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“Wake me up before the explosions begin,” she called to the fairies that were likely nearby. She couldn’t see any peeking out of the stone arches circling the arena, but they were there. They were always watching.

Leaning back against the smooth bark of the old oak, she closed her eyes, listening to the wind, the faint rustle of leaves. The Sight was a curiousgift, and yes, she was still trying to condition herself to think of it as a gift rather than, at best, a nuisance. The past, the present, the future—they were all part of the Weave, all accessible to a time mage through dreams. And while one needed a tether to be able to focus the vision—to find the correct timeline, the correct person, the correct event—tethers could be anything. Pieces of hair, jewelry, well-loved books, even people.

Today, Taly wasn’t using any of those things. Instead, she was using the ground itself. The training yard where she had spent all day getting her ass kicked by amorphous blobs of soul energy. Places could also retain memory, and if she managed to get this right, it would be better than any recording.

Taly evened out her breathing, feeling for the spark of her aether as she tied the final knot on the spell. Falling asleep with the intent to dream—she had never tried that before. Usually, she avoided her dreams. Skye was still finding new ways to die, to the point that the memory of him had become somewhat fragile in her mind. All her life, it had always been her death that everyone dreaded. She was mortal, and they were fey—the irony was not lost on her that so much of her mental energy was now consumed by the question“is that stupid, indestructible bastard still alive?”.

Deeper and deeper.

She cleared her thoughts.

Deeper and deeper.

The spell settled over her like a familiar weight.

Though she couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment she drifted off, the next time she becameaware, the light was softer, the air cooler. The sun had moved to the opposite horizon.

It was morning.

This past morning, to be precise. That was her standing beneath the gray stone arch, warming up and stretching and already dreading the day ahead.

Slowly, Taly stood, sighing at the blissful lack of pain. The edges of the dream were hazy, the vision seeming to curve around the area like a thin film of ice cracking under pressure. Since she was using the training arena as her tether, she couldn’t see beyond it. There was just a cloud of rapidly fracturing light where the palace should’ve been.

A figure materialized through the haze, coming closer.

“Alright,” Azura said as she strode into the arena, aiming for her usual place beneath the widest arch. She was dressed in red chiffon, and her chair was blue velvet as opposed to the wine-colored silk of yesterday. The fairies set up and tore down the Queen’s viewing area every morning and night, making it more and more elaborate each time. One of these days, Taly was going to shatter that stupid chandelier that clinked, clinked,clinkedall day long. The tinkle of its crystals had become the soundtrack to her humiliation.

“Not that it will do any good,” Azura added as she took a seat, “but try not to disappoint me today. At this point, I’m as eager to get rid of you as you are of me.”

That was usually how Azura started the day. With a call to arms that was anything but inspirational.

Taly looked to the memory of herself, watching as she grabbed her staff. Both women shared a sigh of resignation.

The first game began with very little fanfare, and Taly took a seat beside the Queen. There were 20 fairies, and she watched as her doppelganger tagged out fifteen before she got hit at the base of her spine, then both shins, then her neck.

She unconsciously rubbed the fading bruises.

The second game, she got to seventeen fairies.

The third, eighteen.

The fourth, eighteen again.

The fifth, twenty-two. The Queen had added five more.

Game after game, Taly watched herself cast and spin, dodge and roll. Her movements always came a fraction of a second too quick to be purely reactionary. She was using her Sight to predict the fairies’ actions, countering before they had even made the decision to move. From this vantage point, it was hard not to feel just a little bit of awe, especially when that woman sprinted for the oak and jumped, planting a foot firmly on the bark before flipping and landing back on her feet.

She moved faster than a human, like she had been born into that body. Like she had spent her entire life learning its balance and rhythms.

Taly didn’t remember feeling like that at the time.

The three fairies that had been giving chase scattered in different directions, only to stop as the spell snapped shut around them.

That’s nineteen, Taly thought. The other fairies hung suspended across the arena, dots of blue light that seemed to shiver their displeasure. There was just one more in play, and even thoughshe knew how this was going to end, her heart began to beat just a little bit faster when that woman spun, already weaving a spell as she dodged the ball of blue energy that continued to lunge for her like an eagle without wings.

They got more aggressive when they were desperate.

Her second self swung her staff, using it more for balance as she executed a complex series of dodges. She used the tree to her advantage—the fairies weren’t allowed to movethroughthem—carefully navigating the sea of her suspended opponents and plucking at the strings of each spell.