Ian sat across from Mercy in her private balcony. The courtyard below was empty save for a servant sweeping the stone pathways, his gaze fixed on the floor.

“It’s more beautiful in the summer,” Mercy sighed.

Ian could imagine the courtyard in warmer colors, its birch trees alight with foliage, its magnolias ripe with pastel blooms. He could see the square clearing at the courtyard’s center easily fitting six or more medium sized tables, allowing for a sizable outdoor gathering. But now, the gray wood of the estate reflected the gray of the sky, the fortifications surrounding the property suffocating rather than protecting.

“How many people typically stay here?” Ian wondered, his eyes turning back toward the matriarch. He knew her to be roughly over one-hundred years of age, but she looked seventy at worst, her tan skin unblemished aside from inevitable wrinkles. Most people with Life affinities looked and stayed younger for longer, but almost never to such extent.

“It depends; typically more in the summer. The families of children recently awakened to an affinity will sometimes relocate here for a year or more if someone of the same affinity is present and available to lend their guidance.”

Ian let a bloom of Death energy blossom in his hand, noting how Mercy’s eyes flitted to the manifestation. “Do people often ask for your teaching directly?”

“Usually not,” Mercy replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Did you teach Aunt Julia?”

Mercy snorted and smiled. “What kind of grandmother would I be to neglect my grandchildren?”

“I’ll bet teaching Aunt Julia was convenient.” Ian knew that the two of them shared the same Beginning and Life affinities.

The matriarch’s lips curved into a wistful smile. “You might think so, but Julia liked to go her own way.”

Silence fell between them for a moment. Perhaps I should just cut to the chase, Ian reasoned. I don’t see the need to drag this encounter out. I should try to rest up and leave early tomorrow.

“Matriarch Mercy, why did you indulge my aunt in helping me escape East?”

Mercy held out a hand and adjusted the heating array on the building wall with a rightward twist of her fingers. A moment later, a wave of warmth crested up from the ground to bathe the two of them in heat.

Ian wasn’t surprised to see frivolous use of an expensive heating array, but it did send his mind elsewhere...to cold nights spent huddled in blankets, their Jupiter apartment’s small oil heater insufficient to warm more than one bedroom. Of course, the original heating arrays throughout the building broke down and were too expensive to repair.

“I don’t think you’d be much persuaded if I said it was because you were a Dunai in need.”

Ian snorted, but didn’t respond.

“We abandoned you and your sister after Demetrius burned his bridges. Did you ever wonder why?”

Ian leaned back in his chair, basking in the increased warmth. “I can’t see any reason to turn away from family in obvious need, but please, enlighten me.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Mercy replied. “I’ll be frank: It was a personal failing of mine to desert the two of you. I allowed the shadow cast by Demetrius’ mounting infractions to cloud my decisions. I wanted to forget he’d ever been born...so I cut my tumorous grandson, his spiteful wife, and their talentless spawn out of my life.”

Ian blinked. The matriarch hadn’t apologized, but openly admitted to making a mistake cutting them out, which was more than Ian ever expected.

“How much do you know about your father’s business?”

Very little, Ian thought. Mother’s perspective was...skewed. He decided to keep his response as simple as possible. “He stole funds to pay his debts.”

Mercy’s thin smile widened. “The Dunais have money; I wouldn’t have banished him for something so...material. No, the real problem was that Demetrius was self-destructive. There was something broken from the beginning that my kind-hearted son–your grandfather–couldn’t fix. But paired with his self-destruction was an insatiable desire to make others hurt as he did.”

Mercy sighed and craned her head to look up at the moon, its form translucent in the still-bright sky. “Not everyone noticed, of course: Demetrius was charming and humorous, daring and handsome...he knew what to say or do to manipulate even people in his own family. Ultimately, he wielded his Beginning affinity to ruin people’s lives for no other reason than his own perverse need.” She paused for a moment of contemplation.

“I thought your mother might get through to him. I confess that I did dislike her for being a regular; but from what your aunt told me, Demetrius grew more...tame around her. That was enough to ease my annoyance.”

Ian frowned, Mercy’s recounting disconcerting.

“Eventually, your aunt realized that your mother was just another project: Demetrius was excellent at hiding his motivations, playing the caring husband...but over the span of years Julia noticed that your mother had developed an unhealthy dependence on him.”

Ian froze, his expression faltering. He saw Mother screaming in the wake of Father’s absence, crying out in her sleep, restless and hateful with obsession. He remembered the blood on the knife she kept under her pillow and the lines of dried crimson across her wrists, how she turned him away when he needed protection from nightmares, shrugging off his small fingers and locking the door.

He felt his heart begin to hammer, the nearly-forgotten memories surfacing from a dark recess of his mind. With conscious effort, he forced himself to calm down. He knew Mercy would notice that her words affected him, her Beginning and Life affinities synergizing to read his body language and physiological state, but there was nothing he could do about it. To her credit, she didn’t seize on the moment to knock him even more off balance, instead pausing for several seconds.

“Why did Aunt Julia never mention any of this?” Ian asked, rubbing his thumb against his closed fist.

“You should ask her.”

Ian’s mouth twitched. “Thank you for your perspective of events.”

“You’re very welcome,” the matriarch said. “Now, might I ask a question in turn?”

Depends on the question. “You may, though that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to answer it.”

The corners of Mercy’s eyes crinkled. “How did you awaken in the Infinity Loop?”

Ian sighed. “I died over and over again in gruesome ways. I fought back and eventually, though somewhat ironically, I manifested the same affinity as the one responsible for creating my enemies. If I had to characterize my experience, my awakening as a practitioner was predicated on desperation and fear.”

Mercy nodded and clasped her hands. “That’s sufficient, thank you. Would you recommend that a similar loop be used to train others?”

“I’d recommend steering away from the Infinity Loop,” Ian replied, trying to keep his voice even. “The strain of being alone for an extended period of time isn’t justifiable.”

“I think there’s another reason,” Mercy murmured, her eyes studying him intently.

Should I bother to tell her about my suspicions about how the Infinity Loop uses souls? Mercy wouldn’t be content to take his word for it; she’d ask how he’d obtained the information, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell her about Achemiss.

“The people in the Infinity Loop are too realistic,” Ian finally said. “I’ve never been in a normal dilation loop before, but I’ve taken a class that focused on programming them. They’re complex, but they’re created by people. The Infinity Loop, on the other hand, felt organic and realistic in a way that should be impossible. There was almost no discriminating factor between the loop and real life; it dynamically modeled complex systems of states, cities, and organizations while including representations of people that I personally knew.”

That last line seemed to invite Mercy’s scrutiny. “And these people that you knew were indistinguishable from their real-life selves?”

Ian nodded. “Not just in appearance, but their decisions and abilities were completely consistent.”

Mercy frowned. “People in dilation loops are typically consistent within certain limits. They’ll follow the same trajectory as in the real world before tapering off and falling back on simpler logic; it’s one of the main reasons they don’t typically run for longer than a few days.”

“People were perfectly consistent for over a month,” Ian explained. “To be frank, the simulation was so real that I thought I’d escaped earlier than I did.”

“...Why is all of this a problem, exactly?” Mercy inquired, her brow furrowed. “You’re making the Infinity Loop seem more incredible than I originally thought.”

Ian decided to be blunt. “Given the technological precedent, it shouldn’t be possible to make such a huge leap. Whatever the Infinity Loop is isn’t a dilation chamber; it’s something else. But if it were a new form of technology, I think we’d have heard about its discovery; instead, we hear about an expensive, powerful dilation chamber.”

“You think the loop’s makers have something to hide.”

Ian nodded. “And for that reason, I would strongly recommend avoiding association with any Infinity Loops that might pop up in the future.”

“I’ll keep your thoughts in mind,” Mercy replied. Ian didn’t think his argument was persuasive enough to prevent the matriarch from using an Infinity Loop once one was built in the East, but he didn’t know what else he could say.

“My turn to ask a question,” Ian said. “I asked this earlier, but you skirted around a direct response: Why did you help Germaine and I escape East?”

Mercy smiled. “The risks outweighed the rewards on that decision. I had no illusions that you’d want to help our family after years of cold treatment; I had originally planned to slowly bring you back into the family, but news of your inclement ascendance put those plans to rest. In the end, I really did decide to help because Julia asked.”

“Regardless of anything else, thank you for your assistance.”

“You’d better win this war, Skai’aren; I don’t like the idea of a Selejan hegemon state in the West. Others in the East feel the same, which is the only reason coming here in the middle of war isn’t a terrible idea. Do you feel prepared?”

On a whim, Ian activated his quantum channel with Euryphel. “Hello.”

“Is anything troubling you?”

Ian smiled. “Not anymore,” he relayed. “It was a false alarm.”

“I’m prepared,” he told Mercy. “I made extensive preparations before I left to ensure I can avoid detection by practitioners who might recognize me, Selejan agents or otherwise.”

“I fear I have little to offer other than protection for your sister; hopefully it’ll be enough.”

Ian narrowed his eyes. “I hope you’re not protecting her because you want me to owe you a favor, but because she’s your great-granddaughter.”

The matriarch’s eyes glinted in the sunlight. “Sometimes the bonds of blood aren’t enough, you know. Your father was my grandson, but he wasn’t worth saving. In Germaine’s case, she’s an intelligent, artistically-gifted young woman; the family has no compunctions providing for her.”

Mercy snapped her fingers and the heat disappeared, the gently-glowing ember-red array on the floor falling dark. She turned and grasped the doors leading into the main house from the balcony and pried them apart. She led him inside and locked the balcony behind her.

Inside the room, a single suitcase full of clothes lay open on the floor; everything else was pristine.

“I’ll have someone send you dinner. If you have any questions or concerns, knock.”

“Thank you, matriarch,” Ian said. “I’m glad we spoke.”

“Likewise.” With that, Mercy opened the rightmost door and disappeared, leaving Ian to his thoughts.