I pulled off my mask, the material briefly ging to my skin before I dropped it into a chest with a dull thunk. “Well… damn.” I exhaled, running a hand through my hair before turning back to the pile of artifacts threatening to spill from my overstuffed iory. With practiced ease, I reached for another relic—a gilded idol with too many eyes—and dropped it into a separate chest. “They ’t find it here, they?”

  Gatei’s eyes sed the colle I had amassed with the detached curiosity of a collector appraising someone else’s hoard.

  Hey!

  He hummed, the sound deep in his throat, before finally shrugging. “Hmmm, probably ,” he said, eoo casual for the potential divine wrath I was trying to avoid. Then, with an evil grin that practically dripped mischief, he added, “But our vaults are private.”

  A pause.

  Then a cackle. “Always funny when they fuss about!”

  Prinorted, arms folded as he leaned zily against the side of an ornate chest I had yet to fill. I emptied the third spatial bag, watg as a cascade of dusty totem, random scrolls, and questionably obtained artifacts cttered into the woodehs.

  Gatei cocked his head at Prince, his expression the perfect picture of mock surprise. Prince gred at him, and said, “and you call yourself gods?” He snorted again. “Gods of mischief, maybe.”

  Another round of Gatei’s ugh filled the vault, a wheezing, full-bodied thing that made the very air seem livelier.

  He tore off a bite of a new mystery food—something that looked vaguely like jerky but shimmered strangely uhe vault’s ethereal blue light. “We strive to be that ones, we do!” he decred between chews. Then, with a knowing smirk, he jabbed a finger in my dire. “But we’re not the ones calling ourselves gods. Only upstarts like her god do that.”

  I rolled my eyes, ign them both as I turo yet another chest.

  I… borrowed a lot of things.

  More than I remembered, holy. My memory wasn’t perfed I just vaguely remembered what I needed, so I just grabbed everything not nailed down. My fingers skimmed over a smooth surface of a relic that felt both a and important, before I unceremoniously dropped it in with the rest of the loot.

  Priill watg Gatei with vague i, arched an eyebrow. “God of Ice-Blood?” Gatei nodded, his grin widening. “He’s… a god. Not an upstart, no?”

  Gatei scoffed, juring another round of that bizarre food from what I could only assume was his personal pocket dimension. He held it up, appraising it briefly before taking a bite. The texture ched in a way that set my nerves on edge.

  “His cim to divinity is weaker than mine,” Gatei said, his words coated in the same smug fidehat made me both wary and amused.

  I barely spared Gatei a gnce before moving on to another chest, fingers w swiftly as I sorted through the mountain of liberated items.

  “By the way, do you want to join our battle?” I asked, tossing a dagger into the growing hoard. “Opportunities like this don’t e often.”

  Gatei let out a zy hum, watg with mild amusement as I shoved the st of my spatial bags into the chests and turo the more tedious task—emptying my iory.

  “I don’t join on squabbles, Princess,” he said, stretg as if this entire versation bored him.

  I stopped, fixing him with a sharp gre. “It’s not some petty squabble. It’s the start of a civil war. My mother, Irwen, versus me. I have to put up a fight for the God of War to even aowledge it as a real war.”

  Gatei snorted, utterly unimpressed. “Another upstart,” he quipped, finishing the st bite of whatever strange, possibly cursed food he had been mung on.

  I shook my head, turning bay hoard as the familiar sound of kial filled the chamber. A pair of bracelets—with runes I didn’t uand—slid into pce beside a broken chalice.

  “Don’t you want to fight demons?” I asked, my voice light, almost offhand.

  That got his attention.

  Gatei’s entire demeanor shifted in an instant. He perked up, eyes gleaming with sudden, almost childlike excitement. “Demons?!” His voice practically vibrated with enthusiasm. “You should have led with that!”

  Grinning like a man who had just found out it was his birthday, and all drinks were free, he kicked the bench beh him.

  The wooden structure didn’t just colpse—it flipped midair, twisting as it reshaped itself into a throne-like chair before he nded bato it, looking supremely pleased with himself.

  I shot a g Prince, half-expeg some kind of rea, but he was thhly distracted—stretg his fingers, shifting his weight from foot to foot, even boung slightly like he was testing the limits of his body.

  “Well, I’m almost done,” I said, dropping one of the st relito the chest with a dull k. My iory was nearly empty now, just a few odds and ends rattling around in the void. I straightened, rolling my shoulders as I g Gatei. “Wanna e with us? The teleports won’t be w soon.”

  I orince, who was still pletely ign me, far too engrossed in whatever mundane object had captured his ihis time.

  Gatei grinned, looking positively delighted by his owence. “No, thank you. I’ll show up randomly, as I should.” His smirk widened like a man who had just won an argument no one else was having.

  I sighed, stashing the st of my treasure inside one of the many chests. For a moment, I frowned, sing the remaining bits in my iory. I thought I had mold. But most of it was just… junk. irely useless, mind you—just not immediately valuable.

  Well, useless for now, at least.

  “Okay, what now?” I asked, dusting off my hands.

  “Now you go home.” Gatei kicked his chair, which promptly vanished as if reality itself had simply decided it was no longer necessary. He gestured zily toward the hallway leading back to the surface. “You’re wele here anytime. Don’t fet that. We are friends.”

  I nodded, making a mental note of that as I turo Prince—who, I was not exaggerating, was ily poking a stone like it held the secrets of the universe.

  With an annoyed sigh, I shoved him forward. “Move.”

  He bli me like a drunk Irishman who had just been woken up to close the bar. “What?”

  I rolled my eyes. “We’re going. Do you want to stay in your body for this?”

  “Yes, Pret—uh, Princess,” he corrected himself, shaking off whatever daze he had been lost in as we started walking toward the gate. His posture was a little stiffer, still adjusting to existing outside the ring, but he was getting there.

  As we he exit, he sighed, gng at me from the er of his eye. “But I still ’t fight, as we established. I take on a more… advisory role.” A pause. Then, almost too quiet, “Before you… help me go free.”

  I didn’t answer right away.

  Because for all his arrogance, his smug grins, and his air of detached amusement—there was something about the way he said that. A quiet, almost relut hope beh the yers of p.

  I just nodded. “Yeah. I promised.”

  “We go out, then,” Gatei decred, sounding far too delighted for someone about to demolish another entrance. He dusted his hands, finishing the st of his definitely moldy snack, and then—with no fanfare—reached into his trousers and pulled out the enormous war hammer.

  I blinked. What?

  Prio his credit, merely observed the se in silehen sighed. “I don’t question it anymore.”

  “Yeah…” I hesitated, half-w if I had finally hit my limit for what-the-hell moments. “And I thought I khem. I was wrong. O servers, they were a bit different.”

  Rendo’s head tilted slightly, golden eyes narrowing. “Test… servers?”

  I waved him off, stepping over the freshly crumbled rubble as I eled mana into his ring. “Ig.”

  Gatei, still loungihe wreckage, grunted in amusement. I turo him, a small smile. “Offer still stands.”

  He huffed, plopping onto the ground like an old maling in for a nap, and—because of course—produced a pieoldy bread from his trousers.

  “I’m fine,” he said, taking a bite like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  I just sighed. There was no winning against the Twir.

  “Goodbye,” I waved at Gatei, then at the still-unfazed guards.

  “We’re telep here?” Rendo asked, surprise flickering across his face as he g Gatei.

  Gatei, still snag—now on a suspiciously aged wedge of cheese he had pulled from somewhere—shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  One of the guards, as if this were a pletely normal farewell, lifted a hand and waved. “Goodbye.”

  I turned back to Prind offered him my hand. He hesitated for only a sed before accepting it. The moment, the world twisted—magic surging, reality bending—until the familiar st of part and old ink filled my lungs.

  We nded squarely in the ter of my office, the warm afternoon sun spilling through the rge window behind my desk. The golden light painted long, soft shadows across the well-worn wooden furniture, and the unmistakable, dreaded st of paperwork hung in the air like an omen.

  “Lady!”

  Lo’s voice rang through the room, brimming with enthusiasm. Way too muthusiasm for what she was about to say. “There is so much to do!” she tinued, sounding far too excited about the looming mountain of bureaucracy.

  She was already behind her desk, a stack of dots in front of her like a carefully structed fortress. But the moment she saw me, she rose instantly and bowed, eyes gleaming with the anticipation of a woman who lived for paperwork.

  I nodded, suppressing a groan.“Lo, o see you.” Then, with a smirk, I gestured toward the very unfortunate spirit standing beside me. “That’s why I brought someoo show me how to do proper paperwork—because I’m just a pretender!”

  I let out a deliberately too cheerful ugh as I dropped into my chair, throwing my feet up on the desk for emphasis.

  The effect was immediate.

  Rendo, who had apparently thought nothing else could faze him after today, paled.

  Lo, meanwhile, blinked, as if only just now notig the man standing awkwardly in the ter of the room. Her gaze flickered over him, taking in the regal posture, the fine clothes, the fact that he looked one wrong move away from questioning his entire existence.

  “Oh,” she breathed, adjusting her gsses as she processed the Prianding in her workspace.

  Rendo, to his credit, recovered quickly. He studied Lo for a moment, then—with a smooth, practiced grace—took her hand and dipped into a half-bow, his expressioling into one of effortless charm.

  “My name is Prince Rendo,” he said, voice warm and refined, “at your service, dy.”

  Lo blinked again, looking both flustered and analytical, as if trying to categorize exactly how she felt about this development.

  “Lady, the teleport will be done in an hour, and you are expected to receive the t.”

  Lo’s voice was steady, but there was a weight behind her words—the kind that implied I was about to be very annoyed.

  I sighed, dropping my feet from the desk and straightening in my chair. My gaze drifted toward the window, where the golden afternoon sun bathed the castle’s inner courtyard in warm light. The fgs atop the guard towers swayed zily in the breeze, the slow, steady rhythm oddly calmie the impending headache I was about to have.

  “Said attaché?” I asked, my voice ft.

  Prinorted, arms crossing as he leaned against the side of my desk. “Rotten man.”

  Lo’s brows knit together in mild fusion as she gnced betweewo of us. “You know him, Prince Rendo?”

  “It’s a bit plicated,” I exhaled, rubbing my temples, “but there won’t be any telep.”

  Lo’s expression tightened, her hands instinctively reag for a nearby quill as if paperwork might solve the problem before it even started.

  “Which way is the summon?” I asked, already feeling the familiar, unwele tug of magi the air.

  The priilled, eyes narrowing slightly as he tilted his head. A moment passed—then, without hesitation, he poioward the far end of the castle, beyond the heavy stone walls.

  “I feel it that way,” he murmured, his golden eyes flickering with something unreadable. “And it’s very close to finishing. The fabric is straining.”

  I pushed myself up from my chair, stretg slightly before fshing Lo a grin that was just a little too eager.

  “Let’s go. You o see this, Lo.”

  She hesitated, gng between me and the prince, her fiightening around the edge of her quill. “Should I prepare something?”

  I ughed. “No need.”

  Turning toward the door, I could already feel it—the thick, charged pull of mana saturating the air like the buildup before a lightning strike. The stoh my feet thrummed faintly with an energy that wasn’t quite here yet but was ing.

  “I expect this will be a very spectacur event,” I mused, my grin widening as I strode forward.

  With my ente in tow, we made our way toward the outer wall, the cool corridors of the castle giving way to the open sky. As we climbed onto the high ramparts, the improvised town sprawled out beh us in its usual anized arkets still bustling, banners rippling in the breeze, ahere was something different.

  Something waiting.

  Prince Rendo stood he edge, his gaze clouded with thought. The golden afternoon light caught the edges of his dark cloak of his hide armor as it fluttered gently in the breeze, the weight of what was ing already settling on his shoulders.

  Lo, oher hand, looked utterly perplexed.

  Her brows were furrowed, her eyes dartiween me and the empty space beyond the walls as if expeg a tangible reason for the growing tension in the air.

  And because she was Lo, she had—of course—brought paperwork. A quill and several scrolls were tucked ly under one arm, her fiwitg as if resisting the urge to dot whatever insanity was about to unfold.

  And me?

  I stood at the edge, heels pnted firmly on the old stone, wind tugging at my coat. My pulse thrummed with anticipation.

  Below, the town remained blissfully unaware. But up here, atop the outer wall, we could see it—somethih the surface of reality shifting, twisting.

  A ripple of energy surged through the castle’s foundation.

  Through the entire world.

  The magic torches lining the walls flickered, the light from the windows dimming for the briefest of moments—as if the world itself had taken a deep, anticipatory breath.

  Lo gasped, clutg her scrolls.

  Rendo stiffened, his fiwitg at his side, the instincts of someone who had seen too much kig in.

  And I?

  I grinned wider.