Gregor stared at the spot where he imagined the wall made of a pile of large rocks he had seen when he had last clicked his tongue. He could have sworn years had gone by when, in truth, it couldn't have been more than an hour.

He and Ares had settled in this tunnel to wait for their allies, and he found it hard not to fidget. Beyond the wall was the Plain of Tartarus, and on it were the rats that had remained to guard the Bane. Only around a hundred, Ares had said. Gregor had almost been tempted to just risk it and attack immediately, relying on his rager thing to fight for him, but Ares had talked him out of it. Ares and Ripred.

Some of your allies will join you by the Plain, the rat had assured. I know not many rats remain there but we cannot risk you being overwhelmed. You fight one creature today, boy, and one only.

One target. He felt for his sword and the device Henry had strapped around the hilt. All he had to do was pull the lever, and the blade would be his light source . . . apparently. Gregor swallowed. Hadn't he, once upon a time, looked at Henry's sword and told himself he would never take up something of the sort?

"It is okay to be scared."

Gregor scooted to the side and leaned his head on Ares' back. "I'm scared, alright." He bit his lip so hard that it hurt. Waiting was torture, and here, he hadn't even anything to distract himself.

They hadn't departed on time; they had waited back in the camp because the captains had insisted they should wait to hear from Solovet or Henry about the spinners. When a day had passed without a word from either of them, the captains had unanimously decided they would attack as Henry had planned.

Gregor had spent the time with Vikus, Hazard, and his sisters. He wanted to cheer the old man up as much as he could—not that it alleviated much of his guilt for keeping Luxa's being alive a secret. Then he had sparred with Ripred and finally, he had helped Lizzie and the code team decode more messages that were flooding in. Messages about Whitespur's death, about deserters, about Ripred . . . Then there had been a message about the counterstrike that had alarmed them all—apparently, Solovet hadn't wasted any time informing Twirltongue of their plans—but it was meaningless, deduced Ripred eventually. They were delayed, so the rats wouldn't know when to expect them. And Solovet knew nothing about the ignifer either.

And then had come a message about Gregor's own supposed death, which had greatly amused Ripred. Then it had intrigued him, and he had said they should use it to their advantage. So, here Gregor was, out of sight . . . pretending to be dead. Waiting yet again.

He had practiced echolocation for a while, but that had become tedious after some time. Then he had asked Ares to tell him some stories from his past, and his bat had talked willingly—about Henry and the good times they'd had together. About Luxa and Aurora and the four of them and the adventures and troubles they had gotten into. About covertly sneaking out and exploring into the Firelands, about midnight swimming in the Spout, and about camping in their old hideout for days, so as not to be bothered. Even about having to learn the Tree of Transmission for the Code of Claw and how it had inspired Henry and Luxa to speak about devising a secret code of their own, although they had never gotten around to it.

The stories had entertained him so much that he almost didn't think about the Prophecy of Time or how this fight might end. Well, considering Henry managed to live through being "the last who will die" . . . Gregor reminded himself of Ripred's words. Of his encouragement. They misinterpreted prophecies all the time, and yet . . . and yet he couldn't stop seeing his parents' faces, or those of Lizzie and Boots, as he had waved them goodbye. "See you soon," they had said, and he had said it back. Gregor pulled his legs up and had to suddenly fight panic. He had said it back, like—

"I wish Henry was here," Gregor said out of the blue; he found himself overwhelmed by a desire for the capable outcast to be here with him for this fight. Him or Ripred . . . Gregor recalled his thoughts about those two being his first choices to have by his side in an emergency. He would feel so much better about this fight if he and Ares weren't entirely alone in it. "Didn't he say something about maybe joining us?"

"He did, although we do not know if his mission to follow Solovet is not keeping him occupied," Ares replied. "It is okay to be scared," he repeated after a short pause. "Especially considering what the prophecy foretells. But we do not know what it means for certain, did Ripred not say that?"

Gregor nodded. "I have to believe I can come out alive until I actually don't." It was what he had told Ripred after their last sparring session, and the rat had looked proud. Actually proud. Gregor managed a smile at the memory.

"Exactly," said Ares after a while. "I cannot deny that I would like to have them by our side as well, but let us not get discouraged if Henry and Thanatos cannot make it here on time. We are not alone for as long as we are together. He trusted that we would be all we needed, after all."

Gregor took a deep breath, forcing his mind away from everything that terrified him. "Yeah. You and me," he smiled. "Together. Henry did say that he trusted us. You know, he's really good at that commander thing. He—" Remembering what Luxa had said about Henry's choice, Gregor stopped himself before he would have said, "He'll make for a great commander."

At the thought of Luxa, his hand flew up to his breastplate, where he had formerly stashed the photo of her. He hadn't gotten the chance to stash a new one there, and suddenly, the spot burned empty.

"Henry has always been a talented warrior," Ares hummed, distracting Gregor from spiraling into missing Luxa. "Although I admit that I did not realize just how talented until he returned. Maybe I should have seen it the day he defeated the blood balls. Even Mareth apparently did."

"Oh yeah . . . wait, he did what?" Gregor perked up. Only then did he recall Mareth saying something when Miravet had exposed Henry, something about—

"Has he not told you? Among all his tales of triumph, has he not once mentioned this?" Ares sounded surprised, and Gregor found himself surprised too. Henry was many things . . . humble was not one of them. Not even close.

"I thought nobody could hit all the blood balls unless they were a rager?" Gregor mumbled.

"There have been some," Ares replied. "Not many, but some have conquered the challenge at one point. Of course, they have all trained for weeks or even months, learned techniques and tricks, and not simply done it on their first attempt. Shortly before his coming of age, Henry had joined their ranks."

Gregor considered it. Henry—not the great outcast warrior he knew now, but Henry pre-exile. Pre-echolocation. It must have been incredibly hard, Gregor thought, and yet he had apparently won. If he had heard this information before hearing Henry's story and his ordeals, he would have been more surprised. But . . . "I guess it really was in him all along. Somewhere . . . deep."

"It was," Ares replied. "Although maybe it will be easier to believe if I tell you why he chose to undertake this challenge in the first place." Gregor's bond paused. "He was told that he could never do it."

Gregor snorted, and Ares joined in his laughter. "By no other than Stellovet," he added a moment later. "To spite her, and every other cynic who mocked him for the announcement, he pushed himself to his limit in training for an entire month until he could slice open fifteen blood balls."

Gregor laughed more; that sounded like Henry, alright. Then he suddenly stopped laughing. "He wanted to prove himself," he mumbled into the still cave and recalled Henry's words to Ripred, all of a sudden—that the rat could bully everyone else, but not him. "To prove that they couldn't laugh at him."

"That was what he always wanted," Ares said quietly. "Sometimes I wondered if there was anything at all that Henry did, that did not ultimately serve the purpose of proving something to someone, even if only to himself."

"And so he proved it to even Sandwich and his prophecy," Gregor mumbled suddenly. "That he, that . . . Sandwich couldn't tell him when to die. That he had no plans to die."

Gregor stared down at where he felt his own hands and suddenly felt a powerful wave of an odd emotion he had no name for drowning out his fear. "I'm not here because of some prophecy, and if I die here, it won't be because of a prophecy either." He clenched his fists and recalled what he had announced to his parents and then to Lizzie. That he wanted to stay, to fight. To stop the Bane from killing more innocents.

"The prophecy may fall into place, or it may not," mumbled Ares. "We are not stripped of our free will by its existence."

Gregor nodded. He felt a fresh surge of that emotion, followed by an almost desperate determination. "I had so many opportunities to run away," he suddenly said. "I could run away right now. Heck, I could have just taken my family and run away right after we returned from the last quest. But I didn't. That was a choice, not a prophecy. And I'm making a choice now." He didn't stop the single tear from rolling down his cheek. "The Bane dies today. For what he did to the mice, and to every other innocent being he ever hurt. For . . . the Underland. No matter who else has to die with him, the Bane dies. Okay?"

Ares behind him shifted until Gregor could tighten his hand around his bond's claw. "For the Underland," mumbled Ares. "And for us."

"If I still had the cookies I brought, I would seal this vow with one." Gregor wiped his face and smiled. "Maybe Henry can give us them after we return?"

"As a reward," said Ares, and Gregor nodded.

They sat silently for what felt like an eternity but couldn't have been more than a minute. Then Ares' ears perked up.

"Are they here?"

"I hear many approaching. Enough to take the gnawers around the Bane," his bond replied, and Gregor stumbled to his feet and clicked his tongue to mount up.

"Let's greet them," he said as Ares was already lifting off. He flew away from the plain, and for the first time, Gregor wondered where the actual entrance to it was.

As he stared out into the darkness, his hand clenched around the sword so hard that it hurt. It didn't matter, he tried to tell himself. Whether he died or not. Hadn't he been prepared to die two years ago, he suddenly thought, to be the last who would die? Hadn't he flung himself off a cliff for it? Gregor almost snorted. He had—he'd jumped off a stupid cliff for the sake of taking the rats with him. How was this any different?

It didn't matter; Gregor thought again and clenched his teeth. It hadn't mattered back then, and it didn't matter now, he told himself. And he almost believed it.

***

This attack was a coordinated ambush, and it felt like one. Like a dagger in the chest of a sleeping man . . . a sleeping rat. There was suddenly no difference between the two.

Gregor's palms tingled from the unwanted imagery and how much he still believed that killing people in their sleep was not the way to go. The Bane had killed the mice in their sleep, he thought, but it didn't make what he was seeing any better.

They had all come—all the species Luxa had won over for their cause, and more. Down below, scorpions blocked all the exit paths, preventing any retreat, spiders lowered themselves from the ceiling, spinning webs in the ways of the confused and dazed rats that had rested on the plain, and lobsters leaped on their backs from tunnels similarly high up to the one Gregor and Ares were perched in.

The leaders of their allies had told the two to wait up there and allow them to lure the Bane out. He was still not in sight, and it was slowly driving Gregor mad to wait. He didn't want to watch the carnage—it was a carnage, what occurred below. Luckily, the light from the river that flowed somewhere on the other side was sparse and he didn't see more than silhouettes. Still, his echolocation when he occasionally clicked his tongue and his imagination filled the gaps where his perception lacked.

The rats had been so unprepared that they didn't have it in themselves to put up much of a defense. They panicked, scurried apart, and Gregor saw a few run straight into what he discerned was a massive scorpion that stood in the largest exit, tail raised.

The rats' screeches as they met the stinger speared his ears, and Gregor flinched. Another group of rats was webbed up by three spiders before they could so much as make a sound, and swiftly injected with venom. Inside the web, Gregor watched the caught rats twine and twist until their flesh seemed to rot and dissolve right off their bones. In what couldn't have been more than a minute, they were no more than skeletons.

Gregor shut his eyes and retched. An image of Howard's bat Pandora being eaten alive by mites flashed before him, and he pressed his face into Ares' fur.

He didn't watch. At that moment, he didn't care how necessary all of this was or that they were aiming to take out a bloodthirsty tyrant. Maybe he really was green, Gregor thought again. If he was, he suddenly wished he could stay green for the rest of his life. No matter if I die or not, he thought, let it be over. After today, let this carnage be over.

He could die to end the war, he thought. To end the war, the bloodshed. That's what he would die for today.

He couldn't tell how much time had passed when Ares next to him perked up. "Gregor! There! Above the river!"

Gregor forced himself to raise his face out of Ares' fur and scanned the wall above the river. In the distance, he found Nike's black-and-white-striped wings fluttering in the mouth of a cave or tunnel—Gregor couldn't tell which—as she fended off a rat on the shelf of rock before her.

"What's she doing here?" asked Gregor. She was supposed to be with Boots and Lizzie, far from the battle, as Ripred had promised. If Nike was here, where were his sisters? Stuck somewhere with only Temp and Hazard for protection? Gregor took a cautious step forward on the ledge. His mouth opened to call out to her, but no sound came. Why didn't she fly off? She wasn't a skilled enough fighter to fight without a human teammate. What was she—?

And then Gregor saw something that stopped his heart. A thin beam of light shone out of the opening behind Nike; it was flashing in a pattern that Gregor recognized. Played on the bedroom wall, tapped out with a fork on the kitchen table, the flashlight signaling dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot . . . dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot . . . SOS. SOS. SOS.

"Lizzie," he whispered. Then he began to scream. "My sisters! My sisters are in there!" Gregor vaulted onto Ares's back. "Go!" he shouted. "GO!"

Ares didn't object, but he did remind Gregor: "If we go, they will know that you still have life."

Ripred had told Gregor to lie low until the Bane arrived, but that seemed of little importance now. With one motion, he tugged out and switched on his spare flashlight. He always carried one now; he had learned to do so the hard way, and not even his figuring out the echolocation could dissuade him from doing so.

Gregor hardly noticed—or cared—that his appearance was a huge shocker for the rats, who began to howl his name the second he and Ares left the cover of the rocks. Gregor ignored them; they weren't his concern. He would deal with the Bane when he actually arrived.

Now, he had a far more urgent mission. And he wasn't going to make it. He wasn't going to. He had flown on Ares enough now to gauge the amount of time it would take him to travel a certain distance, and they were too far. The rats would beat them. Nike could not fend them off. His sisters would be torn to pieces and—

An arrow darted toward Nike from the side, flying along the cave wall. The claws of the bat dug into the rat that had assaulted Nike, and the human on her back struck down another that had almost made its way up.

Gregor blinked. For a moment, his heart leaped because he recognized the bat's golden coat. He would recognize it anywhere. But the human on her back was—

"What the hell are you doing?!" Henry yelled at Gregor as he fended off the last few who had stood in Nike's way. The striped bat dipped back into the tunnel as soon as the path was cleared. "Where is the Bane?"

Ares halted so abruptly that he almost flew head-first into the wall next to the tunnel entry before catching himself on the ledge beside Aurora. "You made it," he huffed. "You and—"

"Where is Luxa?!" Gregor hated that his voice cracked when he said her name.

Aurora steadied herself beside Ares and Henry threw Gregor an accusing glare. "You think I'll let Luxa come here? We, uh—" He laughed nervously, sheathing his bloodied sword. "We made sure that she was otherwise occupied. Don't worry, Death is with her. You'll see her again. So will all of us."

"If she does not hack off your head for tricking her," said Aurora to Henry and the outcast laughed again.

Only then did Gregor remember what he had come here for. "My sisters—!"

"Nike has them," Henry assured. "She and Ripred . . . he's here somewhere," he gestured behind him. "We have it covered, Gregor. But why are you here? Why aren't you looking for the Bane?"

Gregor swallowed. They had it covered. He stared up at Henry and suddenly wondered if he would ever even see his sisters again. Or Ripred. "Henry?"

"You're stalling!" called the outcast, eyes locked on the scene below. "There are not many left anymore. Wherever he is hiding, it cannot possibly take much more than—"

"Tell my sisters I love them, okay?"

Henry's head darted around to Gregor.

"Tell Ripred he is a jerk but also that he's incredible and that I'm grateful that he exists, and that he is on our side. And tell Luxa—"

"Gregor, you will tell them yourself." Henry shook his head. "There is no time for—" He suddenly cut himself off. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Faster than Gregor could comprehend, Henry slid off Aurora's back and dragged Gregor off of Ares. Then he smacked the back of Gregor's head. "You're a dumbass, you know that?!"

"Ow!" Gregor groaned. "What was that for?"

"For being a dumbass!" Henry tugged him forward by his collar. "And for not coming to speak to me about this stupid prophecy sooner. Or Ripred! That's what this is about, no?"

"Yes . . ." Gregor tugged his helmet into place, rubbing the back of his head, and stared up at Henry with narrowed eyes. "And I did speak to Ripred . . ."

"You did—?" Henry groaned. "Am I supposed to take that as a personal insult, or something?!" Before Gregor had the chance to respond, Henry tugged at his collar again. "Listen, we don't have time for grand speeches, but the prophecy is a carving on a wall; it cannot come and physically strangle you. It can give you a dagger, but it cannot force you to drive it into your own chest. Believe it or not, I actually forgot all about that "warrior has been killed" shtick even existing." Henry laughed. "You know what it is? Probably some symbolic shit like "you have now fulfilled your role" or something."

Gregor perked up. That was the first thing that had crossed his mind when thinking up alternative interpretations of that line, but—

"Listen—dumbass." Henry shook him. "The prophecies are like rippling surfaces of water; they distort their content subjectively. They do not let us share in Sandwich's visions. They can comfort us if they fall into place and confirm things, but we must never let them scare us. You got that?"

Gregor hesitated only for a heartbeat before he nodded.

"Then go!" Henry shooed. "Go and kick some large white rat ass. I have your sisters; I have it covered. Just go! And come to me next time you're being a dumbass!" Henry flicked the air in front of Gregor's face, then pulled him into a tight hug that pressed all the air out of his lungs for a moment. Nonetheless, Gregor returned the hug just as tightly, suddenly having to fight tears.

"Goo!" Henry released him. "And you watch him out there, okay?" he said to Ares. "You take care. You two."

Ares nodded and when Henry slowly raised a hand in his direction, the black bat leaned in and allowed him to stroke the side of his face. "So do you."

Henry smiled. "As long as you drop your own plans to die, I do not have anything of the sort on my agenda today." With that, he unsheathed his sword, then turned back one last time to give them a big thumbs up before taking a flying leap over the edge. Aurora caught him moments later and dove. Gregor could have sworn that Henry on her back shouted something about surrender. Not their surrender, obviously, but . . . did he mean to spare the survivors if they surrendered?

"So, is this why you wished that Henry was here, earlier?" Ares asked, and Gregor shook his head, still smiling.

"No. But it's part of the package. Hey Ares," he said suddenly, mounting up and scanning the ground for signs of white fur. "Let's do it. Let's do what Henry did two years ago, okay? Let's prove it to Sandwich and his prophecy."

"Let us," Ares replied, leaping in the air. "As long as you do not tell Henry that we motivated ourselves through his actions. We would not hear the end of it."

It was at that moment that a bloodcurdling howl ripped the stifling air to shreds. Gregor didn't need to point his flashlight down and see to know who that was. Only one creature he knew roared like that. His eyes instead scanned the cave for Aurora's golden coat, but she and Henry weren't in sight anymore.

In search of the Bane, Ares swung around only to find him right in his face. The bat veered sharply to the side just as one of the powerful clawed paws whistled by Gregor's ear and then scraped down the side of the cavern, unleashing a magnified sound like nails on a chalkboard.

"We must have more space!" cried Ares, and Gregor nodded, not thinking about how Ares couldn't see it. But he was right; they couldn't fight the Bane trapped up against this wall. They needed room to maneuver. "More space!" Ares repeated. "And more light!"

The sword. Gregor hadn't even drawn it yet. Now he shoved the flashlight back into his pocket hastily and struggled to unsheathe it and find the lever that lit it on fire. It was now or never for that.

Before he had managed it, Ares had made it back toward the middle of the cave, drawing the Bane after them. Gregor had a few moments to click his tongue and assess his opponent. Boy, the Bane was a royal mess! He was scarred and hurt from their last encounter. The stump of his tail was capped with a huge ball of bloody . . . spider silk. Spider silk? But weren't the spiders on their side?

Gregor had no time to contemplate it; he did his best to stay on Ares' back and not drop his sword as the bat dodged and weaved almost erratically to escape all claws and teeth.

Losing the tail seemed to have done something to the Bane's sense of balance because he moved unsteadily, almost as if he were intoxicated. Gregor gritted his teeth and finally closed his hand around the lever on the sword. With one big tug, he pulled it and cried when something hissed before flames jetted down the blade of his sword. Heat slapped him in the face, and he almost dropped the burning sword. But he couldn't drop it. He had to use it.

Gregor heard himself screaming at the top of his lungs, and Ares veered back toward the white rat the moment he realized Gregor had ignited his sword.

Only when Gregor caught his first good look at the Bane did he realize the real change was the look in his eyes. A shiver slithered down his spine when Gregor understood he had crossed over the line from damaged to demented. The Bane came crashing across the plain toward them as every creature in sight desperately fled. Bodies on the ground burst open under his paws. Anyone in reach of his claws was shredded.

This isn't like before, thought Gregor. He was fighting a whole new opponent.

"Where'd he come from?" he asked Ares, raising the sword higher, both to see and to be as far away from the fire as he could.

"The tunnel to the right," Ares replied, flying a mellow circle around the twining Bane. "I know it. It leads farther into the rats' land."

"Is there much room?"

"Yes. A large tunnel, then more caverns."

"Take it," Gregor cried. "Let's make him work for us." A chase would hopefully wear the Bane out a bit and keep him from killing anyone else. It would also give Gregor a less distracting place to fight. He wanted quiet. He wanted one-on-one. He didn't think about how he also didn't like the sight of mangled corpses below that shone eerily in the fire of his sword.

Ares wordlessly shot down the tunnel and the Bane was right behind them, bouncing off the walls, roaring. The fire of his sword illuminated his surroundings excellently and Gregor thought he hadn't given Henry's invention enough credit before. As distracting as the fire was, it may save his life today. He all but wondered why nobody else in the Underland had thought of something like this before.

But he had no time to wonder more. The tunnel led into a rocky cavern that soared high into the air. Ares flew up higher but the Bane followed, making seemingly impossible leaps up boulders and onto ledges as he followed behind.

At first, Gregor could see the shadows of other rats in the area, but soon they fell away, either unable or unwilling to pursue them. And still, Ares flew higher, finding a strange tunnel with dripping rock formations, and finally coming to rest on a plateau that seemed a million miles from anywhere.

He was able to land for a minute and rest. They listened to the sound of the Bane, bellowing in rage and pain as he struggled toward them.

"Will this place do?" Ares asked.

"It's perfect," said Gregor, finding himself in need of catching his breath as though he had done the flying. He stared at the flaming sword in his hand; pearls of sweat formed on his forehead from the heat it gave off and he attempted to figure out how to best swing and hold it, to burn neither himself nor Ares and still strike a potential opponent. Only then did he remember he also had a dagger; he ripped it out of its sheath and gripped both weapons with all his might. He was ready.

He winced anyway when the Bane took one last giant leap onto the plateau and Ares lifted off again. The chase had been a good idea, Gregor discerned. The Bane was drained, gasping for air, thick foam hanging from his mouth. Several wounds had reopened on his face; the spider silk bandage had ripped off somewhere, and blood ran from the stump of his tail.

"Alone at last." Gregor raised his sword and took a deep breath. But they weren't.

"Take a minute," said the soothing voice. "Calm yourself before you destroy him."

"Twirltongue!" Gregor exclaimed; every muscle in his body tensed at the sight of the rat who had almost turned him against Ripred when they first met. Ripred, who . . . was out there, according to Henry, saving his sisters. "Where did she come from?"

"I do not know," said Ares. "She was not with him on the Plain of Tartarus."

Had the Bane picked her up somewhere along the way?

She leaped off his back onto a pile of boulders. A nice, safe place to observe the match. Gregor could see she was unmarried; there was not a wound on her anywhere. Her silver coat was flawless and unruffled. Of course. Gregor gritted his teeth, restraining himself from asking Ares to fly and take her out right then and there. She was the one who had made the plans and groomed the Bane into this deranged creature. She'd conspired with Solovet and probably orchestrated Whitespur's death, too. Twirltongue and her silken voice. Unbridled hatred for her boiled in his gut.

"You're looking good, Twirltongue," Gregor called. "A little too good. Seeing much action? Or are you just sending the Bane in to lose his tail and such?"

"My tail? My tail?" cried the Bane. He began to move in circles, trying to locate it. "My TAIL!"

"A king does not need a tail," said Twirltongue soothingly.

"But he does!" called Gregor, recalling what Whitespur had said. "He's no king." He did his best to suppress the shaking of his voice and mimic the tone that he remembered from her—from Whitespur and from Ripred. "Are you, Pearlpelt?"

The name distracted the Bane from his tail. "I am the king. I am the king now! The gnawers follow me!"

"Only because you killed the one they really wanted to follow!" Gregor cried. "Isn't that why you killed Whitespur? Because she posed a threat to your title?"

The Bane froze. But before he or Twirltongue could speak, Gregor continued: "And they still don't all follow you. They would rather follow Lapblood, Splintleg, and Ripred than you. They're out there right now, killing your army, side by side with the humans! Did you know that?"

"What?"

Twirltongue's question was drowned out by the Bane's roar: "RIPRED?!"

"Yes, Ripred! He's more of a king than you will ever be!"

Even Twirltongue flinched at the screech the Bane gave, then. "Twirltongue says I'm the king!" he wailed. "I AM!"

"I must say that, from up here, it looks like she aims to get you killed so she can take over," said Ares. "Have you considered that?"

"What? WHAT?!" The Bane was so far gone that the cleverly thought-up words were all it took. He turned to Twirltongue, his eyes narrowing into slits. "You will not take over. I'm the king! I'm THE KING!"

"Of course you're the king." She twitched and gave a light laugh. "Who would follow a nothing like me?" She aimed to sound confident, but she was backing away. "He doesn't know what he is talking about."

"If that's true, then why are you untouched and I am like this?!" hissed the Bane.

"Because kings are bold and brave fighters." Twirltongue edged along a boulder. "Your scars are badges of your might. No one would follow someone as untried and feeble as myself."

"No. You're right. No one will follow you. No one will ever follow you again!" The Bane sprang and, in one bite, ripped Twirltongue's head from her body.

It hung in his mouth, teeth bared in a final grotesque grimace, before the Bane flung it at Gregor and Ares, almost hitting them. It smashed into the ground with an awful, hollow sound. The Bane stroked his paws over his eyes a few times, then looked up in confusion. "Where . . . is Twirltongue?" he said forlornly. "Where did she go?"

Neither Gregor nor Ares replied; Gregor stared at the severed head in shock. He didn't quite know how to feel at its sight. It felt wrong to be gleeful at a death—any death—but he couldn't help it this time.

The Bane nosed along the ground until he found the head. "Twirltongue? Twirltongue? She's dead . . ." he began to whimper. "She's DEAD . . . !" Gregor clutched his sword so hard that his hand hurt. All his tentative glee drained at once when the Bane's voice cracked and his distress transformed back into rage. "YOU killed her!" he spat at Ares and Gregor.

"Does he really believe . . ." Gregor didn't finish his sentence. He knew the answer from the livid stare in the Bane's huge eyes. For some reason, it terrified him more than his previous outbreak.

"You KILLED HER!" the Bane roared. "Just like you killed my MOTHER!"

Whether the Bane had just thought that one up on the spot or Twirltongue had planted it in his brain along the way, Gregor had no idea. He only knew that twelve feet of rat was coming at him . . . and the long-anticipated fight had begun.

Ares dodged the rat's first attack. By the time the bat had spun back around, Gregor's rager state was at its peak. But he was not overcome by it. In fact, he could control his actions with a deadly accuracy that left him heady with power. This was a new feeling. This strength. This lethality. This must be what Ripred felt all the time. Only briefly did the thought cross his mind that, despite the feeling of invincibility, he didn't—couldn't—enjoy it.

"Go for his face!" Gregor yelled. This strategy had worked well before, and now the Bane had no tail to retaliate with.

But if the white rat had been a challenge back in Regalia, there had been at least some sense to his movements. Now his motions were erratic and unpredictable. He wasn't concerned with his own state, only that Gregor ended up dead.

The Bane swiped at them again and again, not bothering to block Gregor's attacks and ignoring his own wounds. Only the flame of Gregor's sword seemed to instill an instinct to retreat and dodge that ran too deep to be ignored, even now. But despite his dodging, the Bane's white coat soon became singed from where the flaming sword landed. But his own claws and teeth found their targets as well—Ares' wing, Gregor's arm, Ares' ear.

"Pull back!" Gregor screamed, and his bat whipped out of the Bane's reach.

"We need to do something." Gregor panted, trying to twist the sleeve of his shirt into a sort of bandage over a gash on his left arm without releasing the sword or burning himself.

"He has lost his balance," hissed Ares.

"Can we use that?" Gregor asked and froze. "Hey, wait! That thing that Thanatos did during the challenge battle. That . . . coiler-thing! Do you think we could—?"

Instead of a reply, Ares took off and initiated the coiler—a wild circle around the Bane that made Gregor regret his strategy instantly; he felt like his stomach had been yanked out of his body and remained behind. Where it had once been, a pit gaped in his gut that made him feel sick. It was the same sensation he remembered from the last and only time he had ever ridden a roller coaster and a brutal reminder of why he had vowed to never do it again. Gregor shut his eyes; he saw nothing anyway. He clung to Ares and prayed that it might end soon . . . and amount to something, at least.

When Ares slowed again and Gregor felt his stomach plunge back into his body, he couldn't help it—he leaned over and threw up. Only on the side did he register that the flame of his sword had shrunken a little.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he mumbled at Ares' question and wiped his mouth. "Let's not do that again unless we absolutely have to, okay?"

Ares hummed approvingly, and Gregor swallowed, breathing deeply. He did his best to ignore the taste of vomit in his mouth and registered that it seemed to at least have worked. The Bane was reeling more than before; he lurched from side to side and wailed non-stop, but he was still fighting bitterly. Gregor did some damage to his paws, but that was all that his sword could make contact with.

"I've got to get in closer if I'm going to take him out!" Gregor pressed out of his burning throat. He watched the flames dance around his sword and bend back when Ares dipped.

"Hang on!"

They spun one last time, and then Gregor was face-to-face with the Bane. He lashed the burning blade at him, and even in this mindless state, the white rat shrieked and instinctively jerked back and to the side when the flame singed his whiskers. His enormous jaws shut and cracked the air . . . and the tissue of Ares' left wing.

Both Ares and Gregor screamed. Ares faltered, and for a moment, Gregor was convinced he would fall. He locked his free arm as tightly around Ares' neck as he could and suddenly found himself directly under the Bane's foreleg . . . So he plunged his sword into the soft flesh.

The Bane gave a strangled cry and jerked backward, freeing Gregor's blade.

"Get out!" Gregor cried. "Get out, Ares!"

Ares voiced a high-pitched cry but couldn't break free. Gregor looked up to see what had happened and then realized his sword wasn't burning anymore. It was dripping with blood. With the last of his strength, he clicked his tongue and received an image of the Bane's jaws locked around the bone in Ares' wing. A terrible crack tore the air, and Ares screamed again.

"ARES!" came out of Gregor's sore throat.

But the Bane didn't unlock his jaw. He twined and struggled as though his teeth had lodged in Ares' tissue . . . or his bone. The bat cried again piteously as the white rat dragged him along when he reeled into a wall. They knocked into it so hard that Gregor saw stars for a second. He was dazed, barely comprehending that, suddenly, the Bane's face was within his reach. Without thinking, he dropped Solovet's dagger and wrapped both hands around the hilt of his sword. As the Bane still had his teeth sunken deep into Ares' wing, Gregor clicked his tongue, analyzed the image for the perfect spot, and pierced the rat's heart.

His sword pierced fur and flesh, and for a moment, they hung there, interconnected, supported by teeth, and swords, and claws. Then the Bane made an unearthly sound and rammed his free paw into Gregor's chest. A hoarse cry escaped Gregor and he lost his grip on his sword, flying back into the air and slamming onto the stone floor.

His hand went to his breastbone. The claws had torn aside his armor and opened a hot, wet hole in his chest. His fingers pulsed with the rapid beating of his heart.

Above him, Ares still dangled from the Bane's jaws, weakly clawing at the rat's chest with his legs. But the Bane didn't open his mouth. Maybe he really couldn't. Rat and bat crashed to the ground together, and all that Gregor perceived was that Ares' scream was weaker than before.

The Bane pawed at the blade in his chest, trying to dislodge it. Then he became still and slowly curled onto his back. Despite the nigh-unbroken darkness, Gregor thought he could make out the exact moment he grew rigid with death.

"A . . . res . . ." Despite the pain, Gregor dragged himself across the floor to his bond. Ares lay on his back, his wing still in the Bane's jaw bent at an awkward angle. Gregor clicked his tongue weakly and instantly discerned that he wouldn't be able to get him out by himself.

Blood soaked his hands and his hair when he collapsed over Ares. His bond growled weakly, but he made a sound. He breathed. There, under Gregor's ear, was a heartbeat. Tears mixed with the blood as Gregor curled up against his bond. His right hand reached out, found Ares' claw, and latched on to it.

"Ares . . . don't go. Okay? Don't."

His bond didn't respond, but he squeezed Gregor's hand back. Only a little, but he did.

"We'll get out." Gregor shut his eyes, unable to concern himself with whether it was wise to waste energy on words. "Someone will . . . find us. We will . . . We did it." It was the only thing on his mind at that moment. They had done it. "We lived. We proved it to that . . . prophecy. Didn't I say we would?" He said it despite how fast he felt the blood leaving his body. It seeped out of his chest and mingled with Ares' blood, then ran onto the ground to join the Bane's.

Would anyone find them? He would . . . would he die? Here, as Sandwich had foretold?

"The war is over," Gregor whispered, not even knowing whether it was true. But it was all he could still comfort himself with. "It's over. All over. For good. No more . . ." He hadn't the strength to finish the sentence, but . . . no more fighting, he thought. No more killing one another to then, in the end, have diminished one another's ranks without anything having honestly changed. No more wasting precious life.

A war . . . Gregor thought the whole concept suddenly seemed like a ridiculous game that could easily have been replaced by another game, a hand of cards, a chess match, a roll of the dice. A game from which everyone could have gone home alive.

No more. The next time he and Ares would fly together, it wouldn't be into battle, he thought and smiled as a feeling of peace slowly descended on him. He was at peace . . . And, then and there, Gregor suddenly knew that he wasn't going back to New York. His grip on Ares' claw tightened; he was done running away. Done fighting too. Now, he had earned being at home. And his home was . . .

His home was where he had fought, bled, and sacrificed. Where he had learned to truly live, for the first time in his fourteen years. Where he had received scars and wounds but also learned to not let those define him.

There is always good and bad, Gregor thought. There is always both. He remembered the pains of each quest as well as their gains. It is our own choice, he thought, what we focus on. What we do with the things we cannot influence or change. With the countless injustices of life. Whether Sandwich's prophecies were part of that injustice or whether the people who misinterpreted them were at fault, he couldn't tell. He didn't even honestly care. All he cared about was that he wanted to be home.

His home . . . it was where they were all together, as his mom always said. They all—his parents, his sisters . . . his friends, his team, his bond . . . and whatever Luxa was to him now. They were all in one place. And it was all so crystal clear, all of a sudden. Gregor wasn't going back to New York because his home was . . . here.

Gregor smiled. Any moment now he expected to feel a tug or a touch, someone waking him from this odd trance. He couldn't move on his own anymore; the images of the cavern were dimming. His breathing became shallow. Any time now . . .

Far away, a pure, blue light appeared. Was that someone finally coming to wake him up? Gregor wanted to wake up. He wanted to reach and stretch toward the light but he couldn't move. It was almost here. It would take him home. Maybe at home, there would even be Henry with the cookies Gregor had promised Ares as a reward. That was the last thought he had. He was almost there.

Then everything went black.