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Before it had just been flashes—Taly was far away, but she’d still been pushing through images, as many as she could.

He’d seen red dirt and heaps of scrap. The ranks of an undead army.

Kato paled. “This isn’t the time to fuck around.”

Skye shoved him off. “I’m not fucking with you!” he all but snarled.

As if the panic of coming back to find everyone in the house spelled and Taly gone hadn’t already been eating him alive, now… now she was truly gone.

As ingonegone—as in possibly dead.

“No,” Ivain said, his voice tight with forced calm. “That doesn’t mean…” But he couldn’t finish.

The world drained of color and sound. Skye heard the worried voices of Ivain and Kato around him, but he was numb to it.

His vision blurred with tears as all those grand plans they’d been hastily putting together—to gather troops, to march on the Aion Gate and take her back—faded into impossibility.

He couldn’t breathe around the pain—around the yawning, gaping hole in hissoul.

Dead.

The finality of it clawed at him.

He’d tried so hard, done everything, held backnothing, and yet still he’d ended up here.

“No…” His fists clenched. He’d made this mistake before.

Don’t count Taly out until there’s a body—that was now rule number one.

Skye swayed as he rose, grasping at anything nearby for support. His legs trembled as if they might collapse at any moment. “I’m going after her.”

“Going in without a plan is a death sentence,” Ivain countered. “The fact of the matter still stands—we’reoutnumbered and outmatched. Aneirin’s forces don’t die, don’t tire; they don’t stop fighting when injured.”

All points they’d already argued at length.

“I don’t care,” Skye gritted out, forcing himself to push through theache.

“Don’t be stupid.” Kato grabbed his arm, but Skye pushed him off.

“Get out of my way,” he growled.

But Kato reached for him again, this time grabbing both shoulders. “Even if she’s still alive, you’re in no shape to help her right now. You’ll just get yourself killed.”

“Oh, like you care.”

“Fuck you, you little runt.”

They grappled, arms and limbs tangling. Now was the wrong time for Kato to suddenly decide he gave a damn. Taly was gone, and right now—

“Well, isn’t this a pickle,” a familiar voice said.

Immediately, everyone in the room went still.

All eyes turned to where Cori lounged behind Ivain’s desk, boots propped up in front of her.

“Well, I guess that solves that problem.” Kato let his grip slip, and Skye shoved him away. “Wait, why does she look different?”

Skye made the introductions. “Kato, Cori. Cori, Kato. She’s the annoying time-traveling version of Taly that drops in every so often to make shit more confusing.”