The Second Day

  I tried to cast ‘Undone’. I tried to bring him back. But the water came from everywhere. I’d beaten Luke, I was sure of it. But still the water tried to swallow me. The rest of the cult was coming, and somehow, there was still so much water. And I was running out of aura. I grabbed the back of his tunic, bunched it up in both my hands, and tried to drag the body as I walked backward. But I didn’t have the strength for it. I couldn’t pull him fast enough, and the flood was still approaching. I could slow it down, but I couldn’t stop it.

  It would have been worth death. To keep trying to save him. It would have been worth it. I would only wake up in the inn again, with one more haunting memory. I’d never drowned before, but it couldn’t be worse than crushing. I could accept a death like that, for the chance to cast 'Undone' on Vel. But death wasn’t what was waiting for me if that water caught me. I could feel it. I knew Luke. I didn’t know how he was attacking while unconscious, but even in the few days I’d spent with him, I’d grown to understand him. Vel was dead because he was disobedient, and because he wasn’t useful as a tool. But me? I already knew what he wanted me for. And the water wasn’t so violent anymore. All encompassing, but far gentler in its movement.

  No longer a weapon, I was being pursued by a baptism. If I were caught, there was every possibility that I would never have the chance to help Vel again. I wasn’t sure if I could cast ‘Undone’ again within an hour either.

  The fabric of his clothing felt like my skin being torn away as I let it go, and my fingertips felt like bone as I turned to run. I was angry, more than afraid. Angry at myself. Angry at my failure. But I was angrier at Luke than anyone. I didn’t want to run. I could save Vel like I’d promised if I wasn’t being forced to run. But the water was everywhere, and all I could do was push it away with my own aura. Before it could touch me. Before it could take me. I pushed, and I ran, and I screamed at my failure. At Luke’s cruelty. At all of Bedenmor, for my broken promise and the water which drowned it.

  I had no particular spell to cast. I lacked the aura to control it so precisely. But I remained a time mage. The time mage, really. So water slowed, or moved strangely, as it met the aura I was using to push it back. Still, it tried to close in on me, like a slowly moving venus fly trap. I could do nothing with it but leave it behind as my blood boiled in a way I’d long suppressed. With an anger I hadn’t felt I deserved.

  I wasn’t certain how Luke was attacking me while unconscious. Another quirk of the magic from fae tales I’d begun to suspect, perhaps. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter as I left Vel’s corpse behind. It didn’t matter as I forced my boots to the ground one after the other. It didn’t matter as I ran. All that mattered was that I needed to get stronger. I needed to help as many people as I could, and I needed the teal aura it would give me. So I could try again. So I could pull Vel from that house and show him safety. So the next time I met Luke, I could…

  I ran for longer than I’d realized. I wasn’t sure when I’d made it to the rich quarter, near the mayor’s house. I had simply run as the water flooded behind me, until the water was gone. And I’d kept running. Trapped inside my mind. Inside memories of the past, and inside a decision I was slowly making. I stood still, nearly out of aura entirely, and examined my surroundings. I hadn’t spent much time in this part of the city. Not in any loop. It simply had fewer people overall.

  I felt lost. Most of the trails of sparks led out of this part of the city. Two lead directly to the mayor’s home, and one to an estate I didn’t recognize. All others wanted me to leave. It didn’t matter in that moment. I wanted to follow them quickly. Vel’s corpse demanded it. But I knew I could do nothing if I did. I didn’t have the power left. Not unless I rested first.

  I couldn’t turn around. The cult knew who I was, and they’d be looking for me. Even if I could, I’d have nowhere to go. Livia and Marcus would be turned toward the cult. The inn would be the first place to check for a stranger, even if they weren’t. I wouldn’t put Harrison and the girls in danger. Hadley’s home was too close to the impromptu church services.

  So I examined the estates around me. My choice was clear. Exactly one had been neglected for long enough to look safe. With hedges left to grow and grass too long. I could smell the dust just by looking at it. Margaret hadn’t spoken in quite a while, but we had much to discuss, and this seemed as good a time to break the silence as any.

  “Do you think this one is empty?" I asked. Margaret scoffed.

  “I know it is,” she replied. There was a strange source of vitriol in her words, with a dark amusement mixed in. I nearly thought it was directed at me, but I’d always been willing to accept distaste, whether it was meant for me or not. In any case, it wasn’t the time to ask how she was certain or why she felt the way she did about it. It was a safe place to hide, and that’s what we did.

  She told me where to find the spare key. Where the food was kept, and where the warmest room in the house would be. She was clearly more than familiar with the estate. But that conversation could wait. I settled into the study, forcing a cup of tea down one sip at a time. All I could think of was Vel. That moment of victory I’d felt. Of pride, that I’d helped Vel escape and stopped Luke, moments before finding the corpse. I needed to talk through it.

  “Margaret, can I ask a question?” I finally said. The ghostly woman grunted as she leaned against the closed door.

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  “Yes?” she replied.

  “If you could choose… or, if you were forced to choose. Would you rather be forgotten entirely, or remembered for the hurt you've caused?” I asked. Margaret flinched at the question, then looked away.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked. I sighed.

  “Please. You know it’s as difficult a question for me as for you,” I pushed. She gave me a sidelong glance and sighed.

  “I understand that you believe that. But some hurt really is worse,” she whispered. I didn’t answer. Maybe she was right. Or maybe it was the part of me that hated her which was willing to accept that. It wasn’t worth the debate. She waited for a long moment before answering. Finally, she sighed. “Isn’t it obvious? I’d rather be forgotten, if I had to be. If I can’t undo the hurt. I’d rather be forgotten,” she answered. Margaret was the woman who refused to let any grave go untended. To let any name fade on any headstone. It wasn’t an insignificant admission—that she’d rather be forgotten. I understood. After causing enough pain, or the right kind of pain, being erased is easier than letting that pain be remembered.

  “Me too,” I agreed. “It is obvious, isn’t it? At least to you and me. I guess most people wouldn’t make that choice. But… it's obvious. And I could make that choice. I’ve come so close, so many times. When I die, I won’t really be remembered by anyone at all. Maybe as a nasty rumor, or old gossip. But not much more. Only two people will remember me, and neither will visit my grave. Both will be happy to never think of me again, I suspect. Before all of this started, I could have made that choice at any time. But…”

  “You want to leave someone behind who remembers you for being kind,” Margaret finished.

  “Just one,” I agreed. “I don’t deserve it, but… I want to. That’s why I went looking for Cammie. I don’t think I’m going to find her. I don’t know if I’m going to make it out of this loop. But I still want to try. To be… good.” I knew that what I was saying didn’t make sense on its own. Or rather, it didn’t make sense to talk about right now. But I knew Margaret would understand. I kept explaining anyway. It was good to explain, to someone, at least. Just to say the words that have lived in my skin like termites, unable to escape. And, of course, I did have a reason. “Why is it that, by avoiding mistakes of the past, I only made a new one today?”

  Margaret was quiet for a long time. It was a concession, of sorts. That my unwillingness to kill had done as much harm as my readiness had done as a child. More, actually, if not for the loop. I didn’t know how to reconcile that. I didn’t have the stomach to kill, and I knew it. I knew that once I’d done it once, I’d never recover. I knew that I’d tried to do it once, and the guilt had brought me so close to my own death so many times. But I couldn’t deny that Vel had died because Luke was alive. Because the entire cult was. Margaret wasn’t like that. I wasn’t sure why. But despite her regret over killing too easily before, she was ready to do it again. I could only hope she had an answer for me. But she only shook her head. “How are we supposed to know what is kind when there is so much cruelty we don’t understand?” she asked. “We’re buried under so much, and you are accepting the guilt for any cruel thing you fail to stop.”

  “But, I have to try to know what is best, don’t I?” I asked. “I can just let myself hurt someone because I don’t know what the best thing to do is! I’m not like you, I can’t just…”

  Margaret flinched, and I trailed off. Her face hardened as she looked at me. “Okay. I understand that. But time is repeating for you. You have a little extra room to make mistakes, don’t you?” she pushed.

  “No,” I answered immediately. She gave me a hard look.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it, but no. What I do matters. In every loop. Just because it’s undone doesn’t mean I can’t still feel the hurt. I know I can’t save everyone in every loop. But what I do each time matters, and it doesn’t stop mattering in the next one.”

  Margaret gave me a long look. I understood. I couldn’t put into words why I felt that way. Why I couldn’t just let the loop not matter to me. But I couldn’t. “Well. You know now, right? What you have to do?” I took a deep breath. If I had killed Luke, Vel would be okay.

  “I’ll try,” I finally agreed. I honestly didn’t know if I could do it. Even after that day. But I did at least have the anger for it. An emotion I was allowing myself to feel more and more. “I’ll try to kill him. I promise. But first, I really do have to get stronger. Which means I have to help more people.”

  “I still wonder why that makes you stronger. Are these trailers some part of your own spell? How do they work?” Margaret mused, moving on almost immediately once I’d agreed to try things her way. I looked down.

  “I don’t know. I’m hoping, once I can finally get to the center of the city and find whoever cast the other half, I can find out,” I answered. Margaret crossed her arms.

  “We haven’t talked about that much, actually. What you are doing outside of fighting Luke. Ending the loop itself. Do you have a plan?” Margaret asked.

  “I have a couple leads, I guess,” I replied. “The magic at play is impossible. It only exists in children’s stories. So I want to find out more about that. There is also a man whose name keeps coming up in relation to all of this…” I trailed off. “And I nearly forgot, but he currently has all the books in the library related to that magic. I got so distracted by Luke, but I need to find his house soon. Or him. No one knows where to find him.” Margaret tilted her head.

  “Who? I might know him. Beddenmor doesn’t get a lot of people I don’t know,” Margaret offered. I realized I should have asked her a long time ago, once she mentioned it. She hadn’t been very talkative the first time I’d spoken with her, but things had changed.

  “Matthew Cross,” I answered. Margaret froze, then stared at me.

  “Well, shit,” she answered. I immediately looked up into her eyes for the first time in the conversation.

  “What, do you know where to find him? Or at least where he may keep his books?” I asked. Margaret replied with a humorless laugh.

  “Both, yes. He won’t have much to say to you, though. I buried him myself, before any of this started,” she answered. My heart sank into my chest. So he wasn’t the mage after all. He was dead. So I’d been chasing nothing the entire time. “His books, on the other hand…” she looked around the room. “Here is as good a place to look as any. It is his study, after all."