The festival was only just winding down when Ferris finished her patrol. Other than needing to scare a few, particularly rowdy young mages into behaving, she didn’t stumble across any trouble. Perhaps it was still too early to say so, but it seemed like the Boroughs had yet another successful harvest celebration.

As many people as there were heading home or closing shop, there were still plenty of others trying to squeeze in whatever last bit of fun could be had. Ferris wished the best of luck to the night watch as they came to relieve her and headed straight back to the guild. Since she’d have to get back to her usual routine as early as the next morning, she intended to get a good night’s rest.       

The halls were mostly empty when she arrived, the earlier buzz of activity reduced to a soft murmur. She only meant to grab herself a quick drink. Peeking into the dining hall, she saw two familiar faces among the late-night stragglers. Before she could duck away, the Guildmaster’s voice called out to her, “Ferris! Why don’t you join us?”

She inwardly groaned. It wasn’t like she could pretend she didn’t hear him… Both Tobius and Castellar stared at her expectantly from a table nearest the kitchens, sharing a light meal. The large, white dog that was the Guildmaster’s familiar was sleeping fitfully on the bench at his side.

“There’s some Maestro Soup left over the hearth. Go and fetch yourself a bowl.”

While she was still rather full from snacking throughout the festival, she just couldn’t turn up her nose at a ready meal. Doing as told, she found a medium-sized cauldron suspended over a mess of dying embers. Neither Tobius nor Castellar could’ve made the soup recently: Someone must’ve gotten peckish and abandoned the rest.

Maestro Soup was something of a comfort food. It was easy to make, combining any of a certain variety of vegetables like trumpet mushrooms or melody potatoes. If a song was sung while making the dish, it could affect the entire taste. Ferris poured herself only a small amount at first to sample it: It has a strong, earthy flavor, but it wasn’t overpowering enough for her to try changing it. Pooling a bit more into the bowl and grabbing a glass of water, she returned to the dining hall.

“Any trouble on your rounds?” Tobius asked as she sat next to him.

“Nothing worthwhile to report,” she answered simply, hardly looking up from her food. 

“I noticed Ciara attended the festival this year. How was she?”

Ferris smirked at the not-so-sly way he tried to get her to talk. If the conversation involved her sister, she wouldn't be able to keep out of it for long. "Fine, if you can believe it. I think she may have even enjoyed herself." 

"Good! Percy praises her quite a bit too, you know. You've both come a long way." The Guildmaster continued to do the bulk of the talking—bouncing between Ferris and Castellar, who only added the light comment here or there in their efforts to avoid speaking directly to each other. 

Gradually, the trio shifted onto more serious matters. Although the festival was over, they would be busy for the next several days. The number of mages patrolling the Boroughs would need to stay up until the crowds left. There was talk that the roads had grown more perilous in recent months—a point that caught Ferris' interest quite a bit—and so people were likely to request escorts from the guild. Everyone's focus would shift to completing the harvest and checking the granaries one final time before the frost settled in.      

This time, Ferris and Castellar would be at the center of all administrative duties. The skeleton was already familiar with them from assisting Tobius for so many years. Ferris, on the other hand, would have her work cut out for her. She wouldn't have to concern herself so much with ledgers or memberships, but all activities relating to the guild's crimson mages would be her responsibility: Training newcomers, delegating jobs to the right people, assisting the community through weather predictions and the like. She could already feel the weight of the role soon to be on her shoulders.   

A reddish-orange blur darting by the windows caught her attention near the end of the conversation, reminding her of yet another duty she had to bear: Finding who would inherit the power to reverse time next.   

Losing that power someday without warning was always a possibility. No, an inevitability. Based on the private records Madame Valda shared with her, one of their predecessors gained and lost the ability within a single day. Another was forced to study on their own because they gained it only after the previous time-traveler passed away for good, and many more possessed it for any number of years in-between.   

Not one of them understood how it passed from one person to another: All they could do was ready themselves as best as they good by trying to prophesize who would become their successor. It was how Madame Valda found her. It was how Ferris was expected to find her own student. Truthfully, she'd never cared to dwell on it much. Forced to rush through her apprenticeship, she always thought that if anyone took her power within that time, it would ultimately fall Valda to teach them too. But now...

Ferris lightly tapped the surface of the table in thought. She couldn't stop thinking about that child that appeared so consistently in her visions. Were they her future student? It made too much sense, but their clothes and environment were unlike anything she'd seen elsewhere. Clues of some far-off country? Perhaps. There wasn't a guarantee that whoever inherited her power would come from Ebott. Still, she'd seen much of the same architecture, heard the same language, even if the words and phrasing were sometimes strange. 

It didn't explain why they reminded her so much of Ciara either...   

Brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes, the young woman excused herself from the table. She told Tobius that she wanted a bit of fresh air. She hoped to chase down a certain, odd fox. 

If anyone could tell her who the child was, it would have to be that familiar. Even if the two hadn't met yet, Ferris had a sneaking suspicion it wouldn't matter to the otherworldly being. They would meet, of that she was certain—and the fox likely knew that too. 

Excluding the first time they'd met, it was rare to spot the fox anywhere without Blaze. Ferris nearly lost sight of her by the edge of the woods. The twin-tailed creature sneezed, bristling from the cold. 

Ferris jogged over, but before she could say a word, she felt a shift of energy. Not a moment later, a dark rift cut through the air right in front of the fox. It tore open further, becoming a black shape of an undefined mass. The mage quickly tried to appraise it, but the spell didn't work. It was as though nothing was there.

The familiar jumped into it, disappearing without so much as a sound. 

Without much thought, unwilling to let the opportunity escape her, Ferris vaulted herself toward the rift and stuck her arm inside of it before it could close. She only realized after the fact how foolish and potentially dangerous the act was—she could very well have ended up repeating her first death—however, the rift did indeed stay open. It was as though it felt her presence, too scared of harming her to seal on its own. The young woman breathed a sigh of relief. 

Peering into the void beyond for very long strained her eyes. It was just... sheer emptiness; a nothingness far bleaker and lonelier than a night sky. The thought of getting lost in it sent a shiver down her spine. 

Occasionally, she thought she saw runes, or numbers, flicker in and out of the shadows in the form of dim lights. There were long, nonsensical strings of them: 

00101111 01110111 01100001 01110010 01110000 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110010 01100110 01100001 01101100 01101100. 

Ferris looked away as her temples started to ache. This wasn't at all like before, when she'd followed the fox to its little mill. That too felt unnatural, but more-so as though she'd stumbled upon a monk's garden in the middle of the wilderness or stepped into a painting. The path she'd walked then was too uniform, too still. This—

"Get away from that."

Castellar stood behind her, his tone annoyed as if he were scolding some unruly child. Ferris had no idea when he'd snuck up or her, or why he'd decided to follow her outside in the first place.

"I'm not doing anything. Blaze's familiar made it," she managed to say, recovering from her surprise. Truthfully though, a part of her was still tempted to go after the fox and see where the rift led.  

"I had the poor luck of falling into one of those once before." His eyes narrowed. He closed the gap between them and grabbed her by the wrist in a firm grip. "I was left stranded on some hellish cliff-face where the rocks bled a black slime and what I can only assume were plants fired upon me." 

Ferris pursed her lips in a sour expression. "Yet you lived." 

His grip tightened. He aimed to pull her toward him, but she kept her feet stubbornly rooted to the spot. "Ferris, I'm not joking! Wherever that leads, there's no promise you'd make it back.”

Before she could launch another retort, some force, something, grabbed her still extended arm and pulled her through the rift with a sharp jerk. Hanging onto her and standing too close to draw back in time, Castellar was yanked in right after her. Although she felt the tug of his magic around her soul, there was nothing either of them could do once they were past the threshold. Again, all Ferris could think of was how unbelievably dark it was.

How much time passed? Had she fainted? Died? She searched for a familiar, golden star and could not find one.

Not gold. Blue. In what could’ve been a blink of an eye, she found herself staring at a ceiling full of twinkling blue and violet stars. She landed on her back on a soft patch of earth and went still.