Ellura sat on a modern black leather couch that faced the wall of windows in her sky rise apartment. The apartment was more expensive than a doctor should be able to afford, but she didn’t just own the apartment, she owned the entire building. The land this city was built upon had been owned by the twins, its entire existence paid them more than they could ever use.

Immortals had little need for money.

The weekend view was just as hectic as any weekday, cities rarely rested. The sunrise peaked over the skyline to greet her, and as she looked she was met with absolute nothingness. She sipped her mimosa as if the emptiness of her life could be filled with bubbly orange juice. The problem with living a thousand lifetimes is that you eventually experience everything and nothing felt special anymore.

She and her sister had lived through almost every age the world had seen, not including the time of creation. Sometimes they were on the outskirts of humanity, watching and observing, while other times they were the world leaders. Coming to power while disguising their immortality and taking all the world had to offer them was a desire that had long expired for both of them.

In the thousands of years of her life, there were only six months that made her feel real. Every other day was worthless, but her cruel sister sought to shield her from that time of happiness. Hiding away to block her from the true joy she was desperate to have.

Tena said that reliving that period so many times had made Ellura deranged, but she was deranged long before that. That brief period had made her feel happy, an emotion she rarely felt after they got their curse of magic. The playful smiles of her youth had long since abandoned her face, happiness was nothing more than a memory.

And no matter what she did, it was always taken from her.

As many times as she tried to go back to manipulate the events and extend the experience, nothing changed. The nexus always ruined everything. Every repeated endeavor had left her empty handed. Thinking about it made her angry and she threw the delicate champagne flute across the room. Liquid and glass shards sprayed across the window, distorting the view, but it didn’t matter. Consequences were irrelevant to a person like her.

With a golden glow, the mimosa and glass reversed back together in her hand, and she took a long gulp to finish it. She bent forward to set the glass on the coffee table, and the air began to shimmer next to her cup. Gold swirled and formed itself into a delicate amber colored crystal owl. She cocked her head to stare at it.

This was irregular.

The magic that bound her and her sisters’ immortal lives together did not let them stay in separate times for long. To bring them back together eventually artifacts would appear, granting them a single use of the opposite magic to reunite them. However, this artifact was manifesting in the wrong time.

Artifacts had only ever appeared to bring those stuck in a reflection out, never to take someone into it. Even when she went back in time without her sister, she never received artifacts, because Ellura's magic was the half to travel forward. She was not stuck, so the magic never tried to reunite them.

Only Tena had needed an artifact a few times in the early years of them learning how the magic worked. Picking up the delicate bird, she smiled. She did not know why this glitch in the magic had occurred, but she could possibly use it to her advantage.

She stood and took the bird to a floating glass shelf that held many secrets that Ellura kept from her twin. While she wasn’t sure what role the artifact would serve, she chose to put it among her most prized possessions and placed it next to an aged hospital bracelet.