Tia released him slowly, fingers trailing down his arms before she stepped back to the hearth.
She crouched to add another log to the fire—small, careful movements that spoke of long habit. Sparks rose in a brief, bright dance.
The added heat pushed the night chill farther into the corners of the room.
Ed watched her from the chair.
The way she moved was still graceful, still unmistakably hers, yet something about it felt… restrained.
As though each motion cost more effort than it once had.
She straightened, brushing wood dust from her palms, then crossed to a low cupboard near the window.
Glass clinked softly as she pulled out two chipped mugs and a small tin of dried leaves.
"Tea?" she asked over her shoulder.
"It's not fancy. Just something I grow on the balcony. Helps with sleep."
Ed nodded. "Tea sounds perfect."
While the kettle heated over the fire, Tia returned to the table and sat again—this time closer, their knees brushing under the wood.
She folded her hands in her lap and looked at him steadily.
"You said one hundred worlds," she murmured. "Tell me about one. Just one. The worst one, or the best one. I need to hear something real."
Ed exhaled through his nose, gaze dropping to the grain of the table.
"The worst…" He paused, thumb tracing an old knot in the wood.
"World forty-seven. A desert kingdom where the sun never set properly—always twilight, never full dark. The hero there was a girl, barely sixteen, chosen because she could speak to sandstorms. She was kind. Too kind. She kept trying to save everyone, even the bandits who kept raiding her supply lines."
He swallowed once.
"I stayed almost two years that time. Longer than most. I taught her how to ration water, how to spot hidden wells, how to read the wind shifts so the storms wouldn't blind her party. She called me 'Uncle Shadow' because I was always there but never in the light."
Tia's fingers tightened in her lap.
"She died anyway," Ed continued quietly.
"Not in battle. In her sleep. Poison slipped into the well by someone she'd spared the week before. I found her in the morning—eyes open, staring at nothing. The sandstorm that came that day buried half the city. I walked out of it three days later. The door opened the moment her heart stopped."
Silence stretched.
Tia reached across the table again. This time her hand settled on his forearm—light, steady pressure.
"You carried that alone," she said.
Not a question.
"For a while," Ed met her eyes. "Then the next world. And the next. You learn to keep moving. You have to."
The kettle began to whistle—soft at first, then insistent.
Tia rose to pour. Steam curled upward in delicate spirals as she steeped the leaves.
The scent that rose was gentle: mint, chamomile, a faint trace of honey.
She set one mug in front of him, cradled the other in both hands, and returned to her seat.
"Your turn," Ed said after a sip.
The tea was warm, grounding.
"What happened here? After I left. The old man in Lirien's Rest said Alexis died five years ago. Okasa too. But you're still here."
Tia's fingers tightened around her mug.
Steam rose between them like a veil.
"We tried to replace you," she said after a long moment.
"Immediately. We were already close to the front lines by then. We needed someone who could handle supplies the way you did—quietly, perfectly, without ever asking for praise. But the applicants…"
She gave a small, bitter laugh.
"They wanted glory. They wanted to stand beside the hero and be seen. None of them wanted to scrub pots or count bandages at three in the morning."
Ed listened without interrupting.
"We went through six replacements in three months," Tia continued.
"Every single one quit when they realized the job wasn't glamorous. In the end we hired a professional porter—someone who advertised 'supply management only.' Alexis explained the full list of duties. The man laughed in his face. Said his contract didn't include cooking or laundry. Alexis told him to leave. He did."
She stared into her tea.
"That was when we finally understood," she said softly.
"How much you'd been doing. How much we'd taken for granted. We couldn't function without you. Not even close."
Ed's chest ached.
"I was never angry about it. I chose to do those things."
"I know."
Tia's voice cracked. "That's why it hurts more."
She set her mug down.
Rolled up one sleeve of her tunic—slowly, almost reluctantly.
Black marks stained her skin.
They started at her wrist and climbed her forearm like ink spilled in water: dark, irregular spots that pulsed faintly under the lamplight.
They looked alive. Wrong.
Ed's breath stopped.
"What…?"
"Elven secret art," Tia said quietly.
"I used it at the end. When Alexis forced the transfer crystal into my hand and sent me away. I tried to stay. I tried to buy them more time. The spell mixed my life force into the magic—boosted the power tenfold. But it burned away years. Decades, maybe."
She rolled the sleeve back down.
The motion was careful, practiced.
"I've been managing it," she said.
"The treehouse draws ambient mana from the forest. These clothes channel it into me—keeps the marks from spreading too fast. But every time I cast anything serious…"
She gave a small, helpless shrug.
"It takes more."
Ed stared at the covered arm as though he could still see through the fabric.
"How long?" he asked.
Tia looked away.
"A few months. Maybe less if I push too hard."
The fire popped. A log settled with a soft crack.
Ed reached across the table. Took her hand. Turned it palm-up. Traced the faint outline of one hidden mark with his thumb.
"I'm not letting that happen," he said. Voice low. Certain.
Tia's eyes searched his face.
"Ed—"
"I've crossed a hundred worlds," he said.
"I've broken worse rules than this. If there's a way to fix it, I'll find it. If there isn't, I'll make one."
She laughed once—soft, shaky.
"You always did talk like that. Like the world was just another problem you could carry until it wasn't."
Ed squeezed her hand.
"This time I'm not carrying it alone."
Outside, the wind moved through the elder tree's branches—gentle, almost protective.
Inside, two people sat holding hands across a scarred wooden table, and for the first time in ten years the silence didn't feel empty.