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“He’s in the garden,” Eula said as she led them down the hall. Most of Kalahad’s household had disappeared after the festival, so Gate Watchers had stepped in to manage the current situation.

“How is he?” Ivain asked.

Eula glanced at the carnage around them, the pictures on the wall hanging askew. “More active, as you can see.”

“Talking?”

“No.”

“Damn,” Ivain muttered.

“I don’t understand,” Taly said from the back of the group. “I thought you said he asked for me.”

If that was a lie Ivain had made up to get her out of bed, well… it had worked. Without it, the pull of soft blankets and the comfort of oblivion started calling again.

“He did,” Eula said, and the pull vanished. “Once when he first woke up, and then not a word since. Well, none that make sense, anyway.”

In the end, Ivain didn’t defeat Aneirin. Taly wasn’t sure if there was a way to win against something like that. But he’d done enough to put him on the run. Kalahad had been left broken, barely breathing, but free—finally—of the thing that had been wearing him like a second skin.

“Do you have any idea why he wants to see you?” Sarina asked.

Taly shook her head. “None.”

But Taly knew exactly why she wanted to see him. If anyone would know where to find Bill—and perhaps, if they were very lucky, how to kill him—it would be his original victim. The head in which he’d spent the most time.

“He’s in there,” Eula said, stopping in front of a large set of leaded glass doors. Turning to Taly, she said, “You don’t have to do this.”

“I’m aware,” Taly said with a patient smile. She wanted to. She needed it. “If there are no more objections?” she said, looking at each person in turn.

Ivain tried to come up with something. As did Sarina. Skye opened his mouth—probably to say something like, how did they know there weren’t more Sanctifiers waiting to spring out from behind that door. But one sharp look shut it again.

“Good,” Taly said brightly. “Wish me luck.”

The once lush and vibrant greenhouse was now a scene of devastation.

“Gone… all gone… can’t touch it… the pulse. Where’s the pulse?” a small, frantic voice murmured.

Tall shelves that had housed rows of exotic plants were toppled.

The soil was upset and mixed, dry patches contrasting with dark, wet stains where water had pooled.

The air was thick with the scent of fresh earth and crushed greenery.

Ceramic pots lay overturned, roots exposed and drying in the open air.

“It’s silent! Not a whisper, not a murmur… why? Why?!”

Amidst the chaos, Taly found Kalahad sprawled in the wreckage. He was covered from head to toe in dirt. His fingers dug into the soil as he whimpered, “It’s gone… I can’t feel it anymore…”

Taly approached cautiously, the sound of her footsteps muffled by the broken earth. She knelt nearby, careful not to startle him.

“Kalahad,” she said gently.

He looked up, his eyes wide and unseeing. “It’s all gone,” he whispered hoarsely.

“What is?”

“The breath in the bedrock. The voice in the loam. The hush beneath the roots. She used to sing to me.” His voice broke, fingers twisting deeper in the soil. “I must be dead to her now.”

Gone was the calm, mocking veneer Aneirin had worn so well. The man in front of her was completely broken.

For an earth mage, the connection to life wasn’t just power—it was instinct, identity. To lose that … she couldn’t imagine. It would be like losing her magic all over again, but with no explanation, no clarity, and no hope of its return.

He sobbed into the soil, breath hitching against the grit and roots. Taly reached out, her hand hovering hesitantly over his trembling shoulder. “Kalahad, listen to me. You’re free now. And your magic … maybe it just needs time. Maybe you both do. Bill, he was poisoning you for a long time.”

Kalahad laughed. It was a low, unhappy sound. “He hated that name. You made him so angry .”

“I want to stop him, Kalahad.”

“Ha! A vessel cannot kill a god.”

“Humor me. If I wanted to try, where would I go to do that?”

She’d never been able to find him. No matter how hard she tried, how long she spent scrying, how many keys she uncovered, Bill could always find her, but she could never find him.

Kalahad’s sobs quieted. He panted into the dirt, hands buried to the wrist. A flicker of something passed over his face—the barest ember of defiance buried under years of ruin.

“Please,” she said, willing him to believe her. If there was anything left of the man he’d been, she implored it. “Tell me where to find him, and I’ll make sure he never hurts anyone again. That I promise you.”

Face smeared with dirt, Kalahad’s gaze sharpened and finally lifted to hers.

The next half hour crawled by so slowly, Skye wondered if he’d accidentally stepped into one of Taly’s spells. He listened to the tick-tock-tick of the clock on the wall, trying to measure the seconds.

Eventually, she emerged.

Ivain stopped his pacing. Sarina’s finger paused where she’d been drawing patterns in the air with her fire.

Skye could already feel Taly’s satisfaction—her outright glee —as she came to stand before them.

“Aneirin is in Strio,” she said.

Grinning, she waited for the news to land.

But the room didn’t share her enthusiasm.

Ivain exhaled sharply. “Fucking—of all the—fuck!” The rest was a snarl of profanity—half in Common, half in some guttural dialect no one else spoke—punctuated by him kicking the nearest chair hard enough to send it skidding. Then he stomped off, still cursing, his voice fading as he went.

“I don’t understand,” Sarina said. “Is that bad?”

Skye only sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “Let’s just say it’s not good.”

Aneirin was in Strio.

And not new Strio: the extravagant cluster of country manors the nobility had built farther inland so they could spend their summers hunting the forests and vacationing by the sea. He was in old Strio. The Strio located at the southeastern tip of the island that most people generally avoided.

Once a major port, it had fallen to ruin in the years after the Schism.

The land wasn’t good for farming—water runoff from the mines had poisoned the soil.

And with harpies to the north, nesting grendels to the east, and kelpies roaming the beaches, the area was inhospitable, to say the least. And hard to access, even by sea.

The three Gates that used to line the coastline, each of them large enough to allow ocean freighters to pass between worlds, had shattered and now jutted up from the waves like the bones of a carcass, forming a wall of sharp, jagged points ready to pierce a ship’s hull.

In short, it made sense why Aneirin had based his enclave there.

“I’ve suspected now for a while that’s where the bastard was holed up,” Ivain said, sweeping his hand over the map set up in the corner of his study. “The old mines are a perfect breeding ground for shades.”

“So, what’s the problem?” Sarina asked.

“The problem is you’ve got magical beasts cutting off access by land and shattered shipping Gates by sea,” Ivain said. “Getting to him is impossible, unless you’re prepared to die trying.”

Arms folded, Taly leaned forward, her gaze scanning the map’s carefully drawn lines and marked positions. Skye watched her, the places where her eyes darted. Through the bond, he could feel the gears in her head turning.

“What is it?” he asked.

She pointed to a place on the map. He recognized it. He and Kato had left a small crater in that part of the woods with a failed riftway repair. Her finger dragged straight east, then north, before zigzagging southwest.

“That’s it,” she murmured. “Yeah… I think that’ll work.” She looked up at them, all huddled around Ivain’s war map. “I know how to get to him.”

“How?” Sarina demanded.

Taly opened her mouth to explain, then shook her head. “Come with me.”

She led them to the fifth floor, her desk in the common area. For months now, Skye had watched her scry. Then he’d watched her retreat here, where she’d sit for hours hunched by the window trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle only she could see.

The desktop was organized chaos—a carefully curated jumble of maps, texts, and scribbled notes.

At the center was the map they’d received from Grizzlethorn, now marked with the riftways they’d identified, the keys they’d secured, and any other information she’d collected meticulously noted alongside.

“It’ll take a few jumps, but we have a route,” she said.

Skye followed the trail her fingers traced—the connection of lines, marks, and, most importantly, keys .

She was right. It would be dangerous. Some of the riftways were too far to scout, and they couldn’t be sure if they were still intact.

But it was… possible . And in moments like this, possible felt like a battle half-won.

Something unfamiliar stirred in his chest. Something that almost felt like… hope .

Ivain stood with his arms crossed, one finger idly grazing his chin as he studied the riftway map. The afternoon sun cut a swathe across the floor, dust dancing in its path.

“Taly?” he said after a moment.

“Yes?”

“How many of those—what did you call them again? Infants? Kindlings?”

“BABIES.”

“Right. How many do you have left?”

Skye had tried to limit how much explosive power Taly had stored away, not because he didn’t trust her—he didn’t trust her restraint . Her version of subtlety was the kind that left rubble in its wake.

So, it did nothing to help his nerves when she smiled like that, sharp and full of trouble.

It helped even less when Ivain mirrored it.