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Then they too were gone.

Outside, wind howled through the wooden slats, rattling the aging timber. Icy rain hammered the roof. The heavens roared with thunder, each deafening crash folding into the next. A storm rolled in not long after they emerged from the palace. Three days later, the winds still shrieked, the rain never ceased, and they remained stuck.

Beside her, on the bedroll pushed against hers, Skye snored softly, sprawled on his stomach. He could sleep through anything.

As for her… “Guess I’m up,” Taly whispered to the musty, aging hayloft. Lightning flashed, casting jagged silhouettes of long-abandoned hay bales and forgotten equipment.

Moving soundlessly, she eased out of her bedroll, pulled on her boots, then her coat. Skye slept like a rock, but she figured,why tempt fate.

As she dressed, her eyes traced the strong lines of his back, the way his muscles shifted with every slow breath. There was a quiet strength to him even in rest, something she’d never let herself linger on before.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t noticed Skye was obnoxiously well-proportioned—she wasn’t blind. Not bulky, but honed, all effortless control wrapped in careless sprawl.

But noticing and feeling something about it were two very different things.

And apparently, she felt a lot of things now.

She shouldn’t be staring—it’d only feed that insufferable ego of his if he knew. And even if that ego hadsolidground to stand on, it was still her job to keep him humble. Not for her benefit, obviously. It was a public service.

So, she tore her eyes away.

A shadow uncoiled from the corner of the hayloft, following her down the ladder into the main room of the stable. Calcifer. She scratched behind the ears—good morning—before heading toward the fire where Kato slept.

They’d found him barely conscious, his body battered, blood drying in his hair. Shadow mages healed quickly—unless low aether weakened them. Then they became the most delicate of baby birds that needed to be tended with the utmost care. Or so one would believe given the sheer amount ofwhiningKato had done over the past three days.

Yes, his aether was drained. And yes, it was strange how slow it was to recover. Taly suspected it had something to do with that collar they’d taken off him. It felt…wrongwhen she touched it. Cold, prickly. Even wearing gloves, Skye had dropped the thing like it burned him.

Still, that didn’t justify the litany of complaints about the pain, the bandages, the light in the room, even the amount of rain. She could make him tea for the chill. She couldn’t control the damn weather.

Thankfully, he was asleep right now. She checked his forehead. His fever was better. She’d rewound time on the bulk of his injuries, though a few proved more stubborn.

Inside the loop—Azura’s prison—time was predictable. A single day, looping endlessly, with no history or future.

Outside, it was a jumbled, tangled mess.

When she reached for her magic now, she didn’t just feel the echo of yesterday or the whisper of tomorrow. She felt… history. The rise and fall of long-forgotten civilizations. The birth and death of stars.

She felt the Weave stretching infinitely into the future, so much morevast, more all-encompassing than she could have ever imagined.

The wound on Kato’s leg was one of those more stubborn injuries—a snarl in the Weave she just couldn’t work out. There were too many circumstances, too much information to unravel. Threads would snap, or they’d slip between her fingers, or sometimes disappear for no reason at all. And she didn’t want to yanktoo hardon anything in case she accidentally erased him from, well,time.

She lifted the blanket, checking the splint around his thigh. She’d set the bone just like Leto had shown her, but it was different doing what she’d only ever done to herself to another person. The break was healing slower than she would’ve liked, but she didn’t know if that was due to error on her part or because his aether was still recovering.

Either way, she placed a pain potion and a few sprigs of faeflower beside him. He’d need both if he woke up.

Taly swung on her cloak, pulling the hood low. Calcifer trotted ahead of her into the storm. It was still early, 4, maybe 5bells. Thick clouds, pregnant with rain, clung to the sky, swallowing the morning in a blanket of unnatural darkness.

Through the gray, the shadow of Infinity’s Edge loomed. She gave it a wide berth. Maybe it was paranoia, yet the fear lingered—that if she strayed too close, the Queen might sense it.Might reconsider her freedom and reach out an astral hand to drag her back.

Water splashed beneath her boots, soaking her to the knees as she followed the familiar path to check their traps. Skye had set them around the perimeter of their little camp.

The trip wires were still intact. Noisemakers undisturbed.

She moved on to the next task of the morning, slipping through a gap in the old wrought-iron fence into the forest. The terrain was more overgrown than she remembered, but the same bunches of healing herbs she’d used to patch herself up during those long months of Feyrie tag persisted exactly where she knew to find them. Wyrmwood sage for pain. Witchbane ivy for its antiseptic properties. Sandman’s whisper for sleep. Tending to Kato had required plenty of all three.

Crouched beside a stream, her hands worked quickly, cleaning muddy roots. Her fingers trembled from the cold. She scowled while she worked. It was a novelty at first. After a year trapped in a land of eternal summer, she’d rejoiced just to walk outside, look at the gray sky, and shiver.

Then the novelty wore off, and Taly remembered that she didn’t actuallylikethe cold. The gray skies she’d once found so charming became oppressive. The rain was a constant, miserable companion, soaking her to the skin and reminding her just how much she missed the warmth she’d taken for granted. There was a reason Skye had so easily been able to bribe her back home with the allure of hot water.