The fact of the matter is this: no one in my world seems to recognize the way that I am changing and affecting The Tales of Alvione. So, by that logic, could it be true that if someone else were changing and affecting The Tales of Alvione, I wouldn’t know it either?

If I wasn’t losing my mind before, I definitely am now.

The work day drags. According to the Wiki, the butterfly effect of my actions so far in Alvione is small, but not insignificant. I finally see some mentioned effects of the speech that I gave the other day. After Eliana fails to establish an effective system for dealing with crime in Alvione, despite her big promises that day, she loses the support of some. The anti-magic folk get increasingly rowdy, and it’s believed that a handful of them begin acting in support of Ward, which is now the most socially anti-magic of the three neighboring nations. It’s suspected that the help of spies working for Ward contributes to what happens next: the ruin of Alvione and the burning of the castle.

Sort of in line with my suspicions last night, Paulo Ward does not seem to care that Peter is an advisor to Alvione—at least not enough to not burn Alvione (and his son) to the ground. But this time, a dragon shows up in addition to his army. I didn’t even know Ward aligned with dragons. So, if anything, he seems more angry than before. I sure as hell don’t send dragons after people I only sort of dislike.

Eliana doesn’t marry Peter, yada yada, she keeps him as an advisor, yeah yeah, Martin searches for answers regarding Rose to no avail, same old same old, and Peter and Leon lose interest in Eliana because, compared to a time-traveling world-hopper, she’s pretty milk toast and boring. (And yes, I still find that a bit flattering even though it’s also frustrating. Like, Eliana. Pull your own weight, girl. I get that you’re a Mary Sue, but like, isn’t that supposed to work for you?)

I’m starting to feel increasingly certain that a wedding between Peter and I will not be nearly enough to convince Paulo to calm the fuck down. We’d have to promise him things, I’m sure. I’d probably have to prove something to him. Declare loyalty maybe. Swear fealty. That’s a thing medieval people do, right?

And as much as I like the idea of marrying Leon, I can’t help but feel like it’d be ultimately pointless politically and wouldn’t do either of us any favors in the realm of safety and survival. I’m not sure how Martin feels now about his original idea, but I think it still might be our best bet: me playing both sides and both guys. It could lead to meeting their families in a more positive light and help me build rapport with both nations.

Plus, if I fail to convince Paulo Ward to like me, getting along even better with Viridia could at least make the two nations united appear a bit less conquerable to Ward. So chatting up Leon is still on the table.

Furthermore, I can’t just rely on Peter to play nice because we’re friendly now. I have to build that bond. He’s not critical to good relations with Ward, not by a long shot, but I’d be worse off without his help and his knowledge of the kingdom. So I shouldn’t just drop Peter and run.

Shit. My brain’s gonna explode.

It’s getting harder and harder to remember the original story. I don’t know if my memory is just getting jumbled with the constant updates and changes, or if I’m starting to forget the original book the way that the rest of the world has.

Why does Peter and Eliana’s marriage in the first book temper the bad relations between Alvione and Ward? I’d always kind of glossed over that part, which really sucks for me right now. I mean, who reads a romance book for the politics? I was obviously in it for the smut. (Kidding. Only the fanfiction had any smut.)

But now the question remains. Is it because Eliana is so meek that it seems like Peter can control her? Is it because of private conversations Peter had with his father that somehow convinced him that one, he’s a valuable son worth keeping alive, and two, he and Eliana’s union is beneficial to Ward? Is it because Paulo saw how in love they truly were at their wedding? Is he even the kind of king who would give a shit about that? I mean, he literally makes his kids fight each other like gladiators.

“My sister’s been talking about the missing author,” Jenna says, leaning over me and squinting judgmentally at my work. I jump, jolted from my internal panic. I’m just cleaning a table, but she’s been suspicious of my ability to get work done after the window incident. Which really seems like overkill. It’s not like I was running around smashing mugs and punching through walls.

“Oh, yeah. I heard about that.” I pause. “What’s your sister think of The Tales of Alvione?”

Jenna shrugs. “I don’t know. I usually zone out when she brings it up. All I know is that she’s a Peter stan. Like, Peter this, Peter that, ‘I wish Peter was real,’ and ‘Peter’s so hot.’ We get it. Boring. But the author being missing is kind of crazy. And her name’s apparently a pseudonym so, like, internet sleuths are trying to figure out her true identity by requesting missing persons information from local police all over and scouring it for details.” Jenna wiggles her fingers at me mysteriously.

“Seriously? You can do that?” I knew Alys Stone was a pseudonym, but people actually trying to find out her real name seems . . . ambitious. In some ways, I feel stupid for not thinking about that sooner. In others, I don’t think it would help me at all, given that she’s not around anyway. I doubt it’ll be easy to figure out who she actually is. Still, maybe if every person on true crime Reddit puts their heads together, they can do it.

“Yeah, Freedom of Information Act,” Jenna says with a cocky, know-it-all grin. “Or at least that’s what I heard on TikTok.”

“Ah, then it must be true.”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

Daisuke calls out to us from behind the register. “Hey! Back to work, you two,” he snaps in his best Jenna voice. “Or you’re both fired!”

Jenna rolls her eyes, but we do both get back to working.

I make myself a mental list of everything I need to talk to Martin and Peter about. One: Alistria Okuta and Leon’s father. Two: How can we make Paulo friendly to us if marriage alone isn’t enough? Three: What’s up with the fucking dragon? Four: What should I do about Leon? Five: I gotta make a legal system in Alvione . . . Six: Do I need to do something about Iliyan’s elf friends and the other guard? Are they just sitting in some basement prison or being held somewhere with no hope for a trial or justice?

This is starting to feel like homework. I did not major in poli sci for a reason.

After work, I spend the night researching the basics of forming an effective criminal justice system, and it’s so fucking boring that I fall asleep at my desk.

I wake up under a fur blanket, tucked somewhat ineffectively into my bed. No, Eliana’s bed.

As my eyes adjust, I notice Martin doing some weird magic shit in the corner. He’s peering over a glowing bowl of what must be water, waving his hand occasionally like he’s flipping through pages of a book.

“Yo,” I say weakly. “I’m alive, if you even care.”

He turns toward me for just a split second, then returns to whatever it is he’s doing. “Welcome back,” he says gruffly. “The fainting is getting rather serious. You’ve been out for almost fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes? That’s not fainting. That’s blacking out. I sit up frantically. “What?” The rules of the game are changing. If time passes in Alvione when I’m not here and not reading, and no one is controlling Eliana’s body . . . I need to get more shit done before it gets worse. The queen of a nation can’t be knocked out every few hours, and my to-do list is way too freaking long right now to let a minute go to waste.

“I have been scrying for a book on portal jumping. I believe that might be the closest explanation for what it is you are doing each time you fall asleep. I’m sure there will be information on how the body may wear down from repeated jumps, should this be the case. Maybe there’s an easy solution. A salve, if you will.” He swipes past another book, the hardened expression on his face masking whatever it is he’s feeling.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Let me tell you my to-do list before I forget,” I say.

His hand grows still, mid-swipe, and he looks up at me for a moment. Then he waves his hand vaguely at his scrying bowl, and the light from the water is snuffed out. “Fine.”

Okay! Um . . . what was it? “So, uh, I found out that Leon’s dad worked with Alistria.”

“‘Dad’?” Martin looks at me flatly.

“Father.”

He straightens up. “Ade has met her?” Ade! That’s what his name was. Not Abe. I’m fucking dumb.

“That’s what Leon said. Acted like it was some kind of big political secret though.” Before I can say anything else, Martin approaches me and grabs my hands tightly.

“Amazing work,” he says, a bright and genuine smile on his face. I blink. I’ve never seen him this happy before. It’d almost be unnerving . . . if it weren’t kind of adorable. His scar crinkles into a squiggle as he smiles, and his eyes glimmer prettily in the afternoon light. You know, he’s kind of a handsome guy when he isn’t being a grouch. “I have failed to get a single lead on her,” Martin admits. “Though I suppose things have been . . . busy.” His sweet smile quivers and fades. A certain hollowness returns to his eyes, and I feel a pang of sadness to see him defaulting back to normal.

Short-lived joys. Guess that’s just life, as of late. “That was one of the other things I wanted to talk about.” I squeeze his hands without even meaning to. “Iliyan.”

Martin nods, swallows.

I’m not sure where to start, but I have to start somewhere. “What’s become of the other elves? How are they taking things?” His hands tremble for a moment in mine, and I find myself rubbing my thumbs along his skin in an attempt to soothe him.

“They’re planning to depart soon, once the shock wears off, I believe. They’ve been preparing his . . . body . . . to travel. So they can bring it home to his family.” Martin takes a slow, deep breath, working hard to keep it together.

But I don’t need him to keep it together. He doesn’t have to.

“Would they be willing to stay for a trial?”

He releases his deep breath. “A trial?”

I go on to give him what an actual judge or lawyer would probably describe as an embarrassingly elementary explanation of a basic legal and criminal justice system for Alvione while he listens quietly. I try to remember everything I wrote down—all my notes, all my research—and parrot it back as best I can.

Eventually, when it seems like the information is too overwhelming, he digs around in my drawers for something that looks like paper, or maybe cloth (“It’s linen,” he tells me). As I continue my description, he uses magic to burn words into the linen without lifting a finger. I barely register it. There’s too much work to be done. I can have fun with magic when there aren’t looming crises.

We lose a few hours over this—for me, a few days. We update our timing too. Every time I leave and reenter Alvione, I remain passed out for at least fifteen minutes, with maybe a minute or so tacked on each time. At least, based on Martin’s magic internal clock, of which I ponder the accuracy. It adds a level of unpredictability that neither of us like. But after the course of a few days, I manage to get everything about the legal system out (with updated notes and researched answers to all his questions each time I reenter the dream).

When I finally run out of shit to say, Martin just nods and collects the papers he’s filled with notes. “This I can deal with,” he says. “I feel I understand the plan enough to describe it to the other advisors. I will oversee the hiring process for the roles you have outlined here.”

“You sound like a real corporate drone,” I quip. It’s a relief to be done with this part of the process. It was starting to do my head in; I hadn’t focused that hard on anything since college.

He shakes his head slightly. “You know well and good that I do not understand what you mean when you say things like that.”

“You will eventually. I’ll teach you.”

He gives me side eye. “Right.”

“What should I do in the meantime?”

“. . . Seriously?” With a small annoyed huff, Martin crosses his arms. Though he doesn’t say it, I can tell he’s thinking, Why the hell are you asking me? I have enough to do! from the stony expression on his face. “What else is on your so-called ‘to-do’ list?”

I stare at him blankly—oh, right—then wrack my brain. “I need to figure out what to do with Peter and Leon. Oh, and then there’s the dragon.”

“Excuse me?” Martin’s eyes narrow. “What dragon?”

I twiddle my thumbs. “The one Paulo Ward may or may not send to burn Alvione to the ground.”

He lets out an exaggeratedly loud sigh, uncrossing his arms and waving his papers at me as he says, “Why was that not the very first thing you mentioned to me?” He sits down for a moment, then stands back up. I keep this man a nervous wreck. “But now that I think about it,” he muses finally, breaking his self-imposed silence, “that should be impossible.” He doesn’t sound so sure though.

“Must not be, seeing as it fucking happens.”

He lets out a breath, his fingers curling around the linen pages in his hand for a moment, crumpling them slightly as he seemingly fights to control what might otherwise be a mental breakdown. “I suppose I will look into that,” he says stiffly. “You try to get a meeting with Ade Viridia through Leon. Do whatever it takes. Ask Peter about the dragon. We will eventually need a good reason to meet with Paulo as well. Perhaps he can be convinced to attend the summer solstice festival.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll love dancing around the maypole.”

A small laugh stutters from Martin’s lips, surprising us both. The smallest bit of tension leaves his body, then returns tenfold as he notices my open-mouthed amazement.

“You liked that, huh?” I say, my lips curving into an uncontrolled grin.

“No,” he coughs, hiding the bottom half of his face with his hand. “You are extremely unfunny.”

“Are you hiding a smile right now?” I bounce over and punch his arm lightly, earning me an annoyed scowl.

“Enjoy this moment of levity now because we have work to do.”

“C’mon, man. I just spent literal days cosplaying as a JD candidate. At least admit you laughed.”

Yeah. Okay. It’s childish. I’m childish. I don’t want to play with Leon’s heart. I don’t want to marry Peter. I want a little win. A break. More “moments of levity.” I want to make Martin laugh. For some reason, that sounds like the best thing in the world right now.

He looks at me. His tired eyes have this way of making me feel transparent, easily read, but I don’t mind being seen by him. He can see through me all he likes. “Fine. I laughed,” he sighs. “Now . . . fuck off.” With the smallest of smiles on his face, he teleports away before I can have the last word, leaving me with my jaw slightly unhinged and a stupid, happy grin on my face. Instant gratification.

The truth is: it’s been a hard few days. I felt like I was studying for a test, except instead of a good grade, it was the fate of real people’s lives that hung in the balance.

(Real people. I guess that’s how I see the people of Alvione now. It’s hard not to, when you see them every day and get to know them.)

While awake, I’d texted Trix a bit, but we hadn’t met up again. I don’t know why I’m nervous about it now—we already banged, so like, what’s the big deal? But for some reason, I just didn’t have it in me to invite her over again, and she didn’t push things by asking.

I’d also been following the Reddit threads on Alys Stone, trying to get any new tea, should it arise. But alas, the world has been entirely tea-less; nobody knows who the fuck that lady actually is. At the very least, the Redditors say they’ve ruled out Wyoming. I guess it’s the state with the smallest population, so it was the easiest one to clear. Did anyone actually think she disappeared in Wyoming, though?

Besides working, the only other “fun” thing I’ve been up to is applying to marketing jobs. I feel really great and confident about it too, seeing as every one I’ve applied to has basically called me an unqualified idiot in the job description alone. And don’t even get me started on the classic catch-22 of entry level jobs asking for five-plus years of experience while simultaneously offering impressively low pay and benefits summarized as “free coffee and snacks.”

At this rate, maybe I’m better off getting burned to death in Alvione.

I leave my room. Eliana’s room. Eliana’s and my room. And I walk down the hall. Time to find one of my boys. Maybe Leon will be in the library.

With very little certainty of where I’m going, I head toward where I vaguely remember the library being. A few servants scurry in the opposite direction—no Miri, so no one I recognize. After walking down some dead ends and awkwardly spinning around on my heel, by some miracle, I find the library. I head in and check between the shelves. Per usual, no one’s here. And that includes Leon. The place is deserted.

Well, that’s a bust. I see a flicker of movement outside the window, and my curiosity gets the best of me. I step up to the glass and peer out at the garden below.

The first thing I see is fire. Fire, blazing along the back bushes. A controlled burn? Then I hear the screams and something unrecognizable—a rumble as low as thunder. Before I can so much as stumble away from the window, I hear the roar of a raging conflagration and feel a scorching heat that grows and grows until it explodes around me, the force of it throwing me to the floor. Something smashes the window—the heat? An explosion?—and I instinctively cover my face as crumbling glass rains down on me like hail. My hair sizzles and pops, my lungs, my tongue, my mouth scream with pain like I’ve never felt before as I try to breathe, and the last thing I see when I squint through the flickers of blazing light, out the shattered window, is the giant eye of a dragon.