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Calcifer hissed, his tail lashing.

Aneirin’s gaze flicked to the mimic. “We won’t be needing you.” He snapped his fingers. A rift split the air beside Calcifer, and with a startled yowl, he vanished—sucked into the dark like smoke into a vacuum.

“There,” he said smoothly. “Now we can talk without interruptions.”

Taly stared at the space where Calcifer had been, her breath snagging in her chest. The air still crackled with the echo of the portal’s snap.

She hadn’t even had time to reach for him.

Aneirin ran a hand down the front of his borrowed body. “You’ll have to forgive me for wearing the same suit twice. Bit of a fashion faux pas, I’m aware. But you did such a marvelous job with the repair, and he was always a favorite.”

Over the weeks, Kalahad had been making slow progress. Blood infusions sustained him, but slowly, gradually, his body had begun producing its own aether again. The marks on his skin had faded. He was healing.

Now, those same marks had returned—black veins snaking up from beneath his collar like ink spilled through his bloodstream.

A tremor shivered through her. And a realization.

What looked like a Curse but wasn’t?

What had he left behind on every Fey body he possessed?

“It’s camouflage,” Taly whispered. “That’s why you needed the Curse. So, you could move through the city.”

The rash, the symptoms, the way it crept through their veins like a damn horror show—it mimicked possession.

Aneirin had flooded the city with sickness, concealing his presence among the genuinely ill. Hiding his movements in plain sight while they scrambled to contain the outbreak.

Kalahad clapped. Slowly. “By the Magnus and the Mother, give the girl a prize ,” he drawled, smiling. An easy, natural expression she’d never seen on any of his other bodies. As if he’d had time to learn the intricacies of this specific face.

The thought struck her like a lightning—how many times had she been near him?

And that question sent her spiraling into a dozen more. Had she ever sat by his bedside, dabbing sweat from his fevered brow? He could’ve been any one of her assignments at the healing park.

Had she fetched him a blanket? Changed his poultices? Fluffed his Shards-damned pillow?

Aneirin chuckled, leaning back on his throne.

“Don’t beat yourself up, dearie. You’re guilty of the same sin as that bitch behind you.

Pride . The unshakeable faith that your miraculous Sight will put an end to all evil.

That you know best . But the truth is that we’re all fallible—humans, Fey, and gods alike. ”

He was between her and the main door, but there was a side entrance the priestesses used to come and go.

Taly took a slow step back—toward the altar—trying to make it look natural. More restless pacing than deliberate retreat.

Aneirin regarded her. “What did she offer you?” he asked with lethal quiet. “What pretty lies did she tell?”

One hand drifting to the pistol holstered beneath her skirts, Taly took another slow, careful step. “You’re not making any sense.”

He snarled and slammed a fist on the arm of the throne, the sound echoing. “Do not lie to me, girl. Not when I caught you red-handed, whispering at her feet like a good little disciple.”

“I’m not lying,” Taly said, still edging forward. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never have any idea what you’re talking about.”

Blue eyes narrowed in genuine curiosity.

He tilted his head. “You’re telling the truth,” he murmured.

“So, then you truly…” A huff, then a cackling laugh burst out of him.

His face lit up with savage delight. “Oh my, this —this is a new low. She must be desperate indeed if she’s resorted to preying on innocents. ”

A blast of cold rushed toward her, and then Aneirin was right there, leaning over so they were nose-to-nose. She hadn’t even seen him rise. He’d moved in a blink.

“Please, allow me to apologize,” he said. “I just assumed you’d already been informed—”

Taly’s back hit the altar. She pulled her pistol forward, holding it between them.

“I see,” he remarked, grinning. “So, that explains that little tickle. Hyaline, yes? Happy to see someone finally found a way to make it useful that didn’t involve dragging me out of bed.”

He slapped the gun out of her hands. The crack of a gunshot filled the temple.

“Perhaps I should explain the game you’ve wandered into, child.” He straightened, casting a longer shadow, the space between them somehow smaller for it. “It seems only fair, considering which side has already claimed you.”

As though his words called it forth, thunder growled from deep underground, echoing through the temple. Taly could feel its vibration through the soles of her boots.

Aneirin smiled in delight. “I don’t think she liked that.” His eyes lifted, searching the stone rafters. “You haven’t told her yet, have you?” he said to no one that Taly could see. “The bitch always did hate being reminded of the rules,” he added with a glance back at her.

Magic lashed through the temple. Light and color flashed like phantoms, golden images flickering in and out among the pews and aisles.

They were everywhere, their forms indistinct, filling the temple like some ghostly congregation.

Hints of ancient songs and whispers echoed off the walls, bleeding away before she could grasp their meaning.

Aneirin roared back at that force, that presence she could feel watching them from on high, “Oh, don’t get pissy with me. For the Judge has delivered his ruling, that ye might only take that which is freely given . And like always, it’s up to me to step in and do your due diligence.”

The whispers grew in force and volume, and Taly realized… It was time—raw time that she could feel building like pressure in her ears. After so many days separate from the Weave, she breathed it in like oxygen.

A thousand different days, all layered on top of each other, all colliding. And as the voices rose in a discordant roar, words began to surface, a pattern emerging from the chaos, a single word spoken by different people during different ages…

you

should

have

stayed

slee…pinggg

The last word trailed off into a hiss as the roar died down. The pressure released, so suddenly that Taly sagged against the altar.

“What the hell was that?” she rasped, heart thundering.

Aneirin dusted off his sleeves. “Just a temper tantrum. Don’t worry. Without a vessel, that’s all she can do. Howl, rant, and make creepy sounds. Pay her no mind.”

He fixed his eyes on her, black lines spider-webbing across his cheeks. Kalahad was fading, deteriorating by the second.

“Who are you?” Taly breathed.

He said almost gently, “Someone who can help. If you’ll let me. It brings me no joy to see an innocent racing so blindly to her own execution.” He tilted his head. “ Kairó vuun’manii? ”

Taly jolted.

“Yes, I thought that might ring a bell. It’s Faerish. And by that, I mean true Faerish, not that polluted nonsense your scholars peddle. Its meaning is very simple: let me in, my beloved .”

Silence fell, thick and heavy. As if that presence was still there, still hiding in the shadows.

Still listening.

Aneirin went on, “I’m sure you’ve seen her by now: a woman with skin pale as ivory. Who whispers sweet nothings in your ear—and by that, I mean ‘true nothings.’ More incomprehensible murmurings in a language no one speaks anymore.”

The rumblings grew sharper.

“What?” he demanded of that presence. “Speaking nonsense she can’t understand doesn’t count. That’s not how consent works!”

He pinched the air, and Taly grabbed her head, pain stabbing through her as the Weave shuddered. The threads of her life strained against the invisible weight pressing on them.

Aneirin nodded. “Oh my, it looks like you’ve already been crowned. The symbol of your reign—it’s always the third gift in the Procession. Three more and you will be asked the question, and then Lachesis herself will rip open your soul and devour everything that you are.”

Taly gasped when he released whatever hold he had on her. The pain faded. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Because so far, I’m the only one who hasn’t. I may bend the truth. Leave out pertinent details. But I don’t lie. That’s another hideously unfair piece of slander they’ve spread about me through the annals of history.”

More thunder rolled through the temple. Taly’s eyes darted upward, following the sound.

“I can help you,” he said. “I can save you from her. We do not need to be enemies when we share a common goal.”

Taly pressed closer to the altar. “I know what you’re going to ask me, and I won’t help you.”

“So, you’ll help her then?”

“I want nothing to do with either one of you.”

Aneirin chuckled, a dark smile tugging at his lips. “That, I’m afraid, is not an option. The divines spoke long before you ever drew breath. Your role was decided then.”

He said it like she was supposed to just lie down and take it.

Taly’s eyes blazed. “We’ll see about that.”

Then she spun, fingers closing around the heavy bowl of incense resting on the altar. With a sharp breath and all her strength, she hurled it straight at him.

Kalahad cried out in pain, hands flying to his face as acrid smoke and smoldering ash burned his eyes.

Taly shoved past him and sprinted for the main door.

Reality fractured, sharp and sudden, like a mirror struck dead center. A wave of cold blasted through the temple.

Then he was standing in front of her, in front of the door, having stepped out of the rift leaking darkness behind him.

“Fuck!” She ran for her gun instead.

“Is that all the great Savior can muster? How dreadfully disappointing.”

Taly dropped to one knee, sliding on the stone floor, her hand already reaching for the gun. Scooping it up, she swung it upward, taking aim.

“Later, when you’re screaming and begging for my mercy—”

She fired off two rounds. One caught him in the chest, the other the shoulder.