Page 348

And in the middle of it all stood Taly.

Withouther glamour.

Bursting with so much aether, it gilded her body in the waning dark.

In her hands, she held a long rifle, the hilt of it carved from iridescent pearl. Blood and gore covered her from head to toe. Her clothes were black with it.

The air around her shimmered with what looked like… threads. Raw, golden threads of light intertwining in an intricate dance that cast an ethereal glow over the battlefield.

“Taly!” Aimee’s voice called out a second before she’d opened her mouth to do it. “What—” she tried, but the word was already an echo on her tongue.

Holding up her hand, gold hazed above her skin, like an aura, moving half-a-heartbeat before she’d even had the thought.

“Hi!” Taly shouted from the other end of the street, waving. “Glad to see you’re not dead!”

Aimee froze, her breath hitching. And for a moment, she didn’t see the time mage, nor the Savior, nor the impossible force cloaked in gold as morning bloomed around her.

She saw a little girl with sunlight behind her, golden on the water, waving from the tip of a surfboard and grinning like she’d conquered the ocean.

She sawCori.

Small, wild, always running ahead when she wasn’t supposed to. Too young to understand fear, too stubborn to be left behind.

In that instant, the two images finally merged—the gold, the grin, the reckless defiance of a world built to pull her under. Cori and Taly, inseparable at last.

People gathered behind her, peeking through where the ice was melting. Drawing on her magic, what was left of it, Aimee reinforced the spell, the meltwater inching back up to fill in the gaps.

Taly smiled wildly. “You should really be at the Swap.”

“Youshould be at the Swap,” Aimee shouted back. “What are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

No, it really wasn’t.

“Oh, my Shards…” Aiden murmured.

Aimee whirled. Damn it, she’d forgotten to wall off the door.

He stepped through the crowd collecting around it and into the street. With wide eyes, he took in the carnage, face going pale when he saw— “Taly?”

Taly gave another jaunty wave.

Aimee looked at her brother, the same panic she felt mirrored on his face. Reaching for her aether, she began weavingthe glamour—by now, she knew it by heart—pulling water from the air.

Spinning and twisting it to craft the image—

Taly batted away the spell the way she might shoo a fly. “Both of you are very bloody, by the way.” She eyed the long scratch on Aimee’s neck, bleeding into her dress. Aiden didn’t look much better, blood plastering one side of his head. “You know harpies are venomous, right?”

Aimee and Aiden exchanged another look.

“I—” Aiden began, only to collapse forward with a groan, holding his head as blood slowly inched across his skin, pulling back into the long scratch hidden behind his ear.

Aimee looked down. Blood was seepingoutof her dress, like it was being recalled back into her body as the scratch reversed across her neck.

Not healed.Erased. As if it had never been.

When it was over, they were both left panting from the pain.