I turned. “W-What?”

“I’ll say it again,” Antares said. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Mintaka was behind him, arms crossed, glaring daggers. I tugged at my hand, but Antares held my wrist firmly.

There was a ringing in my ears. An infernal wake up call. Louder, and louder. A thousand and one alarm clocks, a cacophony of horrible noises.

I stared into Mintaka’s eyes. Gazing into the abyss.

Falling, and falling, and falling and at once, the glass shattered. The ringing stopped. A hollow echo.

What the hell am I doing?

The knife slipped from my hand. Antares pulled me away from it as it clattered to the sidewalk, next to where my foot had been half a second ago. When I looked back up, Mintaka was looking through the window of Cafe Tristan, directly at Velora.

She turned back to me. “Let’s talk somewhere else. You owe us an explanation, Lyra.”

After rejecting a few public spaces, the three of us decided to make our way up to the clubroom. Talking about murders in public probably isn’t a good idea. On the subject of good ideas, Antares grabbed the knife off the ground and wrapped it in his coat before we started off.

Mintaka led the way, throwing wary glances back at me as we walked. Antares trailed behind me, tensed, as if ready to KO me if I did anything funny. Watching the normally-gentle Antares crack his knuckles in anticipation sent a chill down my spine.

But I wasn’t thinking of making a break for it. Or doing anything.

As if breaking down from a careless overclocking, my mind was spinning but I couldn't think.

It was a long and quiet walk.

Antares locked the door behind him when we arrived. Mintaka took my hand and sat me down at the couch. The two of them looked like good cop & bad cop.

“Talk,” he said.

That one word dislodged my mind. There was no way I could tell them the truth. They weren’t going to believe me. And even if I told them, not like they could do anything about it.

Because I’m the seer.

How ridiculous would it sound? I traveled back in time. And in order to save Sirius and Anna from being stabbed, I was going to commit murder.

I was going to commit murder.

Shake it off, Lyra.

I need to come up with something that will throw them off. So that I can continue with saving Sirius and Anna.

And then what? 

Kill Velora? My hands were clawing at my collar. That was… that was the only option, wasn’t it? I had to use one hand to pull away the fingers of the other. They were at my throat, now.

What do I do?

Mintaka and Antares won’t believe me. That’s a given. Why is it a given? 

I need time to think. “M-Mint,” I said. “How did you guys know where I was?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you wanna know?”

“Just…"

“You were acting weird, so I called up Antares, and we followed you.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Ant’s a good guy to have around for things like that, right?”

“Did you just call me because-”

“Because you look like you could tear someone’s head off when you’re angry, yeah.” Mintaka shifted her weight from side to side. “Antares used Intimidate!”

He scowled. Antares looked like he was going to punch Mint’s lights out and then steal her lunch money. “Antares used Intimidate.”

She tittered. “It’s not very effective. I know you.”

“Kgh. Back to the subject at hand,” he said. “Mint told me what was up, we decided to follow you. And watched you, you know, steal a knife and look like you were going to use it.”

The knife in question was now lying on the table.

Hold on… they’d been following me…

“Mint,” I said. “Do you have… a green cap in your bag, by any chance?”

She looked at me strangely. “I think I do. How did you know?”

“Just let me see it.”

“Wait a minute, Lyra. We’re taking a lot of things on blind faith right now. You need to start explaining your train of thought to me, because I’m really lost,” Mintaka said.

I shrank into the couch. “I… I need to see it to check something. And if I’m right, then I’ll tell you.”

After a long pause, again, she relented. “Here. Work for you?”

I hadn’t caught a very long glance at it last time, but when Mintaka pulled out the hat, I recognized that diagonal white stripe immediately.

The girl who had been following me last time… it wasn’t Velora Navis. It was Mint.

Come to think of it, Mint was at the scene of the crime, and had pulled Velora off of me. How had she known to be there?

Probably because she had followed me. Because I’d grabbed and yelled at her, she must’ve been suspicious last time, too. I hadn’t seen him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d also called on Antares then, too. Not that I could check now.

But… these guys…

Knowing that Mintaka would be willing to, and literally did, charge a psycho with a knife to save my life…

The glass broke.

If I had gone through with it I’d just be a murderer. I can justify it however I want, but there’s no way that Mintaka, or Antares, or, really, Sirius or Anna… or even, Rigel, would be better off.

I’d be no better than Velora Navis herself. What have I been doing?

The details of the clubroom seemed to fade, as the light of the setting sun draped an orange blanket around both of them.

I took a breath. My heart was beating so quickly. But it was proof, undeniable proof, that I was alive.

I opened my eyes and stared directly at Antares, then at Mintaka.

“I need you both to listen to me. I’m not lying to you when I say this.” I inhaled. “This is my third time living through the last day of Galileo Fest.”

The two of them paused. “You’re a third-year,” Mint said. “It’s also my third Galileo Fest—”

“I mean, this is my third time living through this Galileo Fest. I’ve been traveling back in time. And at the end of today, just after 8PM, Sirius and Anna will die.”

Antares and Mintaka just looked at me, jaws dropped, eyes wide. And I stared back. I squeezed my fingers with one hand to stop them from shaking.

“I’m a time traveler. I’ve been looping from the end of today to this morning.” And I told them everything. And all the while, they said nothing. When I got to the end, I just sat there. And there was no reply.

“You have to believe me. Please.”

When they didn’t respond, my heart sank. 

Yeah, of course. I can’t blame them. I… maybe I should just play it off as a joke.

Antares leaned back and put his hands behind his head. He swallowed. “This is… a lot.”

“Yeah,” Mintaka said.

“You’re free to… I mean, um. It’s fine.”

“Have you told Sirius? Or Anna?” Antares asked.

“I get it if you don’t believe me—” I stopped. “Wait, what?”

“They should know,” he said. “It’s their lives at stake here.”

“Wait, no. The other thing.” I said. “Aren’t you, you know, skipping a very important step here?”

He tilted his head.

“What?”

“Um… You wanna, you know, tell me that I’m losing it? Because I’ve totally been losing it.” I swallowed. “Come on. You can’t… actually believe what I just said.”

“Okay, Ant. I was gonna say the same thing. Actually, what I was gonna say was,” Mintaka looked at me. “Lyra… are you fucking with us or something?”

“Mintaka!”

Her head flicked to the side, staring down Antares warily. “She just told us that she’s a time traveler.”

“I have ears, Mint.”

She leaned back in the couch. “You actually believe that she can travel back in time.”

“I believe that Lyra doesn’t have a reason to lie to us about Sirius and Anna’s lives being in danger.”

I looked over at him and balled my fists. Even though Antares believed me, I was wrong to believe that I wouldn’t need to do any more convincing. “Mint,” I said. “Think about it this way. If I’m not losing it, then Sirius and Anna are in danger. They will die, in less than an hour.”

Mintaka just tapped her foot.

“If, after tonight, nothing happens, and I’m actually wrong, then I’ll go get some help. But for now… please. Believe in me.”

Her toes stopped tapping. She tucked her chin in, for a moment, then sighed. “For what it’s worth, I can’t think of a reason why you’d lie.” Mintaka sat up. “I’m just… even discounting the whole time travel thing, we’re still dealing with a murderer.”

The air in the clubroom was still, for a moment.

“How much time do we have left?” Antares asked.

I pulled out my phone and stepped over to the window. The sun had almost set. It was about 7:30. “Less than half an hour.”

“Let’s warn them,” Antares said. “I’m calling Sirius.”

“Hold on,” Mintaka said. “Lyra, if you can travel through time… I assume you followed Velora before, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“So you know what she’s going to do.”

“Exactly. I know she’s going to wait until after Sirius confesses to Anna to attack. Which isn’t going to happen for another thirty minutes.”

Antares raised an eyebrow. “Sirius has a thing for Anna?”

“Wait, for Anna, and not you?” Mintaka leaned in.

“Focus, guys.”

She turned to him. “Okay, I’d always just kind of assumed that Lyra and Sirius were an item.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but—”

“I’m sitting right here. Let’s focus.” They turned back with a renewed interest.

“Okay, the point is,” Mintaka said, “We know what Velora’s going to do without our interference. I’m worried that if we tell Sirius or Anna over the phone, they might panic,” she said. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a chess set, and laid out a white king, queen, and a black queen. “At the very least, they’ll change their behavior, relative to what Lyra remembers. This will cause Velora,” Mintaka fiddled with the black queen, “to change her behavior in turn. It may even cause her to strike early.”

“Yeah…”

“You know… if you can just reset things, I might advocate gathering more clues, by—”

I placed a hand over her mouth. “Your next line will be, ‘by letting the mark die.’”

She brushed my arm aside. After a breath, she nodded.

“We’ve had this conversation before,” I said. “That’s not an option.” Though, I ended up having to go through with it anyways.

“Is there some reason why?” Antares asked.

I fiddled with my ponytail before saying, “Not… really. It’s just not an option. On principle.”

“I can respect that,” Mintaka said. But raised an eyebrow. “Okay, other options?”

I thought for a moment. “We try to physically stop Velora. Non-lethally, of course.” My eyes trailed to the knife on the board. “I… I’ve been stabbed by her before.”

My gaze fell, to my hands and shirt. My whole abdomen tingled, as if my body remembered.

It knew.

“Lyra…”

“I hate to do this to you, but you two know more about fighting than I do. Can I leave that to you?” And… if I got stabbed, it would burn through two of the Redshift’s uses.

“Of course,” Antares said. “We just have to prepare magazines or something. Something knife proof.”

Looking around, we had a few lying around the club room. But it wasn’t enough for one person, much less two.

“We need to hurry,” Antares said. “We don’t have that much time.”

Mintaka gritted her teeth. “I know. Okay, you know what? We’ve got multiple tries. Let’s go now. And it anything goes wrong… Lyra, you can reset and try again.”

As they stood, though, I grabbed at the hems of their clothing. “Hold on. I’m not letting you risk yourselves like this. I’ve got a better idea.”

“There’s no time, Lyra,” Antares said. “In the end, it’s not real. If we get stabbed or something… you can just erase it.”

“It’s real to me!” I was on my feet. “I can’t prove any of it… and maybe it didn’t ‘really happen,’ but it’s real to me. I’ll remember."

They were quiet. Finally, they acquiesced. “So, what’s the better idea?” Mintaka asked.

I’m going to do what I should’ve been doing all along. “I’m going to tell all the band members, in the morning. We’ll come up with something together.”

It would be risky to warn them now, and dangerous to send Antares and Mintaka after Velora Navis. But… if we’d all known from the start… then we might be able to change the ending. I laughed.

It really was because I didn’t trust them to believe me. I’m a damn idiot.

“There’s no time, you say?” I lifted my phone and displayed the Redshift app. “Time is in the palm of my hand.”

I am not alone.

“I’ll use that logic to convince you,” I said to Mintaka. I can use the knowledge of Sirius and Anna’s feelings to convince them. And Rigel…

I swallowed. I have to turn him down properly. He doesn’t remember confessing to me, but his feelings will be unchanged.

This time, for sure. I’ll do it properly.

“But, Antares.”

“Yeah?”

“You won’t have seen all the suspicious shit I did,” I said. “Can you give me a trust password of some sort?”

He knitted his fingers. “Huh… anything in particular you’re looking for?”

“Something that I’ll only know if I came back in time. Maybe… what was on your mind this morning?”

Antares let out a sigh, and motioned me by his ear. As I stepped towards him, he pulled his toned arms into a tricep stretch, eyes closed. I swear, he was flexing. I couldn’t help but stare, momentarily. He whispered, “Alright, fine. This morning, I was upset that Rayet forgot our six month anniversary.”

“When was it?”

“Two days ago. And not a word.” He pointed a finger, and aloud, he said, “If you spill to anyone, I’ll quit the band forever.”

I couldn’t help but give the slightest grin. “We’ll talk through it later, okay?”

“You mean, next time, we are going to have talked about it, later.” A wry smile. If I didn’t reset time soon, an English major was going to come through the window and gun him down.

“Yes, that. In any case… we’ll talk about it. You can do it.”

“Take care of yourself, first, sometimes.”

“I’m the bassist,” I said. “Occupational hazard.”

He just crossed his arms.

“And Mintaka.”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t remember this. But… last loop, you tried to save my life.”

“I did?”

Unsuccessfully, but that would be saying too much. “Yeah. And I never got a chance to thank you, so... Thanks. I owe you.”

She managed a smile. “Yeah.”

The sun had set, now. The murder would be happening soon. I wanted to be out of here before it happened. But that was all I had to say.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m gonna head out.” I extended my hand, with my finger over the reset button.

“Godspeed,” Mintaka said. Antares just gave a single nod.

“See you on the other side.” I pushed the button. “Lightspeed Blue!”

It felt like the floor giving out beneath me. The world turned white. 

Sunday, April 16th, Early Morning

I sat up. It was the clubroom, again. I stood up, with a deliberate speed, strode towards the door, and pulled it open. As I did, a comfortable rush filled my body.

I can do it.

Sirius was standing in the door frame. Before his face turned to shock, there was a casual grin on his face. That damn smile. That smile that I fell in love with, that all of the band’s fans fell in love with, and, most importantly, that Anna fell in love with.

“Whoa!”

Before he could regain his composure, I stepped forward, eyes full of light. “Guten Morgen, Sirius.”

I am not alone.

Six uses remaining.