A knock at the door meant Aisha had arrived. She was the only visitor Julia had had since getting stuck in the past. No one else knew she was here. So it was more than surprising when she saw someone else on the other side of the door. It was the black-haired man from their attempted robbery the year before.

“You are a hard person to find.”

His demeanor was casual, unthreatening, but Julia saw danger everywhere. She immediately began summoning a portal, but the man held out a hand to try to interrupt her.

“Wait. I just want to talk. Honest. Please, just let me explain.”

He sounded sincere, but people with ill-intent rarely announced it. Still, if he had found her this time, Julia reasoned, he could probably do so again. Maybe it was worth the risk to see what she could learn.

“Fine. Outside.” Indicating the two chairs she kept on the porch, she shut and locked the door. It would do much if he was determined to get inside, but she wanted him to know that she wasn’t going to drop her guard.

He sat in the chair closest to the edge of the porch and waited for her to sit before speaking.

“Thank you for hearing me out.”

“You didn’t exactly give me a choice, showing up at my home like this. Who are you?”

“Oh, are we exchanging names? Are you going to tell me yours?”

“Probably not,” she admitted.

“Then I hope you won’t be offended if I don’t share mine. I was trying to stop… a friend… from going further down a bad path. I put out rumors there was a book… he would want. I was hoping to lure him out. You and your companion caught me by surprise.” The way he said ‘friend’ suggested that he wasn’t sure he should be using the word.

“So we walked into a trap not meant for us.”

“Essentially. Why were you interested in the book?”

“I wanted it for my research.”

Julia felt like they were circling one another, each giving only enough information to draw the other out.

“Your research? You weren’t there on behalf of someone else?” He seemed surprised by her answer.

“I’m not working for anyone.”

“What about your companion? Is she working for someone else?”

“She’s working for me. Are you going to tell me what this is all about? Why you tracked me down after a year? How you tracked me down? Or are you just trying to get some information for nothing?”

“I wanted to be certain you weren’t there on behalf of… my friend. But I was also curious about you. You seem… out of place.”

“Well, there was no one else behind our attempt on the book. And I’m not about to tell a complete stranger anything about myself. So thank you for stopping by. Don’t come back.” Julia stood, and walked to the door.

He looked as though he would object but seemed to think better of it. “Very well. I appreciate your time.” Before he stepped off the porch, he turned to face her. “A bit of advice from a complete stranger. Your research involving time magic? Give it up. I’ve seen people hurt by it.” With that, he walked away.

It hadn’t sounded like a threat; rather, it seemed to be genuine concern. Julia wasn’t sure what to make of it.

A short time later, Aisha arrived. “How’s it going?”

“I think it’s time for me to move,” Julia said.

Aisha looked sad for just a moment before she reasserted a placid expression. “Does that mean you’ve solved the problem?”

After a moment of confusion, Julia realized there was misunderstanding. “No, no. You’re still stuck with me. I meant literally; I need to move. That mage, the one from our book heist? He showed up here.”

Relief changed to concern in an instant. “Are you okay? What happened? How did you get rid of him?”

“Everything’s fine, but I don’t know for how long.” Julia gave her a quick summary of the visit. “Even though he left, I don’t like the idea of someone else knowing where to find me. I didn’t even want anyone to know about me.”

“So you’re leaving the cabin?” Aisha looked around wistfully.

“No. I’m just going to move the cabin into a pocket space. That way, no one can find it. I should have done it years ago, but it felt like overkill. Not so much now.”

“If no one can find it, then how…”

“I was hoping you’d come with me. I have room. And I can always make more. We can also work out a way for you to come and go for your business in the outside world.”

Aisha was quiet for long enough that Julia started to get nervous. “I’m sorry. That was too much. I can just figure out a way for you to come by when…”

Putting a finger to Julia’s lips, Aisha broke into a smile. “Stop. Of course I’ll go with you. I’m just happy you’re not leaving yet.”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Julia muttered.

“C’mon, you know you love me.” Aisha gave her a mischievous grin.

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“I’ve got a lead on a book about temporal magic. You want it, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Julia reluctantly agreed.

“We’ll be in and out before anyone notices, so don’t worry.”

Julia didn’t feel reassured, but they were already outside the house. One portal brought them to a second story balcony, and another took them through the glass doors. They were inside a nicely furnished office.

“What about magical safeguards?” The ease with which they had entered made Julia uneasy.

“This isn’t a mage’s house. Just some rich collector. There is only mundane security which is easy to deal with.”

“So why did you need my help?”

“I like the company.”

Julia let out an exasperated sigh. Over the years she had known Aisha, she had come to trust the woman more than anyone she had met, except Jason. Even so, she wasn’t always sure when Aisha was joking and when she was serious.

“Okay, here’s the safe. Give me a minute.” Aisha had opened what looked like a cabinet door. The dark metal front of a safe glinted in the dim light. She used shadow magic – a branch of spatial magic, Julia had gathered – to manipulate the safe’s lock and open it.

“You do this a lot?” Julia’s question was rhetorical, but Aisha answered anyway.

“Only in emergencies. I prefer get my acquisitions through mutual understandings. But this collector was being stubborn.”

Aisha stood up holding a small, brown leather book. “Here we go.” She began looking through the pages.

“Good. Let’s get out of here.” Julia started opening a portal when noticed Aisha’s look turn to puzzlement and then fear. “What is . . .” Before she could finish her question, a faintly glowing cylinder surrounded the other woman.

“It’s a trap. Look.” Aisha turned the book so Julia could see that all of its pages were blank.”

“Shit. I’ll make a portal to get you out.”

Every portal she tried to open failed. The barrier was blocking her spells.

“So much for that. What about you?”

Aisha shook her head. “None of my magic is working.”

“I thought you said this guy wasn’t a mage.”

“He isn’t. At least, he’s not supposed to be.”

Both women fell silent while they tried to think of a solution. Julia probed the floor below the barrier with no luck: the barrier was completely sealed. Finally, Aisha broke the silence.

“You need to leave. You getting caught here is bound to have ramifications for the future. Get out. I’ll be okay.”

“No.” Julia hadn’t even paused to consider the suggestion. “No way. I am not leaving you here. You’re too important . . .”

“Julia, it’s okay. I’ll be fine. We have to keep you out of this.”

“I appreciate your concern, but I’m not leaving a friend, someone I care about. I can’t lose anyone else; I have too few friends as it is. Now help me come up with a way out of this.”

Just as Julia remembered something, a man entered the room. He had shoulder length black hair and was dressed casually in jeans and a sweatshirt. There was nothing particularly remarkable about him, but Julia thought she had seen him before.

“Looks like the cheese lured in a mouse. Two mice,” he corrected himself after noting Julia. “But you aren’t who I was expecting. Who are you?”

Neither woman responded. Julia tried to maintain eye contact while she searched her pocket.

The man turned all of his attention to her. “What is going on with you? This can’t be right.”

As soon as she felt the right crystal, she pulled it out and touched it to the barrier. It disappeared instantly, and Julia shoved the crystal back into her pocked before summoning a portal.

“Wait!”

Ignoring the man’s yell, Julia grabbed Aisha’s arm and pulled her through the portal, closing it behind them. They both fell to the grass outside Julia’s cabin and spent some time catching their breath.

“That was fun,” Aisha said after a while.

“You have a weird notion of fun.”

“Probably. You’re going to have to tell me how you managed that.”

“Later. Let’s get inside. I need a drink.”

“You traveled back in time?” Aisha took a sip of her whiskey.

“Yes.”

“But how? You’re not even a time mage.”

“I… It’s long story, and I don’t think I should tell anyone how I managed it. Can you imagine what would happen if others figured it out. Would you trust people not to abuse the information? Honestly, I’m not even sure why it worked. Maybe because of how desperate I was. Or maybe because I got lucky. Now that I’m here, I am scared to do anything to alter the past. My past. So I’m staying away from anyone I knew.”

“Maybe you can’t change the past?”

“What do you mean?” Aisha’s response had taken her by surprise.

“Think about it. If you did change something, it could create a contradiction, a paradox. Since those are impossible, maybe it’s impossible to do anything that would cause one. Maybe, in your past, you were always here, always doing these things.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a brilliant or terrifying. But I also don’t want to test your hypothesis. If you’re wrong, I don’t want to think about the damage I might do.”

“So if you don’t want to change the past, why did you come back?”

“Because I didn’t think it through. A friend of mine had died. I – foolishly – thought I could come back and prevent it.”

“But you couldn’t? Then my idea . . .”

“I didn’t really try. I came back so far that he hadn’t yet met me. When I went to speak to him, he convinced me . . . He made me reflect on the dangers inherent in changing the past. So I said goodbye without saving him. He’s still out there. Alive. For now. And even if I decided to take the risk, he won’t let me.”

Julia choked out the last few words and fell silent. Research had kept her distracted, but talking about Jason made her heart hurt. She couldn’t talk to him. She couldn’t even talk to his ghost because he wasn’t dead yet. A deep sadness came over her.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Aisha reached out to touch her arm.

Julia realized tears were running down her cheeks. She wiped them away and tried to force a smile. “I didn’t realize how much grief I was holding in.”

“So now you’re stuck? You can’t get back to your own time?”

“That is another long story. I had to close off my way home. That’s why I became a recluse and need your help.”

Aisha laughed. “Well you have my help, but it’s not free.”

“I know. So are you satisfied with my explanation?”

“It’s an outlandish story, but for some reason I believe you. And you’re secret is safe with me.”

“Thank you, Aisha.”

“You’re saying you saw someone who looked like me?” Julia tried her best to sound confused.

“Don’t insult me. I procure items and information. I know what I saw.”

How should she answer? A lie would be better, perhaps, but what lie even made sense? Julia remembered how she got into this situation: Thomas and his secrets. Was this any different? She was trying to preserve the past, make as few waves as possible. She told herself she was doing the right thing, but that was what Thomas believed about his own secrets. Keeping the truth hidden had caused so many problems, and she didn’t want to follow Thomas’s example.

“We can go inside and see her if you don’t believe me.”

“No!” Aisha’s suggestion surprised her, and she panicked at the prospect of confronting her past self.

“So are you going to explain?”

“Why were you even here? Were you investigating me?”

“Don’t change the subject. If you won’t tell me, maybe she will.”

“Okay, okay.” She didn’t want Aisha making the situation worse. “Can we talk back at my cabin? I don’t anyone, especially her, to see me.”

Aisha stared at her for a minute, seemingly trying to decide if she could trust Julia. “Fine, but if you don’t come clean, I’ll be coming back here.”

“Fair enough.” Julia opened a portal and stepped through.

Back in her cabin, Julia fell into an armchair. “I’d offer you something to drink, but you’d probably just accuse me of stalling.”

Aisha sat down facing her but said nothing.

“I’m not sure how to explain this, but I must ask that you keep this a secret. Telling you is dangerous. If it were to get further than us, I can’t imagine what damage it might do.”

“Okay.” Aisha sounded skeptical.

“That woman you saw, the one at the bar, that was me. About twelve years ago. Or rather, I am her, twelve years from now.”

“What does that mean?” Aisha’s confusion was obvious.

“I traveled back in time. She belongs here; I don’t.”

“Time travel? That’s impossible. No wizard has ever managed it. And you’re not a time mage. You really expect me to believe this?”

“I don’t know what I expect.” Julia didn’t even want to tell Aisha any of this, much less try to convince her of it. “You wanted to know what was going on, this is what’s going on.”

“I thought maybe a twin sister, or even a clone, but this . . .”

“Those would have been good stories. But I am choosing to respect you, to trust you with the truth.”

“Thanks, I guess. But still . . .”

“I’m trying to avoid screwing up the past. I need her life to stay the same, so that my past doesn’t change. So please don’t talk to the other me. Please.”

There was several moments of silence before Aisha responded. “I think I will have that drink now. Something strong, please.”

Mages’ notes were nearly impenetrable to anyone else. Short-hand, idiosyncratic symbols, and personal abbreviations made such notes basically useless if you weren’t familiar with them. So it came as little surprise that Aisha had had trouble finding any written material.

Luckily for her, Julia still had Jason’s purple crystal, which made it possible to decipher the notes Aisha had brought her. It took months to get through them, and she reread them multiple times. Not having Jason’s gift for mana was a hindrance, but Jason’s notes had given her a start. Too bad those were still in the future where she couldn’t get at them. Still, she was able to make out some of the basic principles and was making progress, albeit slowly. Luckily, she had nothing else to do.

Except for her occasional visits with Esther, she didn’t got anywhere; indeed, she rarely even went outside. Aisha brought her everything she needed, and she spent all her time researching. She wanted to work on the problem of temporal magic, but she had no resources to draw upon. Instead, she worked on the crystals, trying to work out the nature of the crystals that she hadn’t yet understood.

The focus on research wasn’t about boredom; rather, it was to keep her from temptation. Too much free time allowed her mind to wander to events that she wanted to prevent. Rebecca would be fleeing from her “family” in the near future. Bailey would be thrown out of their apprenticeship. It wasn’t only Jason’s death; there was other pain and suffering she could do something about. But Jason had made the dangers clear. As much as she might want to help, there was no way to know what the effects might be if she tried.

Her musings were interrupted by the phone ringing.

“Hello, Aisha.” The other woman was the only person who had the number.

“Hey. I know you hate leaving the house, but could you come here?”

“What? Why?” She trusted Aisha, but this request seemed very out of character.

“I need you to see something. It’s important. I have the crystal you gave me, so I assume you can find me with it.”

“Aisha, I really don’t . . .”

“It’s important. Please.” Her voice was urgent, but she didn’t sound panicked.

“Fine. Do I need to bring anything?”

“No. Just you.”

Julia hung up and focused on the crystal she had given Aisha. Once she had locked on to it, she opened a portal next to it. The street she found herself on was very familiar. She was in front of The Nameless Bar.

“So you do know this place.” Aisha had obviously noticed the surprise on her face.

“What’s going on, Aisha.”

“You’re going to have to tell me. You see, I just followed you here. At this very moment, you are sitting at the bar. I dialed your number, you answered, but you were sitting at the bar speaking with the bartender at the same time. How is that possible?”

The knock at the door signaled the delivery Julia had been anticipating. Aisha was standing on the other side, her bag slung over her shoulder, smile wide on her face.

“Hey, stranger. Good to see your face.”

Nearly two years had passed since Julia had been trapped in the past. She had met Aisha shortly after her relocation to the other side of the country, and she had been providing Julia with supplies for over a year. The move, and relying on Aisha, was all to avoid having any impact on her own past.

Even before her move, Julia knew that no one was coming back for her. No matter how long it took them to figure out how to return, they could have always traveled back to the time she had closed the portal. That no one had appeared in the first few days after she was trapped meant she was on her own. If she wanted to get back to her proper time, she would have to do it herself. However, she had no real idea how to go about it. Instead, she threw herself into research, and Aisha was crucial to that.

“It hasn’t been that long, has it?” Julia stepped aside to let the other woman come in.

“Well, I tried to come by yesterday, but you weren’t here. Or you were ignoring me.” Aisha walked into the living room and sat down without waiting for an invitation. “So which was it?”

Julia sat down facing her. “I wasn’t ignoring you. You know better than that. I thought you weren’t coming until today, so I was visiting a friend.” Esther and Rook still wanted her to drop by now and then.

“I didn’t think you had any friends. Beside me, that is.”

“Very funny. I’ll have you know I am very popular.”

“So popular, you live alone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.”

“Okay, okay.” Julia held up her hands in surrender. “I give. Your tongue is too sharp.”

Aisha’s smile widened, flashing her teeth. “Not just my tongue.”

Julia ignored that. “So what did you bring me this time.”

Aisha was brash and friendly, but there was more to her. Julia hadn’t gotten too far below the surface, but she valued the other woman’s company and friendship.

“The mundane supplies should be delivered tomorrow. As for the more interesting stuff…” Taking her bag off her shoulder, Aisha set it on the table and opened it. “First, and most obviously, more crystals.” She pulled out more than a dozen empty crystals and put them down on the table. “I was also able to track down the rarer ingredients you asked for.” She set five jars with different substances next to the crystals. “This one,” she held up a bottle containing a purple powder, “was the tricky one. Asking for ground quartz exposed to temporal magic raised more than a few eyebrows.”

“I appreciate the effort, Aisha. Were you able to track down any books?”

“There I struck out, I’m afraid. You have to know mages don’t write a lot of books.”

“I suppose not. Thanks anyway.” Julia had never asked if Aisha was actually a mage or not.

“However,” Aisha pulled out a file folder, “I did manage to track down some notes that might be usable. On mana, not temporal magic.”

Julia took the folder and began paging through it. “Aisha, this is wonderful. Anything helps. I cannot thank you enough.”

“Glad I could help.” She hesitated for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got your payment.” Julia looked up from the pages in the folder to hand six charged crystals to Aisha.

“Not that. Although, thank you.” She put the crystals in her bag. “I’ve been supplying you for a while, and I know it’s none of my business, but would you tell me what you’re up to? Your requests are always so specific, and I thought it might help if I knew what you were doing.”

Julia smiled. “You’re right, it’s none of your business. You want a beer?”

Aisha shrugged. “Sure. We can talk about the weather instead.”