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“I… I lost control, sir,” Skye admitted.

Ivain’s reflection watched him from the mirror, filled with a palpable sense of caution.

Or so it seemed as his vision wavered—there, gone, there again, the world tilting at the edges.

“If you—if you’d seen—” he stammered. “Shards, if you had any idea what was in his head…”

“I know.” The old man’s hand found Skye’s shoulder, offering silent reassurance. “No doubt the memories Kalahad chose to reveal to you were by far the most damning, designed to provoke a reaction.”

“Please don’t let them send me to Gloomrend Gaol.”

Ivain laughed. “Gloomrend Gaol? You’re only 25, boy. While what you did out there was, I’ll admit, extreme … no one expects you to have perfect control over magic that’s not yet fully developed. It was a prank, a horrible one, but nothing more. You need to calm down now, son. Breathe.”

Skye tried. He yanked at his tie, desperate for air, to push the memories out. But they clung, heavy and suffocating. His arms trembled, his legs threatened to buckle, his skull pounded with every unsteady breath. And the nausea—Oh, Shards, the nausea…

“By the Six,” Ivain cursed, and then Skye found himself catapulted across the room.

A firm hand on his neck guided his head down into the toilet just in time for the wave of sickness that rushed over him.

Ivain muttered as he retched, “Why do you always make it so blasted difficult to keep you among the living?”

Skye had no answer, and Ivain wasn’t expecting one, which was good because the retching didn’t end. It went on and on, wave after wave, long after his stomach was empty.

He barely felt the prick behind his ear.

Just a scratch that produced a bead of blood that Ivain picked up with a touch of his finger.

He placed it on his tongue. “No poison. That’s good at least. However, your adrenaline is through the roof.

And there’s something else…” He swirled the drop of blood around in his mouth. “… unusual.”

Skye stopped retching long enough to rasp, “What do you mean?”

“Your bloodstream’s awash with excesses—proteins, aetheric acids, hormones, all alarmingly elevated. And there are other… particulates. Foreign bodies. Elements that don’t belong.”

A tense silence hung in the air as the realization dawned.

“Shards preserve us. What have you done to yourself?” Ivain whispered. “ Damn it, what have you done?! ”

Skye retched into the toilet before responding, “If a half-crazed, future version of yourself offered you a way to change the future, would you take it?”

“Be serious,” Ivain demanded.

“ I am .” Skye’s whole body convulsed with the next wave of sickness. He tasted blood. “I met myself today. And he warned me, sir. He said”— retch —“he said that I’m going to lose her. That no matter what, I always lose her. So, I let him…”

“ Let him what? ” Ivain pressed.

“I’m not sure of exactly everything that he did.”

“Oh, blessed, bloody Shards, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Skye gulped for air, panting hard. “It was the only way… If I can tip the scales, even a little… if I can stand by her for just a little longer… that’s why I did it. For time. However much I can get.”

He pressed a shaking hand to his ribs. Every breath sent a fresh spike of pain lancing through his side. “Something’s wrong.”

Something that went beyond memories he didn’t want in his head, beyond the fear of madness and imprisonment—something that kept accelerating with every frantic beat of his heart.

The tightness in his chest turned agonizing. A thousand razor-sharp edges spun inside him, his breath catching as fire flooded his veins.

Ivain knelt beside him. “Skylen, listen to me. I need you to focus. Can you do that?”

Skye, struggling to catch his breath, nodded weakly.

Ivain pulled a dagger from inside his coat—the small silver blade he always carried in polite company.

He ran it over his palm. Blood welled, and Skye knew to drink when it was offered.

Magic was dangerous. It wasn’t unusual for a teacher to step in.

Preventing students from accidentally killing themselves tended to be part of the job.

The tang of metal and magic was familiar. On the first swallow, the old man’s aether was already feathering out, seeking, searching.

“I suppose I ought to have known better, shouldn’t I?” Ivain muttered. “To think it would only be her antics I’d be navigating. But you…” He laughed grimly. “I forgot! Where one goes, so does the other.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“No, you’re not.”

Skye couldn’t bring himself to argue as the tingle of foreign aether suffused his body.

“You forced my hand,” Ivain murmured. “I told you no . I warned you—bloodcrafting is dangerous, and there’s no easy way back.

I tried to save you , and what do you go and do?

Collaborate with your future self to hold a gun to your own head.

Now, if I don’t at least teach you how to manage everything you’ve pumped into yourself, you’ll die. ”

Aether moved through Skye like probing fingers, cold and methodical.

“All that liquid silver, the shadow essence, hell, is that… yes. That right there—that’s adamantine. Apparently, you wanted to make yourself impervious.”

Skye gritted his teeth, groaning as sharp blades spiraled under his skin.

“It’ll trickle out of all the nooks and crannies where you’ve stashed it, forming blockages in your veins like clogged pipes.”

With that understanding, the ache in Skye’s chest finally made sense, each heartbeat scraping against his arteries.

The rarest metals, elemental essences, and alchemical ingredients he would need to mold and shape his body—it was exactly what his other-self had promised him.

And now it was shredding him from the inside.

“Alright,” Ivain said, his voice a low, steady anchor.

“You pumped yourself full of metal and magic essence, and now it’s all coming out of solution.

So, what we’re going to do is gather everything back up.

It’s just like the precision drills, Skye.

Feel your aether—use it to map your body.

The parts that are you, and the parts that aren’t. Like this.”

Ivain’s magic moved against the current of his own, guiding him—showing him how to comb the stray elements and pull them into order. Each splinter of metal was caught, wrapped in aether, and drawn into a smooth procession. The essence followed, pulled back into solution and coaxed into alignment.

The pain began to recede. So did the retching. Enough that Ivain finally pulled Skye away from the toilet to lean against the wall.

There was blood on Skye’s mouth. He could taste it. He could feel the sharp edges of the metals that had sliced his throat.

Ivain said, “I’m assuming you’re aware there’s an aether core fused into your spine?”

No, but that would explain the throbbing between his shoulders.

“Or something like it…” Ivain’s magic flickered along his vertebrae, probing at the thing embedded there—testing it like fingers tapping gently at a sealed door.

The response was immediate—a deep pulse of pressure that radiated outward. Skye’s whole body jerked.

“This isn’t standard,” Ivain murmured. “Aether cores used to be a common power source—I’ve got three welded into me. We called them crawlies because of how they feel when they burrow. But this… How long ago did the surgery occur?”

“About four hours,” Skye rasped.

“Amazing… I’m detecting connectivity with almost every major organ system. Any strong burst of emotion would trigger it. If you’re looking for the reason you turned that man to goo and organs, I’d say we found it.”

Relief hovered just out of reach, too precarious to settle. “So, I’m not going mad yet?”

Ivain huffed a laugh. “The bloodcrafter’s ‘ madness’ is the unfortunate result of a few idiots who decided it would be a good idea to ‘optimize’ their brains beyond simply tweaking their reflexes or perception.

They cut directly into those parts responsible for personality, morals, inhibition.

It was arrogance in its truest form, and we’ve all borne the punishment.

Seeing as you still have a full head of hair and an intact skull, I think it’s safe to assume that, no —you are not succumbing to madness, merely the consequences of a flawed decision-making paradigm. ”

Skye’s pulse finally slowed. The worst of the pain faded, but his blood still felt too thick, burning with everything coursing through it.

“I need you to pay attention now,” Ivain said. “We’ve gathered what doesn’t belong, and now we’re going to find a place to put it. I’m going to show you how.”

His magic pressed inward, carving a path for Skye to follow.

Like threading a needle, except the needle was inside him, weaving into bone and coaxing it to shift.

It reminded him of a drill he’d practiced—splitting his aether, stretching it thin, then trying to stitch it back together without losing tension.

The structure softened, thinned, solid turning porous as pockets of emptiness spread between the bone fibers.

“Beginning with the metals,” Ivain said, his fingers pressing into Skye’s shoulders, helping to guide the aether.

“There are a few different philosophies on this. Some prefer the skin— metal layered beneath the dermis acts as lightweight armor. But unless it’s razor-thin, it locks up your joints.

Others bind it to ligaments, thinking it will increase strength—but all that does is strain the body, tightening what was meant to flex.

Me? I favor the bones. Reinforce the foundation, and everything else holds. ”

Skye gasped, choking on air as a deep, grinding ache swallowed him whole.

The sensation started as a vibration, rattling through his bones, then sharpened into something unbearable—like fire had replaced his marrow.

The pain reached a fever pitch as liquid metal flooded the gaps, like quicksilver spilling into honeycombed hollows, filling every last space.

His teeth ached like they were about to crack, his jaw locking against the pressure sinking into his skull.

“Next, the essences.” Ivain’s aether coiled and pulled, guiding what remained into circulation.

“Essence can’t stay in the blood. If you don’t anchor it, you’ll lose more than you use.

Bone holds structure, but it doesn’t renew itself quickly enough.

Muscle, however, is constantly in flux, breaking down, repairing, adapting.

It’s the perfect medium for holding something as volatile as essence. ”

Relief came slowly—cool and creeping, like frost inching across overheated skin. It spread through him in gentle waves, finally snuffing out the blazing agony in his chest.

Skye exhaled as the pressure eased, and the pain ebbed. Tension unwound from his limbs, bleeding out like smoke.

“There.” Ivain sat back, wiping a sleeve across his brow. “Everything is now safely stored away, where it should remain dormant until needed. Or until Kalahad manages to rile you up again. First lesson, adrenaline speeds up the rate of dissolution.”

Skye made a note of it, rubbing his chest and the lingering ache there. “I suppose you’re angry.”

Ivain gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “Why ever would you think that? It’s not like you went and did the exact opposite of what I told you.

” He dragged a weary hand down his face, fingers pressing briefly into his temples before falling away.

Then, with a pointed look, “Do you know what your mother will do to me when she finds out about this?”

Nothing good, Skye knew that. “Sorry, sir.”

“Stop saying things you don’t mean.” Ivain let out a slow breath, rolling the tension out of his shoulders. “And… I’m not angry. I’m not happy, but I’m not… angry. I think.”

“Why not?”

“Because, as it turns out, you just handed me the excuse I needed.” Ivain smirked, though it lacked any real amusement. “Sarina can’t get mad at me for sneaking off early if it’s to rescue you from your own stupidity.” He stood and, without ceremony, reached down to haul Skye to his feet.

He staggered, but caught himself, his body still adjusting. For a moment, Ivain just looked at him—assessing, maybe, or weighing something heavier behind those sharp eyes.

Finally, he said, “For what it’s worth, I’m glad Taly has you—even if it might be better for your health to think twice before diving in after her every time.”

Skye managed a tired smile. “Not much chance of that.”

“No, I didn’t think so.” Ivain’s hand settled at the nape of Skye’s neck, an unspoken I’ve got you , at odds with the heaviness in his gaze. Then he released him with a sigh. “Come on. Let’s get you home so I can figure out what else you’ve done to yourself.”