image-generate now has a second generation path. Venice stays primary. A definite auth, billing, rate-limit, server, or empty-image response starts one bounded fal.ai Z-Image Turbo call.

Fallback responses say which provider made the image. They include source: "fal-ai", the original requested_model, a short fallback_reason, and the fal.ai request ID when the provider returns one. The endpoint keeps its existing price and request shape.

A disconnected Venice request remains a Venice dependency error because that job may still finish upstream. This avoids paying two providers for an ambiguous timeout.