Chapter Twenty-Three

“Yeah, no way,” Cassy said. She crossed her arms and shook her head. “You can’t have a power that’s cooler than mine. That’s cheating.”

Amber blinked. What’s that even supposed to mean? “It’s really my power,” Amber said. “I can send myself back in time. So far it’s not much more than a minute or two though.”

Morgan made a noise that, with a lesser girl, would have been a gasp. “The explosion. You were certain it was going to happen before it did.”

Amber pointed to her. “That’s right. We were caught in it the first time. I didn’t mean to use my power, but it just activated on its own.”

Jade raised a hand. “I don’t mean to doubt you, Amber, but could you provide any sort of proof? It would put our doubts to rest.”

“She could predict something,” Morgan said. “A dice roll, or a random number.”

“I... don’t know if that would work,” Amber replied. “Too many really small variables. What about... a password. Can you all pick one?”

“Maybe you can read minds or something,” Cassy said.

“Then I’d just tell you that I could read minds,” Amber said. She had to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

Morgan moved to the side of the room where she’d tossed her purse on entering and pulled out pen and paper. “You can bring things back with you, right?” she asked.

Amber nodded. “I can, I think.”

“Then we’ll just write the answers to a question Wendy asks us on these, and give them to you. The handwriting should be hard to fake, and the answers will be different for each of us,” Morgan said.

Wendy gave Morgan a thumbs-up. “You’re real smart. That should work, right?”

Amber nodded. “As long as you don’t change questions, sure.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because from my point of view, you’ll be... you know what, nevermind.” The more I say or do, the more I’ll have to do again with the next loop, and all exactly the same way. This is getting complicated already.

“Okay!” Wendy said when Morgan had passed around pen and paper. “What’s the best kind of dog?”

Team Svalinn wrote down their replies, then Morgan took them and looked up to Amber. “I realize now that if you did go in the past, you’d already have these.”

“But I haven’t yet,” Amber said.

“But you... will have had?” Morgan said. “Once you go back and return to this time?”

Amber rubbed at her forehead. “I guess?”

“Maybe time isn’t linear?” Jade asked.

Is this what Morty meant about annoying physicists? “Who knows. Want to give me those papers?”

Morgan handed them over, and Amber, lacking a place to put them, tucked them into one of the knife sheaths under her jacket.

“Alright,” Morgan said. “So... do your thing, I suppose.”

Amber shifted, then focused. I’ve done it before. Never on purpose, but that shouldn’t matter. I just need to grab... this thing. She wrapped a metaphorical hand around the strange new magical organ she felt. And then I... will myself to--

Something clicked into place, and Amber felt her sense of time become disjointed, like looking at two unsynchronized clocks at the same time. One, she knew, was the present, the other was... also currently the present, but pushing a bit of magic into it made that timer spin backwards. Every additional second cost a bit more magic than the last.

I think last time I just flooded that without thinking. So, how far back do I need to go?

She didn't pay as much attention to the time as to how much magic she was using. It was a lot. She could define how much, exactly, but when reality snapped back into place, she felt as if she’d just used up a hefty amount of what she’d gathered naturally.

She glanced around. Cassy was swinging her legs on her broom and grinning at Amber. “And yours is a grandfather clock,” she said.

Huh? Wait, no, I remember her saying that. Morgan was the only one that seemed to notice Amber’s confusion. Just need to act natural.

“Alright, enough bickering,” Wendy said as she hopped off her seat. She grabbed the army-hat wearing seelie and placed it on her shoulder, where it cling to her without issue. “Morgan, you’re last.”

Amber watched Morgan swipe her sword around and return to wearing her costume. The sense of deja-vu was intense, but manageable.

Cassy demonstrated her powers, and this time, Amber landed on her feet, arms windmilling for balance. Then Jade waved her scarf around, and Morgan explained what she could about her own power.

Soon enough, it was Amber’s turn to explain herself. I’m off by about two seconds. Because I caught myself?

Amber stood a little taller, it was her turn again, for the first time. “I don’t know the limitations of my power yet,” she said. “But I know that it tends to use a lot of magic. Basically, I can send things, people, and myself, back in time.”

She looked towards Cassy in time to see her cross her arms. “Yeah, no way. You can’t have a power that’s cooler than mine. That’s cheating.”

“It really is my power,” Amber said. Am I on-script? “I can send myself back in time. So far it’s not much more than a minute or two.”

Morgan nodded slowly. “The explosion. You were certain it was going to happen before it did.”

Amber pointed to her. “That’s right. We were caught in it the first time. I didn’t mean to use my power, but it just activated on its own.”

She looked to Jade just as the girl started to raise her hand. “I don’t mean to doubt you, Amber, but could you provide any sort of proof? It would put our doubts to rest.”

“She could predict something,” Morgan said. “A dice roll, or a random number.”

“I don’t know if that would work,” Amber replied. I still don’t. “Too many really small variables. What about a password?”

“Maybe you can read minds or something,” Cassy said.

“Then I’d just tell you that I could read minds,” Amber said.

Morgan moved to the side of the room where she’d tossed her purse on entering and pulled out pen and paper. “You can bring things back with you, right?” she asked.

Amber nodded. “I can.”

“Then we’ll just write the answers to a question Wendy asks us on these, and give them to you. The handwriting should be hard to fake, and the answers will be different for each of us,” Morgan said.

Wendy gave Morgan a thumbs-up. “You’re real smart. That should work, right?”

Amber nodded. “As long as you don’t change questions, sure.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because from my point of view, you’ll be... you know what, nevermind.” Right, that’s what I said. I’m on-track, I think.

“Okay!” Wendy said when Morgan had passed around pen and paper. “What’s the best kind of dog?”

Amber watched her teammates write down their replies, then Morgan took them and looked up to Amber. “I realize now that if you did go in the past, you’d already have these.”

Amber smiled. “Yeah, it’s really strange.”

Cassy waved her paper around. “‘Kay, I have mine, now what?”

Amber reached into her jacket and pulled out three sheets of paper. She unfolded them and set them onto the ground, answer-up. Morgan had picked ‘German Shepard’ in a neat, very tidy handwriting. Cassy’s answer, in a very messy hand, was a little strange. ‘All dogs are good dogs!’ Jade had a nice bubbly cursive that spelled out ‘Shaba Inu.’

“No way,” Cassy said. She placed her page next to the other page that she’d written on. The handwriting and everything was exactly the same, down to the tears on the page.

“Impressive,” Jade said. Hers was also identical.

Morgan placed her page next to the original. ‘Cats are better,’ was written in her neat script on it.

Amber stared at the different messages. “What?” she asked.

Morga’s lips twitched up. It was a very smug twitch. “You flinched.”

“Wait,” Cassy said. “She didn’t time travel?”

“Oh, she did,” Morgan said. “But her magic depleted all at once, just before you used yours, Cassy. And she landed in a way that was... a bit too good. No offense.”

Amber shook her head. “You knew about my power then?”

“No, but you told me about it a minute or two later, so it wasn’t hard to recall you acting strange some time ago, then asking myself what I wouldn’t write on that sheet.”

“I’m really confused,” Cassy said.

Morgan patted her on the shoulder. “It’s alright,” she said.

“Right,” Amber said as she stood up. She froze when the papers on the ground wavered. Those that she had taken with her. The papers faded a little, then blinked away. “Uh.”

“Two copies of the exact same thing can’t exist twice?” Jade asked. “Though, one of them was a little different.”

“I said I wasn’t sure how any of this works,” Amber said. “It feels... yeah, that was at the exact same time as when I jumped back.”

“But you didn’t jump back again,” Jade said. “So it’s not a fixed loop?”

Amber shrugged. “I honestly have no idea.”

Wendy squatted down and poked at the papers on the ground. “Cool. Time powers are always trippy. We had a girl when I was in first year. She was two years ahead. She could stop time for herself. Really nasty to fight.”

“The Seelie said that I wasn’t the first, right?” Amber asked the nearby cat-thing.

The seelie nodded. “You are not the first to have been blessed by time. Nor are you likely to be the last. Though your gifts are just as unique as any other.”

“Cool,” Cassy said. “So can you go back, clone some money, and then spend it really fast before it poofs away?”

“Your first thought was how to use her power to steal?” Morgan asked.

“It’s not stealing if she pays for stuff. It’s not her fault if people don’t, um, make sure their cash is in the present.”

Amber chuckled. “I don’t think I’d do that. Ah, I can also repair things, or at least, send them back to before they were damaged?”

“Oh!” Wendy said. She ran over to her chair, the same one Jade had stored in her scarf, and held it up with one hand. She punched the base of it, leaving a heavy dent in the middle of the thin steel seat. “Here, fix this!”

Amber took the chair and frowned at it. It had only been a few seconds since it was damaged, so... she opened the tap on her magic and tried to keep a handle on it as it swept into the chair. The chair popped out of her hands and reappeared back where Wendy had picked it up. It was dent-less.

“Huh,” Cassy said. “That wasn’t very flashy.”

“My power’s not flashy,” Amber said.

“But that’s like, half the point of having powers in the first place.”

Morgan sighed. “It’s fine. In fact, that’s more than fine. You can heal too, right?”

Amber nodded. “I can. I wouldn’t want to experiment with that just yet. I did it once, but it was an emergency, and, yeah, I’d rather practice with someone who knows how to heal around.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Morgan said. “So, that was it for power demonstrations?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Wendy said. “You guys want me to set up some practice dummies? You can let loose on them with your powers or whatever. Try to get a hang of things. That’s what my team did for a while, at least until we got good.”

“That actually sounds reasonable,” Morgan agreed. “I’ll help you set things up.”

Amber picked up the papers, only lingering a little over Morgan’s copy. “Right, I’ll help too.”

***