Loop Two - Chapter One - From the Top

Amber grabbed the edges of her father’s bed and just... held on. It was grounding. Her dad was breathing hard, still looking awful, as though he was on death’s door. Still, she just stared.

“Your reaction is interesting,” the Seelie said.

“I’m trying to come to grips with things,” Amber said.

“It does take some magicals some time to become used to their new powers, especially if those powers have any sort of extra-sensory abilities.”

“Mine only allows me to have a sort of sense of what time it is,” Amber said. “Otherwise, they’re rather plain.”

The Seelie spun around once, like a cat trying to find a comfortable spot to rest. “You know so much already?”

“It’s been... a while?’ Amber said. “I... Okay, I need to come to grips with all of this. Can you give me a minute?”

“We can. We are beginning to suspect that this isn’t a standard magical awakening.”

Amber nodded. Okay. Okay. It’s... it’s nearly two weeks ago? Wait, was it less than that? We were on Wednesday. It’s... Saturday now? Have I only gone back five days? It feels like it was longer than that. Or maybe they were just busy days.

She leaned forwards, her breathing kept even.

Morgan... she won’t remember me. Jade and Cassy won’t know me at all. I’ve... I’ve just lost my only friends.

“You are becoming increasingly distressed.”

Amber blinked her eyes open, then blinked them again to clear away the sheen of tears clinging to her lashes. She looked down. The bar around her father’s bed was bent, crushed by her tightening fists.

She opened her hands, and splinters of cheap plastic scattered to the floor. “Right,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Do you wish to speak about it?” the Seelie asked.

“I... died. I think? My power can manipulate time. So now I’m back here.”

“The point at which you gained your magic, the farthest point which you could reach, assuming that time is somewhat linear,” the Seelie said. “That is a very powerful ability, to be able to escape death like that.”

“Yeah, but now I’ve lost everything.”

“You lost that which hasn’t happened yet?” the Seelie asked.

“Well, no, yes? Look, I don’t know, alright?”

The little creature stood and walked closer. “Will you be healing your father?”

Amber looked to her dad. “My magic’s weak,” she said. Her core felt drained, empty. In fact, she was starving, but that was easy to ignore for the moment. “I couldn’t help him if I wanted to. And I do. But...”

“We can assist, then,” the Seelie said.

“You can heal?” Amber asked. She didn’t know if she should feel indignant about that or not. Why didn’t they heal him the first time, then?

“We cannot. But there are magicals who can. We will merely ask for their assistance.”

“Oh,” Amber said. “I suppose you’ll want to know about the future, then?”

“No,” the Seelie said. “We, more than any, understand the harms, pitfalls, and dangers of prophecy.”

“Prophecy?”

The Seelie eyed her for a moment. “If you do not know, then it is best that you don’t learn. We have found that it leads mortals to think in ways that are harmful to themselves. Tell us only what you believe to be important, and little else.”

They don’t want to know about the explosions, about the attacks? “And what, do I just keep things to myself? Pretend that I can’t help people?”

“We want you to do no such thing. Help as much as you wish. Meddle in matters and interfere as best you can. In our experience, such things are accounted for, and in the end, what goes down in the true history is what was meant to happen.”

“Predetermination is a thing?” Amber asked.

“No.”

“Uh.”

“We consider time travel to be, in simple terms, somewhat complicated,” the Seelie said.

Amber blinked. “Was that sarcasm?”

“No,” the Seelie said. It turned its head towards the doorway just a moment before someone darkened the entrance. The young doctor that Amber had spoken to some time ago, along with what looked like two soldiers. “We have company.”

The Seelie bunched its legs up and jumped towards Amber who caught it out of the air, then, not knowing what to do with it, cradled it close like a cat. I still don’t trust this thing, but... but I don’t have much of a choice, do I?

“Miss, uh, Green,” the doctor said. He sounded like someone approaching a rabid dog.

Amber ignored him. “When’s the next group of students moving to the academy?” she asked the Seelie.

“Interesting. You wish to return to Agartha?”

“Without landing in a forest and having to deal with Seventh Hour Men, yes.”

“Miss Green?” the doctor asked again. Less certain now.

Amber sighed and moved towards the door. “I might need a few things,” she said. “Can you keep my dad under observation, please? It’s important.”

“Um, sure?” the doctor replied.

No one blocked her path as she left the room, Seelie still held to her chest like some sort of plushie. “Okay. You can get a healer here, right?”

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“We can ask. For a new magical, it is likely that it will be done.”

Amber nodded as she stepped out of the hospital, then moved to the side and leaned her back against the wall. She was in a spot with little lighting, enough that to anyone looking she was just some girl loitering around, or at least, she hoped that’s how it looked. “Can I be on the same team?” she asked.

“Certainly. Though we will need to know who was on your team first.”

“Cassy Bleriot, Jade Singer, and Morgan Armstrong. Do you know them?”

“We know all magicals,” the Seelie said. “We have told some about your presence here already. They are on their way to assist you.”

“Right,” Amber said.

She brought her head back and let it thump onto the rough bricks of the wall. Returning to Agartha, returning to her classes. It all sounded very nice. But then... what? Her dad would be cared for. She could just... stay on Earth, refuse to use her magic.

That would mean abandoning her friends, leaving a whole lot of innocents to die. And, perhaps a little selfishly, it would mean letting the pink-haired girl get away with sending her back here.

“Are you well?”

Amber realized she was squeezing the Seelie, perhaps a bit harder than it deserved. “Yeah,” she said. “Just a lot to think about.”

“The consequences of travelling backwards can be complex, or so we’ve come to understand,” the Seelie said. “We are not well equipped for the moral and emotional consequences, but otherwise, we can certainly help.”

“Would Norumbega’s administration help? If I told them about an attack?”

“Hypothetically, yes. If we vouch for you, then perhaps more so. We have yet to decide whether you’re being truthful or not.”

“What?” Amber asked.

The Seelie twisted in her grip and looked up to her. “You imply that you’ve travelled from the future to the present. That is possible, but unlikely. Your behaviour makes it somewhat more likely. That is all we can verify for now.”

“Oh.” I guess that makes some sense. “I’ll have to earn your trust, huh?” she asked. “What about next time? If there is one.”

“Perhaps we will share things with you that would earn our trust faster,” the Seelie said.

“What sort of things?”

“We hardly trust you enough to say so soon.”

Amber gave the little creature a flat look that left it entirely unfazed. She let herself fall down to the bottom of the wall and hugged the Seelie closer. It didn’t seem to mind her handling it, and it was both soft and warm.

Amber tried to focus on something constructive, but her mind kept leaping back to the sight of long-nailed fingers digging into the side of her face, and everything there going dark.

She felt an hour crawl by, then another. The camp grew darker as more lights were flicked off and night fell properly.

“Miss Green?”

Amber jumped and looked up to see a man in an all-black suit standing before her. He had sunglasses on, despite the hour. “Um, yes?”

“We’re here to transport you to a waiting facility. If you would come with us?” he asked. It wasn’t insistent, just a polite request.

Amber climbed to her feet. “You know these people?” she asked the Seelie.

“Not these in particular, but they seem to be some agents sent to gather you and your things.”

I guess I’ll go with them. “Can I have a minute? I want to go see my dad before we leave.”

The man nodded. “Of course. Take all the time you need.”

“I’m good at that, yeah,” she said before moving past him and back into the hospital. Her dad was still looking rough, but... better. There was a new IV line in his arm, and a few machines beeping away that hadn’t been there.

A bit of guilt tugged at her gut, the idea that maybe those things had been saving others, but she squashed that soon enough. A magical healer was coming. Maybe they’d help the others.

“Hey, Dad,” she said.

Her father didn’t move, but she held onto his flaccid hand nonetheless.

“I’m going to be heading out, just for a little bit. And then I’ll be back,” she promised.

The Seelie watched from the edge of the doorway, impassive and observant as always.

She didn’t stay for long, even if that also had guilt eating away at her. I need to act, to do something. Waiting... isn’t enough.

She walked out of the room and met the same black-suited man in the corridor. A woman in a similar uniform was at the end of the hall, speaking to the doctor in hushed tones.

“Do you need anything from the camp, Miss Green?” the man asked.

“No, I don’t,” Amber said. “Where are we going, exactly?”

“A hotel in New York. It’s about an hour’s drive away from here. We can arrange for a small stipend to buy clothes once we arrive, if that’s preferable.”

“That would be, yeah,” Amber said.

I just want to go. Go out there and start practising, start figuring out just what the hell is going on, and then I want to find out who’s trying to mess with the Academy so that I can knock their lights out.

***