Astrid was in the middle of explaining why elixirs made from moonroot tasted like regret when the world tilted sideways.
"—and that's why nobody drinks it before combat drills, unless you enjoy—"
The hall dissolved around me.
Not the violent yank I remembered from the first crossing — no purple whirlpool, no thunder splitting the sky. This time it felt slower, almost gentle, like someone had reached into my chest and simply turned the page without warning.
Sound went first. Astrid's voice, the low hum of the guild hall, all of it thinning out into nothing, replaced by a different kind of quiet — the low mechanical hum of something I hadn't heard in what felt like a lifetime.
Then the smell hit me.
Antiseptic. Old coffee, gone bitter in a pot somewhere. Something floral and cheap, an
