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She tossed the brush on the vanity, found his eyes in the mirror, daring him to interrupt. A muscle in his jaw ticked, but he didn’t.

“That creature last night,” she said. “It’s called a dream spinner. More commonly known as a grimble, based on the sound it makes. It’s a kind of Weave beast.”

“Like Calcifer?”

From the fire, Calcifer grumbled, his tail flicking as if to swat away the insult.

“Not like Calcifer,” Taly said. “Not all Weave beasts manifest physically. Mimics are unique in that regard. Most, like the grimble, are… parasites.”

“What does that mean?”

“The grimble attacks through the subconscious,” Taly went on, pinning back a braid. “Scrying sends ripples through the Weave, and they detect it the same way spiders sense vibrations. They come in through the unconscious mind, sifting through memories and using them to imprison their, uh… prey.”

She started the second braid. Her arms felt heavy and sore. “They create a dream so real, it’s impossible to distinguish from reality. Days, months, years… entire lifetimes can pass in a heartbeat. And while the dreamer is lost in the illusion, the grimble feeds. It drains away aether, all the potential of those lost years, and eventually, the mage slips into a coma and… dies.”

Behind her, Skye cursed.

“It’s fine,” Taly said. “Azura taught me how to fight them.”

Granted, coming out of chrono-stasis without a spotter was…unsettling. No safety net. No one to pull her soul back if she missed the mark.

“It’s fine,” she said again, as if repeating it might make it true. “I’m fine.”

“Fine…” Skye echoed, disbelieving. “Taly, you were dead fortwenty minutes!”

Taly blinked.Shit. That was a long time. In the void, it had felt like seconds—barely a breath.

“And I didn’t know why,” he said, voice raw. “I didn’t know if you were coming back.” His voice cracked. “One moment, you were fine. Then you weren’t. Here then just…gone. Do you have any idea what that was like?”

Taly closed her eyes. “You know I do.”

She’d never forget the agony of finding him dead on the throne room floor—or the overwhelming relief of seeing him alive again.

And then every vision where he’d died, every night she’d spent covered in his blood, unable to stop it, to do anything but stand by and watch…

She knew. Oh, she knew that pain and how it could fester. But what he wanted wasn’t reasonable.

“Twenty minutes,” she murmured, fumbling for more pins and hoping he didn’t notice the way her fingers trembled as she secured the second braid. “Fifteen minutes was supposed to be the upper limit for how long a soul can remain untethered. Just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read, I guess.”

The sound Skye made was small and strangled. Not a cry, not a snarl, yet somehow both.

“Look,” she said, turning to face him. “Nothing happened.”

“Youdied.”

“Temporarily.”

That was definitely a snarl that followed her as she stormed out of the bedroom, fury snapping at her heels.

“We’re not done,” Skye called after her.

“You might not be, but I am,” she snapped back, scowling when she saw the state of the common area.

She added another item to her mental to-do list: stop letting Skye and his stupid, magic cock drag her down into his own bad habits. She was better than this.

Better than the couch cushions that were half on the floor, and most certainly better than the discarded clothing scattered haphazardlyeverywhere, the empty wine bottles, and… “Shiiit,” she groaned, turning her favorite reading chair back upright. One of the legs was missing. Shattered. They had rather quickly discovered that while it looked sturdy enough, not everything was made for vigorous activity.

Reaching for her aether, she found only dregs. And it just got harder to rewind the damage the longer she let it set.