I don't know my reflection. That's the only part of this that feels weird. I've spent decades looking at myself, charting every change, constantly aware of how people would talk when they saw I was developing smile lines or cellulite.

Now I've become a stranger to myself... and I love it.

I have fangs. Vicious things meant to bite, rend, and tear. When I purse my lips, I can feel them wanting to jut out.

To show themselves and reveal me as what I've always been.

Whatever Kam did brought about other changes, too. My spine has scales like hers, and my ears come to a gentle point.

The most glaring one, though, is that I can see the Decay glowing in my veins and arteries, the dark crimson of it somehow shining through my skin.

To anyone looking at me, it's clear that something's happened.

I'm not her anymore.

'Magisorcerer Tiana' is dead. There's no going back now.

A knock on the door pulls my focus from that triumphant thought.

"You okay?" Rory, ever concerned and still sweet even now, asks.

I nod to the woman in the mirror, and flash my fangs at her. The thrill of seeing the light catch them makes my heart pound.

"Yeah, I'm just fine," I reply, smirking.

Rory's gaze stutters across me yet again when I open the door to the bathroom, unsure where to settle now that he and I aren't together. He chooses to look somewhere just past my cheek, close enough that if I didn't know him I'd be fooled into thinking he was looking right at me.

He clears his throat. "Any idea about where Desdemona might be?"

"Yeah, actually. It's a bit fuzzy, but... after I sent you away, she brought me back to her hideout, and then..."

"Then...?"

I shrug. "I don't know. We were there, and then she asked me to go to the Guild."

Rory crosses his arms. "There's no way she'd go back there, right?"

"To the Magisorcerers' Guild? No. That's why she had me. To get in undetected and..." Oh, god. The memories come crashing back. "She took the First Resonator. Made me steal it."

"Then we need to get back there, now."

I shake my head. "No, that doesn't make sense. She wouldn't risk going back. She's got her prize, and the First Resonator can only be activated from within the Guild's Sanctum."

"Normally, yes."

"You know something that I don't."

"I can't tell you the specifics, but yes."

I'm familiar with this conversation. We've had it plenty of times. "Okay, you can't tell me the specifics... but I'm guessing you have an idea of where she might go?"

"Maybe. I just... It doesn't quite make sense. Why send Draxus to attack Trimarichus?"

This is something I know. "It was a feint."

I explain to him about what Desdemona told me: that she took control of Draxus again to punish him as much as to use him as a distraction while she robbed something else. As I walk through it, his eyes stop staring at the point just over my cheek and he finally meets my gaze.

He's furious.

"I know where she's going." He goes to leave without saying another word.

I blink ahead of him. Undeterred, he weaves around me and heads for the stairs.

"Rory."

He keeps going. I blink to the landing of the stairs, heading him off again.

"Don't do this alone."

I've never seen him like this.

And it'll get him killed if he keeps at it, so I do the only thing I can do: the next time I blink, I make sure to lunge as I do so. I slam into his back, using the momentum to carry us both down to the floor.

He lets out a frustrated, guttural noise and tries to get back up.

I trap his arm in an armlock before he can.

"Let go of me."

"Tell me where she's going. We'll go together."

"No."

"Then we both stay here."

Rory struggles to break free, fruitlessly trying to extricate his arm. "It's my fault. Dammit, just..."

He yanks harder, almost feral now in his need to be out of this restraint. When I don't budge, he goes still. "Tiana. Let me. Go. Now."

"Tell me what's going on. This isn't like you."

I can't see his face, so when he tenses again I think he's struggling... until I hear him sob.

Rory's always been a private person, even when he's opened up to me. He doesn't cry. I asked him about it once and he said that he didn't have use for it. "It's just that there's no emotion I've felt that compels me to react in that way," he'd explained.

I let him free and hug him close.

"It's me. I'm the reason this is happening to him."

His confession doesn't phase me. My husband has always been a complex man, but I know him well enough to know that this isn't something simple. Rory is a hero, after all. And regardless, all I can do now is let him talk.

"When Draxus and I... God, I was stupid. I was so stupid. I'm always so stupid, I... I slipped up. I mentioned it to him. I said it, and I thought because I'd just glided past it he wouldn't remember, but I saw the look in his eyes. He's always been so keen. I knew he knew. It felt... cool.

God, what am I? A child? I sound like a kid. I wanted him to think that I was cool, and it put both him and you and... fuck! And Kam. It put you all in danger because I wanted to impress him. I wanted to be impressive for him. What's wrong with me?"

My heart breaks even more.

Desdemona has to see justice for this. There's just no other way, but right now Rory needs me to be here. To be present. Before we were young and in love, we were allies and friends.

He clings to me tighter, then. "I couldn't help. Why can I never help?"

I know his pain. It's like mine.

He's bound to a guilt that will never leave him. No matter how far he moves from this moment, he'll always find it waiting just over his shoulder. He'll glimpse it on his fondest days, and bow his head a little, and welcome the misery of it.

It's how we all get through.

You welcome the cut that doesn't bleed you out, and thank it for letting you survive when others don't. I think of Lindsay and how much she blames herself for what happened even now. "It's not your fault."

"Yes it is!"

"You knew your boyfriend was going to get mind controlled?"

"No."

"Because that would make you a shitty boyfriend, and you, Rory Valen, aren't a shitty boyfriend. You love him and you did something rash. It happens."

"I broke laws."

"Yes. You did." And maybe this is unfair, and not the right moment, but I know Rory. "So did Kam."

He bristles at that, pushing back from the hug and narrowing his eyes to slits. "Mine was done from a place of love and not the product of impulsive, reckless lust."

I playfully roll my eyes. "This is why we're getting divorced."

He snorts. "Yeah. That. Not the infidelity."

"Mutual! And yes."

Rory gives a hollow laugh, and then his expression shifts to something more somber and sincere. "I really am sorry. For both of us."

"I am, too... We really botched this whole marriage thing, huh?"

"Nah... we just... grew into being different... We were just... It just didn't... Okay, maybe."

I stand and extend a hand to him. "Then stop beating yourself up for what's on both of us."

Rory stares at it, regarding it as though I'm handing him a vial of poison. I wave for him to take it, though, and he does. I've always had enhanced strength since becoming a Magisorcerer, but this?

I misjudge it and yank him up with enough gusto that he stumbles into me. Both of us default into an embrace that not too long ago was intimate. None of it remains. It just feels cold, and I see the unease plain on his face.

I clear my throat and step back. "Different people," I echo.

"Yeah..."

"So, Desdemona. Where's she going? How do we stop her?"

Turning the First Resonator over in her hand, a contented smile splits Desdemona Harris' face. She doesn't much believe in fate or destiny, but this moment? It's like the doors unlocked for her and her shackles had fallen away after decades of wrongful punishment.

And not only figuratively, once she'd tasked Elaine with experimenting on some of the guards in the prison. Elaine had taken the work happily, which made Desdemona happy as well. The lack of discord was a balm given her recent setback with Tiana.

Desdemona sours at the thought.

Just as fast, she smooths out her features. It doesn't matter. Surveying the worksite around her, she is once again at peace. Severing the connection left her with little more than a lingering headache, and the world's 'greatest' Magisorcerer dead by her hands. Pity, but she can make another Tiana.

Around her, the din of construction equipment as her thralls burrow into the earth sings out as a symphony of triumph to what she'll soon have accomplished: victory over those who punished her, and conquest to make the world new and better — to make the world think as she does.

For them to see.

Using Draxus to get some measure of vengeance was only the start. The true prize she'd peeled from Trimarichus' slipshod cyber defenses was a report. Unremarkable to most, its contents were banal details about a tract of land that bore no name. A wasteland, scarred by a fight.

Site 707-A had been the site of Desdemona's greatest defeat. A decade ago, when she clashed with the Magisorcerers and the traitors to her cause, this is where she'd stood her ground. Even then, she'd been so strong that she had almost carried the day.

And with Tiana off the board...

Kammie dominates her thoughts, as usual. Desdemona's many hopes revolve around the woman, even now. Killing her, convincing her, humiliating her... all of it is about her. About Kammie. And if Desdemona could just... sink her fingers into Kammie. Tie her up and fix her until she shut up again.

Kammie would forgive her. Even Draxus would come to understand once Desdemona revealed the truths of this world. She would rip all those fools free from the cave and bring them into her light.

She is right and righteous. Every golden age requires the destruction of the dark age before it.

All that sits between her golden age is a mile-wide concrete slab, magically warded but vulnerable to mundane means of removal. Beneath it, an aether well of magic courses with a decade's worth of magic — the remnants of what happened here drawn in as if by fate to ensure Desdemona's victory.

And more proof of the Guild's lies. They call the Sanctum "holy" and "unique", but it's not. She'd learned that truth not long before they left her to become one with the light. Hypocrites. Liars. Abusers. She'd see them flayed for what they did to her, and the girls like her before.

The moment they break through the concrete, glowing light in a thousand thousand colors will fill the world around her, painting the world in beautiful hues. She can see the moment in her mind. It's close, too. Only a few minutes more.

That is, until everything explodes in a flash of blue aether.

She knows that color. That exact hue. Desdemona turns to face Tiana. "You. I need to kill you better next ti- me." Her voice falters as she takes in the sight of a woman transformed. Desdemona knows exactly what happened, and how. Kammie. Misguided, stupid Kammie, trying to "help".

It's not as though Desdemona hasn't done the same in the past, but it's not fair. Only she should be able to grant such blessings. Not Kammie, and definitely not for that wretched, incessantly libidinous woman. To think she had the right to do anything with her Kammie.

And that boy. The slut who'd tempted her pure and beloved Draxus away from her, who turned him against her and ruined him... Hubris of them to show up here. Victory is within Desdemona's reach. All she needs to do is stall.

Phasing out the First Resonator, Desdemona takes her stance.

If they truly wish to see what it's like to be blessed by her, then fine. May they drown in her grace.

I don't know if fifteen guys possessed by Decay counts as a 'horde', but they're relentless in the way only a horde can be. I'm too busy dodging to land a hit on any of them.

Blinking away only buys a short reprieve. They're fast, on me even as I materialize. Rory's faring no better from the glimpses I get: batting them away with a barrage of shield magic but not able to gain any ground.

One of us is going to slip up if nothing changes, so I do something risky.

I blink to the side, one last time, and hold my ground. It's all a hunch, but based on how displeased Desdemona was seeing the way I look now and how effortless it was to pick Rory up, I need to play it.

When the first of Desdemona's horde reaches me, I deliver a right cross.

The crunch of the poor guy's jawbone and the way he sags into the pavement tells me I'm right. I've always been strong, but what Kam did left me boosted. Better. She made me better.

I duck low and deliver a jab to the next guy's kidney, and he wilts. I pull the punch enough to make sure he'll live.

Across from me, a noise like glass breaking gets my attention. Rory's gone on the offensive, too, purposefully letting his shield shatter. The shards embed themselves in three of the horde. Show-off.

A crescent kick takes out another of the horde on me. We're gaining momentum. This is good.

But the distraction means I've not been looking at Desdemona. Too busy trying to not get hit, I lose track of her for thirty seconds. It's a lifetime in a battle. By the time I spot her again, she's aloft and holding the wreckage of one of the excavators.

Dammit.

That's not good.

One of the horde catches me with a gut shot. It doesn't hurt as much as it should, and in that moment I make my decision: no more distractions. This fight needs to end, and every second I'm here gives Desdemona more time to get what she wants. Rory'll be fine with pitched odds.

I handspring past them and blink towards Desdemona, appearing a few feet above her. Summoning an enhanced gravity glyph, I rocket towards her as I channel aether into my heel for an axe kick. If it connects, she's done for. If it doesn't, she'll be forced to evade, buying me time.

She jerks out of the path at the last second. My kick cuts a gleaming swath through the air, mere inches from her head. As I sail past, I form a shield to block against any reprisals... but none come. I just see her smirk... and then gravity's pull increases tenfold between breaths.

I dispell the gravity glyph before she can empower it further, but the acceleration is so sharp that I only have time to think about blinking before I'm hammering into the concrete. The shield magic redirects the force outwards and down, creating a blast wave as the concrete gives way.

Too easy. It's clear to Desdemona that Tiana never considered anyone weaponizing her own magic against her. A shield spell creates countervailing forces. Mundane forces, like gravity, created by the effects of a spell, not spellwork.

They used to teach girls the difference.

But the Guild doesn't trust girls who know too much. No, the Guild lets them die. Lets them "join the light", and then wail about how sad it is they cut her throat. Desdemona hadn't been a Magisorcerer long enough to be invited to the Sanctum, to see that iridescent glow.

But thanks to her lesser replacement, she gets to experience the beauty of it. It feels a shame, perhaps, to use it — like despoiling some natural wonder to build a strip mall.

Kammie will forgive her. Desdemona will make her forgive her, until the end of time if necessary.

Flicking her hand, she summons the First Resonator from the extradimensional space she tucked it, and dives into the light.

The shield breaks my fall, only for the explosion of the sealed well to send me tumbling end over end. By the time I re-orient myself, I catch only a glimpse of it.

Desdemona's won. I can feel it as a pulse of energy sings through the air, twinkling with a beautiful melody of ethereal notes. It's the song of the First Magisorcerer, heralding her gift to the future generations. What rises from the light is anathema to that vision.

Desdemona, clad in vicious, spiked armor that nonetheless glows with the scintillating might of the First Resonator, rockets upwards from the crater before landing with a sickening crunch on the ground.

That smirk. God, do I want to tear into her throat for it.

I swear, at the thought, I feel them tingle. That's new. Here's hoping I survive long enough to discover what that means.