I never thought I would be excited about having a bathroom with a toilet. Sure, I'd run away a lot as a kid and had needed to shit under some very bad conditions, but I'd still felt like it was by choice and continued to take the general existence of indoor plumbing for granted. Since arriving on this world, however, I'd been traveling most of the time and even in the cities had used a combination of chamber pots and some outhouses that made music festival porta-potties look luxurious. And after dealing with that and assuming it was all the world had to offer I suddenly had an apartment in Theramas with an actual bathroom.

There was running water for the sink, even if the water pressure was basically nonexistent, and while the toilet itself was still essentially just a hole the seat was well made and it was clean. The shaft led down to some sort of sewers, and somehow they had made sure that it didn't stink too badly - I wasn't clear on the particulars though I could imagine some ways to encourage fumes to mostly vent elsewhere. There was a tub - showers weren't a thing in the Eldred Empire - and an assortment of soaps that were maybe a bit more harsh than what I was used to but smelled nice.

In the kitchen we had an icebox and a big iron stove and another sink, and a pantry filled with jars of interesting preserves. There were also a lot of spices and seasonings which seemed to be no big deal; I vaguely recalled learning that spices were extremely hard to come by in the old days on Earth but whether it was just a normal difference in the plants or some magical thing or even a simple fluke of geography I wasn't going to have to worry about bland food. There was pepper that seemed, as far as Connie and I could tell, to be actual normal pepper identical to Earth. There were tiny clumps of brownish stuff that tasted like spicy garlic, and another that was little white flakes which gave everything a sort of sweet menthol taste, and a shaker of green powder that tasted like barbecue sauce, and most exciting of all a very fine white powder that tasted like sharp cheddar. There were also five or six that I found absolutely disgusting, and several that were just big leaves of various sorts that you were meant to simmer in a stew or whatever and which I hadn't had a chance to try out properly.

The views were nice, with the river on the East side and a market square to the North - back in the Desert Oasis apartments in Phoenix my choices of view were the dumpsters or the stucco of the building across from mine. It was an upgrade in almost every way. Almost.

"He fucking followed me the whole way," Connie muttered as she threw down a sack of potatoes.

"Bert, or Ernie?" Our shadows were actually named Betrad and Kern, but we couldn't resist the nicknames. I actually kinda liked Betrad, but their presence was grating.

"Ernie, of course. Bert at least gives me a little space."

"It's my fault, sorry. I ditched him yesterday so he's probably paranoid now."

"You ditched him because he was being a pain in the ass. Being more of a pain in the ass isn't the way to fix it. Ugh. Honestly, I should have just sent them a letter and gone to get you myself. We could have been free from all this military entanglement."

"Sure, but they might not have believed a letter. And you would have been broke. And your face would still be all gross."

"Yeah, all that stuff. And also I had a magically binding contract I would have needed to break. But shit, that might have been worth it. Gross face and all."

"It's fine, we're planning for the expedition and we can go as soon as they get into Brynnklar. I'm sure they're eager, they're probably going to go in soon right?"

Connie was very quiet as she put away the vegetables. I know myself well enough to know that expectant silence drives me nuts, so I just leaned against the wall and watched her for a moment until she became too uncomfortable. "Well. So... you might remember that the main way in only opens every hundred and eighty days. Last time it opened was on the day we arrived - it makes sense, that was a day where way more planes were aligned than normal. Like fourteen, when typically it's one or three or whatever. The first of the month is always good for that, that's probably why they chose it to be the first of the month."

I tried to do some math in my head and failed. "How long have we been here? What's the date?"

"It's only the thirty-third - no, shit, the twenty-first. Sorry, base six thing. Using Earth counting, it's the twenty-first of the month. I got to them fast, took a day and a half to get to Ingerstat but they had a teleportation ring there and I had letters from the most important people in the Eldred Empire so they got me to Theramas some time on the third. Then it was a day of them reviewing the stored memories I'd brought back and arguing about it, and stabilizing the temporal damage to my body. Hugh left first thing on the fifth and teleported to Ulthus, probably reached you late on the eighth or early on the ninth, I don't know. You got to Theramas on the eighteenth. So yeah, it hasn't actually been that long since either of us got here."

It felt like longer, but as I thought about it if anything I was missing a few days - probably right after I arrived while I was still recovering. We had four and a half months before the way would be opened to Brynnklar. "Shit, does that mean I have to sit here for another hundred and sixty days before I can even consider starting the expedition to find the lost Duminere? That's ages! We're important people, I'm sure you can get them to let me in to the one here in Theramas."

"Yeah, of course I can. But you'd have to make a magically enforced pledge of loyalty to the Eldred Empire; it's a non-negotiable part of using one of their Dumineres. You remember when I stabbed Hammersmith? If I'd thought that could possibly actually hurt her I would have been physically incapable of doing it. That's actually the reason I did it - well that and I was pissed off and... anyway, I've been poking at the edges of the magic, trying to find what is and isn't allowed. But I shouldn't have to! I shouldn't have to have... fucking babysitters! I'm almost twenty-three years old, and I'm supposed to be on my own. I know magic! I saved the fucking world! Let me go live my life, for Christ's sake!" She'd started out calm, but had quickly worked herself into a fit. I knew the feeling well.

"Okay. Okay, sure. So... what's the plan, then? You didn't mention this shit before because you have a plan, right?"

She nodded, still fuming. "We start prepping for the expedition now. In a few days, the twenty-fifth, there's another route into Brynnklar they're going to try - something that was being developed in the original timeline. If it works, we're free. If it doesn't... I think I'm close to breaking the spell. I think it's based on my own perception, at least in part, and I stretch it a little more each day. Hammersmith actually helped me out there - during our little tiff she said that the promise to let me have some freedom and not be locked up in the fort wasn't really made by her. That was a big mistake. If that wasn't really her, if we're going to distinguish between the different timelines, then this Eldred Empire isn't the one I swore loyalty to. I still plan on saving the world, obviously, but I..."

I saw it again, that thing behind her eyes. She was barely hanging on. "So we go on the expedition soon?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Soon. I uh... I have some names that I've been gathering. I'll get them to you tomorrow and we can go over them, talk about who we want to hire. We'll need people with us, people with more experience and whatever. It'll be fun, like we're in a heist movie. I'll go over the requirements with you more tomorrow, there are some skills we for sure need and others that would just be nice to have. Shit, someone is coming - we'll talk more later."

Errod and Katrin came in, followed by Ernie. The two siblings had taken Connie's story in stride for the most part, with Errod deciding this must be some important step along the path to him becoming the greatest swordsman of all time and Katrin being her usual overly reasonable self. The only part that had really worried them was the idea that whatever entity was in charge of time would force events to happen the same way this time around, resulting in their deaths and the destruction of the world.

"It's fine," Connie had insisted after that first long explanation, "the device worked as intended and now we're on a whole new plan. It's not going to happen again."

Katrin had been mostly silent, but finally spoke up. "The original device, in Brynnklar - was it the Lever of Ages?"

Connie rolled her eyes. "That never existed, or if it did it didn't work like in the story. In the legend it could go back in time without overwriting anything, and there's no way that doesn't break the first time someone deliberately tries to mess with it. You just decide, hey in five minutes if I haven't seen myself appear from the future I'll go back in time five minutes. And if I have seen myself appear, then I won't. Bam, causality broken. It works in stories because the person writing the story sets it up to work that way. But in the real world people are assholes and will poke at shit like that.

"The one in Brynnklar seems similar at a glance, but it only works because it's front-loaded. You see a potential future timeline, you lock it in. The past is already locked in, so you can't go that way. And even then, they couldn't do it within the same timeline - probably for similar reasons."

"Okay, that makes sense. But... if there's a force that wants to keep time from changing too much, isn't there a chance it will try to make the apocalypse happen again?"

"Nah, because there's no edges. I mean... okay, so let's say you throw a ball out the window, and then I rewind time thirty seconds and stop you from throwing it. But my bubble has edges, so unlike the big reset it can't reach down to the street so now there's a duplicate ball. That's the kind of thing it tries to smooth over, though... I mean, fabrication magic makes stuff all the time. It would need to be something way bigger and more powerful than a ball for the spooky time force thing to give a shit."

"Sure," Katrin said, "like - just for example - a whole extra person?"

There was a long silence, as Connie screwed up her face in thought and stared at the ceiling. "Nnnnnnnno. I'm okay. Because, yeah, we're still inside the same new timeline. Right? Like I said, no edges. This whole thing is new, and there's nothing outside of it to conflict with. So... yeah. We're fine. There can be two of us. I mean time is, literally, trying to kill me but I'm almost totally certain that's unrelated. That was just because I did something really stupid and dangerous without thinking about potential consequences."

Katrin shot me a look. "I can't imagine you doing something like that."

Connie looked from Katrin, to me, to Katrin again. She smiled. "Okay, tell me."

This led to Katrin telling a very uncharitably accurate account of the excitement in Handoleren, and I was forced to admit that my decision to sneak into a building just because I saw a familiar rug was possibly hasty and not sufficiently justified. Thankfully it had gotten us off the topic of the end of the world, and we instead discussed embarrassing stories. The recent time Errod cut off his own toe, the alternate timeline event where Errod cut off his own pinky finger, the time when Katrin was six and told a nobleman he smelled bad, and an unfortunate number of stories about myself because somehow Connie and I tried to one-up each other even though we were, by definition, mocking ourselves.

It had been nice, but it was clear that this time we wouldn't be laughing and telling stories, or even asking difficult questions about causality. Not only was Ernie's presence a nuisance, but both Katrin and Errod looked worried.

"What happened? What's going on?"

Ernie looked at me and Connie, sucking his teeth. "Had to make sure you were all in one place. Security check. Need to keep eyes on you so you don't sneak out again."

I could see Connie getting ready to yell at him, and so I pulled her aside. "Hey. It's fine. We weren't going out anyway."

As I said it I knew it wouldn't help. Yeah, sure, we had been planning on staying in. But now that we had to we both wanted to get the hell out of there. Bert came in and glanced at us, and seemed to sense the tension. "Hey folks. Errod, Katrin, Callie, Connie."

"Hey Betrad. What's the deal?"

He shrugged. "Probably a drill. They're a little paranoid, that's all. Things are going well the last few weeks, but that has them expecting Halenvar to strike back."

Connie rolled her eyes and stalked over to the kitchen, rearranging the veggies she'd just put away. Betrad glanced at her, caught me looking, and winked at me. "Kern, let's give these guys a little space. You can patrol around the building, I'll post up out on the stairs."

"I want eyes on them at all times. Those two are trouble. If you want to patrol around the building feel free, but I'm staying right here."

I walked over to Bert and spoke quietly, "I appreciate the thought. You might as well go, if he's not going to give us some space then having two of you here won't help. No offense or anything."

He nodded, then replied in barely a whisper. "If I'm going to be going on a walk around the building anyway, I could always keep an eye on you down there. Stretch your legs, get some fresh air?"

"Nah, I'm fine. I'm going to keep Connie occupied."

He left, and only after he was gone did I start to wonder if he had been hitting on me. He'd basically asked me to go on a walk with him, right? It wasn't something I had a lot of experience with, and I didn't know how I felt about it. Bert was certainly an okay guy, but I hadn't thought about him in that way. Unfortunately, I was lost enough in thought that I didn't see Ernie walking over to Connie in time.

"I saw that look. You think you're so special, but you're not in charge of me. Do you understand? You're not in the army, you're not a noble, and you're not an emissary. So you had best stop looking down your nose at me, because I'm the one in charge here and you'll do what I say especially during a security check like this. Do you understand? Do you?"

Connie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then slashed Ernie's throat wide open with a carving knife from the kitchen counter.

His eyes bulged. One hand clamped over his neck while the other reached for his sword, but she grabbed his wrist and headbutted him, breaking his nose with a crunch. He stumbled backwards, fell down, and turned to crawl towards the door while trying desperately to call out... and then he was standing in front of her.

"Yes, Kern. I understand," Connie said.

There was no blood. Nobody was injured. More than that, nobody was reacting to what had just happened - I seemed to be the only person aware of the brutal attack. I turned away to hide the look on my face, and then excused myself to the bathroom. Had that been Connie rewinding time? She'd said she could only do about ten seconds here in the city because all the people kept mana low. How long had that taken? The slash, the headbutt, him crawling away... it felt like so much, but it probably hadn't actually been more than five seconds.

How could she just kill him like that? Although... he was fine, right? And she'd said she was testing the limits of the loyalty spell, it could be that this was part of that test; could you attack someone if you had resolved to rewind the event? Now she knows. But there was another option, one that had been lurking in the back of my head for a while. It could just be that I was a monster like mom had always told me.