Lirah crouched along the roof's edge, studying the crowd below. She'd followed the Magician through the dusty palaces of long dead empires and alien gardens, the railways of the past and the skyways of the future. But if her intel was good, then this city was her quarry's home. Mundane enough on the surface; a sea of umbrellas and middling technology. If this world had magic, she couldn’t sense it.
There. She almost missed when the Magician stepped into the street. His clothes were uncharacteristically non-descript; his hair messy. She was not fooled.
The Magician darted through the streets, playing a game of leap frog with the rain. Lirah scrambled to keep up, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. She missed her own world, where gravity crystals made a run like this easy as dancing. But unlike the Magician, Lirah was bound to whatever magic framed her current world. No cheating.
Marks never look up. The Magician wasn't looking around at all. He charged ahead through a dozen near collisions, until—
He'd dashed into the road. Unnoticed, a box shaped vehicle sped towards him. The crash was inevitable. Lirah expected magic; she wasn't surprised when time froze, raindrops pausing midair like glass marbles. But the Magician was also frozen.
Another caster? Lirah looked around, realizing that she was unaffected.
A polite cough from above broke the stillness. Marks never look up. Lirah raised her head.
The Magician floated in the air above her, clad in silver-blue, arms crossed behind his head. His grin was smug.
So, her intel had been good after all. Too good.
“You shouldn't be in the same time twice.” Lirah growled, not bothering to aim her crossbow.
The Magician beamed at her. “I worried you wouldn't make it.”
He was playing with fire. “If you break this timeline, you could crack the world tree. Even you wouldn't survive that.”
“Oh, I'm not breaking anything.” The man flipped down so he was standing beside her, almost nose to nose. “This is exactly how I remember it.“
Arrogant, cocksure—there was a reason the bounty was so high. The Magician broke all the rules. He dragged magic between worlds like an invasive species. It should have been impossible. Lirah couldn't even use a simple flame spell in this world: here he was, playing with higher level Chronomancy. She needed a way out of this without a world ending paradox.
“You remember dying in the street?”
“I remember—” he grinned, “a beautiful woman dropping out of the sky to save my life.”
“No.” Lirah said.
"You have to.” The magician shrugged. “Or don’t, and let the timeline shatter. If you think that’s the better option.”
He was right, Lirah realized. Letting him die here would be a paradox, one that affected too many timelines. She couldn't risk that.
She wouldn't get paid.
The Magician reached for her. She jerked back but all he did was pull something midnight purple from behind her ear. He handed it to her, gallantly. It was a small stone. Lirah's hair began to float away from her face. Oh. Oh. A gravity crystal. A working gravity crystal.
The Magician winked. “Payment for your services.” He sighed. “Must be going. Time will start again any moment. But don't worry, we'll meet again very soon.”
He was gone in a burst of light. Around her the raindrops were starting to move—slowly, at first, but she didn't have long to decide.
Lirah sighed, and jumped down from the sky.
Jennifer Monsen works as a music therapist by day; by night, she is a writer with a bent towards the strange and fantastic. Currently her focus is custom murder mystery parties. Her first love is storytelling in all forms; her second love is pizza. Find her at: https://jentellingstories.blogspot.com/
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