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“This isn’t going to work,” Skye said into the chill morning air.

“I agree. We’ll get blown to bits long before we get to the riftway,” Kato replied. The brothers were dressed for battle, both in armor with black cloaks, the same as Ivain and Eula following behind them.

Then there was Taly.

She was not dressed for battle because she was not going.

And it was bullshit.

After all, she’d been the one to figure out the map, and she’d provided the BABIES, and she’d even helped come up with the plan.

Kato hadn’t helped with the plan, and he was still getting to go.

And it was a good plan too. A really good one, and she wasn’t just saying that because after all this time they finally had something actionable.

Before the Schism, the area underneath the island had been divided into six districts.

Strio was one of them, connected to the others by a network of highways and rails that spanned the Underground.

Those highways were gone now, of course, swallowed by ruin.

When the Crescent, one of the adjoining districts, collapsed, it had cut off any roads leading out or in.

Almost.

Riftways could move through stone and rubble, and Taly had found one that would drop them right next to Bill’s impenetrable fortress. There were no Gates nearby, which meant those parts of the Underground might still be passable.

From there, it was a quick sneak through the mines, and after draining her reserve of BABIES, they had enough ordnance to send that sinkhole straight to hell.

Besides the obvious risk of ending up trapped in a collapsed cavern with a bunch of angry shades, it was foolproof. Which made it all the more insulting that she wasn’t allowed to go.

Sure, maybe there were reasons. She was still recovering, blah, blah, lingering effects of the Vorpal Vine, blah, blah, blah.

Something, something, stress and trauma, muscle weakness, nerve pain.

And even if walking through the forest was making her a little more winded than it should, Taly could still easily carry a crate. If she got breaks.

“Stop fuming, dear,” Sarina said, patting her on the shoulder. “You’re going to need your energy for the walk back.”

Taly was trying not to think about that. “If we could’ve just waited a few days…” she said a bit breathlessly.

“Bet those exercises don’t seem so pointless now, huh?” Aiden called over his shoulder.

Taly did her best not to glare a hole in the back of his head. She’d never said they were pointless. Only that they hurt, and she didn’t want to do them.

Kato and Skye were still grumbling. Sarina and Aiden, who, like Taly, would also be staying behind, were dressed less for battle and more for the summer heat, in gauzy tunics and tall boots made for walking through the thick underbrush.

They had wanted to come out to say goodbye and just generally worry.

Taly stepped through the tall ferns, breathing in the morning and watching color come back into the world as dawn broke on the horizon.

The red of the bloodpines, the sterling iridescence of their needles blanketing the forest floor like bits of tarnished silver—she’d seen it all before, but the beginning of summer never ceased to be dazzling.

Light speared through the trees just ahead. A clearing. The skeletal remains of the buildings rose higher as she approached.

Taly stumbled to a halt when the ground suddenly dropped off, steep and sheer.

A gaping hole stretched across the clearing, like the earth had been clawed open. It plunged straight into the underground city, its depths shrouded in shadow.

“Wow,” she said, peering down. “You two really fucked this place.”

Kato’s lips thinned, and he glanced at Skye, who just shrugged.

“Don’t look at me,” Skye said. “I wasn’t the one who inserted the hyaline.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault now?” Kato shot back.

“Hey, I’m not pointing any fingers,” Skye replied, doing just that behind his back where only Taly could see. “Just stating facts.”

Kato grumbled something under his breath about inconvenient facts and turned back to the edge. “I’m going to remember this,” he said before leaping into the hole with an impressive lack of hesitation.

The others followed suit. The riftway was at the bottom, and that was where they needed to go. Ivain and Eula jumped after him without a word. Sarina descended more gracefully, her flames creating drafts of heat that slowed her fall. Aiden took his time conjuring a thick vine that lowered him down.

Taly hung back. Skye held out a hand—she would’ve been able to make it herself, but her magic was still a bit… unreliable after the unfortunate occupation of her body by forces she wasn’t ready to name just yet. Halfway down a mile-long descent would be a bad time for her spells to start acting up.

“This is—”

“Bullshit,” he finished for her. “I know. You’ve informed us all many, many, many times now.”

Taly wasn’t pouting. That would be childish. “Well, it’s still true.”

He hummed softly, the sound laced with amusement, and pulled her into his arms. “I will not be placated,” she grumbled into his chest. But he began rocking them back and forth in a dance with no music, and she couldn’t help but fall into rhythm.

“It’s okay to be worried, Tink.”

“I’m not worried,” she said, pressing her cheek to his shoulder and wishing she could feel the warmth of him through his armor. “If you can’t manage to survive such an easy mission, then don’t bother coming back.”

“I see,” he said with a laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re crazy to do this without me. What if one of the riftways lands you in a caved in room with no exit? You’ll really be kicking yourself when there’s no one there to rewind you out of that.”

His hand tightened at her waist, and he spun them expertly. “If that happens, you’re welcome to tell me I was wrong.”

“Oh, I will.”

“Good.” He brushed his mouth to her temple.

“Seriously, how are you so calm right now?” They were going behind enemy lines. Death was a very real possibility.

They could get caught. Get trapped. One of the riftways could malfunction, and they could end up like the massive crater he was carefully steering them around as they continued their slow dance among the trees.

Skye’s chuckle reverberated beneath her cheek.

“Taly, you spent a year dreaming of my death, reaching further and further out into impossibility because you were so scared something might happen while you were away. And that was without you even trying. If I were really going to die today, you would’ve seen it. ”

He was right. She tried to believe it. This wasn’t like before, when her visions had dragged her unwillingly through nightmare after nightmare, showing her every way he could die.

This time, she’d looked . She’d checked every riftway, traced the paths, gone through the plan again and again, searching for the fault line before it could break.

So why did it still feel like she was missing something? Like there was a hole right off the edge of her vision, shifting whenever she tried to focus on it.

“You have too much faith in me,” she murmured.

“Agree to disagree.”

Light filtered down through the canopy in pillars that sparkled with motes of red and gold.

“Tell me,” Taly said. “What’s the first thing we’re going to do when this is over?”

If she could just hold onto the idea of after , then everything would be fine. It was just the what-ifs messing with her.

A laugh rumbled beneath her cheek, and his hand moved from her waist to grip her ass firmly.

With a sigh, Taly grabbed it and pulled it back to her waist. “Second thing,” she said.

His hand dipped again, and she slapped it back.

“Stop ruining the moment,” she demanded, doing her best not to laugh.

Skye spun them again, and Taly followed him effortlessly. This time he said with complete seriousness, “I want to take you to Ghislain.”

“That’s going to be a little difficult with the Seren Gate still down,” she pointed out. “Also, I’ve been to Ghislain.”

“But not as my mate.” He kissed her. “My élan .” The Faerish word rolled beautifully off his tongue. “Let’s be honest, every time you’ve been called to my family’s estate, it wasn’t to visit. It was so that my mother could make sure I wasn’t being ruined by having a human companion.”

“I’m not sure having a time mage companion will be seen as a step up in her eyes.”

“Maybe. Probably,” Skye admitted, still rocking them back and forth. “Growing up, it always felt like I had two lives. One here, and one in Ghislain. And I did everything I could to keep them separate. To keep that life from infecting the small amount of happiness I’d found here.”

She held him tighter. “What changed?”

“You did,” he said plainly. “You were human. Destined to die. As long as you were here, I swore I would be too. But without that—without you…” They spun through a pool of sunlight.

“No one resists the inevitable forever. Not without something worth fighting for. I could push back against it for a while, stretch out my time, but I always knew the truth. My time here on Tempris had an expiration. This life would end, and the next would stretch into eternity. So, I had to make it count. Every moment, every memory. I had to gather up as much of the good as possible, because once you were gone… that was all I’d have left. ”

“Where you go, I go.” Even into eternity. Taly leaned into him, closing her eyes and listening to the gentle thud of his heart beneath her cheek.

“Exactly. Now that we have time, I can make plans for it. And maybe it won’t be the first or even the second thing we’ll get done, but I want you to be a part of that life.

I want to show you where I grew up, take you to all my favorite places.

I want to work to make this world a place where that’s even a possibility. ”

Skye was an idiot most days. But sometimes—damn it— “Shards, you’re insufferable when you’re sweet.”

He picked her up and spun her around. Taly laughed and held on.

The moment he set her down, the worry came crashing back tenfold as she looked at him, overwhelmed with the realization of just how much she loved this man. And how lucky she was to have found him. And how utterly lost she would be if he didn’t come back.

“Here.” With trembling fingers, she unclasped her necklace, thrusting it into his hands. “Take this with you.”

The necklace was as much her mother now as it was him. Skye frowned, but he took it from her.

“You have to bring that back to me now.”

A soft smile curved his lips. “I will.”

“Good.” She swiped a hand across her cheek. And because she refused to say goodbye—never goodbye—she kissed him instead. Wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, throwing everything that she didn’t know how to say behind it and feeling him respond in kind.

“I hate this,” she said when he pulled away. “Em, I hate this, I—”

“I know,” he said and hugged her. “I know you wanted to be the one to kill him. But we’re using your bombs, so you’ll be killing him by proxy.”

Taly laughed at that, wiping away her tears.

A low hum vibrated through the air, a sound just on the edge of perception. From deep in the shadows pooling in the depths of that massive hole, lights flashed.

“Come on,” Skye said, kneeling to lift her in his arms. He held her easily, standing on the edge of that sheer drop, cloak swaying on the breeze. “I know you’re dying to get your hands on all that juicy tech—”

“You can’t bribe me, Em.”

“So, you’re not planning to take the riftway apart while we’re gone?”

“… I didn’t say that.”

“Ah, I see,” he said with a slight smirk.

Then he stepped off the edge. No warning.

“Oh my Shards, you jeeeeerk—”