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The family dining room was a small space filled with dark, heavy furniture overlaid with slabs of white marble. A large picture window framed by heavy drapes revealed the dim morning, darkness pressing against the glass.

In it, Sarina Castaro could see her own grim expression reflected from where she was seated at the round dining table.

Kalahad had outmaneuvered them. Her . As much as she hated to admit it, refusing to acknowledge the loss would gain her nothing. Defeat was a bitter enough pill to swallow. Learning nothing from it? That would be a far greater waste.

The mistake was obvious. She’d tried to handle matters privately, away from public scrutiny where it might cause panic—and, on the off chance that Kalahad was innocent, preserve his standing. She’d tried to spare him. And in doing so, she gave him exactly the opening he needed.

The sheer audacity of announcing his own parallel investigation, staging a mock trial, even going so far as to drag Skye into the performance to give it a sheen of legitimacy—it was a masterstroke.

Aggressive, yes, but brilliantly executed.

Now, he’d made such a spectacle of his own selfless martyrdom they had no choice but to play along.

It was either that or publicly accuse a man who had already been found innocent in the eyes of those assembled of a treachery they still had no evidence to back up.

If they accused him now, at best, Kalahad and his cronies—of which there were many; he was incredibly well-liked—would have a good laugh.

At worst, they would leverage the offense to marshal their forces in a bid for power.

They were unlikely to succeed—there was a reason Ivain had managed to hold the island all these years.

But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be collateral damage.

Innocent people would get hurt while the Highborn waged war in the streets.

And all the while, as they wasted time fighting each other, the true enemy would continue encroaching.

Sarina chucked mirthlessly into her tea. He’d turned this into a hostage situation. She would’ve been impressed if she weren’t so pissed off.

Her reflection stared back at her, bleak and unhappy.

She’d grown soft.

All these years on Tempris—it had been healing, but it had also dulled her, taken away her edge. Before, if she even had an inkling that he was guilty, she would’ve followed her gut. Hit him hard and, most importantly, hit him first .

People most often believed whatever they heard first. The court of public opinion—that’s where battles were won and lost.

But it wasn’t over yet. He’d played the game well.

But, games, even his, could be undone with the proper maneuvering.

One big display might be countered with another.

He’d invoked Skye’s name to bolster this charade, but she could just as easily turn it against him.

Most believed the Dawn Court rode to their salvation, so a whisper here, a rumor there about a pending inquiry from the Emrys family would stir the pot most delightfully.

Sarina was lost in her plotting when the door to the kitchen opened. She jumped, but it was just her brother, looking predictably grumpy. He always was mornings after he’d been forced to socialize.

“Well, look who finally decided to reappear,” Sarina said, her voice clipped. “Pity you weren’t here when I needed you most.”

Running on too little sleep and even less patience, Ivain trudged toward the silver teapot in the middle of the table, muttering under his breath, “Can we not do this… I’ve had a rough night.”

“A rough night? You? Funny, I don’t remember seeing you in that ballroom trying to fend off a public scandal.”

Ivain scoffed. “Believe me, I wasn’t exactly having a grand time. Things... got complicated.”

“More complicated than dealing with Lord Ainsley’s public theatrics?”

“Well, I managed to keep the boy from killing himself, so you be the judge.”

Sarina was immediately on alert. “Where’s Skye?”

“Fine,” Ivain reassured her. “Upstairs, probably still convinced he’s bound for the asylum. Which, one could debate. But fine.”

“Then what happened?” Sarina pressed.

“What do you think happened?” Ivain snapped. “Those two”—he stabbed a finger at the ceiling—“conspired to make my life more difficult than it ever needed to be.”

Then, stirring his tea moodily, he regaled her with the tale.

When he was done, Sarina stared at him. “And?” she asked.

“ And ? Did you not just hear what I said? We’ve got variants popping up already.”

“Yes, I caught that.” In truth, Sarina was surprised it had taken this long for the visits to start. Tess always used to say, If time’s a road, why not walk it? Before she died, she was always popping in and out, so many times and so often that Sarina never knew which direction she was going.

Their lives had been significantly quieter since the Schism. A time mage couldn’t travel past the point of their death, and they certainly couldn’t travel back from a future where they didn’t exist.

Sarina said softly, “It’s surprising the things you miss about a person.”

Ivain’s smile was a thin, brittle line trembling beneath the weight of old grief, and she knew his mind had gone to the same place, the same person.

“The boy’s chosen to be a bloodcrafter,” he said and cleared his throat, shifting away from painful subjects. “There’s no going back for him now.”

Sarina only shrugged and held out her cup for a refill.

Tilting the teapot, he poured with a measured precision, the amber liquid cascading in a smooth, unbroken stream.

“Skye always showed more promise for hemokinetics than he ever did for fabrication. Color me shocked he stumbled into his true calling. Though, I suppose it does explain what happened last night. I haven’t seen a mess like that since you were experimenting with crystal fusions into your nervous system. ”

Her brother eyed her. “I expected you to be more upset.”

“Why? Skye turning that man into soup is all anyone is more excited to talk about than Kalahad’s grandstanding.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s made a few ambitious fools reconsider their delusions of grandeur—now that they’ve seen your watchdog in action.

Just warn me if he starts sprouting armor from his skin.

That’s going to be a little harder to pass off. ”

“Point taken.” Ivain collapsed into his usual seat, dragging a hand over his face. “His mother is going to do to me what Skye did to that poor bastard last night.”

“Oh, definitely,” Sarina agreed, cradling her cup.

The porcelain was cool, the tea inside lukewarm and tepid, at least for a fire mage.

“But it won’t be because of the bloodcrafting,” she said, swirling a finger tipped with a tiny flame through the liquid.

“We did allow him to bond with a time mage, after all.”

“A time mage named Venwraith. Considering how long Adriana has been trying to get close enough to kiss the High Lord of Water’s ass, I somehow think she’ll manage the loss.”

Perhaps. And it was certainly something Sarina planned to leverage when the time was right. “Does Taly know?”

Ivain laughed. “That boy set fire to his own future, and he did it in her name. Trust me. If she knew, we’d have heard the blast by now.”

Sarina grimaced. It was true. Their daughter would throw herself in front of a blade for Skye, but Shards forbid anyone do the same for her. “I think I’d like to be gone that day.” Ivain shuddered his agreement. “I suppose we’re a family of exiles now.”

There was the time mage, the bloodcrafter, the eccentric geezer who had gone and made himself a hermit—and her, the disappointment.

“Still, reasons aside,” she said, her voice turning pointed, “it would’ve been nice to have you there last night. To show competence . You may not care what Lord Ainsley has to say about you, but others do. And they listen when he tells them that you’re getting old.”

“I am old,” Ivain muttered.

“Yes, well, he’s going around telling people that you’re too old to lead this city.”

That got a full-bellied laugh. “And who’s more apt? Him ? Is he even out of diapers yet?”

“He is, actually,” Sarina said. “He’s old enough to have already taken a sleep, in fact.”

Ivain rolled his eyes. “Shards, not this again.”

As he was always ready to point out, her brother was old.

How old, she wasn’t entirely sure. He’d spent most of his life hopping between realms with vastly different chronorates, having an adventure or two, then moving on.

His trips home were frequent but also scattered.

For her, days would go by; for him, it would be decades.

It wasn’t until he married that he finally settled down in one time zone, and even then, there were days when she suspected he’d snuck away.

Ivain slumped over the table, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His hair had more white than yellow now, the only sign of the years to catch up with him. “For the last time, I’m not tired .”

Sarina refrained from pointing out the irony. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

Fey dreamwalked for a myriad of reasons: to avoid conflict or war, or sometimes to recover from emotional or psychological trauma. Shards knew, she’d been tempted after Madoc died. It would’ve been so much easier to sleep away the knot of grief in her chest.

Preserving wisdom, meditation, even boredom—many Fey dreamwalked to escape the monotony of immortality, leapfrogging through the ages. Whatever the reason, it was generally thought that the older one was, and the longer they went without sleeping, the more their mind began to slip.