If there was one good thing about Will-induced headaches, it was that they took no time to go away once the cause that incited it was removed.

Juniper blinked away the last wisps of her headache as she took stock of her surroundings. She’d been deep into Skystrall’s legacy when…

When the world ended again, I guess?

And she was back in the lecture hall again. Juniper didn’t need to check the sheets in front of her to know it was the Thermodynamics exam.

So it wasn’t a onetime thing, Juniper mused. Is this some kind of defense mechanism?

It made sense, to some extent. The world had ended–both times. She knew that instinctively; felt it in her bones the same way any creature knew stepping off a cliff meant certain death.

Would it happen again?

That was the big question, wasn’t it? Maybe the next time, the world wouldn’t end, and life would continue normally. Juniper wasn’t sure she liked the idea–everything she knew worked on the idea that cause was followed by effect. The event wouldn’t just happen randomly, would it? It had to be caused by something.

And it would keep happening, unless something acted to stop it in the first place.

Or would it? There was another possibility to consider–that the time travel had been a fluke, a dying universe’s death throes, and that the next time the universe ended it would be the last.

Juniper discarded this possibility immediately–not because she didn’t think it plausible, but because there was no point fretting about it. If the world ended for good, then she’d be too dead to worry about it.

Which left the first two possibilities–either the event happened again, and the world repeated, or it didn’t and everything returned to normal.

The latter hinged on someone acting to stop the event from happening–and Juniper couldn’t think of anyone that fit. Even Professor Sol, the Fourth Gate practitioner, looked like an ant before… whatever the event had been. And Juniper had seen him in an exhibition match once–he’d seemed like a god of old.

What about practitioners from other realms? From Cassia?

Juniper had heard that the great powers of Cassia eclipsed anything coming from Esanys–perhaps enough that they could stop the event from happening in the first place. But this raised its own question.

Was the event confined to Esanys, or did it cover Cassia too?

Juniper’s gut had its own opinion on this–everything, everywhere, entirely. But that was just the primal fear the event had elicited talking. To her, it had been the cataclysm to end all cataclysms. But who knew? Perhaps, to someone else in the vast cosmos, the event had been nothing but a tiny blip.

Pushing the creeping existential dread away, Juniper returned to more practical matters. There was no point thinking about the greater implications. She needed to consider only what was in front of her.

What she had was a stretch of time of just about four weeks that repeated itself. Perhaps it would happen again, perhaps it wouldn’t–but even so, this was an amazing resource she could exploit, even if it didn’t last for more than a few loops.

And she had the notes, too. Juniper facepalmed–how had she forgotten about that? The notes proved there was at least another someone aware of the loop. Were they working to stop the event? It seemed plausible–there didn’t seem to be any other big happening that might require breaking the rules of reality to handle.

And it seemed to be helping her, for whatever reason. A distraction, perhaps? In any case, the watcher knew things no one else did. It had known where to find Skystrall’s legacy–what else did it know?

Juniper shuffled through the papers, finding the note around the end of the stack. There hadn’t been any other hint from the watcher after it had pointed her to Skystrall’s book. Juniper guessed it had been content to let her exhaust herself on the book.

She opened the note. It said, I know a lot of things.

Juniper froze. What the fuck?

Had it read her mind? Or was it just a coincidence?

Juniper dearly hoped it was the latter. She was, well, not fine with having a ghost looking over her shoulder. But in the privacy of her mind?

“I’m going to call you Ghost,” Juniper murmured quietly. Maybe she wasn’t haunted-haunted, but it definitely felt like it.

The text on the note didn’t change–it probably couldn’t, given that it was mundane. Had the Ghost known what she would think before she even thought it?

If so, that was freaky. Best not to dwell on it.

What she should dwell on was this opportunity she’d been handed. Juniper’s biggest roadblocks had always been time and money. Time repeating itself solved the problem of, well, time, and if she could do things without having to suffer the long-term consequences, then that solved the problem of money as well.

Hopefully. She’d wait a few more loops to make sure they didn’t just stop before doing anything really egregious.

Juniper fixed the wrong answer, turned in her paper, and marched straight to the library.

The world had just ended, sure, but ten minutes was a long enough break from Skystrall’s legacy.

***

An old utility closet in the dormitory basement had become Juniper’s new permanent headquarters. The layers upon layers of dust had made it clear nobody ever entered the place, and a simple alarm ward on the door made sure she wouldn’t be surprised if someone barged in.

A decrepit stack of boxes became the book’s hiding place whenever Juniper had to be away–mostly because of all those annoying things mortals had to do, like sleep and eat. The exams as well, but Juniper barely paid them any mind. When you already knew the questions, and you’d crammed the subject matter, the exam became trivial.

By Friday, though, she was beginning to doubt her approach. Juniper had had the book for… almost four weeks, and had been studying, to the exclusion of all else. She’d gone through fifty pages–she had no idea if this was slow or respectable–but her Will was giving her an unpleasant buzz.

It reminded her of that time she’d stuffed herself full of pizza one night at the orphanage. Such a treat was rare, and given the chance to eat her fill, Juniper had gone above and beyond that, enough that even looking at the leftovers the following day was enough to make her nauseated.

Her Will was giving her the same signal. Stop, or else.

Juniper wasn’t keen on finding out what an overstuffed Will felt like.

She sat at the desk in her room, folding the matron’s letter–the good one that she’d received before everything went to the abyss–into various patterns. She knew how to make a tiger and a crane, but other shapes were beyond her. She still tried.

Her eyes fell to the other letter–the one with the seal of the House of Ravens. She’d never opened it the first few times. She wasn’t planning on opening it, ever. Whatever the Ravens wanted from her, she was still a free woman until she graduated. She saw no reason to give them any more than that.

But now, she realized she was being silly. Even if they wanted something from her, what harm was there in knowing? Moreover, perhaps they didn’t even want something from her. Maybe they were offering a scholarship because of her good grades.

Juniper snorted. Yeah, right.

She ripped the seal away, removing a small sheet of cardstock paper. The text was brief.

Juniper was invited to take part in a mission–no details were specified, nor would they be unless she accepted. She was to refer to the haven keeper in Sycamore Square by Thursday at the latest, in that case.

So far, this was surprising, but not outrageous. The next part, though, made Juniper’s eyes go wide.

Upon the successful completion of said mission, Juniper would have half of her debts to the Ravens forgiven–an entire half–as well as a portion of the spoils.

Juniper almost wanted to smack past her for ignoring the letter, but then she realized it hadn’t mattered, anyway.

She stamped down on her excitement. Juniper had gotten so giddy over the idea of having her debt forgiven–even just partially!–that she’d forgotten anything she did would probably get wiped away when the world ended again.

The spoils, though… If the Ravens were inviting her, a half-trained asset, that meant the mission was high-profile enough that they were desperate for a practitioner. They couldn’t compel her to participate–that part of her contract only kicked in after graduation, which meant they had to entice her.

And entice her they did. The loot must have been worth a fortune. Juniper’s eyes glinted.

She was past the deadline already, but… that didn’t matter if time repeated itself again, did it?

Next time, Juniper resolved. If time loops back again, I’ll see what this is about.

For now, though…

“Evie said Professor Zaldia would take her on the trip even if she signed up late, didn’t she?” she mused to herself.

“What was that?” Evie called out from across the room.

Juniper turned to her friend. “I was thinking of coming on the trip. Do you think the professor will mind?”

Evie broke into a grin. “You are?” she asked. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she won’t mind. She’s pretty chill.”

Pretty chill was not a term Juniper would have used to describe the combat instructor, but then again, she’d never taken that elective, so she had to defer to Evie in that regard.

The field trip was on. Hopefully, she wouldn’t come back empty-handed.

***

Juniper had never seen a teleporter array before, so as far as she was concerned, the trip was already worth it.

Despite being located on academy grounds, the array was situated a ways away from the main campus, and was off limits to any kind of student traffic. Juniper hadn’t even considered they would use the teleporter array for the trip, though in hindsight, it was obvious.

There was no other way the academy could herd a hundred or so students down the mountain, get anything done in the wilds, and return in the space of two weeks. Which only left only teleportation or an airship on the table.

A single airship wouldn’t be big enough for all of them, and Juniper doubted the wilds made for a good landing place, anyway.

The teleporter array had been left behind by the Sabrine Krauss–the founder of the Krauss Academy herself. She had deemed it crucial for the advancement of magic that the four academies be within reach of each other, creating a network of linked teleporters between them. A later practitioner had expanded on this, devising a way to make the teleporters lead anywhere.

What either of the two Space practitioners had done was so beyond Juniper that it wasn’t even funny. Still, when the array fired, she was watching with her eyes wide, trying to derive even the slightest bit of insight.

She’d largely failed, but the experience itself had been, well, magical. The world around her went dark for the barest moment, before a rainbow tunnel formed around her, stretching up to infinity. The tunnel was gone as soon as it appeared, and the next thing she knew, Juniper and the other students were surrounded by dense foliage–a stark contrast from the stone pavement of the array.

Juniper was also left with the distinct impression of something having touched her shoulder, but the young man standing next to her wasn’t paying her any attention.

“Wait, how are we going to go back?” someone asked, startling Juniper. It was a good question. They didn’t have a teleporter array on this side.

Someone else chuckled, and Juniper belatedly realized that was Professor Zaldia. “Someone always asks that question. Well, kids, what do you think?” she asked. “What do you think will happen for the return trip?”

“We’ll leg it?” someone–Gellig–ventured. A few people laughed, then the laughter turned awkward as people realized what he said might actually be true.

After letting them stew for a bit, Professor Zaldia said, “Fortunately for you, Mister Vigil here is wrong. Any other ideas?”

“The teleporter array?” Juniper asked. There was no other obvious way of travel, so it had to be the array. How exactly that worked, Juniper had no idea.

“Partial credit to Miss Lorn,” the professor said, “but if any of you can tell me by which principle this works, I have a prize for you.”

Juniper was stumped, but thankfully, so was everyone else. Most were just relieved they wouldn’t have to walk the way back.

A few people threw out some guesses, but were shot down by the professor. Someone suggested that the array might work by swapping one volume of space with another, so all they needed to do was to fire the array again on the same coordinates. Juniper thought this might be the right answer, but the professor shook her head. “Teleporters like the one you describe exist, but ours is not one of them. Partial credit.”

After half a minute with no more guesses she said, “It’s alright that you don’t know–you’re not supposed to learn this until next year, but most students first experience it here.” She paused for a moment, waiting for the students to quiet down. “It’s called the sympathetic principle. To oversimplify it, the teleportation array works by bending the space between two locations. That means for a brief moment, the array and this place overlapped. A magical impression of the array was left here behind, and will continue to linger for a few weeks. It has little power on its own, but it can connect to its parent. In two weeks, we will activate it and it will take us home.”

“But that is then, and this is now. So,” Zaldia said, clapping her hands, “let’s get this party started.”