My second foray into the tesseract’s subspace brought no surprises. The environment remained chaotically stable. The transdimensional shapes in the sky followed the same trajectories as before, and the shadow replica repeated its nonsensical tirade.

I meditated in the lotus position, no longer paying attention to the replica. Slipping into a trance took several minutes. Far too long. I foolishly thought I had mastered the art of basic meditation, to the point I could settle into a comfortable flow state even in the midst of battle. Yet it took a concerted effort to suppress the intrusive thoughts about my uncharacteristic behavior with the old man.

Even when I managed to clear my mind, vivid memories played out in my imagination unprompted. Resisting these scenes only disrupted my trance, throwing my thoughts into disorder.

I observed myself from an aerial, third-person perspective, like an angel judging a soul from up in its heavenly perch.

Four-year-old Leones Ansteri on his mother’s lap, her arms wrapped around him, unbelievably content to sit upon that comfy throne.

Then a slightly older child, plump and rosy-cheeked. He held on to his father’s hands for dear life as the laughing giant whirled in place, spinning the squealing Leones in rapid circles that made him feel like he was flying; when Jansen finally stopped and the boy’s feet touched solid ground, both collapsed in laughing heaps from the dizziness.

More and more glimpses into my past self. Little triumphs and lovely moments. Until I grew old enough to experience the Magisters killing my father and burning my family manor around me. After that, there were no more cozy moments. No more smiles.

Nights at Amelie in Yellow sipping alcohol, as if it made me a respectably solemn adult. I knew exactly what that bastard Leones was thinking. I’ll get serious about my revenge first thing tomorrow. I need some sort of miracle that lets me figure out how to reverse all this time to save my father. To save my innocence. What’s one more night, after I’ve already wasted all these months?

Destiny or karma or meddling demigods had given me a second chance at life. What had I done with it? I drifted from day to day like a ghost, a replica of a person. Desperate to be acknowledged, then annoyed when people paid attention.

I watched from the ceiling as Leones stumbled upon Lyra’s mutilated corpse. From my vantage, it was exceedingly obvious I had not truly mourned the loss of a beautiful, adventurous soul. I had been disgusted by how a human body could be deconstructed into an abstract painting of blood and offal. Scared that whatever killed her still lingered in the shadows. Worried that I would be investigated for discovering her corpse.

Onwards. Trapped in the tesseract at Amelie in Yellow. Pretending to enjoy a bourbon while Felix recounted the tragedy of his life. I nodded in sympathy while some petulant little voice in the back of my head argued my life was just as bad—if not worse. I couldn’t even reveal to him the true depths of my misery without exposing my secrets.

The memories gained a surreal and uncertain nature as I recounted the recent past. I hovered over the arena, watching as General Lost Moment played out the bizarre farce that apparently summoned Astaroth.

Reliving the memory made it obvious that it was a deliberate inversion of the opening ceremony from the Games where Felix and others executed captured demons. That event must have been the beginning of the invasion of Odena. Lost Moment’s ritual was an act of vengeance that closed the loop, like the ouroboros devouring its own tail, culminating in Felix stabbing himself through the heart.

The final scene in my imagination was the present. Looking down on myself, meditating on the checkered floor.

I had told myself over and over that my emotions were muted as a result of being exposed to Desolada’s influence. My apathy was nothing more than a residual effect. It turned out I was capable of some emotion, after all.

As I looked down on myself, I realized I resented the person I had become.

I exhaled and opened my eyes. They itched fiercely.

Brother Augur’s replica had company: a small crowd of shadows, pointing and desperately mouthing words. Among them were Lyra, Sensi, Felix, my parents, the servants who died when the Magisters burned down my home. Even Barrow and Champion Jokul deigned to pay a visit. Everyone that had fallen into my sphere of influence.

I doubted the real Brother Augur had decided to torment me with these primitive tulpas. They were the shadows of my subconscious, demanding to be witnessed. Most of them had met a gruesome end, though I was uncertain of the true fates of some, such as my mother and the Faskes.

Slowly, I unraveled my body out of the lotus position and stood to face them. My trance state slipped away, usurped by my usual litany of doubts. I had no idea what they expected of me, which seemed silly given that I was the one who had created them.

“I will not apologize to shadows.” My voice grew steadier as I spoke. “But if any of your souls are still lingering in this damned world, I speak to you. To my friends and family, I should have done more. Perhaps I still can. As long as I live, I will remember your sacrifices. The Increate knows your worth.

And to my enemies, enjoy Hell.”

The legion of shadowy figures stared in response. Then, slowly, most of them began to dissolve away, much like the demons in the Amphitheater. After a few seconds, only Brother Augur, Sensi, and Felix remained.

I stretched my arms out in front of me, a gesture somewhere between invitation and challenge. Brother Augur and Sensi glided backwards like puppets dragged away by their strings. In the blink of an eye, they had pulled away until they were vague blurs in the distance.

Felix’s shadow replica remained in place, head tilted to the side. Its lips tugged upwards in a small smirk. Even the casual arrogance of its body language was perfect. An empty pit formed in my stomach.

He held out a hand, as if inviting me to a dance. Before I could respond, a bar of shadow emerged from his palm, resolving into a standard-length sword. He charged forward.

I ducked the first swing at my head and backpedaled frantically. He maintained the pressure with characteristic ruthlessness, rapid strikes keeping me off balance. I slowed time to three-quarters speed in order to better observe the replica. We had sparred often enough for me to realize something was off. The brutal precision behind his assault surpassed any of our previous sessions.

This replica must have copied the benefits bestowed upon him as one of Astaroth’s Echoes. His swordplay had transcended from art to pure mathematics, carving perfect lines and arcs through the air. It took everything I had just to avoid his strikes. I had no idea what would happen if the shadowblade connected, and I had no desire to find out.

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I slowed time to half-speed in order to analyze Felix’s movements. With some breathing room to evade his attacks, his rhythm became obvious. He was flowing through the first form of the legato, the most basic bladeforms in a predictable order, but with such mastery that I was forced to stumble back from the encroaching tide.

Concerned about the rapid drain on my time energy, I reverted time to normal speed. I danced along to the pattern, moving in perfect counter-legato, until we made it thirty seconds deep into the first form. At this point, Felix sped up, his footwork gaining a new complexity.

One of his strikes forced me off-balance. I turned my fall into a sideways roll. So far, the replica had mindlessly advanced forward in a straight line. My hope that the sudden change in direction would throw him off vanished as I came upright. His boot stamped down towards my face, inevitable.

The tricky bastard had caught me in one of his traps. He wanted me to underestimate his capabilities and assume he was nothing more than an animated shadow moving in a prescribed pattern.

I reversed time by fifteen seconds. The sudden transition back into our dance threw off my focus for a moment. My grasp of the first form was too low for me to seamlessly resume it from any point.

Before Felix could take advantage, I reversed time another couple seconds. Now that I knew our exact movements, it was simple enough to gain the upper hand. I ducked beneath a strike directed at my neck, slipping in close. Time slowed to quarter-speed--I could afford to make no mistakes.

I seized his wrist and pivoted into him, flipping him over the fulcrum of my body. The shadow’s weight felt about right, though there was a disgusting, gelatinous consistency to it. Felix slammed into the ground, hard enough to knock the breath out of a human’s lungs; the trial was fair enough that the shadow pretended to take equivalent damage.

I released the time slow, conscious of the rapid drain on my reserves. Refusing to release my grip on his wrist, I attempted to wrench the shadowblade from Felix’s hands. After a few seconds of our struggling, the sword dissolved into dark particles.

Felix spun on his back and lashed out with his legs to keep me at a distance. Unsure how to proceed from that position, I backed off, allowing him to regain his footing.

He held out his hand again, once more inviting me to dance. Before he could materialize a new weapon, I moved in close. Heavy blows rained down on my face, at my solar plexus, my liver, but I reversed time before any of the impacts fully registered. I gritted my teeth and endured the onslaught, dodging and deflecting as best I could while ignoring the vertigo from such rapid-fire use of my power.

Eventually, we fell into another comfortable rhythm. Fewer and fewer of his blows connected. I managed to slip in a feeble counter that missed his chin by a mile. I repeated the punch a dozen times, focusing on the rotation of my hips and shoulders and the snap of my wrist. Each attempt was a touch better, but I gave up on trying to force that particular blow to land.

We continued until my usually perfect perception of time was thrown off. The constant repetition of moments blurred together until I no longer knew what was past and what was present. I surrendered to the flow of the fight, escaping into a trance.

The exact length of the fight was irrelevant. My ability to reverse time in short bursts drained away no more than a drop of energy at a time. As long as my reserves remained healthy, I could fight as long as my sanity held out.

Through repetition after repetition, I honed my defenses against his strikes. Felix was no expert brawler himself, but his precise control and creativity forced me to continuously adapt to new angles of attack. It felt exhilarating to spar against my friend using the entirety of my arsenal. His shadowy visage bore a savage smile that was doubtless reflected on my own face.

Except, I realized, I hadn’t used quite everything.

I retreated a half-step, creating enough distance between us to clap my hands. The sound echoed hollowly throughout the false environment. Felix, caught off guard by the sudden motion, frowned and drew back slightly. Put on the defense.

It was the most basic sleight of hand; I rotated one palm outward to face the shadow replica and fired off a concentrated burst of negation.

Felix pivoted and leapt backward, but he still had the limitations of a human. The void traveled as fast as thought, expanding outward in a wide cone. It consumed the entire left side of the shadow replica.

The effect was weak after scattering to cover such a broad area. The real Felix would have barely felt anything--a temporary disruption in his enhanced senses, perhaps. But this was a puppet construct. The void overwhelmed his metaphysical flesh, erasing half of his body. He went limp, balanced precariously on his remaining leg. All signs of intelligence vanished from his face.

The replica only required two seconds to fully regenerate, seemingly manifesting replacement flesh from the ambient darkness. That was more than enough time for me to settle into the perfect moment. I kicked high and fast, exhaling forcefully.

I wasn’t satisfied until the fourth reversal, when my boot smashed into the replica’s chin right on the button. A resounding crack, and the partially-reformed shadow collapsed. I followed through on the kick’s rotation, coming to a stop with my back to the downed foe. A quick glance confirmed that, for the intents and purposes of the trial, the replica was defeated. It dissolved into motes of shadow.

That final trick probably would not have left the real Felix wide open. The shock to his enhanced senses may have thrown him off a bit, but not long enough for me to wind up a full-powered head kick. But this wasn’t the real Felix--he was dead, after all. This trial had no rules, besides the unspoken understanding that I was in a sparring match with an opponent.

At least I was not forced to deal lethal physical damage. I could have found a way to finish off the replica with my bare hands, but Brother Augur proved he was not that much of a lunatic.

Resentment at the situation once more bubbled up in my stomach. The last of my adrenaline burned away, and I became acutely aware of how far I had pushed my body. My throat was so tight it felt like I was breathing through an acid-coated reed. The stale air within the tesseract soothed the burning in my lungs; I gulped it down greedily.

My arms and thighs likewise screamed at me. I must have been fighting for at least two minutes consecutively, not to mention how much time had passed from my own perspective due to countless reversals. While I had spent most of the last year honing my body, my life before had been soft and pampered by most measures. The physical conditioning required to shake off a round of constant hand-to-hand combat was beyond my level, which could be charitably considered an active young adult.

Half out of curiosity and half to escape the discomfort, I reversed time until I was once more at the beginning of the fight. My aches and pains vanished, replaced by a vague tingling throughout my body and a wave of nausea. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing until the sensations passed.

Felix’s shadow replica waited patiently. Even when I recovered, he stood motionless in front of me. I dismissed him with a gesture, and he disintegrated into a flurry of particles.

Was this because I had already won from my perspective? How could the tesseract register my victory over the first challenger when it had not yet technically happened? Was this proof that the timelines that I left behind continued to exist in my absence, or was that an unreasonable conclusion?

It was equally as frustrating as it was interesting. The truths about space and time expressed through the tesseract were far beyond my grasp.

May as well remain optimistic. Simply knowing that time could be manipulated these ways opened new possibilities for me to explore.

Sensi, the Echo behind Amelie in Yellow, had once cautioned that my potential understanding of magic could be restricted by believing in false limitations. Assuming something was impossible served as a mental block toward being able to explore the concept. However, any knowledge could bear fruit as long as one did not consider it a terminal truth. Many things may be true at once, even if they contradict one another.

Likely summoned in response to my thoughts, Sensi's shadow replica appeared in front of me. I had hoped to meditate on the mysteries of the tesseract in peace, but it seemed the trial was not yet complete.

An aura radiated off her, a midnight purple that stained our surroundings. Unlike Felix, Sensi had been a mature Echo capable of channeling her internal energy in the form of techniques. The Captain had overwhelmed her before she displayed much of her combat prowess, but I had witnessed two of her abilities.

First, she could manipulate shadows, deploying them as a physical force capable of interacting with their environment. Second, she could at least maintain, if not outright create, a subspace within Amelie in Yellow large enough to function as a luxury suite. Outside of those vague parameters, she remained an enigma.

I waved farewell. “Perhaps next time.”

An exit door materialized at my side. Before the replica could unleash a technique, I made a dignified escape.