scrambled away, left the creature to burn.

“That was badass,” James shouted above the din.

They darted around a homunculus; it was staggering, one of its legs chewed off at the knee. It was trying to haul itself forward by the strength of its enormous arms, its mismatched eyes on a burrower.

The burrowers were devastatingly quick, all swiftness and grace, but the homunculi were slow, steady, and refused to give ground.

One of the homunculus’s arms nearly clipped Dee. She felt the air rush past her, the whisper of almost-touch, and then James had her by the arm and yanked her to one side, a snarled curse caught between his teeth. A burrower fell upon the fallen homunculus, sinking its claws in again and again, like a scorpion stinging its prey.

There was no time to think. Dee’s fingers gripped another jar, the lighter in her other hand. One of the burrowers seemed to sense their presence—it circled them at a distance, its legs skittering across the floor.

The burrower kept the tables between itself and the teenagers. Warier or smarter than those who had attacked before. She tried to keep her eyes on it at all times, frightened that the moment she looked away would be the moment it struck.

A crack split the air. Dee’s head jerked around, and she saw three of the creatures on one of the homunculi—biting and clawing. The homunculus fell, and its enormous body slammed into the floor. Cracks spun out, as if this fragile half reality could not bear the weight of such a blow.

Panic seared through Dee; she had been watching the homunculi, and not the—

The burrower fell upon her and James with the force of a charging bull. The strap of the duffel bag slipped from her hand.

She felt it slam into her, and she fell, staggering as she hit one of the tables. Her head clipped the edge and stars burned through her eyes. She tried to kick, to writhe like she had been taught in all her self-defense classes—but the lesson on what to do if she was pinned became a lot more complicated when the attacker had eight legs.

She screamed, heard someone else screaming, too, and she struggled to get her arm up, to ward its claws away from her face. She was dimly aware of James trying to pummel the creature with his fists, but it seemed to be doing little good.

She kicked again and again, and she must have gotten lucky, because suddenly her shoe punched through something. A joint, perhaps, or a weakness in the burrower’s armor. It paused, staggered, and that was all the time Dee needed. She threw the backpack beneath the creature, lit the cocktail in her hand, and threw it down into the backpack. She crawled backward, clumsy with haste.

The backpack lit—and the rest of the cocktails went up in one fiery burst.

The creature burned. Dee felt the heat of the flames on her face, but James’s hands were on her shoulders, dragging her upright. She tried to catch her breath, but sand stung her lungs and her face was too hot, as if she’d been sunburned.

And then Dee saw it—the center of the void. It was where things seemed most solid, where the metal scent was harshest. Her eyes stung with grit and she tried to blink the world back into focus.

At that center, something tore through. Another burrower. It pushed through the center of the void, found its equilibrium, and joined the fray. And then another followed. This was where the burrowers came from—from wherever that center led.

Her stomach caved in on itself; there were not enough homunculi to counter all of them. Even with their inhuman strength and determination, they would be overrun.

They weren’t going to make it out again. They might destroy this place, but there simply wouldn’t be time to get past all these creatures. Twenty seconds wasn’t nearly enough.

Something inside of her hardened.

Fine, then.

They would do this. They would save the world and all it would cost was two heartless teenagers.

“Come on,” said James, and they rushed ahead.

It was rough going—a headlong sprint into the chaos. Dee barely managed to avoid being stepped on by a homunculus, and then James was sliced by one of the burrower’s claws. A shallow cut opened up on his forearm before James kicked at the creature, and it scurried backward into the reach of a homunculus. The cobbled-together monster wrapped its fingers around it and squeezed. Dee looked away.

The center of the void was firmer beneath her feet, and suddenly the wind quieted. The eye of the storm, she thought. James set the duffel bag down, tore the zipper open. He fumbled for the remote, for the detonator and timer. Dee stood over, taking comfort in his nearness.

And then he went still.

His trembling fingers held something up and Dee drew in a sharp breath.

In his palm was a mess of shattered plastic and wires.

“What—what is that?” she said.

James looked up. “The timer.”

It must have happened when that last burrower attacked them, when its leg struck the duffel bag.

Broken.

Dee’s last hope slipped from her.

“It’s broken,” he said. “We can’t—we can’t—” The wind swallowed up his words. “There’s no timer to set.” His gaze settled on Dee and his face hardened. But even so, his fingers were trembling as he pulled the duffel bag open. “Manually,” he said, his voice shaking. “We can set off the C-4 manually.”

She knelt beside him and his arms went around her.

This—this would be all right.

Her hand pressed to the place where his heart should have been. “It’s okay,” she said. “I knew—I knew this might happen. I knew what being heartless might cost me.” The words came in little fits and starts, but she said them. And she meant them.

He had been right, the first time they met. After she lost her heart, she had lived. Not simply existed, but lived. She couldn’t regret that; she was only sad it had not lasted longer.

James pressed a kiss to her brow and it felt strange—not like any kiss they had shared. It was affectionate, rather than passionate. He reached inside the duffel bag and withdrew something else. It was not part of the explosives; it was not a river rock—it was wrapped in a clean shirt. He unwrapped it, and then Dee drew in a sharp breath.

The object was red and gleaming, like a fist-sized ruby.

It was a heart.

A heart brought into a void. No wonder those burrowers had zeroed in on them. Dee looked up at James, uncomprehending. She did not—she did not understand why he would have carried that with him. How had he even managed to carry it? She would have thought a heart needed the warmth and breath of a body.

“James…?” she said, his name a question.

But James was smiling, truly smiling, as if he were looking at his final masterpiece, the greatest artwork he had ever created.

He said, “You’re not heartless, are you?”

And then he shoved the heart against her chest.

She had only a moment to gasp. The heart should have hit her clothes, her skin, but whatever power the Daemon used was still upon it. The heart passed through cotton and skin and bone as if they were not there.

It sank into her chest.

It hurt; it was like the snap of shoving a key into a lock, of fitting pieces together. She could not speak for the pain, could not think for the shock.

James kissed her. A press of heat, his mouth against hers, and it was too quick. Abruptly, it felt as if gravity had upended. Her fingers clawed at the air and she fell backward, wrenched away from James. She reached for him and caught only air.

Nothing living can enter the voids. Nothing with a heart.

She remembered the rats being spat out, hurled by some invisible force. The same force that gripped her. With a cry, she tried to hold on, tried to stay—

James was still smiling—and it made him look so beautiful her heart ached.

Her heart.

But it couldn’t be her heart—her time wasn’t up—

She understood. It wasn’t her heart.

It was his.

The weight of it dragged at her, a heavy anchor hooked through her rib cage, and then she was crashing downhill, no, not downhill there was no downhill, but she was falling, falling sideways and tumbling and staggering, all elbows and knees, sand catching in her hair, her stomach turning over, and then the pop in her ears as if the air pressure had suddenly changed.

She was flung from the mouth of the void, and as she went, she had enough sense to grab at Riley and the two of them hit the ground together. They rolled, still caught by the momentum, and Dee desperately tried to right herself. She scrambled to hands and knees, faced the void—still glittering and half there, and maybe there was enough time.

She lunged to her feet, rushed toward the void.

James. She was not sure if she thought his name or spoke it aloud, but—

The void imploded.

The world was saved.

A girl got her heart back.

And lost it in the same moment.