When she awoke, Mirian lay in bed, letting the water drip down from the ceiling. It was nice and peaceful. Annoying, yes, but no one was dying, nothing was exploding, and she was anonymous again. Just some girl that no one would look at.
Eventually, she sighed and got up, and went about her morning routine. As she did, she checked her auric mana. Despite it being stripped by the magical cataclysm at the end of the cycle, it was all there. That was interesting.
For all the death she’d seen, Mirian still didn’t like the idea of killing people. Even though logically she knew the death was temporary, it still felt wrong in this visceral, sickening way. As she approached the alley by the Alchemistry building, that discomfort wormed its way through her body. Is this what I have to do at the start of the cycle now? Every time?
It was one thing to read in the newspaper about a criminal being lynched for their crimes. Usually, they’d done plenty to deserve it. These Akanan spies certainly were going to do a bunch of really terrible stuff. But technically, they hadn’t done it yet. Is there some other path? A better one? How long would it take me to find it? The first time, she’d done it in anger, by accident. If she did it again, it would be cold blooded murder.
But it’d opened so many doors. She’d made more progress than any other cycle prior. It had given her access to the Divine Monument, and she was sure now it was connected to the eruption of the leylines. I have to find out more.
Mirian swallowed, feeling bile building up in her. Then she readied her lift object spell.
This time when she pulled him from the roof, she added a whole month of raw magic training to her spell intensity. Again, the spy fell wordlessly from the roof. Again, the noise he made as his body hit the pavement made Mirian want to throw up.
As before, a crowd gathered.
She played her part the same as she had: the hapless student, in the wrong place at the wrong time. The distress was genuine enough, just for a reason the crowd didn’t know about yet.
She wallowed in self-hatred for a while in Myrvite Ecology, then closed her eyes to breathe and meditate. There was no sense clinging to her guilt. This was the best path forward. She told herself the Akanan man had made his choices.
After Viridian’s class, Mirian played her next part: the hapless student in the right place at the right time. Valen stared at her as the second spy was led away in cuffs again, and this time, Mirian winked at her before she headed off. That ought to mess with her.
***
Her first big change came at the end of Arcane Mathematics. Last time, she’d saved Jei by a series of last-second successes. Changing her rescue was risky, but there was a greater risk that she might fail. If she was too close to Jei and got found out, if she was too far and missed her chance, if her thrown wood block missed, if she arrived a few seconds later and the third spy had finished his work—there were too many ways it could go wrong.
“You have more questions?” Jei asked as Mirian approached her after class.
“Not exactly,” Mirian said. She checked again to make sure the other students were all the way out the door, then started telling her about the time loops. “Of all the people, you understood the implications better than anyone. You took me on as an apprentice during the second semester. You told me about Bao.”
Jei’s eyes grew wide.
“Do you have to go to the Divine Monument today? I saw that too. We can talk as we walk. I know the route from under Griffin Hall now so I can show you where the Akanan spy tries to ambush and kill you in a few days. That attack succeeds, by the way, unless an intervention takes place.”
That shook Jei. She kept a stoic face, but Mirian had gotten better at reading her emotions. Of course, being terrified about your own death and deepest secrets—that seemed a good reason to feel fear.
Mirian went over and hit the hidden brick switch. Jei hesitated, then went with her. By the time they made it to the storage area that led to the Divine Monument, the professor was pale and clearly feeling unwell. “I don’t know where he hides,” Mirian said, “but he loves his stupid lightning wand. Have a grounding ward he can’t detect, and I doubt the ambush works. I know for sure you’re the better arcanist.” She looked at Jei. “I made a promise to you last cycle. I plan to keep it. I’ll give you some time to think. We have until Firstday to act.”
Her professor nodded. “Not what I was expecting,” she said.
Mirian laughed. “Still don’t know why it was me and not someone else. Maybe there’s a reason. Maybe it’s just chance. See you tomorrow.”
There was the off-chance that what she was telling Jei now would change enough of her actions to screw things up, but—well, that was going to be her future, wasn’t it? Trying anything and everything, until something worked.
***
After Fifthday’s class, Mirian demonstrated two dozen of the forty raw magic exercises Jei had shown her, then explained the crystal-growing magic Jei had taught her last cycle.
When she was done, and Jei still was silent, she said, “Talk to Torres if you want. She’ll help run through alternative hypotheses with you. Firstday, though, you’ll get a note demanding an emergency meeting at the Divine Monument. You’ll be busy with exams, so you won’t have time to look into it. Here you go, by the way.” Mirian handed her all the answers to the first half of the exam. “If I ever solve the second half, I’ll let you know.”
Stolen story; please report.
Jei looked over the math. “You must know what I will say about probabilities,” she finally said.
“Yeah. Each individual event is explicable, but you have to look at the sum of the probabilities. You’re the one who understands it better than anyone. Eventually, the rest of the town comes around on it. Mostly.”
It was clear Jei needed more processing time, so Mirian waved her goodbye, then went off to go work with Ingrid. The kind of work she’d seen her and Torres doing had been incredible. She spent the afternoon working on different surface-preparation techniques, then on the way Torres had been coaching her to manage mana conduits. There was a neat trick where the mana bleedoff from a high intensity spell could be used to cast a lower intensity spell.
Over the weekend, Mirian applied that design philosophy to something she’d been thinking about. It was half-way between a spellrod and a wand. It had far less combined spells, but when she cast the primary spell, it triggered a secondary spell. This meant she could cast minor lightning and get a force shield, and cast force blades while getting a ground lightning spell. The artifice to do this was complicated, and it was only through growing her own fine-spun quartz conduits using Jei’s techniques that she could make it.
Theoretically, it was the perfect weapon against the Akanan agents who liked lightning wands and swords. In practice, her prototype was flawed, and she didn’t quite have the kind of spell power to get the functionality she wanted. The result was a scepter that could dish out a fairly decent attack spell, but the resulting defensive shield was only partial. In fairness, Torres had applied it to an artillery piece, which had plenty of energy to bleed off. By the time she finished, though, it was Seventhday afternoon, and there wasn’t time to redo it.
She caught a glance of Torres talking with Ingrid. Mirian gave them both a little wave, but it was clear they didn’t want to talk with her yet. Hope I didn’t screw it up, she thought.
***
Firstday, Mirian skipped the Arcane Mathematics exam to finish scribing a few more spells, then joined Jei at the end of class. “Have you decided yet?” she asked.
“It seems you should accompany me,” Jei said. Opening her coat, she revealed a thin brass plate that was strapped around her torso. Mirian recognized the inscribed glyph sequence immediately.
“Lightning protection. Perfect. Let’s go.”
When they got to the last secret door, Mirian drew her spellrod and got quiet. She nodded at Jei. Her professor nodded back.
Song Jei opened the door and strode forward.
Mirian had to give credit to the third spy; he was well hidden. She knew he was lurking in the room, but had no idea where, so when he burst out from behind the crates with a powerful lightning spell, it still startled her. When Jei turned around, orb already in the air, clearly not suffering from electrocution, Mirian appreciated the mild shock on his face, and then the noise he made when a battering ram of force smashed him back into the crates.
For all her preparation, Mirian hadn’t had to do much. She and Jei stood over him, with Jei wrapping force shackles around his wrists.
“Who are the others? Not Captain Mandez, or Praetorian Gavell, I already know about both of them,” Mirian said in Eskanar.
The man’s eyes darted back and forth. That had clearly just unnerved him, but he only spat a curse at Mirian.
“That’s a new one, I should write it down. Why does Akana Praediar betray Baracuel? What do you think the Monument down there does?”
The spy was silent.
“I’ve been thinking about ways to make you talk,” Mirian said, switching to Friian because her vocabulary still needed work. “At first I was thinking torture, but a girl I met told me that preparing spies for torture is basic stuff, and torture sounds awful for everyone involved. Not my style. So I thought about this: self-interest. You believe in God and country, right? Do you know what happens to Akana Praediar in the end? It’s destroyed, utterly. When Marshal Cearsia’s army seizes the Monument, they trigger something big, and they all blow up. A leyline smashes it apart. After that, things fall apart.” Half of what Mirian was saying was speculation and the other half misleading, but the agent didn’t need to know that.
“So you see,” she continued, “We’re not actually on opposing sides. You work with me, and we can save both countries. Also, you’ll need my protection.”
The Akanan agent stared at her, baffled now. “You are absolutely crazy,” he said.
“Gods, I wish I was. You know what happens if you go to prison, right? The agents of the second Akanan cell poison you. Hell of a way to treat a patriot, isn’t it?”
The man blinked, but said nothing.
“Well, you have some time to think about it. You know, when you assholes captured me, you made sure I didn’t get food, water, or blankets. And you killed a lot of people. All that evil, and in service of what? It all ends in ruin for everyone. Respected Jei, let’s go.”
At first, the man refused to walk, but then when Jei showed no compunction about dragging him across the stone floor, he relented and walked in front of them willingly.
Mirian stood by the fireplace this time, thinking about how much easier it was to think without a gash in her leg. They sat the man in one of the chairs, then she watched over him while Jei went to retrieve the others. Mirian kept her spellrod in one hand and the spy’s sword in her other. It was a bit heavier and shorter than she was used to, but not unfamiliar.
The agent waited a few moments before he made his move. He stood, though the force shackles still bound his arm, that spell would be wearing off soon. “You should let me go. It’ll be easier on you,” he said.
Mirian raised the sword to his throat in one swift motion. When she tapped the blade on his chin, he flinched back. “Have a seat,” she said. When he didn’t, she said, “Ever had a sword cut you in the shin? I have.” She kept her eyes on him, tensed and ready for any sudden moves he made.
Something about Mirian’s gaze, or perhaps her duelist’s stance, must have finally convinced him. He sat back down in the chair, testing the force shackles, scowling. It probably wasn’t doing great things to his pride to have a student responsible for his demise—or his compatriots.
“You don’t understand what you’re getting yourself into,” he said in Friian. His accent was noticeable, but not terrible.
“Explain it to me, then,” Mirian said with a smile.
That made his scowl deepen. “How did you know I’d be down there?”
“I’ll trade a question for a question,” she said. “You first, because,” and Mirian tapped the flat of the sword on the armrest. “So what’s your name?”
“Idras,” he said with a sigh.
“Time travel,” Mirian said.
“I gave you a real answer,” he said.
“So did I. What does Akana Praediar think the Divine Monument is?”
Idras was silent. Mirian shrugged, and waited.
With Idras captured, the first difference in the timeline was done. Now Mirian needed to see what else she could change.