Eric paced.

  Not a short, irritated “thinking walk.”

  Not the lazy half-steps he used to do when he was drunk and trying to find a reason not to go to bed.

  This was full, tight-loop pacing — a caged-animal, rising-panic kind of movement. The carpet had already begun to memorize the shape of his boots. His hands kept raking through his hair, over and over, as if he could comb the panic out manually.

  Michelle sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on her knees, staring at the floor. She wasn’t breathing right. She’d been stuck in that not-breathing-right state since the park. Adrenaline was the only thing holding her together, and Eric could see it thinning.

  Mike, meanwhile, was leaning forward in the chair, elbows on thighs, staring at the device on the coffee table with the intensity of a man who’d been handed an alien nuke and told, "Here, figure this out." His eyebrows were doing all kinds of tactical gymnastics as if staring hard enough would unlock a cheat code.

  Eric finally stopped pacing.

  He planted his hands on the back of the chair Mike wasn’t using, head down, breathing through clenched teeth.

  Then he lifted his head and looked at Celeste.

  She was slouched sideways on the couch, one leg dangling off, one arm limp, her hair spilling everywhere like a windswept waterfall that smelled faintly of wildflowers and stale beer. She looked peaceful. Exhausted. Vulnerable in a way that made something in Eric’s chest twist.

  He swallowed, then asked:

  “Celeste… do you know how long until the next gate opens? And where?”

  Celeste blinked slowly, pupils not quite aligned. The two beers had hit her like a truck made of cotton candy and regret. Her eyes tried to focus on Eric and failed twice before landing somewhere near his left shoulder.

  “Wherrrrrre?” she echoed in a lilting, accented mumble. “No. No idea.” She swayed mid-sit. “But… two cycles. Two cycles should open hhhwindow again. Roughly. About there.” She attempted to gesture vaguely and slapped her own knee instead. “Ow.”

  And then, without ceremony, she slumped back and fell asleep.

  Just like that.

  Eric’s stomach dropped.

  A weak, panicked choking sound escaped him — half groan, half despairing squeak. Michelle’s eyes widened. Mike looked like he wanted to laugh but also understood laughing would possibly get him stabbed by everyone in the room.

  Michelle rubbed her forehead. “Two cycles… what does that… mean?”

  Eric stared at nothing for three seconds, then whispered with the tone of a man whose hope had died twelve emotional deaths today:

  “…one month.”

  Michelle’s breath caught.

  Eric continued, deadpan and hollow, “Give or take a few days. They’ve got a day-night cycle pretty close to ours.”

  Mike let out a low whistle. “Weird coincidence, ain’t it? Two different worlds sharing something like that?”

  Eric snorted without humor. “Yeah. Crazy. Maybe there’s a cosmic watchmaker who really likes consistency.”

  He glanced down at Celeste again and saw she was truly out—limp, breathing softly, hair half covering her face. A dozen emotions flickered across his expression: guilt, fondness, fear, exhaustion, and an emotion he absolutely refused to name.

  Finally he exhaled. “I’m gonna put her in my room. I’ll take the chair tonight. Mike gets the couch.”

  “Yessss,” Mike whispered triumphantly.

  Eric ignored him.

  He scooped Celeste up carefully — more carefully than he wanted anyone to notice. Her body was warm against his arms, her breathing shallow, her hand grasping at nothing in her sleep. As he carried her down the hallway, she made a quiet, half-conscious sound that sounded horrifyingly like his name spoken in her native tongue.

  Michelle watched them disappear into the bedroom. She stared for a long second, then slowly turned to Mike with a look that said three things simultaneously:

  What the hell?

  No, seriously — WHAT the hell?

  Explain. Now.

  Mike raised his eyebrows in surrender. “Don’t look at me. I got no clue what’s going on, but… ain’t it weird? Like, seriously weird?”

  Michelle kept staring.

  Mike continued, gesturing loosely, “I’ve known the guy for years. Known guys I served with even longer. Even then — none of us ever moved around each other like that. Like each one’s carrying part of a backpack neither of them can see. They move around each other like it’s muscle memory.”

  Michelle’s face went still.

  Her eyes did a thousand-yard leap across several uncomfortable thoughts she definitely did not want to examine.

  “I’m not— no,” she muttered quickly, shaking her head. “That’s none of my business. Whatever… adult… personal… consenting situation that may or may not be happening with my ex—” Her voice went up an octave. “Not my problem.”

  Mike grinned and gave her a thumbs up. “That’s the spirit!”

  Michelle glared at him. “Please shut up.”

  “Yup,” Mike replied, popping open a new beer. “Shuttin’ up.”

  Michelle exhaled shakily. “What do you think about… all of this? The story. Everything we’ve heard.”

  Mike nearly choked. “Story? STORY? Michelle, this ain’t a story! This is fantasy come to life! This is— girl, this is the fever dream of a dude who ate expired sushi and played Skyrim for ten hours straight.”

  Michelle blinked rapidly.

  Mike threw his arms wide. “The facts ain’t even facts anymore. The rules ain’t rules anymore. There’s only one real question: what the hell are we gonna DO?! Did you see the look on Eric’s face today? Man looked like hell itself thumped him in the back of the sack.”

  Michelle made a strangled sound that might’ve been a laugh or a sob.

  “Girlie,” Mike concluded solemnly, “we are screwed.”

  ***

  Eric laid Celeste gently on his bed.

  She murmured something incoherent, rolled onto her side, and curled up like someone trying to protect the last ember of warmth in a dying fire. Eric stood there for a moment, staring down at her.

  He didn’t know how long he stood there.

  His hands shook. Or maybe it was his breathing that shook his hands — he wasn’t sure.

  Finally he looked at his palms.

  A single flicker of darkened shimmer sparked to life between his fingertips — thin, jittering, the way lightning might behave if it had no color, no light, only hunger. It leapt between his knuckles, flickering, twisting, almost alive.

  The sight made his stomach lurch.

  His chest tightened.

  “…dammit,” he whispered.

  But he breathed anyway. Deep. Steady. Long enough for the shimmer to fade.

  He rubbed both hands over his face, exhaled shakily, and muttered to himself:

  “Okay, Eric… bravery time.”

  He regretted the phrasing instantly. But it was too late to take it back. The words hung in the air like a challenge.

  He turned, pushed the bedroom door open quietly, and stepped back toward the living room.

  ***

  Mike noticed him first.

  He tossed a beer with casual precision.

  “So,” Mike said, “magical princess all tucked in?”

  Eric caught the can midair without looking and scowled. “She’s not a princess.”

  Mike smirked. “Princess-adjacent?”

  “…maybe?” Eric admitted reluctantly. “I honestly have no idea. And we might not get the chance to ask. Y’know. With the whole ‘incoming doom cycle’ thing.”

  He dropped onto the couch with a groan, head falling back onto the cushion.

  Michelle didn’t look at him. Didn’t look at Mike. She stared straight ahead like she was replaying the last six hours in her head and losing the battle every time.

  After a long silence she finally whispered:

  “Eric… what’s going to happen in a month?”

  Eric opened his mouth — and nothing came out.

  Michelle stared in exasperation of his silence for the briefest of moments, then kept going, panic rising in tiny quivers that didn’t reach her voice but vibrated in every breath.

  “I mean… look at what we’ve seen. Celeste throwing you through trees. You… healing like that. The way you made that blade. Malachius. The crater. The shimmer. The—” Her voice cracked. “That thing at the park. I watched you fall. I watched you break. And then you didn’t.”

  She swallowed hard.

  “What’s going to happen in a month?” she repeated.

  Eric finally exhaled slowly. “You know what mana is?”

  Michelle looked at him flatly. “No, Eric, I don’t know what mana is. I went to police academy, not wizard school.”

  He nodded. Expected that. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, palms rubbing together.

  “Most video games get it right mostly anyway,” he said. “Mana is… a kind of energy. Not electricity. Not biological. Something deeper, it comes from the soul. It’s what lets Celeste cast magic. But she’s a caster. I’m not.”

  Michelle frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “Casters,” Eric said, pointing toward the bedroom, “use magic like machine code. Series of commands. Verbal triggers. Structured shapes. I…” He hesitated. “I don’t cast.”

  Mike leaned in. “Then what the hell do you do?”

  “I use mana raw,” Eric said. “Shape it with thought. Will. No spell structures. No commands. Just control.”

  Michelle blinked at him like he’d just said, I don’t breathe oxygen, I breathe jazz.

  Eric gestured to the device. “Earlier, it said my mana percentage was extremely low. Right?”

  Mike nodded. Michelle nodded after a beat.

  “So here’s the problem,” Eric said. “Those seals you saw on my… god, I can’t believe I’m calling it this… my character sheet?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “They’re locks. Restraints. Containment. They’re holding back… me. All of me. And the second seal? That’s the lock on my mana generation. I can’t make my own supply.”

  Michelle’s eyes widened. “But—Celeste said you took from her in the park. After that, you made that blade. So… couldn’t you just take from her? You know. Fill the tank?”

  Mike choked loudly on his beer.

  “Michelle—are you asking if Eric should suck the life out of his old friend?! Does he look like a lawyer to you?!”

  Eric waved a dismissive hand. “Back in the day, that was actually a valid strategy. It worked. But there’s a problem.”

  Michelle blinked. “Several, I think.”

  Eric continued anyway. “The harness. She’s capped. It’s draining her. And even if she wasn’t—our… tank sizes are not comparable.”

  Mike squinted. “Define ‘not comparable.’”

  Eric grabbed an empty beer can, set it on the coffee table, and tapped it.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  “This is Celeste’s tank. Enough room to do a LOT of damage. But small.”

  Michelle stared. “Okay… so what’s yours?”

  Eric picked up his own beer, looked at it, took a slow sip, then said:

  “If this can is Celeste’s tank…

  mine’s the Pacific Ocean.”

  Michelle’s skin lost all remaining color.

  “And,” Eric added quietly, “I’m bone dry.”

  Silence.

  Mike took a very long, very slow sip of beer. “So uh… big stick, no wood?”

  Michelle burst into laughter.

  A sharp, abrupt laugh that startled even her. It broke something inside her panic and let in air — enough that she took a full, shuddering breath.

  Her eyes watered, but she wiped them fast.

  “Okay,” she said, voice steadier. “Okay. So what’s it going to take? How do we get you what you need? Is there a source? Something you can use?”

  Eric gave a hollow laugh. “You guys don’t get it. Earth doesn’t have mana. None. That’s why I’ve been on edge the past few days.”

  He looked at Mike.

  “You remember the other day, when you asked why I seemed off? I didn’t know it then. But I know it now. Mana was leaking in from the gate.”

  Mike blinked. “So those shimmer things… are leaks.”

  “Yeah,” Eric murmured. “The best place to get mana? A gate. The stuff pours out in a torrent and i could use that. But that also means fighting invading forces who will definitely want an interloper staked up as an example going off the last encounter.”

  Michelle snapped her head toward him. “Don’t say shit like that, Eric.”

  He raised both hands. “I’m being honest. We’re washed. If I had enough mana to devour, and my seals weren’t holding me back, and I wasn’t ten years out of practice? We’d have a shot at not getting obliterated overnight.”

  He gestured at the bedroom.

  “That little kaboom Celeste gave me? Enough juice to power the whole state line for a day. Casinos and all. And that wasn’t even a big drop in the bucket. My power costs?” He made a face. “Astronomical.”

  Michelle leaned back, staring at him in horror.

  Mike went still. Really still.

  Then:

  “…wait.”

  Eric raised an eyebrow.

  Mike pointed at the device. “You need this mana stuff, right? Doesn’t that harness on her have a whole bunch packed up in it?”

  Eric blinked.

  “Most likely,” he said automatically. “But I don’t know what it does or what triggers it. Those things are usually traps—if mana hits them wrong—”

  He froze.

  His eyes widened.

  Michelle leaned forward. “Eric?”

  Eric slowly turned his head toward the bedroom door.

  Then he began to laugh.

  A low chuckle at first. Then louder. Then almost manic, running on exhaustion and adrenaline and the sudden realization that, for the first time today, something resembled hope.

  He clapped a hand on Mike’s shoulder.

  “Mike,” he wheezed between laughs, “you’re a genius.”

  Mike blinked. “I… am?”

  Eric nodded, still laughing as the shape of a plan began forming behind his eyes.

  A dangerous plan.

  A reckless plan.

  A plan that absolutely should not work—

  but for him?

  It just might.

  ***

  Mike looked between Eric’s hand on his shoulder and the near-manic laughter like someone had swapped the script mid-scene.

  “Okay,” Mike said slowly. “Back it up for the dumbass in the room. What did I say and why am I a genius exactly? I thought I was just pointing at the spooky murder bra.”

  Michelle made a strangled sound. “Please don’t call it that.”

  Eric wiped at the corner of his eye, laughter dying down to a grin that sat somewhere between relief and impending nervous breakdown.

  “You said the harness has a bunch of mana stored in it,” he said. “And you’re right. It does.”

  “Okay…” Mike prompted. “And?”

  “And those kinds of things,” Eric went on, “are usually designed to respond violently when something pushes mana into them. Overload triggers. Intrusion detection. Explosions. Bad times all around.”

  He pointed to his own chest.

  “But I don’t push mana,” he said. “I don’t cast. I don’t channel. I don’t send. I take. I drain. I eat.”

  Michelle blinked. “You’re saying… it’s like a landmine that explodes when someone steps on it—but you’re the hole in the ground under it.”

  Eric considered that, then nodded. “Yeah. That’s… actually not a bad analogy.”

  Mike whistled low. “So you can just… suck it dry?”

  Michelle made a disguested sound.

  Eric hesitated.

  The grin faded into something more thoughtful.

  “In theory,” he said. “If I’m careful. If I’m right about how it’s wired. If it doesn’t have some weird kill switch baked in that I don’t know about. But yeah. I might be able to drain it without setting it off.”

  Michelle’s shoulders squared a little. “And if you do… that stops it from draining her, right?”

  “Best case?” Eric said. “Yeah. No more slow bleed. No more ‘explode the elf if she steps out of line’ failsafe. Just a dead rig and enough mana in my system to maybe—maybe—do something useful.”

  “And worst case?” Michelle asked.

  Eric’s jaw tightened.

  “Worst case,” he said quietly, “I pull wrong, it cascades, and she dies.”

  Michelle’s face crumpled. “Eric—”

  “I won’t do it blind,” he cut in quickly. “Not while she’s awake enough to feel it and not in any shape to help. I need to look at it first. Feel it. Figure out how it’s built.”

  Mike leaned back, bottle dangling from his fingers. “You sure it won’t blow you up?”

  “If it tries,” Eric said, “it’ll find nothing to grab onto. I’ve got no mana to detonate. I’m an empty shell with a big mouth. I’m… uniquely suited to being a magical shop vac.”

  Mike stared at him for a long beat.

  “That,” he said, “is the dumbest and most comforting thing you’ve said all night.”

  Michelle pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay. So. You think you can drain it. That gives you power and frees her. That gives us… a chance.”

  “Maybe,” Eric said. “I still don’t know how much time we actually have or what’s coming through those gates. But ‘maybe’ is better than ‘absolutely no shot, sorry for the inconvenience.’”

  Michelle huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Low bar.”

  “I live there,” Eric said. “It’s homey.”

  He pushed himself up off the couch. His legs felt heavier than they should have, like someone had tied invisible sandbags to his ankles.

  “I’m gonna go see how bad the harness looks,” he said. “I’ll just… look. No stupid hero moves yet.”

  “Keyword ‘yet,’” Mike muttered.

  Eric pointed a warning finger at him and headed down the hall.

  ***

  The bedroom was dim, lit only by the weak glow leaking through the blinds. The storm clouds outside had thickened, muting the usual amber streetlight into a dull smear on the wall.

  Celeste lay right where he’d left her, curled on her side, one arm tucked under the pillow, hair a pale spill across the dark sheets. In sleep, the hard lines of her expression had softened. She looked young. Too young to be wearing a device designed to monitor, limit, and, if necessary, kill her.

  The harness wrapped around her chest and ribs like an ugly compromise between armor and prison. Straps crossed her back and shoulders, disappearing beneath her shirt in some places, reemerging with buckles that glinted faintly. Embedded at the center of the chestpiece, just above where her heart would be, were the twin shards — one red, one blue — sunk into a metal cradle etched with runes.

  Up close, Eric could feel it.

  The hum.

  To normal senses, the harness was just an ugly, overcomplicated contraption. To him, it was a noise — a low, ceaseless vibration only his nerves could hear. Mana swirled inside it like a storm caught in a bottle. Dense. Angry. Coiled.

  His fingertips tingled just being near it.

  “Hey,” he whispered, even though she was sound asleep. “You always knew how to accessorize, huh?”

  No response.

  He lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle her.

  Up close, he could see thin marks at the edges of the straps where the skin had reddened, chafed. A faint, irritated line at her collarbone where metal met flesh. This thing had been on her a long time.

  His throat tightened.

  He remembered another world. Another battlefield. Another version of her — hair shorter, eyes harder, jaw clenched as she stood while someone else fastened a similar device around her chest.

  “It is insurance,” someone had said back then. “Not against you dying. Against you changing your mind.”

  He’d hated it then.

  He hated this one even more.

  Eric exhaled slowly, forcing the memory back into whatever box it had climbed out of.

  “Okay,” he murmured. “Just a look.”

  He extended his hand, hovering it an inch above the harness. No contact. Just proximity.

  The hum sharpened.

  It felt like standing next to a high-voltage line. Like static gathered on his skin, prickling from his fingertips down his arm. The shards pulsed faintly, not with light, but with presence — two different flavors of energy fighting for territory in a container too small for their rivalry.

  Fire. Water. Clash. Balance by force.

  His fingers curled.

  He let the barest sliver of his power uncoil — not enough to flare, just enough to… notice. To listen.

  The sensation that came back was like pressing his ear against the door of a crowded, angry room.

  Mana roiled.

  But it also pressed outward against the structure containing it. Looking for a way out. Looking for a path.

  Eric swallowed.

  “Yeah,” he whispered. “You’re not happy in there, are you.”

  The shards vibrated, or maybe that was his imagination.

  His pulse picked up.

  Very, very carefully, he imagined—not a hand, not a funnel, nothing aggressive—just a hollow. A space. A void where mana could go if it wanted to.

  He didn’t push.

  He didn’t pull.

  He just offered.

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

  Then, like a trickle of sand finding a crack in a glass wall, a thread of energy slipped out of the harness and flowed into him.

  Eric’s lungs seized.

  Not from pain.

  From shock.

  Even a thread felt like swallowing molten electricity. Mana rushed through him, not burning, but illuminating pathways that had been dark for years. Old routes. Old circuits. Old capacities. His muscles trembled. His skin prickled.

  He snapped the mental “hollow” closed instantly.

  The flow stopped.

  He sucked in a breath, heart pounding.

  The harness did not explode.

  The shards did not flare.

  Celeste didn’t flinch.

  The only visible sign was a faint, momentary dimming of the etchings around the shards — a fraction of a shade, here and gone again.

  Eric stared at it, then at his hand.

  His fingers shook.

  He hadn’t realized how empty he’d been until that tiny sip combined with the self detonator reminded him what not-empty felt like.

  “Shit,” he breathed. “Okay. Okay. It works. It might work.”

  He looked at Celeste.

  Her face was turned toward him now, cheek squished slightly against the pillow, lips parted. A strand of hair had fallen across her nose. She twitched it away in her sleep, muttering something in a language Michelle and Mike wouldn’t have recognized.

  He did.

  It was his name.

  The old one.

  The one that belonged to the man who had fought, bled, and died on another world.

  For a split second, the apartment room flickered at the edges. The ceiling felt too low. The air too thick. He could almost smell wet earth and ozone and the iron tang of battlefield air.

  Eric closed his eyes and breathed until the hallway and the cheap carpet and the distant hum of his lousy fridge reasserted themselves.

  “Later,” he whispered to himself. “You don’t get to fall apart now.”

  He gently adjusted the blanket over her, tucking it up to her shoulders. His hand hovered for a second over her hair, then retreated. Too much. Too dangerous. Too many unanswered questions.

  “Sleep,” he murmured. “You’re gonna hate me for this idea later. Might as well go in rested.”

  He stood slowly, joints protesting, and slipped back out of the room, closing the door almost all the way behind him.

  ***

  Michelle was halfway through chewing on a thumbnail when Eric came back. Mike was turning his beer can slowly in his hands, the metal clicking lightly against his wedding ring. Neither of them said anything at first, as if speaking might shatter whatever fragile thing Eric had gone to check on.

  “Well?” Mike asked finally.

  Eric exhaled. “It’s packed. Overloaded. Like someone fed a starving lion, then locked it in a closet with a bunch of fireworks.”

  “So… Tuesday,” Mike said. “Is it gonna blow?”

  “Not on its own,” Eric said. “But if someone hits it wrong with mana, yeah. Kaboom. Wearer goes with it.”

  Michelle’s face twisted. “That’s sick.”

  “Yeah,” Eric said quietly. “It is.”

  She searched his face. “Did you… try anything?”

  “A sip,” he admitted. “Tiny. Enough to see if it would react. It didn’t like… me. But it didn’t do anything suicidal either. I think I can drain it. Carefully. Slowly. Once she’s awake. Once she knows what we’re doing.”

  “Good,” Michelle said immediately.

  Eric blinked. “You sure about that?”

  “She hates that thing,” Michelle said. “You can see it every time she looks at it. You said it’s killing her slowly. If you can shut it down and get stronger in the process? That sounds like a win to me.”

  Mike nodded. “I’m with her. Bomb collar plus torture battery? Hard no. If we can rip that thing out, we do it.”

  Eric sank back onto the couch with a sigh. The cushions swallowed him up like they were trying to annex him into permanent residency.

  “We’ll talk to her in the morning,” he said. “Or… whenever she wakes up and isn’t drunkenly trying to murder me again.”

  Mike lifted his beer. “To tomorrow’s attempted murder.”

  Michelle shot him a look.

  “What?” he asked. “If she doesn’t go for his throat at least once, I’m gonna start worrying the world really is ending.”

  Despite herself, Michelle huffed out a weak laugh.

  The sound faded quickly, but it lingered in the room like the last echo of something fragile and human.

  A low rumble rolled through the ceiling.

  Eric glanced up automatically.

  The storm had finally started in earnest. Thunder grumbled in the distance, the sound padded by miles of sky and concrete. A faint patter built against the building’s exterior — the first cautious drops of rain.

  For a moment, the lights flickered.

  Just once.

  All three of them went very still.

  The power steadied. The fridge hummed on. The lamp kept its dim glow.

  Eric exhaled. “See? Totally normal storm. Nothing to worry about except everything else.”

  Michelle scrubbed her hands over her face, then dropped them to her lap. “I have to go back in tomorrow,” she said suddenly.

  “To work?” Eric asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Dalton’s already suspicious. I can’t just vanish. And I…” She swallowed. “I need to see what the department is hearing. If anything like what we’ve seen shows up in reports, I need to know.”

  Eric nodded slowly. “You think he’ll buy whatever version of the truth you give him?”

  Michelle stared at a spot on the wall.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’ll make him.”

  There was a steel in her voice that hadn’t been there before. A resolve tempered by fear and something else — purpose.

  “You’re sure you should be driving?” Eric asked. “You look like you’re about five minutes away from falling over.”

  “So do you,” she shot back. “Yet here we are.”

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  “I can crash on the floor if you want the couch,” Mike offered suddenly. “Better than you white-knuckling it home with your hands shaking.”

  Michelle hesitated.

  Her shoulders sagged.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Okay. Just for tonight.”

  “Couch's yours, LT,” Mike said, already levering himself out of the chair. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

  “In a warzone,” Michelle muttered.

  “Exactly,” Mike said. “This place doesn’t even have landmines. Yet.”

  “Comforting,” she said dryly.

  They did an awkward little shuffle of sleeping arrangements. Eric pointed Michelle toward a folded blanket and an extra pillow. Mike snagged a spare sheet and tossed it onto the floor beside the recliner with the resigned air of a man who had accepted that gravity was his true lifelong companion.

  “You still taking the chair?” Michelle asked Eric.

  He shrugged. “I promised.”

  “Idiot,” she said.

  “Accurate,” he replied.

  The storm outside picked up, rain drumming more steadily against the windows. It wasn’t a raging tempest—yet—but it had that pregnant, waiting feel. Like the first steps of a song before the orchestra truly came in.

  Eric sank into the chair, the old springs complaining under his weight. The room was dim now; they’d killed the main light, leaving only the glow from the kitchen and the faint pulse from the microwave clock.

  Mike lay on his back on the floor, hands laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

  “You know,” Mike mused, “if you manage this harness battery-eating stunt, that’ll make you, what, a magical war criminal and a freedom fighter all at once?”

  “Story of my life,” Eric muttered.

  Michelle rolled onto her side, facing away from them, blanket pulled up to her chin. “Just… don’t blow up my suspect,” she said. “I just got used to the idea that elves are real. I’m not emotionally prepared for ‘elves explode.’”

  Eric closed his eyes. “I’ll do my best.”

  Quiet settled in.

  The kind of quiet that wasn’t empty, but full. Full of breaths, and thoughts, and unasked questions hanging in the air like cobwebs.

  Eric listened to the rhythm of it.

  Mike’s breathing, slowing as he drifted toward sleep.

  Michelle’s, a little too fast at first, then gradually easing as exhaustion finally overpowered adrenaline.

  Behind the bedroom door, almost inaudible, Celeste’s faint, steady inhalations.

  His own heart, still beating too hard, too fast, for a man who was just sitting in a chair.

  He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling.

  One month.

  Give or take.

  Long enough to pretend this wasn’t happening.

  Short enough that it absolutely was.

  His fingers flexed on the armrests.

  He could still feel that tiny thread of mana he’d swallowed earlier, like the ghost of warmth in his veins. It wasn’t enough to do anything with. Not really. But it was something. A reminder that the empty, echoing cavern inside him could be filled again.

  If he was willing to risk her life to do it.

  He shut his eyes, jaw clenching.

  Tomorrow, he’d have to tell her.

  Explain.

  Ask her to trust him again, after everything.

  Ask her to let him put his metaphorical teeth into the one thing tying her to her captors.

  Thunder rolled again, closer this time.

  Eric opened his eyes.

  The storm outside would pass.

  The other one—the one that had opened its gates between worlds, the one marching toward them on a timetable measured in cycles, not days—

  That one was still building.

  But for the first time since the sky split open, the crushing weight of inevitability sitting on his chest had shifted.

  Not lifted.

  Not gone.

  Just… moved.

  Like there was finally space beside it—tiny, fragile, but real—for the possibility that they might do more than just stand there and get hit.

  He blew out a slow breath.

  “Bravery time,” he muttered under his breath, so quietly that even he barely heard it. “Just not tonight.”

  He settled deeper into the chair, eyes half-lidded, watching shadow and streetlight play across the ceiling while rain tapped out an uneven rhythm beyond the walls.

  The world outside turned in its sleep.

  The gates waited.

  The storm, both kinds, drew closer.

  And in a cramped living room in Coyote Hills, three high-strung people and one very tired elf slept on the edge of something far too big for any of them—

  holding on, for now, to the thin, stubborn thread of a plan.