"We'll need weapons that work there," I say.
"Shadow and void," Nezavek confirms. "Physical weapons will be less effective."
"Can you teach me to channel void energy?"
"Through the bond, yes. But it requires..."
"Physical contact. I figured." I turn to face him, our bodies aligning. "Show me," I tell him.
His hands cover mine, shadow flowing between us. The bond opens wider, and I feel it, the nothing that exists betweensomething, the void that separates all things. It's cold and vast and hungry, and it wants to swallow everything.
"Don't fight it," he murmurs. "Let it flow through you, not into you."
I try. The void enters through our joined hands, courses up my arms, fills my chest with absence. For a moment, I don't exist. Then I do, and the void is mine to shape.
A blade forms in my hand, not steel but nothing given edge.
"Fast learner," Nezavek says, his breath warming my neck.
"Good teacher."
We're standing closer than necessary now, my back to his chest, his arms around me to guide the energy flow. His form solidifies the longer we touch, becoming more real with each shared breath. My body catalogs every point of contact, his chest against my spine, his arms bracketing mine, his chin nearly resting on my shoulder.
"When this is over."
I turn in his arms, the void blade dissolving. "We survive first. Then we talk about after."
"Practical."
"Always."
Päivi clears her throat, or makes a sound like papers shuffling purposefully. "There's something else. Your contract expires at midnight."
I'd forgotten. The thirty-day clause. The bride market's guarantee that suffering has a time limit.
"After midnight, you can't leave," Päivi continues. "Even if you wanted to. The bond incomplete or not, you'd be bound to the realm."
I look at Nezavek, shadow and starlight, dying by degrees but still trying to protect everyone. At Mikaere, loyal beyond reason, fighting with three arms when he had four. At Päivi, brilliant and broken, holding reality together through will alone.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"You could be free," Nezavek says quietly.
"I am free. I'm choosing this. Choosing you. All of you."
Something shifts in the bond, a clicking into place, a door opening wider. Nezavek's form solidifies more, his eyes brightening from amber to gold.
"The bond," Päivi whispers. "It's responding to commitment, not just contact."
We spend the remaining hours preparing. Weapons of shadow and void, shaped by will and necessity. Mikaere wants to come, must be convinced to stay, defend what is left of our home. Päivi will hold our escape route, maintaining a portal back if we need to retreat.
The gallery exists partially outside reality, making it both the Collector's strength and his weakness. He's strongest there but also anchored, unable to flee if cornered.
"What happens after?" Mikaere asks while sharpening a blade that exists in three dimensions. "If we succeed?"
"The realm will need rebuilding," Nezavek says. "Without the Collector's interference destabilizing things, we might actually manage it."
"We will rebuild," I correct. "After."
