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If he didn’t have control, he was a danger to others. A danger to the people he cared about.

If he didn’t have control, he could be locked away in Gloomrend Gaol with all the other shadow mages deemed too dangerous to be allowed to roam free.

With all the other bloodcrafters—because that was him now too.

Was this how it began? The first whisper of that insidious madness that came for all bloodcrafters in the end? Was that brief moment of unchecked power a glimpse of his future? A preview of the inevitable unraveling of his sanity?

The doorknob rattled. Skye ignored it. Then he heard the lock click, opened from the outside, somehow—

“Hey, back off.”

But Ivain appeared. “There you are,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I’ve been searching all over this damn house.” Ivain took one look at him. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Skye muttered.

“That was quite the performance out there. Should I dance around the subject first or can we cut straight to you telling me where the hell you picked up that kind of magic, because it sure as Shards wasn’t from me?”

Except that wasn’tquitetrue. Every drill, every exercise, every time he worked to hone his aether—that was where the knowledge came from. And when the surge hit, that rush of power out of nowhere, it followed that learned precision straight to the trigger. He went off like a misfired pistol.

“I… I lost control, sir,” Skye admitted. Ivain’s reflection watched him from the mirror, filled with a palpable sense of caution. Or so it seemed as his vision wavered—there, gone, there again, the world tilting at the edges. “If you—if you’d seen—” he stammered. “Shards, if you hadanyidea what was in his head…”

“I know.” The old man’s hand found Skye’s shoulder, offering silent reassurance. “No doubt the memories Kalahadchose to reveal to you were by far the most damning, designed to provoke a reaction.”

“Please don’t let them send me to Gloomrend Gaol.”

Ivain laughed. “Gloomrend Gaol? You’re only 25, boy. While what you did out there was, I’ll admit,extreme… no one expects you to have perfect control over magic that’s not yet fully developed. It was a prank, a horrible one, but nothing more. You need to calm down now, son. Breathe.”

Skye tried. He yanked at his tie, desperate for air, to push the memories out. But they clung, heavy and suffocating. His arms trembled, his legs threatened to buckle, his skull pounded with every unsteady breath. And the nausea—Oh, Shards, the nausea…

“By the Six,” Ivain cursed, and then Skye found himself catapulted across the room. A firm hand on his neck guided his head down into the toilet just in time for the wave of sickness that rushed over him. Ivain muttered as he retched, “Why do you always make it so blasted difficult to keep you among the living?”

Skye had no answer, and Ivain wasn’t expecting one, which was good because the retching didn’t end. It went on and on, wave after wave, long after his stomach was empty.

He barely felt the prick behind his ear. Just a scratch that produced a bead of blood that Ivain picked up with a touch of his finger. He placed it on his tongue. “No poison. That’s good at least. However, your adrenaline is through the roof. And there’s something else…” He swirled the drop of blood around in his mouth. “… unusual.”

Skye stopped retching long enough to rasp, “What do you mean?”

“Your bloodstream’s awash with excesses—proteins, aetheric acids, hormones, all alarmingly elevated. And there are other… particulates. Foreign bodies. Elements that don’t belong.”

A tense silence hung in the air as the realization dawned.

“Shards preserve us. What have you done to yourself?” Ivain whispered. “Damn it,what have you done?!”

Skye retched into the toilet before responding, “If a half-crazed, future version of yourself offered you a way to change the future, would you take it?”

“Be serious,” Ivain demanded.

“I am.” Skye’s whole body convulsed with the next wave of sickness. He tasted blood. “I met myself today. And he warned me, sir. He said”—retch—“he said that I’m going to lose her. That no matter what, I always lose her. So, I let him…”

“Let him what?” Ivain pressed.

“I’m not sure of exactly everything that he did.”

“Oh, blessed, bloody Shards, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Skye gulped for air, panting hard. “It was the only way… If I can tip the scales, even a little… if I can stand by her for just a little longer… that’s why I did it. For time. However much I can get.”

He pressed a shaking hand to his ribs. Every breath sent a fresh spike of pain lancing through his side. “Something’s wrong.”