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She seized the moment, grabbing the table and flipping it. Plates crashed, and glasses shattered. The guests lurched back, gasping as cutlery scattered across the floor.

Luck was moving.

“Hey!” She barely got the word out before Taly re-aimed. Then a smirk. “Just kidding.”

Luck flicked her wrist, and the runes along the barrel went black.

So, Taly did the next best thing and hurled the gun like a brick.

The base of the grip hit the little psychopath square on the forehead. Luck went cross-eyed, staggering.

And with that slip in her attention, her hold on the dream loosened.

It was as if a single thread had been pulled.

The feeling was strangely reminiscent of Taly’s own magic. She could almost see it—a silvery strand wavering in the air like heat rising from stone.

When she reached out, pinching the air—she could actually grasp it.

The dream began to tear.

One thread led to another. With each pull, the girl’s control unraveled.

Slow at first. Then faster.

The crowd’s fine gowns melted into rags. Masks dropped like petals caught in a strong wind. Their faces twisted and blurred.

Thread after thread after thread—Taly ripped them loose faster than Luck could re-bind them.

Thrusting her hands into the air around her, she tore through the fabric of the dream.

Then she plunged her fingers into the floor. The marble softened into strands, spilling outward, shimmering.

The illusion shuddered.

The beams of the tavern collapsed into a haze. The walls fell into nothingness.

Each pull sent another part of the dream spiraling into oblivion.

And while Luck was scrambling—

While Aneirin was still recovering on the floor—

Taly’s eyes darted to the corner. To the shadows that shimmered and twisted.

Luck had made one fatal error. She looked away. And in doing so, her illusion blinked. For just a second, Taly saw the seam.

“This is my island,” she snarled, loud enough to tear through the din of panic. “I will not be made to beg for it.”

And then—Taly ran.

“Go fuck yourself, Bill,” she threw over her shoulder.

The crowd blurred as they parted. Her instincts screamed at her to stop—that the wall ahead was solid.

But she barreled through anyway—and immediately fell.

The world vanished beneath her.