Björn snorted. "When we meet again, you'll show me how far you've come. Don't disappoint me."
"I won't!" Kaelira replied at once, straightening with a bright beam.
"One moment," Quinlan said, stepping forward before they could move on. "Björn, I'd like to ask you something."
Quinlan explained the matter of Kaede's blade, the katana whose existence refused to fit neatly into any framework he understood, a weapon that had elevated its wielder from someone a level 14 Ayame could defeat with ease into a force capable of matching a level 74 Black Fang head-on, a jump so vast it surpassed the word absurdity, made stranger still by the blade's ability to cleave through space itself and carve open paths where none should exist.
Björn's hands clenched at his sides.
"That sword," he said slowly, "should not exist."
Quinlan felt the shift immediately, straightening a fraction. "You know it?"
