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“No.” Cori lifted the mimic so that he could nestle inside the collar of her coat. “You never did mend bridges. But you do eventually become… indifferent to one another.”

The monkey didn’t look indifferent. Hugging Cori’s neck, he stared at Skye with open animosity as they veered off the highway and into the woods, winding between the trees as they grew thicker and thicker.

“We’re going to be Weave-walking,” she said. Skye waited, assuming she was going to explain that, which she did. “Time and space are irrevocably intertwined. By affecting one, I can modify the other. This allows me to travel nearly anywhere on the Weave as long as I have the juice to get there. Tell me, have I given you the whole‘time is a tapestry’spiel yet?”

She hadn’t told him herself, but Taly had, which he supposed when you were a time mage was close enough to count. “Yes.”

“And pocket universes—have we covered that yet?”

“Also, yes.”

“Great.” He held up a branch, letting her duck underneath before he followed. “That means we’re ready to move on to parallel realities.”

“Parallel realities?” Skye echoed, eyes widening.

“There is only onetruereality,” Cori explained. “We call this the Primary Timeline. It represents the path of events and choices that shape our world. Simple, right? One path forward, one path back. But parallel realities can and do exist when certain circumstances are met.

“Every decision spawns new possibilities—like a fraying thread. For the briefest instance before a choice locks, infinite versions of reality blink into existence, side by side. All predicated on the different outcomes of that choice. Only one survives. The rest unravel before they’re ever seen.

“This is happening constantly. Worlds are born, and then they die. But if I am in the right place atexactlythe right time, I can grab onto one of these fraying threads before it collapses anduse it to jump out of the Primary Timeline and into an alternate world. Are we still following?”

Skye nodded. “I think so… yes.”

“Good,” Cori said. “Because of their volatility, parallel universes have to be anchored to a static point in time. This is called a Stitch, and it’s like… the door into a pocket universe. Except instead of a spare change of clothes or a backup weapon, I’m storing a snapshot—an entire universe and all its infinite potential existing in a little tied-off loop of space and time that just sort ofhangsthere, flapping alongside the Weave in the celestial wind.”

“Sounds safe,” Skye muttered.

“Oh, absolutely not,” she said with a grin.

The forest flickered. Snapped back. Up ahead, light speared through the trees.

It happened again, and suddenly they were walking through the gates of Infinity’s Edge.

Patches of rust mottled the once imposing structure, moss and ivy clinging to the iron bars as nature worked to reclaim it.

As the name implied, it really was just like walking the way she wove them in and out of the Weave seamlessly.

“This is the past,” Cori said. “Two weeks ago. And it is at this point that the Primary Timeline passed a critical juncture. A keystone decision was made. The timelines branched. One path continued forward. The other veered.”

“What does that mean?”

“Not all choices matter. Some barely make a ripple. Others? They tear through the Weave, re-shaping everything. That’s what happened here. Reality imploded, and this Stitch was created to contain the fallout.”

“What kind of decision does that?”

“A rather small one, in the grand scheme of things. A man loved a woman. She died before she could come back to him.So, he burned the world down. Only to find that his grief wasn’t satisfied. Neither was his rage. He tried to drown them in blood, but the ache only sharpened. Eventually, he turned his sights higher. To the gods.”

Cori looked at him now, her eyes dark, unreadable. “You ever try to get revenge on a god, Skye?”

He didn’t answer.

“He stole their power,” she said. “Ripped it straight from their hands. And then when that still wasn’t enough to fill the hollow inside him, he did what no mortal should ever be able to do—he broke free of his world.”

The wind picked up, swirling through the trees.

“He jumped from one world to the next, tearing through them like pages in a book. Again. And again. And again.”

“What was he after?” Skye asked.