“This isn’t outside it. This is the process of traveling through it, which is a very different thing.”

“Is it?”

Gertie didn’t answer, but the days started passing faster now, until the strobing effect of the sun and stars alternating overhead made me dizzy. On the opposite bank, buildings popped up and down, as newer ones were torn away by the builders that scurried across them like ants, and older ones rose in their place. Or disappeared entirely, like the trees that shrank back into the earth, or rose magically from the blade of a woodsman’s ax.

It was a different way of viewing time than I was used to, and yes, it wasn’t anything like stepping outside it. That left Earth behind entirely, in favor of a different realm—a very scary one. But this… was more like what I was used to, only slowed down enough that I could watch the years scroll by.

I could see details that I’d never noticed before, and watch events unfold at whatever speed I liked. Yet all the while, I was a ghost, a phantom, an unseen eye that no one noticed because I wasn’t really here. I wasn’t really anywhere.

“You could use it to spy on people,” I said. “To watch them unseen without having to risk stepping outside of time.”

“Good,” Gertie said. “Anything else?”

I thought about it, and then frowned. “You could see what’s behind a door without having to shift inside a room. You could walk in with nobody the wiser, because you’re not really there yet, and find out what kind of mess you’re about to pop into before you actually do.”

“Very true.”

“That would have been really helpful to know about—more than once!”

“Well, now you do.”

“Damn it, Gertie!”

“It’s also used in dueling,” Agnes spoke up, her voice amused. “To avoid an opponent’s next move whilst planning your own.”

“Is that how you always get ahead of me?” Rhea demanded. “How you seem to know what I’ll do before I do?”

Agnes smirked.

“That’s cheating!”

“Not my fault that you weren’t properly trained.”

“It’s entirely your fault!”

“Rhea—” I began.

“I’m just your dueling partner,” Agnes said. “Trying my best to get you up to some kind of standard. Fortunately, your court has a low bar—”

“You’re one to talk!”

“Our court is properly run,” Agnes told her proudly. “Unlike some I c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c—”

Shit, I thought.

“—could name.”

Time snapped back into focus, after briefly going hazy, and everybody looked around in surprise. Everybody except me. I was too busy staring in disbelief at what was approaching over Agnes’ shoulder, boiling across the water like a demon.

Or a god.

“What was that?” Agnes demanded. “What just happened?”

“I think we found him,” I said, right before all hell broke loose.

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven