Author's Note

I suppose I should begin with a confession: I am absolutely selling out with this one.

I know what many of you like. I read the comments. I see which stories get the strongest reactions, which scenarios generate the most discussion, and which particular varieties of humiliation, power imbalance, and wildly questionable decision-making keep you degenerates coming back for another chapter.

I could pretend that this story emerged from some profound artistic vision that demanded to be brought into the world, but we both know better. Sometimes you write the story that lives in your soul. Sometimes you look at your readers and say, "Fine. You win." This is one of those times.

That does not mean I am phoning it in. Quite the opposite. If I am going to shamelessly pander, I intend to do it properly. The goal here is to take a premise that I know many of you are going to enjoy and actually build a story around it, with enough of a plot that we can all maintain the polite fiction that this is literature.

The premise is simple. Darth Tempus has mastered the ability to observe and travel through time, and he has chosen a collection of women scattered throughout galactic history as his eventual targets. The twist is that he is not simply going to open a portal, grab them, and disappear. Where would be the fun in that?

Instead, we are going to follow each woman through key moments in her established timeline while Tempus watches from outside history and subtly interferes. His presence corrupts the people around his targets, amplifying impulses that already exist and gradually twisting familiar events into darker versions of themselves.

That means each victim effectively gets her own extended story before Tempus ever takes her. The idea is to revisit recognizable moments while gradually creating an increasingly warped alternate history beneath the surface. You know what you came here for. So consider this both a warning and a promise. This is going to be a long, strange trip through the darker corners of a galaxy you already know.

As always, thank you for reading, commenting, encouraging my worst ideas, and giving me an excuse to turn them into stories.

—Savannah Harrow