"They're definitely tracking us somehow."

After being unable to locate Lorsit, Jair caught up with Ran and Yast at the Hyperion station. Yast wasn’t allowed to leave, but he and Ran could come and go. They currently stood a bit away, in the shadow of a row of large decorative flowering cacti set up along the street. The Hyperion station was far enough away for their conversation to be safe from listeners, while still being just in sight in case something moved there that they wanted to watch.

Jair tapped a finger against his chin thoughtfully. He still hadn't gotten used to having no beard. “We’ll have to figure out what method they’re using to find him. Pretty sure afterdrift is part of it.”

“I don't know very much about tracking, but something like that shouldn’t be possible, should it? Otherwise, having a magic class would mean anyone could find you.”

"No, you’re right, that’s not how it works. Afterdrift ‘tracing’ is simply comparing the sample to the individual. Unless the target is casting spells constantly the whole way it wouldn’t be enough to follow them. It’s also incredibly difficult to verify."

"I was with Yast the whole way, he didn't cast anything."

Jair pointed and nodded. "Exactly. People don't cast spells constantly without specific reasons. And when you're on the run, having a repeat cast spell to pay attention to is the last thing you want."

"Unless the spell is a speed-boosting spell," Ran pointed out with a cheeky grin.

Jair shook his head. "No, you would want a speed boosting spell you can cast once that continues to function passively. Better yet, a construct. You absolutely don't want something that requires attention for upkeep. It would be a distraction.”

“Right, I forgot who I was talking to. You’ve probably run away from more people than I've ever met in my life."

"Not more people. More times from a handful of people, yes." Jair's mind automatically dredged up memories of his run up Mount Sanctum.

That chase still haunted him. Even now there were mornings where he woke with the lingering certainty that this was still the same loop, the deep dread of knowing that he was about to start the run again. Fully aware that he would push himself to the very utmost limits again and still fail, but this was the end of the line and he couldn’t fail, so he had to keep going.

Despite having been a relatively small portion of his overall living experience, Mount Sanctum had been the most recent and the most insurmountable. The severest obstacle of recent years. A month or two of peace and simplicity weren’t enough to dull the memories.

"So,” Ran picked up the narrative with forced cheer as the silence grew heavy, “after we left the academy, we went back to my place. Even with the protection of the Serin name, they still came for him. Directly, absolutely confident, wouldn’t take no for an answer."

Right. "They didn't harass you about hanging out with the fugitive?"

Ran put on what Jair considered a very unconvincing innocent face, but presumably had been enough to fool the Hyperion. "I explained that he is a foreign dignitary who was staying with me until his interpreter arrived. The fact that he was secretly a criminal came as a complete shock to me."

"Which let you come with him without immediately implicating yourself. Makes sense."

Ran shrugged. “The rest is pretty boring. We came here, they asked a few questions, took Yast to holding, and then you found us. What happened on your end? You don’t have Lorsit with you, I noticed. You drop him off at his place already?”

“No, he ended up captured before I reached him. I’ll need to move faster next time, see if I can cut a minute or two off. Once we do get away, we need to find somewhere out of Hyperion reach to meet up. If you weren't so vehemently opposed to sandshark driving, I’d say we should get all four of us out that way. Send Yast through the vault with Lorsit, have us both drive, evacuate us all into the deep desert. That should buy us time to figure out how they're tracking us."

“I would rather avoid sandshark driving for now, yeah." Ran shuddered. "Maybe in a few more loops I'll be ready to give it another go, but not yet."

"That's fine. I don’t suppose you’re ready to push past your shelf yet either?”

“Shelf?”

“The point that you fall back to by default when reverting.”

"Oh, the big cactus.” Ran ran a hand through his hair. “I don't know how to get past it. I've already tried everything to avoid it, I don't like being impaled on the thing every time."

“Since we already attacked Larenok for the key before that, the whole infiltration is on a tight timer. None of the people I can think of to recruit would be available within such a short window. If we only have hours before they come after Yast… we need more time. If we could go back another few hours, this wouldn’t even be a problem."

“I can’t, I don’t know how to.”

Jair nodded. “Then we’ll have to keep running the scenario until we can time everything perfectly.”

As much as he’d like to, there wasn’t much he could do to help Ran in this instance. He couldn't clearly remember that far back in his own timeline. The time when he’d been just figuring out his powers, it had all blurred together into an overall impression of loss and grief and anger and pain. Specific moments could trigger memories, but it was all but impossible to bring them to mind naturally.

Trying to remember how he'd figured out that shelves existed, and how to shove himself back from them, it didn't feel like something he’d learned. It just felt natural, a thing he could do now. He couldn’t bring to mind how, when, or why he had learned it. That information was buried under all the centuries of loops that came after.

"Okay. So we have a locked time window and very little in the way of an escape plan. Figuring out the timing on Lorsit’s evacuation is one piece. Figuring out how they’re tracking Yast is another."

Plus the side goal of finding Sekir, if he really was active in Astralla City at this point in the timeline. The only lead he had was the trace afterdrift from the Hyperion station. But they could pursue that between things.

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First priority was not to get their team immediately captured.

"It's not impossible,” Ran pointed out. “We got away once."

"When you did the sandshark collecting. Do you have some secret trick I'm not aware of for getting one quicker?"

Ran opened his mouth, then closed it. "Oh. I was using private transit. One of our allied houses has an arrival point just inside the wall, with a private exit. I was able to skip the line heading out of town. Probably saved about two minutes? I'm sorry, I should have mentioned it sooner."

Jair facepalmed. Two minutes? That would explain why even with his superior direction capabilities he’d arrived too late. When trying to catch Lorsit's escape and get away properly, seconds could matter, let alone minutes.

"I don’t suppose you can get me guest permission to use the same arrival platform?"

Ran grimaced and shook his head. "It's blood locked. Only those born of the Serin line can use my token."

Jair grumbled at that, but there was nothing they could do to change how the world worked at present.

"Maybe we should try bribing Firdon again,” Ran suggested, changing the subject. “It's not like the guy’s incorruptible. He let us in once, I bet if we explain to him what we’re doing, he’ll be more likely to accept our explanation and play along."

"That would leave him with full details about Maelstrom at the very least. Assuming he doesn't turn on us after that." Jair considered, but it wasn’t much of a question. "If it comes to that, I’m willing to risk it. Anything to get out from under this."

Maelstrom screamed in his soul, and his essence ached from its division, absence. He’d spent only a little time with his ascended sword, relative to the countless centuries he had existed throughout the loop, but after how much work he’d put into it Maelstrom very much felt like a part of him.

Part of him that should not be removed, and definitely should not be stuck in incompatibly. With Lorsit’s side of the heist foiled, Jair hadn’t been able to get the angry sword out of his soul yet this loop, and it was starting to resist him harder than ever.

Jair lay down right there and closed his eyes, folding his hands over his stomach as he mentally ran through what they had tried and everything they had yet to try.

“We need to learn more about Yast’s capture.” Jair sat up, eyes suddenly intent. “We should do a loop where we don’t bother with the break-in at all. Are they tracking him from the Institute, or from Larenok’s house? That’s a piece of information we need.”

“Good point,” Ran agreed readily.

Jair hopped to his feet. “I’m going to go in and ask to interview Yast. I need to verify something.”

“What’s that?”

“Whether Sekir has been here yet.”

Ran nodded solemnly. “That’s something good to verify. If someone that dangerous is nearby…”

“He will be. Not sure if he is yet.”

Jair set off walking for the station, keeping his attention very firmly focused on every faint brush of afterdrift. In a busy city like Astralla, this proved to be an infuriating distraction. There were so many people, so much dead mana floating around, that trying to pay attention to each one was like trying to count sand in a windstorm.

Jair strained his senses regardless of the discomfort. If he found Sekir, it would be worth it.

He found nothing. Nothing outside, nothing in the halls, and nothing in the interview room.

He ran through an obligatory discussion with Yast about unimportant things, asked a few obligatory questions to satisfy the Hyperion about his role as interpreter, then walked slowly back out, searching for any trace.

Nothing.

Whatever prompted Sekir's presence before must not have taken place yet. Or Jair was very unlucky about which afterdrift he’d been exposed to this time.

“You want to wait a couple days and keep a look out?” Ran offered when Jair reported back.

“Yes. I might hire a few of the local pickpockets to watch too. The more we know about his movements, the better.”

Ran nodded, and Jair frowned. He’d begun to detect a dullness seeping into Ran’s demeanor, which only continued to worsen.

“You okay?”

“I don’t like this.”

“Which part of it?”

“I’m supposed to be growing and moving forward, not finding more reasons to be afraid.”

“You’re not ‘finding’ things to be afraid of, you’re discovering truths about the world that you never had to face before. Of course it’s going to be an adjustment period. There’s nothing inherently wrong with fear, even if it is slightly less important to a time looper, it never becomes completely obsolete. You think I’m not afraid, doing what I do?”

“You don’t seem afraid. You sure jumped into fighting Lian and his bunch without hesitation, then went straight from them to the dragon…”

“Because what I’m really afraid of is bigger and more distant than the current events. I don’t have any reason to fear someone like Lian, and the dragon is something where I fear the outcome of failure far more than the fight itself.”

“I still don’t get why you care so obsessively about saving me. I mean, I know I’m rich and influential, but you seem to not even remember that half the time. So it’s clearly not to have me available as an asset.”

“Ran Serin, insecure of himself? I never would have imagined.” Jair tried to keep his tone serious, but clearly some of his humor seeped in.

Ran glared at him. “You’re the one who keeps making me talk about all this… feeling stuff. Don’t you find it weird and awkward?”

“Not really. I don’t find very much weird or awkward any more. Social norms, who needs ‘em. I’ve been through enough societies to know that they’re all ultimately arbitrary.”

“I can’t help but think I’m some kind of trophy to you. A proof that you’ve overcome your oldest adversary and come out on top, constant reminder that you’ve changed everything.”

Jair stilled. That was entirely too perceptive. Not quite correct, certainly wrong in intention, but not so far off the mark as he’d have expected from Ran. “You have been paying attention, haven’t you?”

Ran exhaled glumly. “So I’m right?”

“Not at all. You do act as a grounding force, a constant reminder that I’m living here and now, in a new section of time, in a loop free of past failures, but that’s not the reason I want you to stay with me. I don’t need trophies. I need friends.”

“I’m sure those aren’t hard to come by.”

“Harder than you’d think. I need people who I know I can trust, and you’re the person I’ve known the longest. I know who you are, Ran Serin. The man who’ll spend half his life hiding from responsibility and goofing around with the last person in the world you should befriend, then turn around and pick up that responsibility and follow through on it with intention and do it better than anyone could have imagined. That’s far more rare than you’d think.”

“What, being responsible? Caring about people, taking my house’s future seriously? Those aren’t rare.”

“Responsible, maybe not where you live, surrounded by those who’ve had the strength and ambition to reach the positions they have. Caring about people, sure, everyone cares about someone, but not everyone cares about people.”

“You say that as though you didn’t employ strength and ambition to reach the position you have.”

Jair grinned. “So, we’re going to stand here complimenting each other all day?”

“I’m not the one who started this. You ask questions then complain about the answers?”

Jair shook his head, expression growing more serious. “I’ve watched too many friendships fall apart due to lack of communication. If something’s bothering you, say so. I’m not going to judge. We’ll talk it over and figure it out. No need for drama. And this isn’t some obligatory thing you’ve locked yourself into. You can walk away any time. You’re the looper now, remember. I’ll take charge of situations if someone else doesn’t, because that’s what I do, but you can opt out any time you like.”

“I don’t want to opt out.” Ran closed his eyes and sighed. “I guess I don’t know what I want.”

“No worries. I’ll be happy to help you find out.”

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