Out of a sort of amused curiosity, Palamedes skims the first few pages of The Necromancer’s Marriage Season. Where had it come from? Was this book pulled from the deep recesses of his memory, something so far back and inconsequential that he doesn’t even recall it? Or is it some subconscious amalgamation of every ridiculous romance novel Dulcinea had forced Pal and Cam to dig out of the Library in their youth? Either way, it’s unfamiliar enough to him now that he is soon reading the story in earnest, and never mind that the writing itself is sub-par.

The girl’s coughing interrupts him. He looks up from the pages, blinking at the same blond he had seen seconds before his thanergenic explosion had detonated.

Almost immediately, he decides that she must be a figment of his imagination—like the book in his hands, some strange combination of memories and experiences, built into a form he can’t quite recognize.

“Er. Hullo there.”