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In truth, it probably happened in the span of an eyeblink, the ripple of destruction that tore apart the room. But for Taly, time slowed and stretched, and she saw everything.

She saw the first stitch slip loose, up near the ceiling in the corner of the room. That led to a tear that turned into a larger rip that kept spreading, pushing across the entire wall.

More threads frayed, starting at the edges of the rip and moving outward, moving faster. Gaining speed as the beds, the cabinets, the people themselves all spiraled and collapsed. All turned to threads, the color of them, of the room, of life, leached out to reveal a burning heart of gold.

A quarter of the room had vanished, but no one reacted. Moving so slowly, they didn’t have time to even realize that the fabric of reality was unwinding around them.

A thread snagged on the long sleeve of a mender’s robe, pulled by a phantom hand. It moved up one arm, then split at his neck, sweeping over his head and down his chest, then across the floor to the next person and the next.

“You’re going to regret this,” Aneirin said with a heavy sigh. He cast an eye at the chaos unfolding around him. “They always d—”

Then he was gone too. His face, his body, split into threads that rapidly uncoiled, the ends flying free.

It kept moving—that ripple—eating up the walls, the floors, even the bed beneath her as fabric and metal burst apart. But she didn’t fall. She didn’t need solid ground anymore. Not with magic all around, a swirling maelstrom of sparkling gold with her at the heart of it.

“Do you see how it could be?” the voice whispered.

The threads snapped taut, each one fine as spider silk but bunched so close together they appeared as a solid, shining mass.

“How you could be the master of every moment?”

The threads shifted, light sweeping across their surface, and through them, images appeared.

There was Sarina fighting in the North Square, hair wild and flaming as harpies circled.

There was Ivain, clutching a bloodied hand to his side as he staggered out of the temple to a cacophony of screams and fire.

The threads changed again. More images flashed.

Aimee guiding a group of people through the street, concealing them with her magic.

Aiden kneeling in a ransacked grocer, blood on his face. He was injured, in pain, but still doing everything he could to breathe life into those broken and bleeding on the floor around him.

From every angle, she watched her family fight. Watched them bleed. Would she watch them die too?

There was Kato searching through the panicked throngs of the Swap for a healer.

There was Eula, glowing with shadow magic, roaring as she hefted her sword and plunged it clean through the chest of a shade with scraps of leather for armor.

In the background, magic flashed red, blue, and green as explosions sounded, but the shades kept coming, spilling from the surrounding forest.

Through the endless threads of time unraveling around her, Taly saw it—Aneirin’s plan unfolding in perfect, horrifying clarity.

He’d attacked the city gates first, prompting Ivain to mobilize the bulk of his mages to deal with the threat. Leaving the festival with only a skeleton force—enough to keep the peace or to oversee an evacuation, but not enough to defend.

Which would’ve been fine, if the ward shield had held.

But the explosions had been targeted—from up here she could see that now, the devastation laid bare. He’d taken out the generators, brought down the shield, leaving the city helpless in the face of what was coming.

Like lambs awaiting slaughter.

Through the storm of gold, shades rushed from all sides. Some nothing more than mismatched collections of bones clanging beneath rusty armor, some half-decayed; some freshly killed, with graying skin and eyes that were at once dead and unseeing yet far too sharply focused.

And through them, through the line, the legion—there was Skye.

Blood streaked his face and stained his clothing. He was fighting, a sword in one hand, a shield in the other. Shades surrounded him, with more still spilling from the forest. She could feel the chill of the night, the moisture in the air—she could smell the rot and tang of blood all around her.

The threads were still shifting, rearranging, and the image changed. Moving outward now, beyond Skye, beyond the city, beyond their blue ocean planet, now a distant speck.

And beyond that—beyond this place, this time, this body… there was everything .

Stars, and planets, and the suns they orbited. The million upon billions of lives upon them.

For a heartbeat, Taly could see it all with perfect clarity.

The whole of creation. The entire picture.

Every moment. Everywhere. All at once.

And it was too much. Too much for her mind to hold.

Tipping her head back, Taly screamed as the power ripped through her, light bursting from her open mouth, from her eyes, spearing from her chest.

“We’ll give you just a taste for now,” the voice said, echoing from all corners. “Best not to swim too deep too quickly.”

Golden light shone from beneath her. A thread snapped and caught her around the throat. Two more caught her wrists.

The floor softened, swallowing her as threads tangled around her, pulling her deeper into the light.

Taly was in up to her knees now, her waist.

“For my fourth gift,” the voice whispered. “I give you a second chance.”

Taly’s shoulders disappeared beneath the surface.

“Do not waste it.”

That phantom hand kept pulling—pulling her down, pulling her under. Taly twisted, stretching to gasp in one last breath—

And as she went under, it yanked.

Hard.

Like it was ripping her loose.

Taly fell, plunging through air and time, light and darkness, until—

Cold slammed into her.

Taly opened her eyes to flashing lights, and suffocating smoke, and the blood-curdling shrieks of harpies as people fled.

And pain .

Sandwiched between Ana and Ren, Taly looked down at the wooden shard in her belly. She looked at the people swarming past them, moving towards the Swap. Towards the doors that began closing.

Behind her, a thud sounded as a harpy dropped in the middle of the street. Kato scooped her up and began running.

Taly knew what happened next. The doors would close. Ren would die.

Unless she stopped it.

Her mouth quirked. And with that, round two began.

They were almost there, almost to the doors. Kato pushed through the sea of bodies, Taly in his arms. He could feel her blood soaking through his coat. Without her magic, she couldn’t heal. She just kept bleeding and bleeding and fuck , they better have a healer.

Skye had been called to the city walls. Kato too. But there was still the matter of Taly. So, he’d volunteered to go back—he was faster, and Skye was the better fighter. It had made sense at the time.

He’d promised to find her. Promised to keep her safe.

She couldn’t die here. Not now. Not under his watch.

“Kato?” Taly rasped, but he kept moving forward.

Almost there, almost—

“ Kato ,” she said more forcefully, tugging on his coat. He looked down, and Taly lifted a limp and bloodied hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as all around people screamed, pushed, and jostled.

Kato didn’t remember blinking, only that the moment seemed to stretch.

When he opened his eyes, Taly was no longer in his arms.

blink

Suddenly, he found himself standing a solid five feet from where he’d been, right inside the doors to the Swap. He stumbled to a stop—

blink

Ren landed on the floor beside him.

blink

Then those two massive doors leading into the Swap were dissolving, the top edges turning to dust.

blink

Now they were gone entirely, and the people still outside, who had just been pushing and heaving their bodies against solid wood, came crashing through.

He skipped back a few steps to keep from tripping, eyes searching—

Taly . He had to find—

He found her.

Shit.

Shiiiiit .

The courtyard was a tableau of frozen movement—chaos and carnage caught in a single breath. Harpies hovered mid-lunge, their claws poised to strike, inches from the kill. People still ran, expressions trapped, unfinished, never to finish forming.

And in the middle of it stood Taly.

Golden aether lashed wildly, swirling like a storm around her, whipping at her blood-soaked hair and clothing.

With a groan, she ripped the shard of wood from her side. Blood and entrails spilled out only to be pulled back into her body. She threw it to the ground, stumbling as the wound continued to heal.

He could taste the next flash coming, could feel the power building, and he lunged for her—

blink

She stood in front of him, both hands on his chest.

His eyes found hers. “Don’t,” he breathed, and knew that he was begging. Knew that she could see it. “I have to get you out of here. Please, Taly, don—”

She gave one solid push.

blink

He went flying. But this time, he saw it—the spectacle of endlessly slow movement playing out all around him.

And Taly, weaving through it.

Screaming faces twisted in slow motion as she moved between them, plucking bodies from danger, shifting them like puzzle pieces.

She packed them closer, filled the gaps, made space—threading the lost back into the picture, stitching them into a place of safety.

Kato’s body was still soaring, flying backwards into the Swap as the doors began to reassemble, particles of dust rising from piles on the floor.

Taly met his eyes as she walked past him. Golden aether gilded her body from head to toe. But it wasn’t the magic that terrified him.

In her face, he saw nothing but primal, unsated rage.

In that moment, Kato knew that he couldn’t save his brother’s mate. He wouldn’t be able to keep that promise.

As the doors closed and she stepped outside of them, Kato lifted both hands—and gave her a double-fingered send-off.

Because fuck damsels, that’s why. No gratitude, even after he went through all this trouble to protect her.

Through the doors, the ever-narrowing gap between them, he saw her smile. She lifted a hand, either to wave or—

blink