Emma blinked and suddenly Jake wasn’t a little boy anymore.

He was seventeen, tall and strong, with muscles that hadn’t been there seconds before. His eyes glowed bright blue as he threw Shadow Jake across the clearing like he weighed nothing.

"What just happened?" Emma gasped, staring at her brother who was now older than her.

"Time moved differently when you touched the Void," Jake said, his voice deeper now. "We aged five years in five seconds."

Lily appeared beside him, no longer a small girl but a beautiful teenager with silver hair that sparkled with healing magic.

"We felt everything you were going through," she said gently. "All the fear, all the guilt. We couldn’t just watch you suffer alone anymore."

Emma looked around wildly. Even baby Marcus wasn’t a baby anymore. He was fifteen, with dark hair and eyes that held both wisdom and sadness.

"The Devourer grew up with me," Marcus said quietly. "But so did my ability to fight it."

"You’re all teenagers now," Emma whispered. "But I’m still twelve."

"Because you’re the one connected to the Void," Lily explained. "Time moves around you, not through you."

The military jets were getting closer. Emma could hear their engines roaring overhead.

"Thirty seconds until they attack," Darian called out, still fighting his shadow.

That’s when teenage Jake did something that made everyone stop and stare.

He opened his mouth and let out a howl that shook the ground.

But it wasn’t just any howl. It was a call that every supernatural creature in the world could hear and understand.

"What are you doing?" Elara shouted.

"Calling for backup," Jake said with a grin that reminded Emma of their father Ronan. "Real backup."

Suddenly, the sky filled with flying creatures. Dragons that Emma had only heard about in stories, phoenix birds trailing fire, and giant eagles carrying witches and wizards.

But these weren’t creatures that lived on Earth.

"Jake called beings from other dimensions," teenage Lily said with amazement. "Creatures that have been fighting the Void for centuries."

A massive dragon landed right in front of Emma. When it spoke, its voice sounded like thunder.

"Mother Wolf," the dragon said, bowing its huge head. "We felt your daughter’s power across the multiverse. We came to help."

"How did Jake know how to do that?" Kael asked, ducking as his shadow tried to grab him.

"Because growing up fast gave us access to knowledge we weren’t ready for," Marcus said darkly. "I know things about the Devourer that I wish I didn’t. Jake knows secrets about dimensional magic. Lily can heal wounds that haven’t happened yet."

"And what can you do now?" Emma asked, feeling the Void’s darkness spreading toward her heart.

Marcus looked at her with eyes that were both young and ancient. "I can show everyone their worst fear. But I can also show them how to overcome it."

He walked toward Shadow Emma, completely unafraid.

"You want to know what Emma’s real fear is?" he asked the shadow version.

"She’s afraid of becoming a monster," Shadow Emma said confidently.

"Wrong," Marcus replied. "She’s afraid of staying a child forever while everyone she loves grows up and leaves her behind."

Emma felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. Marcus was right.

Ever since her siblings had become teenagers, she felt left out and small.

"That’s why the Void can control you," Marcus continued. "It promises you’ll never be powerless again. It promises you’ll never be the little sister who can’t keep up."

"But growing up isn’t about power," teenage Jake said, pulling Emma away from the Void. "It’s about choosing to protect people even when you’re scared."

"We didn’t ask to grow up this fast," Lily added, her healing magic wrapping around Emma like a warm hug. "But we did it because you needed us to be strong enough to help you."

Emma felt tears on her cheeks. "I’m sorry. I didn’t want this to happen to any of you."

"Stop apologizing," teenage Marcus said firmly. "Start choosing."

The military jets were directly overhead now. Emma could see soldiers getting ready to drop bombs that would kill everyone.

"Choose what?" she asked.

"Choose to trust us," Jake said. "Let us fight beside you, not behind you."

"But you’re my little brothers and sister!"

"Not anymore," Lily said sadly. "We grew up. And now we’re strong enough to face our own shadows."

As if summoned by her words, teenage versions of all their shadows appeared.

These shadow teenagers were even more terrifying than the child versions. They moved like predators and smiled like they enjoyed causing pain.

"Oh good," Shadow Jake said with a voice like broken glass. "Now we can really hurt people."

The dragon that had bowed to Emma suddenly roared in pain. A shadow dragon had appeared and was attacking it with claws made of pure darkness.

"The shadows are evolving too," Marcus realized. "Every time we get stronger, they get worse."

That’s when Emma understood something horrible.

The Void hadn’t just aged her siblings to help her.

It had done it to create more powerful shadows to fight against them.

"It’s been planning this," she whispered. "Every time we think we’re winning, we’re actually giving it what it wants."

The bombs started falling.

But instead of exploding, they passed right through everything like they were made of light.

"Those aren’t regular bombs," Darian said, his face going pale. "They’re dimensional weapons. They’re designed to separate shadows from their real versions."

"Is that good or bad?" the human boy asked. His mother was still holding him, both of them staring at the teenage supernatural children with wonder and fear.

"It’s terrible," Lily said quietly. "If the shadows get separated from us completely, they become permanent. They’ll exist forever, even if we die."

Emma watched as one of the light-bombs hit Shadow Kael. Instead of destroying him, it made him more solid, more real.

"Perfect," Shadow Kael said, flexing his hands. "Now I don’t need the real Kael to exist. I can make my own choices."

All around them, shadow creatures were becoming independent. They no longer looked like dark copies of real people.

They looked like their own species.

A species that wanted to destroy everything good in every dimension.

"We made them too strong," Jake said, his new teenage confidence cracking. "We can’t fight them anymore."

That’s when baby Marcus - no, teenage Marcus - grabbed Emma’s free hand.

"Yes, we can," he said. "But not by fighting."

"What do you mean?"

Marcus looked at the Void that was still connected to Emma’s other hand. "The Devourer inside me learned something from watching you. It learned that consuming others makes you lonelier, not fuller."

"So?"

"So what if we teach the shadows the same lesson?"

Emma stared at him. "You want to try to save the shadow creatures?"

"I want to show them what they’re missing by being evil."

Shadow Marcus appeared in front of them, grinning with sharp teeth that the real Marcus didn’t have.

"You can’t save us," Shadow Marcus said. "We don’t want to be saved. We like being monsters."

"No," real Marcus said calmly. "You like thinking you’re monsters because it’s easier than admitting you’re scared children who never learned how to love anything."

Shadow Marcus’s grin faltered.

"You want to know what the Devourer really is?" Marcus continued. "It’s a baby that was left alone so long it forgot how to cry for help. It learned to eat love instead of asking for it."

Emma felt something change in the Void connected to her hand.

For just a moment, instead of hunger, she felt something else.

Sadness.

Terrible, lonely sadness that had been buried under millions of years of anger.

"The Void isn’t evil," she realized. "It’s hurt."

But just as she said those words, the dimensional weapons stopped falling light-bombs and started dropping something else.

Cages made of pure energy.

Cages designed to trap supernatural creatures forever.

And the first cage was falling straight toward teenage Marcus.

"Marcus, run!" Emma screamed.

But he stood perfectly still, looking up at the cage with a strange smile.

"I’m not running anymore," he said. "It’s time to show everyone what happens when you choose love over fear."

The cage hit him.

And instead of trapping him, it shattered into a million pieces of light.

But the explosion sent him flying backward, directly into the Void.

"NO!" Emma cried as her brother disappeared into the nothingness.

For a heartbeat, everything was silent.

Then Marcus’s voice came from inside the Void itself.

"Emma," he said, and his voice sounded different. Older. Sadder. But also... peaceful.

"I found it. I found the center of the Devourer’s pain."

"Marcus, get out of there!" Jake shouted.

"I can’t," Marcus replied. "But I can fix it. I can heal what’s been broken for so long that everyone forgot it was ever whole."

"What do you mean?" Emma asked, trying to pull her hand away from the Void to save her brother.

"I mean," Marcus said softly, "that someone has to stay here and teach the hungry thing how to love instead of eat."

Emma felt her heart breaking. "You want to stay in the Void forever?"

"I want to make sure no other little sisters have to choose between saving their family and saving the world."

That’s when Emma realized what Marcus was really saying.

He was volunteering to sacrifice himself to save everyone else.

And there was nothing she could do to stop him.