He squeezes back. His thumb traces a slow circle on the back of my hand.
The path widens into what must be the central plaza of the Verdance. It is massive, easily the size of a tournament field, ringed by the oldest and tallest towers. Their canopies interlock overhead, forming a living ceiling that filters the light into a soft green-and-gold haze. At the center of the plaza stands a tree.
Not a tower. A tree. An actual enormous tree with a trunk so wide it would take twenty people holding hands to circle it. Its bark is silver-white, and its branches spread outward in every direction, each one thick enough to walk on. The leaves are the source of the light I have been seeing, thousands of them, each one glowing faintly and pulsing with the same steady rhythm as the rest of the city.
The tree is not just in the Verdance.
Itisthe Verdance.
Everything I have seen, the towers, the bridges, the root-woven paths, all of it seems to have grown outward from this single point.
"That's the Heartwood," Thalia says. "The original growth. Everything else branched from it."
I stare at it. My marks tingle. Through the bond, I feel Kaelren go still, and I know he is feeling it too. The raw, concentrated pulse of Bloom magic radiating from the tree, stronger than anything I have encountered in any iteration. It hums through the ground beneath our feet, through the air we are breathing, filling the space between us with something warm and alive.
"Well," Peeble says, unusually quiet for once. "That is something."
People are gathered in the plaza. Dozens of them: fae, humans, the bark-skinned beings I saw earlier, and others I cannot categorize. They watch us approach with expressions that range from cautious hope to undisguised suspicion. Several of them wear armor made from the same living wood as the towers, fitted to their bodies in a way that suggests it was grown specifically for them. A few carry weapons I do not recognize: curved blades with edges that glow faintly, staffs wrapped in flowering vines that pulse with light.
Thalia stops at the base of the Heartwood. She turns to face us, and when she speaks, her voice carries across the plaza without effort.
"These are the ones I went to find," she says. Not to us. To the crowd. "The bonded pair from the original timeline. Elle and Kaelren."
Murmurs ripple through the gathered people. I hear our names repeated, passed back through the crowd in tones I cannot quite read.
"They have come to help us end the siege," Thalia continues. "The council will brief them on the current situation. The next Bloomfall Moon is close, and we will be ready."
More murmurs. Some nods. A few skeptical glances aim at Kaelren, whose corruption marks are visible above his collar andalong the backs of his hands. He stands perfectly still beside me, face unreadable, his hand pressed flat against the small of my back.
Through the bond, though, I feel him cataloging. Exits. Sight lines. Defensible positions. The tactical mind that never stops running, even when the rest of him is being held together with stubbornness and the feel of my pulse under his fingers.
Thalia turns back to us. "The council is assembling. I'll take you to the chamber." She pauses, and for just a moment her mask slips. The stoic efficiency softens, and something warmer breaks through, something that looks at the two of us standing side by side and understands what it means. "You made it. I wasn't sure you would."
Kaelren's hand presses harder against my back. "We had motivation."
Thalia's mouth curves. It is small, barely a smile, but it reaches her eyes. Then the mask is back, and she turns toward an archway at the base of the Heartwood that leads deeper into the living city.
"Try to keep up," she says over her shoulder. "The Verdance doesn't wait."
Peeble sighs dramatically from my shoulder. "Oh good. More walking. My absolute favorite activity. Shall I also carry everyone's luggage? Compose a ballad? Perform a one-beetle interpretive dance about the existential weight of interdimensional travel?"
"Peeble," I say.
"I'm just saying. A little appreciation for the beetle who survived the void, the iterations, and a collapsing pocket dimension would not go amiss."
I reach up and stroke one finger along the ridge of their shell. They quiet immediately, their wings settling flat against their back.
"Thank you, Peeble," I say. "For surviving all of it. For being here."
They are silent for a full three seconds. A record.
"Well," they say finally, their voice slightly thicker than before, "of course I'm here. Someone has to keep you two from making dramatically poor decisions. It's a full-time job, and the benefits are terrible."
Kaelren's hand finds mine again as we follow Thalia through the archway. The Heartwood closes around us, not threatening, not confining, but present. The walls are smooth and warm, the air thick with the scent of green things and running water and something older, something deeper, something that feels like the first breath the world ever took.
We walk into the heart of the Verdance together.
For the first time since I reassembled myself out of nothing, I feel like I might actually be somewhere I am supposed to be.
