The ballroom melted away until I was surrounded completely in white light. It was blinding and warm, but not painful. In fact, the pain was gone. Perhaps I had died after all.
The familiar voice of the Guardian echoed in my mind, “You must not let him reshape the past! Only one defense remains, Anya. You must return the key to the origin point.”
The light dimmed and I could see the ballroom again. I looked at the beautiful, fractured crystal candelabra on the floor. The power of the key surged through my veins. The pain of the purple light returned, and I used it as leverage and focused my will on the closest unstable point of reality: the spot where the nutcracker first appeared.
The faint pale light exploded from my chest. It wasn’t blue like Torian’s or purple like Valerius’s. It w
