I collapsed against the bar. Casting Undone on two different people in as many minutes strained not only my aura but my mind. It took more willpower than I thought I had, but both the victims of my earlier fear stood before me, fully alive and aware. Every muscle in my body throbbed like I had given them my blood instead of aura. I was vaguely aware the two were arguing about something but the world wasn’t real. Not in that moment. The only thing I could process were the sparks of aura, thrashing around me like a thunderstorm. Waves of teal sparks crashed against each other like the ocean on a cliffside. All around me they swirled and competed and… beckoned. I thought Livia may have been asking me something but I couldn’t process it. Her words floated on the surface of my mind like oil and water.

I reached out to touch the sparks, or maybe just watch them pass through my fingers. As soon as I did, they accepted my hand like an invitation. Just like the first time the world came into sharp focus and my anxiety numbed. Again I felt happy. Again I took in the smell of fresh fruit and spring, and happy memories. It felt like Camilla. When I was a girl she used to grow aloe to treat my sunburns. She grew tall trees to give me shade on hot days and vibrant bushes to give me berries when I was hungry. When I was hurt she would help me heal. When I was hungry she would feed me. When I was scared she would hold me and remind me who I was. Mars the time mage. The only time mage. Who, or what, did I have to be afraid of?

That’s what this felt like, as the warmth surrounded me. It was like a hug from my sister and a whisper in my ear that I was brave and fierce and kind. It felt like Camilla before I drove her away. I wanted to hold onto the feeling forever. I didn’t care how many times I looped through time. I just wanted to live in that warmth. It made me feel like the woman Camilla promised I would become. Brave. Fierce. Kind. Not just in the way I pretended as a girl either, and not in the placating way of a dishonest friend. It didn’t feel like a lie. It couldn’t last forever, however, and it wasn’t long before it started to fade. Before it did, however, it left an imprint on me. Like a murmur in my ear but without words. Just an impression. It’s hard to put it into words but the concept carried confidence and resolution. It encouraged me to… trust the loop. Not the spell itself, like it had some kind of consciousness, but the reliability of it. The reality and inevitability of it.

The real world returned and I was back in my body. “Mars, are you with us?” Livia asked as I shook my head to get my bearings.

“Y-yeah, I’m here,” I answered and she sighed in relief.

“Didn’t realize you were some kind of fucking mage. Luna’s gift, you’ve gotta tell me what happened,” she insisted and the other man cut in.

“I’m telling you, Livia, you were dead. Dead dead. There was no questioning it!” he claimed and Livia clicked her tongue.

“You were the dead one, Pontius. I watched Mars here fucking bring you back. So maybe you should give her a chance to explain?” She suggested.

“But nothing happened to me, I was-” he started but I cut him off.

“You both died, and I brought you both back,” I said quietly and both of them looked at me like I was insane. Even Livia, who had been generally kind and understanding couldn’t grasp that. It wasn’t surprising, it was the same thing that happened the first time. The same thing that always happened. Undone healed by rewinding time. In a localized area, like Livia’s wrist, it’s believable but for a body? Their mind reverts the same as the rest of them. They have no memory of dying. Even watching me cast the same spell on another body as Livia just had, the human mind refuses to accept its own death. Or perhaps it’s the human soul. In either case, the idea is so wrong that, even with all the evidence in the world, they will reject the idea.

This was one reason the first man I saved called me a liar and a charlatan. One of the minor reasons the first rumors about me had started to spread. But… I just didn’t care. Trust the loop. More specifically, trust that time will loop. That’s what Camilla had told me. That’s who I had decided spoke to me. The feeling was simply too much like her to believe anything else at the time. She told me time would continue to loop, and I believed her. But what she was giving me wasn’t a source of comfort, not exactly, but a rope. Something to pull myself forward with. The knowledge that, for once, my mistakes could be undone. I didn’t have to wear them like a collar, not for these three days at least. The start of that was, I didn’t care if someone I’d save spread lies about me. They would be gone in a day and a half anyway.

It wasn’t so much I was ready to face an army of the Quieted. Death was a consequence whether I came back or not. Memories of a brutal death weren’t something I could shake off. But at least for a moment, I didn’t have to care about the skepticism. “I know, you both saw each other dead, but neither believes they themselves could have died. It doesn’t matter. What matters is Marcus,” I said before either could protest. I sounded a lot more like I had as a teenager. Confident and self-assured. I didn’t know if it was finally understanding the freedom of the loop or if the teal aura was still carrying me as it had been all morning, but a little bit of my old self allowed me to challenge these people. “Marcus remains dead. And more people are going to follow. I want to do something about that.”

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Livia’s eyes widened further and Pontius looked down, a clear grief pulling his eyes to the ground. “Marcus is… dead?” Livia questioned. “What happened to him?” I supposed it was a mercy she didn’t remember what had happened and I paused before answering.

“The Quiet,” Pontius answered instead, still not looking up. “Except… he didn’t stay quiet. He…”

“He what?” Livia asked, face growing frantic as she recognized something in the man’s voice she didn’t like.

“He… he killed you, Livia,” Pontius answered and her head startled backward like she had been slapped.

“There is no such thing as the… I mean, Marcus? He would never. He’s got the kindest, gentlest soul in this city. Besides, I didn’t die, stop saying that!” she snapped and I looked down. It didn’t matter how kind someone’s soul was. I had seen it. When the Quiet took someone, there was no kindness left.

“He wouldn’t, you’re right, but… he did. You were shaking his hand one moment and the next he was… cold. Frozen. Everyone panicked but it was moments later when… he woke up. Livia, he tore your arm from your body,” Pontius described and Livia’s hand moved to her shoulder.

“My arm is fine, but… freezing… it’s like a daydream but, I can vaguely recall that,” she mused before she realized what she was talking about and her face paled. “He is dead… oh Aethon, Marcus is dead, what happened to him? Mars, can you… can you save him too? I don’t know much about mages but if you save Pontius surely you can… you can…” she trailed off and I looked down in shame.

“No, I can’t. I already tried but the Quieted just stay… still…” I trailed off myself as I realized what I was saying. I had tried to help the Quieted, but not since the loop started. Not since they started moving. I had only tried to save them while they were still. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something one of these two had said sparked an idea in me. I couldn’t describe it but I felt that, if I tried Undone on an animated victim, I might not be able to save them but I could perhaps stop them. I needed to try it, but Marcus was gone. Trust the loop, Camilla had said. I realized I needed to stop thinking of everything as a past event. I was in a loop; nothing after I woke up in this inn was a past event. It was the same thing that made the fire feel like it wasn’t final. The sentiment had been there the first time I’d touched the sparks, but weaker. I could save Marcus. Or I could follow him. I could try and stop the fire too. This loop gave me exactly what I had been searching for all over the country. It gave me the past, and a chance to undo my mistakes.

I felt furiously alive, like a block of ice around my body was melting. I could take back my mistakes. Some of them, anyway. “Livia, have you heard any other rumors about the Quiet? Times and places it has hurt people over the last day or so?” I asked and she looked a bit whiplashed from the change in subject.

“N-No, how will that help Marcus?” She asked and both of them examined me with a kind of offended shock.

“It’s hard to explain but… I don’t know how to help Marcus. My spell won’t bring him back like it did with you. The Quiet is somehow immune to its effects. But I think, if I find enough victims at the right time, I can figure out how to fight it. Please, I need your help,” I begged and her eyes softened.

“I don’t know what’s happening, Mars. I don’t understand anything. How you could both think I died, how Marcus could hurt anyone at all, or how you brought Pontius back, but… I’ll do what I can. I don’t know how finding past victims will help either. But… I’ll try to remember whatever I can. But if you figure it out, you have to save Marcus,” she offered and I nodded.

“I don’t know what I can do but right now… I want to save everyone,” I answered. Pontius looked at my old, faded tunic and clearly wanted to say something doubtful, but then he looked at Livia’s clearly attached arm and changed his mind.

“I’ll help too, if I can. I don’t know any rumors but… if there is anything I can do to help… Marcus was my friend,” he decided to say and I nodded.

“Everything helps. Thank you,” I answered. “I need to build a timeline. I want to know when people are and have been killed since yesterday morning. If you two can help me put that together… I might be able to do something.” I already had an idea of a few spots. The places I had almost reached that morning. I was certain I’d never be able to follow a stream fast enough to stop someone, but if I already knew where they led and when, I could be there on the next loop. The idea of intentionally waiting for someone to violently attack people terrified me. I didn’t want to feel myself die again.

But I wanted to be like Camilla. I wanted people to feel warm and safe around me. This was the first time in a long time I felt like I could try and, with enough attempts, actually succeed. I pulled up a seat at the no longer bloody bar and we began to talk. At my instruction, Pontius went to gather more information. I hadn’t had much luck doing the same but I was a stranger. My goal was different as well. I wasn’t looking for why, only when. If I knew when, I could work everything else out from there.

For the first time since I decided to try and help, I felt like I had a solid handle on how and the will to follow through. I wondered if that was how Camilla felt but I dismissed it. Camilla never had to doubt herself. She never froze when someone was in trouble and she certainly never deserved the rumors that spread about her. Not like I did. She would have figured this out long before I had, and she wouldn’t need a loop to maybe keep people safe after enough tries. She never felt like I did.

But I felt like I was, maybe just a little, something like a small part of her. And if I could be a little like Camilla, maybe I could be a little like someone who was worth something.