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A horrible screech pulled her attention to the left side of the street.

In the distance, maybe a block away, a group of harpies lumbered around the corner.

Five of them—all tall, gangly, and rotting.

The largest led from the center of the pack.

Even beneath the mangled slab of meat that had once been its face, its eyes were keen.

Heart pounding, Aimee checked the glamour, made sure it was holding, signaling to the people around her to be still, to hush.

The harpies moved forward, examining the bodies on the street and signaling to each other with grunts and growls.

But these weren’t animals. Not in the way Aimee remembered.

The beast at the Aion Gate—she’d seen a sort of predatory intelligence in its eyes, but this…

This was systematic. Organized . They moved from body to body, checking for something.

Looking for it in each face and failing to find it.

Once the street was cleared, they checked the buildings, nudging open doors and disappearing inside. Aimee’s body shook, sweat dripping down her temple as one of them lumbered past the glamoured storefront and into the shop next door.

She breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to scan the street again, one hand bracing against the ruined window frame.

She froze.

The alpha loomed just feet away, its colossal bulk swallowing the light. It was looking at her. Like it could see her.

She forced herself to keep still, lungs burning as she struggled to keep her breath silent.

The glamour was holding. It was perfect. Aimee checked it again and again.

But the beast gave a long sniff—and her heart sank.

She’d gotten it wrong. The scent was off or maybe there was a flicker?

The alpha approached the window, stopping just short of the glamour disguising it. Every breath it took was a rattling hiss, the sound low and menacing. This close, she could see the crystal pulsing violet in its chest. Beneath mangled flesh and exposed ribs, she counted every beat.

Aimee took a cautious step back. Glass crunched beneath her slippers.

The harpy’s head cocked, listening. It gave another sniff, then a peck, jumping back, wings flaring, when its nose passed through empty space.

One squawk summoned the others. They prowled closer, joining it at the window.

Behind her, children whimpered. People were trembling, hands clamped tight over their mouths to stifle their screams.

“I’m sorry,” Aimee whispered. She’d gathered them here, and now they were all going to die.

The alpha poked its head through the glamour, cautious. The magic peeled over its graying skin. Aimee felt the push on her magic as the glamour changed shape.

Its milky eyes were strangely aware—bulging from its skull—its skin so wrinkled it seemed to sag from the bone. Its scales had rotted off in patches, and its wounds oozed. Not blood, but something black and putrid. And the smell… Oh, Shards, the smell…

It was all Aimee could do not to gag as she retreated another step.

The alpha saw it. That horrible mouth parted, letting out a low growl as it smiled.

Aimee’s breath sawed in and out of her. Hands shaking horribly, she unspooled her magic, letting it gather in her palms. Maybe she didn’t have a chance of saving them, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

The water whip formed in her hands. Just a few minutes. That’s all she needed to buy. There was an exit in the back, and even if just a few people made it out, then this—this stand… it would be worth it.

The alpha’s smile grew. It gave a bark that the others echoed. A call to act. To strike. To hunt .

Saliva dripped from its maw as bloodied claws curled around the window frame. It reared back, tensing to lunge—

A gunshot rang out.

The alpha’s head exploded in a rain of gore.

Aimee lurched back, people screaming around her, tripping as they ran. Shelves of produce toppled, spilling onto the floor, and then—

The first explosion shook the whole building, knocking loose stone, brick, and mortar.

The second sent a blast of flame and heat gusting through the window.

Shrapnel and debris rained inwards. Aimee threw her arms up, and water formed around her—sheets of it, summoned in an instant from the air. Blue aether poured from her palms and spun outward, coalescing in hard, sharp whorls.

She reached deep, into the parts of herself she’d never dared touch. Where her rage lived, her hatred, and every other coarse, indelicate feeling she’d been taught to silence.

The third explosion detonated.

With a scream, Aimee flung the spell at the window. Water struck and froze—not a flimsy sheet, but a two-inch-thick wall of ice. It cracked as it grew, reaching over the jagged windowpane, spilling across the glass-strewn floor.

Aimee groaned against the force of the fourth explosion—against the fiery winds she could feel blasting outside that barrier.

“Through the back,” she shouted, jaw clenched tight.

But nobody moved. Nobody spoke. They were all staring past her.

Because through the ice, a shadow moved between the harpies, weaving in and out. There was a muted thud, thud, thud , then more explosions. Harpies shrieked. Villagers flinched, hands clapped over their ears.

It was all Aimee could do to grit her teeth against the rising noise—

And then, just as suddenly, it was over.

Quiet fell.

Outside, nothing stirred.

Inside, the silence was total, broken only by the wet hitch of breath and a few sharp, shuddering gasps.

Slowly, slowly , Aimee approached the ice. She stepped through it. Magic brushed over her skin, cold and smooth as water, then gave way to the balmy kiss of morning.

The sky was light gray now, the air already heating.

She stepped into the street and looked around.

The ground was littered with bodies—human and Fey, harpies collapsed over them. But this time, the monsters weren’t moving. Just dead weight, scattered across the wreckage they’d made.

And in the middle of it all stood Taly.

Without her glamour.

Bursting with so much aether, it gilded her body in the waning dark.

In her hands, she held a long rifle, the hilt of it carved from iridescent pearl. Blood and gore covered her from head to toe. Her clothes were black with it.

The air around her shimmered with what looked like… threads. Raw, golden threads of light intertwining in an intricate dance that cast an ethereal glow over the battlefield.

“Taly!” Aimee’s voice called out a second before she’d opened her mouth to do it. “What—” she tried, but the word was already an echo on her tongue.

Holding up her hand, gold hazed above her skin, like an aura, moving half-a-heartbeat before she’d even had the thought.

“Hi!” Taly shouted from the other end of the street, waving. “Glad to see you’re not dead!”

Aimee froze, her breath hitching. And for a moment, she didn’t see the time mage, nor the Savior, nor the impossible force cloaked in gold as morning bloomed around her.

She saw a little girl with sunlight behind her, golden on the water, waving from the tip of a surfboard and grinning like she’d conquered the ocean.

She saw Cori .

Small, wild, always running ahead when she wasn’t supposed to. Too young to understand fear, too stubborn to be left behind.

In that instant, the two images finally merged—the gold, the grin, the reckless defiance of a world built to pull her under. Cori and Taly, inseparable at last.

People gathered behind her, peeking through where the ice was melting. Drawing on her magic, what was left of it, Aimee reinforced the spell, the meltwater inching back up to fill in the gaps.

Taly smiled wildly. “You should really be at the Swap.”

“ You should be at the Swap,” Aimee shouted back. “What are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

No, it really wasn’t.

“Oh, my Shards…” Aiden murmured.

Aimee whirled. Damn it, she’d forgotten to wall off the door.

He stepped through the crowd collecting around it and into the street. With wide eyes, he took in the carnage, face going pale when he saw— “Taly?”

Taly gave another jaunty wave.

Aimee looked at her brother, the same panic she felt mirrored on his face. Reaching for her aether, she began weaving the glamour—by now, she knew it by heart—pulling water from the air.

Spinning and twisting it to craft the image—

Taly batted away the spell the way she might shoo a fly. “Both of you are very bloody, by the way.” She eyed the long scratch on Aimee’s neck, bleeding into her dress. Aiden didn’t look much better, blood plastering one side of his head. “You know harpies are venomous, right?”

Aimee and Aiden exchanged another look.

“I—” Aiden began, only to collapse forward with a groan, holding his head as blood slowly inched across his skin, pulling back into the long scratch hidden behind his ear.

Aimee looked down. Blood was seeping out of her dress, like it was being recalled back into her body as the scratch reversed across her neck.

Not healed. Erased . As if it had never been.

When it was over, they were both left panting from the pain.

“What the hell?” Aiden hissed, eyes darting to the door of the grocery.

If anybody saw...

They did.

The wall of ice was melting. Everybody had seen.

And they were all gasping. Twitching. Curling inward as golden light threaded over broken skin and shattered limbs.

Healing. Hurting. All at once.

Aimee pressed a hand to her racing heart. This was fine. Everything was fine. Her cousin had just casually healed a building full of people, flinging time magic around like she had a death wish—but it was fine.

Taly approached, picking her way through the field of bodies.

She looked wired, like she hadn’t blinked in hours.

Gore streaked her leathers, dried blood spattered across her jaw and neck.

Aether crackled around her in uneven bursts—little pops of gold at her fingertips, her shoulders, the edges of her hair.

Aimee watched as her cousin smiled—sharp and twitchy and far too pleased.

“You need guns,” she said, her eyes lit with something electric—like she was running a fever made of lightning. “Lucky for you, I’ve been collecting them.”

Then that veil of aether coating her skin pulsed, and a silver revolver landed at Aimee’s feet.

Beside her, Aiden barked a curse, grappling with the compound bow that dropped onto his head.

“Go that way,” Taly said, pointing down the street. “I left Kato at the Swap. He’s probably very mad at me. Tell him I’m not sorry,” she added and turned to go.

“Wait!” Aimee called after her.

Taly paused, skin still glowing with that strange radiance. In the gray, pre-dawn light, even beneath the gore, she looked like the first rays of a long-awaited morning.

“What are you doing?” Aimee asked again.

She had no glamour, she… she was going to get herself killed .

“What does it look like?” Taly smiled over her shoulder and patted her gun. “I’m saving the fucking day.”