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Skye did what had to be done. He wasn’t sorry.

If Taly wasn’t going to speak to him— fine . He still wasn’t taking down the dreamspindle. Or the backups. Or the backup backups. He’d rather she hate him and wake up safe than die loving him.

It was romantic, really. The kind of thing people wrote poems about. One day, she’d see that. Hopefully.

In the meantime, he had plenty keep him busy—tasks that, coincidentally, all involved keeping her alive.

The workshop door was closed tight against the cold draft and prying eyes. Sweating beneath the work lamps, Skye had his arm braced in front of him and his sleeve rolled up. The needle in his hand glinted, the violet liquid within shimmering like captured starlight.

He angled it toward the vein in his forearm, the cool metal brushing his skin.

“That’s disgusting,” Cori said, nose wrinkling as she crossed her arms. She was as far away as possible without physically leaving the room. “I mean, I get that it’s useful, but… ew.”

Skye wished someone would’ve warned him that mating with a time mage meant putting up with all the other versions.

Cori had shown up one morning, making it clear that she hadn’t forgiven him yet for conspiring with his other-self—it was amazing, truly, how he managed to piss off this woman in every timeline.

But she’d also made her position clear: now that they were doing this, they’d better do it right.

Every day, she came bearing books, lesson plans, combat manuals, as well as the occasional restock of alchemical compounds.

Today’s delivery was shadow essence. She’d gone out of her way to get it and made damn sure he knew it.

There was also a note.

To the less competent version of me,

Here’s your refill. Try not to burn through it like an amateur this time. This shit isn’t cheap.

It was strange, seeing his own handwriting on a note he didn’t remember writing.

Of all the many modifications his other-self had made, they boiled down to three categories: he’d pumped Skye’s blood full of foreign substances, optimized his organs to handle them, and embedded a fragment of an aether core into his spine.

Bloodcrafting consumed immense amounts of magic, so practicing it required having a secondary power source on hand.

Ivain referred to it as an entry-level build. Skye couldn’t decide if that made him feel better or significantly worse. Especially now, as his eyes blurred for the third time in an hour.

The plunger depressed with a soft click. The shimmering, violet liquid disappeared beneath his skin. He exhaled, bracing for the burn. It started deep in his arm, spreading outward like wildfire, his blood singing as the essence threaded through his veins.

According to Ivain, everything began with shadow essence. It was the foundation of any respectable bloodcrafting practice—and the least likely to kill him if he screwed it up.

Precision was everything. The shadow essence had to fuse with his blood at the molecular level. If he missed the mark by even a micron, the whole dose went up in smoke.

Focus. Just focus .

But his instincts were distinctly preoccupied with the woman wandering around the room, doing her best not to look at the needle—leaving him ample time to study her.

It was a special kind of torture. She wasn’t Taly. She didn’t snap at him. Didn’t roll her eyes or bite back when he poked. And yet the curve of her mouth still made him crazy. Her smirk still hit like a sucker punch.

He could admit it. He missed her— his Taly. They’d fought before. He’d weathered her silence, her temper, her sharp tongue. But she had… new weapons now, with which to fight.

The bond remained firmly closed, locked behind whatever new walls she’d built.

As were all the other parts of her.

And that would’ve been fine—he’d gone over a year without sex. He knew how to do without. Only problem was, she never let him forget what he was missing.

Every evening, it was the same calculated assault: a slow, unbothered walk from the washroom to the bedroom, naked and dripping. She never said a word, never spared him a glance.

“You’re staring again,” Cori said, back turned as she studied a wall of tools.

“You’re distracting.” He winced as the essence burned through him. “Seriously, what the hell are you wearing?” And why did it have to be so form-fitting, specifically from the back?

To his shameless delight, time hadn’t done a thing to diminish the glory of the holy land.

“Oh, this?” Grinning, she gave a twirl. “This is what the humans call a ‘ power suit. ’”

It was a suit of a kind, he supposed. Black with clean, straight lines, no buttons or trim except for wide strips of satin along the coat’s lapels and running down the seams of slim-cut trousers. Her hair was pin straight, like it had been ironed, and gathered at the neck.

And her shoes… Whatever magic those shoes held, it was entirely focused on making him unable to imagine anything except those legs hooked around his waist. The heels had to be at least five inches tall, and the outer shell was made from black leather polished to a mirror-like shine.

The soles were a vibrant red, and the toes narrowed down to a sharp point.

“The humans,” Cori explained, “are more comfortable when we dress like them. And when they’re comfortable, they’re less likely to start wars they can’t win. It works out better for everybody.”

So, they made it to the mortal realm eventually. Interesting. “And that thing you keep checking? Is that also human?”

She reached inside that strange suit jacket, pulling out an equally peculiar device. It was black, thin, and made of metal.

“They call it a cellular phone.” The surface lit up, flashing an image of a dopey-looking Calcifer along with the time. “It’s like a personal comm, but bigger. And with a glamera, for some reason. It’s hard now to get around on Earth without one.”

With the first batch of essence stowed away, he reached for the second syringe. “I take it that means you came here from the human homeworld?”

“More like on my way to it. Which is why we need to hurry this up .” She snapped her fingers, punctuating each word. “I didn’t sign up to be the middleman between you and your future ego. I have other things to do today.”

“I thought that with age was supposed to come patience.”

“You’re thinking of wisdom, and I have that in spades. Time though… there never seems to be enough of that.”

“But you’re a time mage.”

“Which means I’m uniquely qualified to recognize the dearth.”

Fair enough. The second bloom of heat spread beneath his skin. He clenched his fist, willing his body to accept it, to bind with it the way it was supposed to.

Long minutes passed before he finally said, “I have another question.”

Tapping away on that strange device, she glanced over her shoulder through dark lashes. “Color me shocked.”

“When you took me to see the keeper, it seemed like the two of you had history.”

“Well, I should hope so. It only took me going on a decade to arrange that meeting.”

“What was it you were after?”

“A key,” she said.

“What kind of key?” But she only smiled, so he pressed, “Was it for one of the riftways?”

Her fingers stalled. Skye grinned, victorious. She might not give away answers—or if she did, they only led to more questions. But sometimes, he managed to catch her off guard.

“I see someone has been doing their homework,” Cori said, sliding the device back into her coat.

Her heels clicked as she continued to wander.

“And to answer your next question as well as a few more: no, I can’t show it to you; no, I can’t tell you why; no, I won’t tell you what it unlocks or where it leads; and, finally no, I’m not all-knowing. You’re just predictable.”

Skye scowled, gritting his teeth against the burn as he depressed the plunger on the third and final syringe. “I find you... annoying.”

She picked up a pair of glassworking tongs and gave them a click, grinning over her shoulder.

“Thank you.” She carefully hung the tongs back on the tool rack.

“And I know it’s frustrating,” she said.

“Believe me, I do. Even time mages don’t like hanging out with each other.

But one thing you have to understand is that I’m…

meddling . Meaning that every time I travel, every time I make changes, I risk changing myself—my past, my future. ”

“But isn’t that what you’re trying to do?” he asked, dabbing at a drop of blood on his arm with a scrap of gauze. “Why else meddle with the past unless you’re trying to change it?”

Cori shrugged. “Maybe time mages just meddle. Maybe it’s in our nature. Maybe I’m the product of meddling. Maybe my entire history has become so circular and convoluted that it’s become necessary for me to intervene solely in the interest of my own self-preservation.”

Her sly smile suggested none of those things and all of them at once. He wondered how long it had taken her to master it. If, perhaps, when Taly finally caught up to this version, he might be able to see through that infuriating mask.

“Alright, hotshot,” she said, hopping back up on the table beside him now that the needles were gone. “You’re all juiced up and good to go. Show me I didn’t just greenlight my own downfall by encouraging this.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Skye murmured, flexing his fingers, testing the burn.

The heat started low, curling up his arm, prickling under his skin like an ember flaring to life.

It was just like the precision drills Ivain had made him do—like threading a needle too small to see with his eyes closed.

He felt it in every cell, the essence latching on, stirring in his blood.

When he opened his eyes, he saw it—the shimmer of dark light threading through the veins in his hand, shifting like liquid shadow.

The heat dulled into a low thrum, resonating with his heartbeat.

Now came the part where he still struggled. Ivain called it “the pull.”

And it was just that—a pull on his magic.