Day 1

I gasped, pulling in all the breath I could like I'd been underwater for too long. I shot up in bed and frantically searched the room for my attacker but... he was nowhere to be found. I took heavy, painful breaths as I frantically tried to get my bearings. I was... In my room. I frantically felt at my face with my hands and confirmed I was uninjured. 'Did I just... die?' I was frozen for a moment, unable to process what had just happened to me... then I hurled over the side of the bed.

That's when the pain hit me, in a strange way. When I was being... murdered, I couldn't process it. I couldn't reconcile my mind with reality and it just sort of... happened. It was a flash of violent images. But as I sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at the sparse bile I had evacuated from my stomach, it finally caught up. I couldn't literally feel the pain anymore, but the reality reached out from my death and throttled me. I began to see the familiar aura of an oncoming migraine and I moaned, then collapsed backward onto the mattress.

Hot tears ran down my cheeks, but I didn't sob like I expected. I didn't have the presence of mind to sob. The sequence of events made no sense. Above all else, I was alive. I shuddered and decided this time, I needed a bath. Sure, I could have run to meet Hadley before he died again but... I didn't think I had the strength. I wasn't halfway through processing reality, much less going to meet my killer. I shambled downstairs like a wandering spirit.

"Mars, you're up earlier than I expected," Livia greeted as I descended the steps. I ignored her. I couldn't speak yet. I was simply a beast of burden, hauling water. That's all I could be. I didn't think, I didn't process, I moved water. It wasn't until my basin was full and I was soaking, clutching my knees to my chest, in the hot water that my mind stopped skipping like a broken cog. I had to start at the end and work backward. I was alive. Unharmed even, and my hair ribbon was exactly where it had been on that first morning.

But I hadn't cast a spell this time. I'd tried, but I couldn't form the words. I thought my jaw may have been broken but, no, I was going too far back. I hadn't cast a spell, but I had gone back in time again. There was only one explanation for that. The first spell was still ongoing. Somehow, I hadn't just turned back time. I'd created a loop. To me, I had died and immediately woken up here. If I had somehow managed a second spell on that level, that's what would have happened but... I hadn't. Which meant, most likely, time had reset sometime after I died.

Which meant the spell was, somehow, self-sustaining. I started to calm down as the warm water reminded me I was alive. The analytical line of thought was helping as well. But one thought needled at me. If it was self-sustaining... how would I end it? Saving people was one thing, but what if I had condemned them to relive the same slow death for eternity? And, it was a selfish thought but I couldn't help it, what about me? I could remember it every time. Everything down to... well, everything. If I couldn't undo what I had done, and I couldn't even die... how could I cope with that?

No. I had to stop it. I had to find the cause and end it. I hadn't started this alone and I wouldn't be able to stop it alone. I had to find the other mage. A flash of a red spot on a brick wall flashed through my mind and it was like the water chilled around me. Hadley had murdered me. Brutally. Why would he... but then my mind cleared. That couldn't be right. Hadley had died, before me. I had come and gone in safety the first time I had visited. I rubbed my temples trying to piece the events in an order that made sense.

I watched him leave as I died, but I'd seen him dead before I was murdered. Which reminded me. The garden was empty. The garden of bodies was empty the second time I had visited. Which meant... something had changed. My knowledge alone shouldn't have done that, all I'd done was leave the inn earlier. 'Does the other mage remember the first trip as well?' I asked myself. 'Or is it something else? Their half of the spell, maybe?' I struggled to make sense of it, but I couldn't come to a conclusion. There was too much I didn't know.

So I focused on Hadley. He gave me his wife's pin. He died. He killed me. Pin. Death. Murder. In that order. If there is any evidence of another mage at work, that's it. Grandma always told me necromancers didn't exist but... grandma always told me a lot of things. I thought a light mage would make sense, but I couldn't know for sure. I put my hand over my mouth as I realized what I needed to do. I had to go back. I had to see what happened to Hadley after his death. If it was another mage with memories of our first rounds through the day... it could be dangerous.

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I didn't want to... well, not like that. Not again. But I couldn't sit still either. So, reluctantly, I got dressed. When I went down stairs Livia laughed at me. "Feel like talking yet, Sunshine?" she asked and I gave her a hollow look.

"Not really, sorry. Maybe next time," I answered half-heartedly. Marcus had been prepared to greet me as well but he read my tone and decided to let it go. I left the inn. I walked through the city. Past the playful children. Past the market. Past the creepy theater troupe. I arrived in the courtyard that bridged the gap between the garden and Hadleys quaint little home. I watched the sun in the sky. I was early. I didn't want to speak to him this time. Rather, I was afraid to speak to him this time. So I found a quiet corner to wait. In this city, there would be nothing strange about a tired woman, sitting alone in the shadows.

I fixed my eyes on the garden's gate. Time slowed to a crawl as I watched the wall. Every time I heard an echoing footstep or a voice I jumped, ready to defend myself from attackers that never came. I watched as Margaret marched into the garden, and I watched as she stormed out in irritation. Hadley didn't come out as soon as he had before, but he had been with me, so I must have changed his plans.

He stayed longer than I expected, and just when I was worrying something else had changed, he emerged and I started. He seemed to be tired, but cheerful enough. He didn't notice me as he went back to his home, leaving the door open as he began to water his plants. My heart beat harder in my chest as I watched him through his window. I knew it was coming. I saw him taking the position I had seen him in when I first found him and my blood turned to ice. Suddenly, I began to worry.

'What if I'm wrong? What if this is the last loop, I need to stop this, I have to save-' my thoughts were cut short as I saw it happen. It really did happen in an instant. Like a flash of lightning that leaves you wondering if you just blinked. He was alive, then he was dead. Just as I had found him the first time. The water still pouring out of his watering can. The world was still, excepting that water. I couldn't hear a single voice or footstep. I just saw the dead man and his drowning flowers. My headache pounded even harder and I buried my eyes in my hands, praying that Aethon would stop it.

Then, only a few minutes later, the silence was broken. A swinging door. Boots on stone. I looked up, and there he was. His watering can had been left on its side in the window, and he was walking out of his home but... he was wrong. Like a grown man in a child's clothes. His kind eyes were gone. He was still that colorless gray of the Quiet death, but his veins bulged. I looked closer, trying to focus on his eyes without revealing myself. The red below them was a sharp contrast with his colorless flesh.

As red ran down from his nose, I realized what it was and had to cover my mouth with one hand to hold the gasp back. It wasn't Hadley. It was his body, but it wasn't him, and whatever it was didn't quite feel at home. He was a poor fit for it and his body bled in protest of the violation. That was what had killed me. That was what grabbed my hair and forced my head into the brick and the ground. Gooseflesh rose across my body as I watched it.

I didn't need to be afraid of it. Not when I saw it coming. I was a mage. Whatever it was, it couldn't fight time itself. I was proof of that, a victim of its malice alive and watching it. So I didn't need to fear it... but I did. It walked toward the garden, taking no notice of me this time. I kept my hand over my mouth in fear of it hearing my breath. I shivered with every step it took and I felt my heartbeat in my head. After an eternity, it passed through the gate. I sat frozen for a moment, but I knew what I had to do. Slowly, I stood and crept across the courtyard.

It had left the gate open, and I took a deep breath, then began to chant. Like the first time I entered the garden, I stopped the world around me and moved. I ran inside and hid as quickly as I could before releasing my breath and my spell with it. I was afraid to look, but I slowly emerged to peek into the garden. The empty garden. Hadley was gone. I had been slow to follow, but I didn't see another exit. He should have been there.

In all honesty, I was relieved. I had pushed myself. I had followed him, and he had disappeared. I didn't have to follow him anymore. I could stop clenching my fists in fear. With him, my migraine slowly began to fade. I'd never had a migraine fade so quickly before that. It was odd. But I was free from my obligation to follow him. Only one problem remained. I had no idea what to do next. The thing that was Hadley was gone, and with him my lead on the other mage.

I looked around the garden. I decided to search for another exit. He had to have gone somewhere. There was nothing. He was just... gone. As I looked through the flowers, a sudden thought occurred to me. The pin! Hadley had told me to find his son. I was going to find him the first time if... well if things had gone differently. I rushed back out of the garden and across the courtyard, into the little house. I searched through the same drawer Hadley had been in and managed to pull the same thing out. The same little pin. Hadley hadn't technically given it to me this time, but it was close enough.

I turned to leave. I was supposed to find Harrison near the graveyard, but as I saw the wall next to the door, my feet refused to move. I swore I could see a red spot on the wall. A broken pot. A broken and crushed woman on the floor. Then I closed my eyes. I counted backward from ten and opened them again. It was all gone. I'd imagined it. Still, as I closed my eyes and forced myself to walk past the spot where I had died, I swore I could feel a gentle tugging at my hair.