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Skye stared up. And up. And up.

“I went too far, some might say. Replaced too many parts. Traded away my soul in exchange for hers. But what choice did I have? She was always so strong, always the one to push boundaries—to defy limits.”

Violet runes wove in and out of his flesh, now a dance of light and shadows. Skin dissolved, and he became not Fey, notbeast, but an ever-shifting mass of living blood that grew to fill the tower.

And his face—it was no longer Skye’s face. It was no face at all. From inside a mist of blood that dripped from the ceiling, a silver skull with green eyes peering out of skeletal sockets descended on a fleshy tendril.

It pushed through the projection. The holo-image rippled, then curled inward, dissolving into thin wisps of blue-smoke. The remnants trailed that hideous metal skull as it telescoped downward—stopping level with his eyes.

“Behold, our sacrifice. Our power.”

The guttural voice echoed from every part of the room. From the vats set into the floor and the mesh of blood-infused wire crawling over the bookcases and hanging from the rafters above.

“You think it hurts to imagine losing her? You think it’s bad now, lying awake with that fear in your gut? Multiply it a hundred-fold. Try holding her as she fades. Feel her body go slack in your arms. She died, and in that moment, so did I. There was nothing left. No reason to keep breathing. Until I realized… none of it was real.”

This other-him was a nightmare made of flesh. A horrific vision of what heartbreak and madness could create.

“I… I don’t know what that means,” Skye whispered, barely audible over the pounding in his ears.

Flesh ripped wetly, and the keeper’s appearance altered. Coalescing back down into a body.

Suddenly, it was Ivain standing over him.

“It means,” the other-him continued in Ivain’s voice, as if he’d also perfectly replicated the vocal cords, “that no matter how tragic my ending, it was justoneending.Idon’t matter. And once I understood that, the next step became obvious—I had to find you.”

His form quivered like a reflection on water disturbed by a falling leaf. His shoulders, broad and imposing, narrowed, and his muscles softened and redistributed themselves as his silhouette morphed into a more graceful, delicate shape.

Then Sarina’s voice, soft and trembling, whispered, “You’re the only one of us with the power to save her from what’s coming.Youare the Primary. The rest of us—we’re nothing but echoes. Stray wisps of thread that should’ve been clipped. We lack depth, substance, continuity. Only you can shift the pattern.”

Blood undulated and re-formed. The room seemed to pulse. And then the third and final phantom leaned over him.

Taly.

Though something was wrong with her eyes. They were vacant, devoid of any warmth or tenderness.

Yet she was smiling—a chilling, empty smile that twisted his insides with dread.

As much as Skye tried to look away, he couldn’t. The grim future he could see foretold in those horrible, dead eyes held him in a morbid trance.

When she spoke, the keeper perfectly mimicking her voice, the words were dull and lifeless, almost robotic. “For what it’s worth, it did make it easier. Knowing that when I had to drive a blade through her heart, it wasn’t her anymore.”

Blood bloomed on the front of her snow-white tunic.

“The eyes,” she whispered. “The eyes are the windows to the soul, and hers was already gone. They hollowed out every good thing in her until she was just a shell, a weapon being used against everything she stood for. And it will happen again. You think you’re invincible—that you can protect her no matter what. But the truth is, you’re going to lose her. Because that’s the way this game was rigged. Every step you take, every decision you think is yours, leads to that inevitable end.”

It was too awful to contemplate. Skye couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t. Especially with evidence to the contrary standing right there.

“Explain Cori then.” That was the most glaring flaw in the keeper’s argument. “If Ialwayslose Taly, then how do you explain her?”

The keeper’s appearance settled back into that strange, haggard mirror image.

“Did I say she always dies?” he asked, then waited.

No… no, he didn’t.

“There’s more than one way to lose a person,” the other him said lowly. “Some are quick. The rest? They take their time. Make sure you feel every inch of it. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that future is any brighter, kid. Otherwise, Cori and her little minions wouldn’t be working so hard to undo it. She wouldn’t have come here, bartering for her precious key, thinking it had the power to rewrite her history.”

A hand slammed down on either side of the operating table as his other-self leaned in. “You want to stop what’s coming? Then become the strongest bloodcrafter the realms have ever seen. I’ll provide the rarest materials, the most potent essences, the relics you’ll need to mold yourself into the ultimate weapon. With this arsenal, you won’t just be another mage—you’ll be a force of nature in your own right, as unstoppable and raw as Taly herself.”