The barrier evaporated. Calponia slumped to the ground, steam curling off her skin. Jacob frowned. Not what he expected, but the Heart was within his reach. He stepped forward and placed a hand against the hard surface. It was warm to the touch. A beat pulsed against his palm.

"He should have chosen me," says Jacob. The knife slides up under Melvin's ribs. Warm blood slicks the blade, coats his hand. He sobs. How could he do this to the boy? I never meant to take it this far. He hears Melvin's gasp. Hands close on his wrists. Jacob looks up at Melvin's wide grey green eyes.

"Oh sweet Jacob, did you do all this to catch my attention?"

What?

"It's his best chance," says Mack. His fingers drum the bar. Each beat is a stab in Jacob's chest.

"I thought I was your apprentice."

Mack stands. This is not what happened. Jacob backs up a step but Mack places a hand on his shoulder and another against the center of his chest.

"Your heart is not strong enough, Jacob. Even in his weakest moments of doubt, Mack always reached for me. Always came back to me, steadfast and true."

Jacob shoves him. Anger gives clarity. "Stop messing with my mind!" The Edgewise stares at him, wearing Mack's face. The tavern master's expression is somber. Jacob shoves him again, anger hot and bitter in his gut. Memories flood back with such force it sends him reeling.

"You shut me out. Mack fed me that bullshit line of how you don't choose between good and evil, and you shut me out for a--a moment of rage." Jacob looks at his hands, still bloody. He can't wash the blood away no matter how many times he tries. "A mistake."

"Oh Jacob," says the Edgewise in Mack's voice. "Not morality, intent. What did you intend when you came back to my door?"

Jacob looks up and finds himself staring down the fog soaked path to the closed door of the Edgewise. At his feet is a little girl, but even in that young face he recognizes Melvin's features. The Edgewise never takes Jacob's memories of the deed. He cannot forget. The sight of the woman fills Jacob with fresh rage. He came to beg Mack for forgiveness and finds a tavern full of patrons that can't remember the man. The Edgewise let him in that first time. He remembers now. He remembers the moment of bewildering realization that Melvin doesn't exist for the others. He remembers running into the fog, the confusion. He stumbles on the sleeping woman and believes it is all a trick. He turns, intent on violence. Intent to lash and wound. To make them suffer as he suffers.

The door doesn't open.

Jacob stands in the fog, slams his fists against the wood as he screams himself hoarse. The Edgewise doesn't budge.

He turns at the tap on his shoulders. His vision swims with tears. He blinks them free. The girl's face is full of sadness. Her hands reach up to frame his face.

"Why did you never try my door again, Jacob?" Her voice is a child's voice, echoing with the ancient weight of the Edgewise.

"You shut me out," he whispers.

She tilts her head. "You intended to kill your family."

A shock of awareness rushes through him. "But--but you--the way never opened. You didn't trust me--"

"The way was always open. You were lost." She brushes a tear from his cheek. "I trust you Jacob. I always did."

"No, no you're lying!"

Jacob carries the girl in his arms. His mind is mess of hurt; broken, full of longing, but he knows she needs help. A home. Her eyes open, looking up at him.

"You find her a family. You give her a name," says Calponia. Her smile is serene. "You watch over her for years."

"To use her," says Jacob. "To find a way back to the Edgewise."

"You were a diligent protector," says Calponia. "My trust is well placed."

The scent of well aged whiskey teases his nose.

He sits as an old man in his apartment, beside Calponia's rat trap. A keg rests before him, the gentle chiming of the Edgewise in his mind.

Jacob's gnarled hands grip the arms of his chair. The appearance of the keg threw him. All those years without a word and the Edgewise came to him as if nothing happened. His plan is in motion by then, a systematic cascade of breaches in reality, weakening the Edgewise and its keeper. He knows Calponia is there, his secret mole. He doesn't intend to reveal himself until it is time. Until he has brought Mack to his knees.

He stares at the keg, baffled. Why come to him now?

Mack steps into the room. No, not Mack, the Edgewise.

"Didn't I ask you for help when Mack was in trouble?" 

"Why?" Jacob's voice was hoarse.

The Edgewise shrugs. "You're family. Only you seemed to forget that. Is that why you lost your way?"

"Family," whispers Jacob. Tears fall thick and fast over the wrinkled lines of his face. "I made so many bad choices." Fresh pain fills him, acknowledging a truth he buried deep to commit to his plan. "I lost my way."

"Yes," says Mack.

"I'm sorry," whispers Jacob.

The room rocks, shadows deepening in the corners.

"What's happening?"

The Edgewise closes his eyes. "You hurt her, burned away her mind. All instinct and fear, with no conscience." His eyes open, Mack's deep sapphire blue. "I dropped the barrier to save her life, but she's forgotten herself in all that pain. It will destroy everything."

"No!" Jacob falls to his knees, ignoring the ache in his aged bones. His heart strains, a frantic rhythm in his chest. In all his grabs for power he's never felt it beat so fast. How could he have been so badly misguided? "Raise the barrier! Don't let her destroy you!"

The Edgewise shakes his head. "I am weak, weak beyond measure. I have no resources left. Not even Mack can save me now, though he will try. It will kill him."

"No, tell me how to fix this. Tell me what to do!" Jacob sobs.

"You cannot make such offers, Jacob," says the Edgewise. "Your heart is not strong enough to survive."

Jacob yanked his hand off the Heart. He traded his soul for all that power and he couldn't save what mattered most? He'd let himself grow so twisted inside and for what? He turned, watching as Calponia rose from the floor. She kept rising, caught in a whirlwind of shadows and chaos, floating above the stone foundation like an ethereal wraith of vengeance. Her eyes were open, pits of darkness without a shred of her usual warmth.

He'd driven her to this. Wasn't this what he wanted? He wanted to control it all. He wanted to bring the multiverse to heel. 

An ache rose in his chest. His poor Calponia. How could he do this to her?

He wanted forgiveness he didn't realize he already had.

Calponia hissed. Her power rose, hungry, unhinged, warping everything it touched. That dark crackling energy reached for the Heart.

Jacob's intent snapped into place.

"Open up, damn you!" Mack kicked the sealed door once again. This had to be Jacob's bloody spell. He was going strangle that old fool when he reached him. He raised a leg to kick the door again when Eugene charged passed him like a raging bull. The wood exploded inward under the onslaught of enraged vampire.

"Okay, so you're not totally useless," Mack grumbled. He'd sent the others away on Ravelock's ship, unwilling to risk their lives if he failed to stop the tavern from imploding. Even now, sweat dripped down his face from the sheer effort of keeping the Edgewise intact. He couldn't have turned Eugene's help away if he wanted to, and the damn vampire insisted on coming.

The descending stairwell to the Heart was open. The Edgewise shuddered. Mack caught himself on the wall, breathing hard. It was possible he gave the vampire a mite too much energy, but no time to recover from that now. He had to come at Henderson with everything he had left.

"Come on," said Eugene, slinging Mack's arm over his shoulder. The two of them crab crawled sideways down the narrow staircase. His eyes widened as the scene came into view. Eugene froze.

Calponia floated in the center of the room, lost to her chaotic half. Her veins pulsed with black energy. Reality bent and broke around her. The Heart of the Edgewise was only a few feet from her. It would be destroyed in an instant.

Except...

A barrier shimmered around the Heart. It flickered like a guttering candle flame but held as a lash of dark energy struck it. A groan rose from a figure on the floor.

Mack's mouth dropped open. Jacob, at least what was left of him, held his hands up to maintain the barrier, protecting the Heart with his life. The bête noire's energy continued to expand, slowly consuming him.

"We have to stop her," said Mack. His words snapped the vampire out of his shock.

"How do we stop her?" Eugene's gaze roved the room looking for a solution.

Mack swallowed. "I don't know," he lied.

The vampire stiffened. "We are not killing her," Eugene snapped. "This isn't her fault!" He heaved Mack off him. "We just have to find a way to get through to her."

"I can't reach her and keep the Edgewise together," Mack admitted. He would lose one or the other. He knew which one he should choose, which one he had to choose, and it broke his heart.

"I can get through to her," insisted the vampire.

"Even with that shot of power I gave you,  that miasma will rip you apart," said Mack, his voice thick. The vampire whirled on him, wide eyed.

"I promised her!"

The Edgewise shivered. Eugene looked back at her, eyes rimmed with red. "You can't give up on her, Mack," he said. He took a step toward her, ready to bolt to his death. A silver tube slid out of his shirt. Mack stared at it, transfixed though he couldn't fathom why. He caught Eugene by the elbow, reaching for it. He felt the hum of energy brush against his fingers before he touched it.

"You kept it," said Mack, incredulous, "You kept a vial of her blood."

The vampire glanced down, frowning, as if he didn't realize it was there. How could he not? How had the blood not corroded the metal that held it? Or worse?

"How is that not burning the bloody shite out of you?" 

Eugene held up the tube. "It did for a while. It stopped after the Krakens."

After bathing in all that energy spilling out of her. "Like recognizing like," Mack murmured.

The vampire's eyes widened. He snapped off the top of the vial. Mack grabbed his hand.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Like recognizes like," said Eugene, "Like camouflage."

"There is a high chance it will still kill you, idiot," said Mack.

"Not before I get through. Keep the tavern together," said Eugene and tipped the contents down his throat. 

"This is stupid plan," grumbled Mack. Better than his total lack of plan.

The blood hit him in seconds. The vampire clutched his chest, veins turning dark as chaos flooded his system. He crashed to his knees, back bowing at such a sharp angle Mack was certain his spine would snap. Eugene screamed, a sound of pure undiluted agony, clawing deep furrows in the ground as if to dig his own grave. Mack didn't dare touch him, terrified he was about to watch the vampire burst like rotten fruit. The scream ended.

Eugene's head snapped up. His eyes were bloodshot where the vessels burst. His gaze fixed on Calponia at the center of that dark miasma.

He launched himself at her.