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But one slip—one moment where instinct overpowered reason—and he could hurt her.

Her thighs squeezed around his hips. The heat of her pressed into him, slick and searing. He dragged his focus somewhere else—anywhereelse.

Quantum glyph drift theory. Goblin tax law. Ivain in a towel.Shards.

His aether still thrummed, hot beneath his skin. But he had control of it now.

Slowly, carefully, Skye let go of the bed.

“We’re going to need to have a talk about safety,” he managed, letting out a shaky laugh. “For both our sakes.”

Her nails raked impatiently up and down his back. “I bet you say that to all the ladies.”

“No. Just you.” And with a single thrust of his hips, he was home.

Taly was having some morning-after regrets. Skye could club a bear with that thing between his legs. She really should’ve stretched before she let him put it inside her. Repeatedly and with wild abandon.

If Sarina noticed her hobbling along behind her as they pushed through the crowded Swap, she didn’t say anything.

The seamstress did. She’d known Taly all her life and leaned in to whisper slyly, “Now there’s the walk of a woman who had a good night, eh?”

Thankfully, the dress fitting didn’t take long. And the dress Sarina picked out… well, it wasn’t all bad either. Not overly heavy or a beast to move around in, though that was probably more a function of the scarcity of materials than any deliberate attempt at comfort. The voluminous, multi-layered skirts popular in Arylaan just weren’t practical given the current constraints on their supply chains.

While Sarina was explaining to her tailor of the last 75 years thatyes, it was perfectly normal for a human female to grow nearlythreeinches at the age of 21—actually 22 after a year in the Queen’s palace, but who was counting—Taly wandered out into the hall to wait. Apparently, growing up human had stunted her growth, and now her body had some catching up to do. She could only cross her fingers and pray that she just might make it to average.

They were deep into the second floor of the old greathouse, where instead of tables, long-term tenants had set up shop. The atmosphere was different now than the last time she was here,practicality overriding nostalgia. Down the hall, the old drawing room, with its towering marble fireplace, had been repurposed into a storage space for dried herbs and medicinal supplies. No bouquets of blossoms to perfume the air anymore—luxuries like fresh flowers had become nearly impossible to come by.

The library, once lined with rows upon rows of dusty tomes, now served a more pressing need. Shelves had been cleared to make way for crates of rations, with a few vintage books shoved into corners, forgotten amidst the necessity.

On the third floor were the artisan galleries, now filled with makeshift workshops—craftsmen desperately mending tools or sewing clothing. Her current destination, the Tune & Trade, was wedged into what used to be the music room. The high ceilings still gave the space an airy feel, but most of the grandeur had been crammed to the edges of the room, where sheet music lay in haphazard piles and music stands leaned against the walls. The grand piano was still there, but it had been covered with fabric and crates of supplies, now more a hindrance than a centerpiece.

The person behind the counter barely looked up as Taly entered, just nodded toward a cluster of mismatched crates. No labels. No prices. Just whatever someone had decided was worth setting out.

She crouched beside the nearest crate. At the top of the pile, a Draegon music crystal caught her eye, its once-bright surface now dulled. She turned it gently, then set it aside—she didn’t have the right player. The collection of dwarven metal discs sat in a dusty, weighty stack. She shifted a few, listening to the metallic scrape as they slid against each other.

But it was the human records she gravitated towards—by far her favorite medium. No other race could match the sheer range and variety of genres they produced. Her fingers brushedover the top of the stack, tracing the faded labels on the paper sleeves before lifting one.

Taly had accepted a long time ago that her taste in music veered towards the eclectic. To her, music had always been more than just melody and harmony. It was rhythm, layered and recursive, that moved like a tremor beneath her skin. And she wasn’t alone. As it turned out, most time mages were drawn to unique deviations in tempo and structure. The more chaotic the sound, the more it prickled against their sense of time. It was easy to get swept away in that pulse, which was why Azura had never allowed music inside the loop beyond what one could make themselves. She needed Taly focused, she said, not getting high on mechanical-dwarven opera.

Then, just as Taly shifted to a new stack— “What the—”

She ducked behind the pile of crates as a flash of a familiar, small figure passed by the arched window at the front of the shop—the same prepubescent psychopath from her nightmare in the woods.

No way. What was she doing here, in the middle of the city? How had she even gotten in?

Taly picked up her stack of records and handed them to the man behind the counter. “I’ll be back for these.”

Moving to the door, she pushed her way into the hall.

The girl was there, a few paces ahead, her small frame weaving in and out of view between the opposing streams of bodies.

Taly kept her distance, ducking back when the girl glanced over her shoulder. She followed her through the winding corridors of the old greathouse, past storerooms and makeshift stalls.

Until they came to a shadowy, forgotten corner.

The girl looked around—left and then right—before walking through the wall.

Well, a glamour of a wall. The stairs beyond it led to the fourth floor. The backrooms.