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The argument replayed in his mind like a bad echo. She’d come to his office after breakfast, and he’d… doubled down. As she stood in front of him, itching to defend herself, he could feel his frustration bubbling over as he reiterated his points, the same grievances surfacing over and over. The argument circled like a tempest, their words crashing against each other with no clear end in sight.

Finally, he reached a breaking point. “No more risks,” he declared. “No more using your magic, inside or out.”

A desecration spell—designed to nullify all magical functions, and, in one fell swoop, ensure his daughter never spoke to him again.

He hadn’t even needed to get her to sit for it. The words he’d inked on her arm—Can you read this?—had provided the perfect conduit. Fey ink needed aether to bind it. Otherwise, the body’s natural healing would reject the tattoo entirely. She hadn’t questioned it when he applied the mark. She’d trusted him.

And he’d used that trust against her.

It was still his aether. And it knew its master. It obeyed without question, forming the necessary runes.

Was it harsh? Yes. Was it necessary? Also… yes.

Every use of her magic, whether within the townhouse or beyond its walls, was a beacon. A flare in the dark that the Time Shard could follow straight to her. He could survive her anger, even her hate—so long as she lived long enough to hate him.

Though if she was here… well, that had to be something. He tried not to let too much excitement show.

Ivain picked up his pen, setting it to paper. He said without looking up, “If you’re looking for my brandy, I’ve hidden it. This time somewhere you won’t find.”

Taly strolled past him. He saw her reflection in the bulb of the hourglass on his desk, heard the stairs behind him creak as she climbed to the second story, no doubt scanning the shelves. Ivain didn’t let himself worry. The bottle was locked in a safe hidden inside a secret compartment, glamoured so that even if—

Two glasses landed on the desk beside him. She poured two fingers into each.

“Oh, for Shard’s sake…” Ivain muttered. That girl was a liquor-sniffing dog so long as it was expensive. Throwing down his pen, he leaned back in his chair, turning—

Ivain froze as a memory clicked into place, filling in gaps he hadn’t even known existed. Images which had been so clear in his mind’s eye suddenly crystallized, and for the first time he looked—really looked—at the woman in his office.

She was dressed all in black, the first few buttons of her tunic thrown open to reveal tattooed skin. Her hair was at least a foot longer than the Taly upstairs, the tilt of her smile too sly. Plucking up one of the glasses with a gloved hand, she strolled around his desk, moving with a fluid ease her younger counterpart had yet to master.

The woman took a seat, staring at him from across the desk with Taly’s eyes.

“Well?” she asked, cocking her head. “You called. I came.” She took a sip from her glass, then made a face. “Holy fuck, old man. Usually, you have better brandy.” But she swallowed it.

Ivain’s heart was pounding, his mind still reeling. In an instant, an entire lifetime had suddenly been re-written.

His voice a rasp, he said simply, “Hello, Bilal.”

Ivain met Bilal with his head in a toilet on the backwater desert planet Sorcopii-9.

He was 38 years old, away from his family for the first time, and when he discovered that he’d just spent most of his coin on a fake map leading to a fake treasure had promptly spent the rest of it getting rip-roaring drunk.

He was hurling up his guts when Bilal plopped herself down beside him on the filthy floor, introduced herself, and asked if he was still interested in finding treasure.

To this day, he still didn’t know why he’d said yes.

Maybe he was just glad to see another Fey, or maybe he really was just that drunk. Maybe it was because she offered him a cut, and he hadn’t saved any coin to buy passage off-world. But what came next was still one of the more surreal experiences of his life.

A two-week journey that involved a trip across the desert, getting captured by sand goblin mercenaries, a slagworm and the pearl he had to cut from its stinking, still steaming belly while Bilal “supervised”, and finally, the ceremonial smoke pipe of an Iskari warlord, which Bilal traded the pearl to acquire—a trade he hadnotsupported at the time.

A pearl the size of his head—thathad value. A little piece of wood with fading gold and silver inlay and sandsmoke ash crusted into the bowl—that was a trinket.

One could only imagine his surprise when she then sold that “trinket” to a relic seeker for a truly obscene amount of gold. A gentle breeze could’ve knocked him over.

“See,” she said, tossing him his share. He stumbled under the weight. “I told you we’d find treasure.”

With a week until the Vergal Gate opened, they burned every bit of it at the bar.

There were few friends Ivain had held on to over the course of his long, long life. But Bilal—she’d always been there, dipping in and out. Always showing up right when he needed a miracle.