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Humans called it déjà vu. That feeling that you’d seen or done a thing before.

With a yell, Skye sliced his sword up across the dead man’s belly. Black blood sprayed his face.

He’d been here. Done this. He’d already killed that shade and the next, and he knew where the blade would come from.

He ducked before he saw it, body reacting to a memory he hadn’t lived. The wound that wasn’t on his shoulder—the one he remembered taking—gave a phantom pang as he swept the shade’s leg, driving his sword into the monster’s chest.

It started with an attack on the southernmost perimeter.

A large group of shades broke through, advancing toward Ryme.

Ivain summoned the Gate Watchers, along with every contingent of mages the noble Houses had volunteered for the day, hoping that if they struck hard and fast, they could keep the fighting from ever touching the city.

From the battlements, Eula shouted orders to the line of casters.

The same explosions that shattered the aerial ward shield had also crippled the wall’s enchantment matrix.

Gray smoke rose from the stone, the glow of magic still sparking as it faded.

It would be easy to climb now, but the casters summoned vines to sprout from the ground beneath the wall, their ends sharpened to deadly, venomous points.

Fire and ice rained from above, trailing brimstone and vapor. Where they hit, dirt exploded.

Fighting on the ground, Skye could barely see through the chaos. Dust and blood blurred everything, but it didn’t matter. If the shades got past them, the city was done.

A behemoth of rotting flesh brought down a bone-breaking blow. Crossing dagger and sword, Skye cleaved the shade’s fist off at the wrist. He didn’t know how to describe it—the sense of what came next. He just knew things. Like when to swing, when to duck, where the next blade would be.

The world felt out of sync, like a song restarting on the wrong beat. He could feel the moment before it happened, like an echo chasing reality.

A shade with the shattered skull of a grendel welded to its shoulders lunged from the forest. Skye slammed his boot into the creature, hard enough to cave its chest.

It had to be her. Taly.

He’d felt this before—this eerie, weightless moment where the world hesitated, then snapped back into focus. She’d rewound them.

Ramming his sword in deep, he twisted the blade, pulling the shade close enough to rip the crystal from its chest.

Something had happened. He knew it.

In his bones—through the bond—he could feel it.

Not fury.

Loss.

A towering skeleton in rusted iron mail lurched forward, reaching for him. Skye shuffled back. Its jaws opened in a scream, but he drove his sword down into its bony maw to the softly pulsing shadow crystal in its chest.

Air and fire blasted outward. The crystal sparked as it shattered. The reverberation sent a jolt up his arm and into his shoulder.

Noise swallowed everything. Boots pounded mud, and blades scraped armor. The shades pushed from the forest, cutting into the line of mages. Skye fought through it, kept swinging, slicing—

“Wait!” The word was a croak scraped from rotting vocal cords, barely coherent.

Skye’s blade flashed like quicksilver. Heads kept rolling.

“I said wa—”

Swift as the wind, Skye plunged his sword into the next monster’s neck.

“Will you please —”

Then the next.

Rolling, he picked up a shield, ripping it away from the corpse it was still strapped to. He twisted back up to his feet—

“Wait!” This time, the shade held up its hands. Skye’s sword halted. “I need to speak with you,” it croaked, its mouth working to form the words around a bloated tongue. “It’s about—”

Plumes of ice and fire rocketed from behind him, throwing up dirt and debris into the air and leaving nothing but a smoldering hole where the shade had been.

“It’s about the time mage.”

Skye spun, lifting his shield. “Bill, I presume?”

Another shade shuffled out of the midst of battle. “That name really is catching on, isn’t it?”

Skye plunged his sword into the shade’s belly.

“It occurred to me that we’ve never really spoken privately.”

With a shout and a flare of aether, Skye whirled, but Aneirin had possessed a shadow mage this time. Geoff was fair-haired and skinny, too young to be on the frontline.

Skye lifted his sword, but he saw the truth in Aneirin’s eyes. The knowledge that he would never be able to strike.

“I need some advice,” Aneirin said. “Man-to-man, so to speak.” He ran a hand over his borrowed body. “It’s about your mate.”

Skye growled, “If you’ve hurt her—”

Aneirin barked a laugh. “Me? Hurt her ? If anything, I’m the one that needs protection. And on that note, I was just wondering what, hypothetically, you might suggest to someone who, maybe, wanted to, uh, I don’t know… calm her down?”

Skye blinked. “What?”

“Is there a safe word? Does she have a favorite blanket, maybe a muzzle?” Aneirin ducked out of the way of a stray blast of ice.

“You know, when she’s angry. How do you make that stop?

” He waved a hand in the direction of the city.

“Look, I’ll admit, sometimes I have anger issues.

But never let it be said that Aneirin of the Ash-Shallayn—that is my name, by the way—doesn’t know how to ask for help. You see, I made a mistake.”

A fireball exploded on the ground between them.

“She wasn’t responding to my bribes, so I thought, maybe, she just needed a firmer hand.”

Skye eyed him as they circled. “ What did you do to her ?” he snarled.

“Nothing,” Aneirin said. Black lines spider-webbed up the boy’s neck, black blood frothing at the corners of his mouth. He was killing him. “Mostly… nothing. Okay, look, how was I supposed to know she’d be so attached to the demon creature?”

Demon? “Wait, you mean Calcifer?”

Aneirin snapped his fingers. “Yes. That was its name. And now I’m afraid she’s very cross with me.”

Explosions thundered from the city. Skye turned—

“No, no. Don’t look over there.” Aneirin jumped, waving his hands. “Just tell me how to diffuse the bomb—I mean, girl. There’s no bomb. Absolutely no danger.”

Lightning cracked, except… it wasn’t lightning. It was too loud and right on top of them.

Magic gathered, heavy in the air. Dread coiled in Skye’s stomach as he looked up.

Standing at the base of the wall, he couldn’t see the city—but he could see the sky above it. No stars. Dark clouds. And a slice in the fabric of reality that split open the heavens like a wound.

“Real temper, that one,” Aneirin said, edging away. “I’d say there’s only a 50-50 chance she destroys all of reality.”

The rift stretched wider, threatening to split the sky entirely, the edges fraying like fabric being torn apart.

“60-40.”

The ground beneath them trembled as the rift seemed to… inhale.

Objects from the city below lifted, drawn skyward. Roof tiles tore free, spinning through space like leaves caught in a gale. Loose stones and debris rose from the streets.

“70-30.”

Around them, trees bent towards the rift, branches straining as they reached for the void.

“And this is where I think I’m going to, as they say, skedaddle . This is your problem now.”

Then Aneirin did just that. Though Skye didn’t see anything leave the body, he felt it rushing past.

Lunging, he caught an unconscious Geoff. The boy was still breathing, glassy-eyed with blood dripping from his nose.

“I need a healer!” Skye shouted as the shades began to retreat. All around, they dropped their weapons, dropped out of the fight, and fled into the forest.

Another deafening crack of lightning split the air, thunder rolling in the darkness beyond the rift. It was the sound of the heavens, of stars colliding and reforming.

And wherever Taly was, she was at the center of it.

He had to get to her.