The warp gate set me down in Avalon City's central transport hub with the familiar lurch of folded space letting go. After days in a sealed pocket of the First Hero's making and two great houses' worth of ceremony, stepping back into the noise of my own city felt like waking up.
Avalon spread out around me in the late-afternoon light—transport platforms sliding between crystal towers, holographic adverts selling everything from cultivation supplements to the new season of some drama Stella refused to admit she watched, and under it all the steady hum of a city that had learnt to run on magic and technology at once and had stopped noticing the seams.
I wanted to go home.
