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Taly looked to Leto. “I think Azura might need something a little stronger than tea tonight.”

Leto made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a sigh as she placed the tea service, originally meant for the Queen, on the dining table. “I suspect you are right,” was all she said as she drifted out of the room.

Taly watched her go, then turned back to Calcifer, who was now curled up in his teacup bed, snoring contentedly. “I’ve never had a pet,” she said, resting her chin on her folded arms. A slight smile curved her lips. “Let’s just hope you don’t eat me in my sleep.”

Chapter 11

-The following is an interview with three-time Arcana laureate Juniper Pots.

Azura Raine was the most recalcitrant, unruly mage I have ever had the misfortune of teaching. I still have nightmares about the stunts she pulled, but her second seal assessment… Shards, I’ll never forget it.

I gave her a standard trial. She was to stop, slow, and accelerate time on a falling boulder while reciting a poem. I began administering the test, and everything was proceeding according to plan. That is until I dropped my quill.

I bent to retrieve it—it couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds—and when I stood back up… it was snowing. In the middle of summer. She’d accelerated us six months into the future, and at first, I thought it a mistake. Students make mistakes during exams all the time, though never on this scale.

I was confused, close to panicking, but I set to work, checking the integrity of the Weave, trying to ensure the safety of my charge. Azura, though… she was so calm. Just staring at me with her arms wrapped around her body, shivering in the snow. And then in the most pitiful voice I’d ever heard, she said, “Please, Professor Pots, may we stop the test. I’ve been holding this boulder for so long.”

I still remember my answer. I was only able to stammer out, “I’m not sure this counts.”

Needless to say, a full meeting of the academic faculty was called to oversee the disciplinary hearing, and when asked why she did it—why she damn near broke the Weave all for a silly stunt—she simply said, “If you’re going to give me a test, at least respect me enough to make it a challenge.”

Once Taly figured out that first spell, the rest came easily. She began to experiment with slowing and accelerating time inside little pockets of warped reality, flipping coins into the air and tinkering with the flow of aether. And when she got tired of coins, she moved her spellcasting practice outside, often going on walks through the woods that surrounded the palace complex.

She froze swarms of insects midair and slowed the fall of leaves. There was a pond right on the edge of this world, where the land abruptly fell away, and sometimes she would skip rocksbeyond that line dividing the green of the forest and the darkness of nothing, speeding them up faster than her eyes could follow.

It was equal parts wondrous and odd to be the source of such strange magic, and it seemed like she never really got the chance to catch her breath. In addition to her other studies, Azura had begun teaching her to enchant crystals, linking them to the same spells she’d been practicing for weeks on end. It was dull and monotonous work, endlessly inscribing runes on time crystals and then testing the magic by flipping coins into the air.

After only a few days of this, she’d been ready to brave the Schism; ready to find out if a living person could survive the day’s reset. She figured dead people didn’t have to enchant crystals, though with her luck, hell would probably be a classroom with Azura standing at the front of it.

So, in the name of survival and her rapidly deteriorating mental health, Taly had decided it was time to do some independent study.

“What do you think?” Taly asked, taking a step back to admire her work.

Perched on top of a stack of books on her study desk, Calcifer gave a mewl of approval. He was the size of a small kitten now and growing larger with each passing day. He’d outgrown his teacup in a matter of weeks, and while he was more than welcome to any one of the many pillows on her mountain of a bed, he always insisted on following her when the nightmares struck, curling up on the cold tile of her library floor as she paced until dawn.

Which is what had given her the idea for her current project. It had started as a simple tower made of coins and then expanded into what shethought was a recognizable imitation of Infinity’s Edge. Situated in an empty corner of her study, she’d stacked coin after coin, each one frozen in place with a spell tethered to one of the many time crystals that formed the “moat” circling the structure. Various bridges and walkways connected the outer towers to the main building, the tallest of which came up to her shoulders and even bore a little red flag. Inside, she’d built platforms and tunnels and ramps for Calcifer to play on while she was away during the day.

Holding out an arm, Taly gave a whistle, and Calcifer glided across the room, alighting on her upturned palm. His wings had come in yesterday. True to their name, mimics impersonated the world around them, the older ones able to change their form at will. He’d been watching the birds outside the window, and suddenly two scrawny black wings had sprouted from his back. Ever since, he’d been flying around the apartment, making the oddest little chirping sounds.

“Do you think the Queen has noticed I’m not downstairs yet?” she asked, lifting a hand and letting Calcifer step onto the large platform at the top of the tallest tower. The afternoon lecture was supposed to have started two hours ago, but of course,Her Most Supreme Imperial Majestyhad been late.

More than three months now—going on four—and it felt like half her time had been spent waiting on that woman,the other half wasted ontea.

There was midmorning tea and afternoon tea, and then they would stop whatever they were doing for royal tea just after the explosions began. Taly had complained once about how many timesper day they had to break for tea, and the Queen had proceeded to give her a full day lecture on the beverage’s origin—how it was grown, how it was harvested, how it was dried, how it was brewed.

The next day, instead of picking up where they’d left off on Afroditi’sTheory of Time,Azura had launched into a lesson on the different kinds of pastries that were to be served with tea. Then the rules and proper etiquette depending on where one was in the Fey Imperium as well as the political goal.

Taly had come out of that lecture with two conclusions.

The first: she hated tea. Black tea, green tea, even reysang tea—it didn’t matter how divine it tasted to this stupid new body where every damned thing had to be so jarringly different. As far as she was concerned,teawas just another word for dirty water.

And the second: even though she had been at the palace three months already, waiting and biding her time, the Queen had been here much, much,muchlonger. Time moved differently inside the loop—faster compared to normal reality, though she had no way of knowing just how much. She supposed if she’d been alone for hundreds, maybethousandsof years, she’d probably look forward to little things like teatime just as much as the Queen. Anything to give the days structure and meaning.

I wonder how long it’ll be before I’m that nutty?

It seemed like a valid concern, which is why she refused to find any enjoyment in teatime. It was a gateway to madness, she had decided. Not the isolation, or the boredom, or the way each dayblurred into the next, becoming one big blob of stagnated time—it was the damn tea’s fault.

“Oh my Shards, she built the mage-eating monster a house,” a new voice murmured, and Taly turned to find Azura standing in the open doorway. She was dressed all in white, and a frown tugged at the corners of her mouth as she took in the house of coins and the moat of crystals surrounding it. “This explains why my treasury looked so empty.”