“What do you mean you don’t know what happened?” At the creek, Alicia rubbed her brow. “This is terrible.” Incomprehensible mumbles filled the air as she tried to account for every possibility while twirling a strand of hair.

“Terrible for past me, whatever happened to him,” Cyg replied, picking up a few pebbles. With a toss he measured the heft of one, then followed it with a low-angled pitch into the river. On contact with the water’s surface, it sank under. “The last thing I remember was setting off a bomb, so there’s no way Merry could’ve done anything to me that time.”

Alicia added, “The source container is in the basement with the circle, so she couldn’t have gotten to that. That leaves us with the two... maybe three things that are impossible to learn for ourselves.”

“One!” Cyg began, tossing another pebble. “I ran and got killed outside of her domain.” Before it fell into the creek, he swapped it with another pebble he prepared. One plummeted vertically into the stream and the other flew out of his hand, nicking a finger and causing him to flinch.

The apprentice, watching him, breathed harder out her nose than usual. “Two, the sigil on you was destroyed before you died.”

“Wait, that can happen?” he asked, checking the cut on his palm. “...I better be careful.”

“It should linger for a while before dissipating so the likelihood is slim; it acts as a one-sided familiar contract that marks your mana, but you can’t tell unless you’ve been paying close attention before and after,” she replied, “And what are you standing there for? Come and let me have a look already.” It took a second for the thief to realize what she meant and went up to her, all the while Alicia noted, “So momentum isn’t transferred when you swap...” Then, placing both her hands around his, Alicia mended his minor wound in an instant.

“News to me too. I always had to concentrate hard so I never tried it on fast-moving things,” Cyg mused, “But forget that, what’s the third? I got mind-wiped?”

With a sigh, Alicia replied, “As unlikely as it is. If Merry did possess such an Aspect, I’d imagine you wouldn’t exactly be coherent right now.”

Another pebble was sent flying into the river, this time skipping once before sinking. “From the single time I got to experience time rewinding, it felt like my soul was being pulled out and being stuffed somewhere else. Not that I know what that would normally feel like.” He tugged at his hair, annoyed that he failed to swap it in time again. “Gods, I’m such an idiot. I should’ve planned more than one loop ahead; if I knew what I was going to do and suddenly forgot about it, we wouldn’t be blindly guessing.”

Nodding, Alicia said, “To that, I agree.”

“Hey, that was supposed to be the part where you say I've done nothing wrong and that everything’ll be fine.”

She rolled her eyes and put on a small smile of disbelief. “Is this really the best time for jokes?”

"No time like the present,” he replied.

Leaning forward, Alicia placed her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. “Since you're this cheerful, you must have a plan.”

“A one-in-a-million shot, yup! We’re going to find a way to kill Bassy and refill the circle. The faerie’s a waste of time; stealing it would doom the loop for a coin flip chance to keep the status quo. Besides, I think we can make it work.” He still remembered how the witch described her connection to the basilisk. “I think Merry can send Bassy messages but not the other way around. That’s why last time I never saw Merry chasing after me despite being way faster. That means after we kill Bassy, I can distract the witch while you do the thing.”

The elf gave it a second to sink in, then moved her hands to cup her cheeks. “You’re out of your mind—you just told me you got chewed in half twice without getting a single scratch in.”

“Hey, I barely tried anything! Can’t you try making different bombs? Maybe one with metal and see if the shrapnel can pierce its hide, or a poison one that’ll skip that problem altogether. Outrunning it isn’t an option, so we’ll have to use a trap to slow it down at the start...”

As Cyg rattled off more and more ideas, Alicia stopped paying attention. Without knowing it, she held her breath as the pieces all slotted together, her stomach twisting into knots. Then, with a loud groan, she slid her face into her hands. “Oh no. My future self is not going to like this.”

“...What is it?”

“You mentioned Bassy brings home a faerie she’s hunted, and that I have to prepare a treat the day after. So... what if we just fill it with poison?”

Stolen novel; please report.

The gears in Cyg’s head followed hers. “The basilisk can read minds,” he began, “But...”

“If you sneak it in without my knowledge and I feed it to her, we can get around it.”

“Ha!” Grinning from ear to ear, Cyg said, “Asking a time traveller to go behind your back is something else. Do you know what ingredients we need? Come to think of it, I’ll have to find and make it all myself...”

Alicia, sighing, sat up straight again. “Merry’s definitely catalogued every plant and animal that lives around here, but whether or not they’re actually growing right now is another story. We’ll just have to look for the nastiest things that are actually in the ground this week and get their extracts; it shouldn't be too complicated.”

“Hm, wait, now that you mention it, aren’t there all kinds of books in the house? There must be something there on basilisks that isn’t just common knowledge.” Terrifying, massive, mind-reading beasts with thick hide and venom that can turn blood into pudding—what else? All accounts have been from mages sent to hunt them or extraordinarily lucky souls who managed to escape. Why, this was the first time Cyg has even heard of anyone daring to keep one as a pet.

“No, I’ve checked them all.”

“...All?”

Her eyes went up and to the side as she tried to recount what she’s done. “I went through the books in my room, your room, Merry’s room, the study... and I think that’s it. Yes, I’ve read all of them. When you’ve got nothing but time, what else are you supposed to do?” Alicia pointed out, “Merry seems to keep a bit of everything except for what she actually uses. Basilisks, domains, the like. I suppose you could say it’s some freakish act of paranoia, but there’s also plenty of other common stuff that isn’t there too. All I’ve known about Bassy is from experience being around her, like her favorite foods and how she likes scratches at the base of her jaw.”

“No other way but experience then. Whatever, let’s just get started now; we don’t have much time.”

In agreement, Alicia stood up and patted off her dress. “So, how much have you learned so far about the plant life around here?”

* * *

As it turned out, the map that Alicia previously gave to Cyg was a personal one. There’s a far better version in the study, one that detailed the terrain around Murkwell. Alicia’s hand-copied one is only centered around Merry’s house, only marking prominent features like the river and the cave Cyg ran into up north. In the study they examined both while it rained outside. After some short deliberation, they decided that this much wasn’t worth hiding—their activities were perfectly in line with Cyg’s assigned studies.

They marked out where they had been and any points of interest along the way, coming to the agreement that it was best they split up and canvas the area in squares on an arbitrary grid. Since Alicia was the opposite of athletic, she covered the squares closest to the house while Cyg ventured further.

“How come we’ve only seen sedatives around here?” the thief grumbled, “Is there a market for it or something? No wait, I know it’s the pig’s men that do all the legwork for the apothecary, can’t be Merry helping out.”

“It’s your unfortunate timing, maybe,” Alicia guessed, “Besides, they’re all still usable.”

From the living room, Merry cut in. “Are you two talking about brewing over there? That’s a surprise; I didn’t think you were interested.” Cyg turned his head, stunned at Merry caring enough to enter the conversation. “I know you’ve been eyeing my cauldron, so come over here and I’ll clear up some misconceptions,” she said, chuckling.

He checked it with his accomplice who gave him a hand wave, telling him to go, and he warily went up to Merry who pulled up another chair next to the fireplace. This was the first time he’d actually seen the cauldron up close, he realized. It was held above the flame by a handful of metal rods and chains, the contraption also allowing things to be hung over to be dipped down. In this case, a few bundles of unidentifiable meats and herbs—all filled with a broth of some kind—were being boiled in water. Separated into bags and jars.

“Huh,” Cyg said, “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Handy little trick for when you need to cook multiple separate things at once,” Merry told him, “Best part is you don’t have to worry about heat circulation since nothing’s directly touching the bottom of it where the fire is.” She raised a hand, pointing at a large wooden spatula on the table nearby. “If you’re using it like a normal human being and just making stew, you need to mix it constantly.”

The lecture went on a little while longer, going over basics like heat control or what kind of wood is best, but the gist really was if you wanted to cook precisely, this wasn’t the thing to use. After all, only a few paces away was an entirely rune-powered stove that was even used for breakfast that morning.

“But wait, you’re cooking in the cauldron right now,” Cyg pointed out.

“This is for Bassy—you have met her, right? She normally hunts her own meals, but I do like making stuff for her on occasion,” she replied, “Also, large batches of inedibles and toxins go in here to be mixed up. If you brew the dangerous stuff where you normally eat, you’re just asking for trouble. Besides, you also don’t make tinctures here; that’s what the alchemy equipment in the study is for.”

“...That makes sense.” The implication was not lost on him, that the basilisk could shrug off what would be lethal for humans easily. Soon he was lost in his thoughts, and when Merry took notice, she tapped his shoulder.

“Grim of you to lose attention after just a short lecture,” she said, “That’s something you should fix. Anyway, you better go back; I’ve borrowed you from my apprentice for too long.”

He got up with an awkward nod. “Yeah, I’d better.” And given the topic, he could not help but look out the window in search of the aforementioned basilisk. The backyard was empty however, and the beast was nowhere to be found in the pouring rain. “Looks like Bassy took cover somewhere, huh?” As would any animal, common sense explained, since there was no way it’d fit in the house. Thinking that, Cyg returned to his previous seat in the study, sullen at what he learned.

Barely a full day had passed, and already their plan was full of holes.