From the shadows at the edge of the arena, Sylvie and Rupert watched the progress of the weakest team that had thus far entered the Total Wipeout course.

  They were squatting within the shade because whatever the fuck their patron Goddess had done to them in that field next to the M6 motorway made people lose their shit when they looked at them. No one had come outright and told them they were too freaky for polite company, but there were only so many times you could wipe vomit off your shoes after introducing yourselves. That sort of thing left a mark.

  As the group whose progress they were keenly following passed out of sight into the corridor of mirrors, Sylvie pulled a compact mirror out of her inventory to - once more - undertake a study of her face.

  "You need to stop doing that," Rupert said, "it's not good for you." He reached to take the small mirror from her, but a claw formed out of the darkness and slapped his hand away.

  As if nothing had happened, Sylvie ignored Rupert, tilting the mirror slightly, allowing what little light was around to reflect off her face. With a wince, she looked at her reflection, or rather, what used to be her reflection. The strange thing was that there was nothing, really, all that different. Maybe the brightness of her green eyes had dulled slightly, but it wasn't that which bothered her. No, it was the way the planes of her face shifted—like the bone structure wasn’t entirely locked into place. From some angles, she looked completely fresh-faced - like she'd just stepped out of an exceptionally exclusive spa. However, with just a tilt of her head, she was suddenly the wrong side of forty, and no amount of Botox was going to help. Time itself seemed to cling to her, unwilling to settle.

  Grimacing, she snapped the mirror shut with a click, and it vanished back into her inventory. "It’s not about being good for me, Rupert. I need to see it." Her voice had changed too. There had always been an imperious, hectoring tone to it when she spoke, but now it was even less human, more echo. Like there were a thousand whispers of fate layered beneath her words.

  Rupert just shook his head in reply. He was squatting, hands wrapped around the haft of [Grumblecleave], his enormous axe. When he'd bought it from the Mystical Market, it had been a simple weapon, a Dwarven war axe that fit his build and Class perfectly. Now, it was something else entirely—something older, sharper, and too heavy even for most Dwarves to wield. But then again, he wasn't really a Dwarf any more. His stocky arms had elongated slightly, the veins running through them almost shimmering with power. He was taller now, too. Well, 'stretched' might be a more appropriate way of putting it; like Moira had pulled his body out along the timeline, giving him mass from every possible future version of himself. He looked . . . wrong. Not deformed, but definitely not someone you'd take home and introduce to your grandmother.

  Since they had made their deal with the Weaver of Fate, they were both changed in ways they couldn’t fully comprehend.

  Sylvie's lip curled in disgust as she contemplated what she'd seen from the group they'd been set to watch. "They’re pathetic," she said to Rupert. "Struggling through this course like rats in a maze. How long has it been since we had to scrape like that?"

  "Since about a minute before Moira got her claws into us," Rupert replied, not wanting to look her way. He'd just eaten. "Don’t act like we were Lords and Master of all we surveyed, Syl. We were ambushing sub-Level 10s in an alley outside of the Bullring not long ago."

  "I haven’t forgotten where we came from. But we’re not like them anymore. We’ve moved beyond any of that . . . beyond them. You’ve felt it, haven’t you?"

  Rupert looked up at her then, his gaze shadowed, but not just from the darkness of the arena. "I’ve felt it," he said slowly. "I’ve felt the pull. The way everything else . . . bends around us now. But don’t let that go to your head. We’re still here because Moira wants us to be here. We’re only as powerful as the time she’s borrowed."

  And wasn't that the unsettling part? Knowing that the power they currently wielded wasn’t truly theirs. Well, no. That wasn't true. It was their power, but it was borrowed, pulled from some version of their fate where they’d become stronger, more dangerous. But none of those futures were guaranteed. It was all as slippery as greased smoke, and the way Moira had connected them to those potential paths left Sylvie feeling hollowed out—like she existed in multiple versions of herself, none of them fully here.

  Exhaling slowly, pushing the rising panic down, she tried to study her companion, resisting the urge to look away. "You always were the practical one, but you’re wrong. It’s not just Moira’s keeping us in line. There's something deeper. Like, I don't know, time itself is watching out for us. And they—" she gestured vaguely toward the group struggling in the course- "they’re small now. Beneath us. I can almost... see where they’re going. Or where they could go. They’re just pieces on the board, playing out a game that long since ended."

  "That’s Moira talking, not you."

  Sylvie said nothing for a long moment. It was true. The Weaver of Fate's influence was in every corner of her mind, curling around her thoughts like ivy, creeping into places she hadn’t realised were even vulnerable. Her Class, once Shadow Weaver, had evolved into something far more sinister—Veilbinder. The ability to manipulate shadows had expanded to manipulating reality itself, weaving it through the fabric of her existence. But it was slippery, elusive. Every time she used her powers, it felt like she was touching something ancient, something beyond her control.

  She summoned her stat sheet with a thought, still finding the increases to her abilities to be somewhat startling.

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  And Rupert—he wasn’t just a Dwarven Axeman anymore. His Class had twisted into something called a Temporal Berserker. Each swing of his axe seemed to carry echoes of past and future blows, his strikes landing not just in the present but across time, fracturing reality with every attack. It had made him more dangerous, sure. But it also made him more volatile.

  "Moira’s clear we need that Healer before making our own run at this," Sylvie said, her voice softer now. "We’ll take that amulet from him, one way or another. And when we do, it won’t matter what he thinks. He’s already a part of this . . . whether he likes it or not."

  "Right." Rupert’s gaze followed the team as they struggled out of the mirrored corridor. "But how do we get him alone? He’s not stupid. He won’t trust us if we just show up."

  Sylvie smirked, her face shifting slightly in the dim light—young, then older, then young again. "He doesn’t have to trust us. Moria's clear she has her claws into him. He'll jump at the chance to join up with a more powerful group. Look at them. Pathetic. And that Charm Leech thinks he’s the smartest in the room. We’ll let him believe that... right up until he hands us exactly what we need."

  Rupert grunted. "And if he doesn’t?"

  Sylvie’s smile widened, unsettlingly serene. "Then we’ll make him. Time’s on our side now, Rupert. Remember that."

  For a moment, there was silence between them, save for the distant sounds of the course above. The sense of wrongness hung in the air and, although neither Sylvie nor Rupert said it, the truth was clear to both of them: they weren’t just weird to look at. They were out of time, caught in a loop of futures that didn’t belong to them, and it was only a matter of time before that weight crushed everything in its path.

  But for now, it was a tool. A weapon. And Kris, whether he knew it or not, was already tangled in their threads.