Chapter 2
The next day, she folds the Maria-construct's little birds again. The activity is soothing, and fills her hours while her friends' constructs are in class. It shows up again, just watching her fold.
"Do you know any other animals?" she asks.
"Why?"
"We did birds yesterday."
"Y-yesterday... you remember yesterday, then."
Katarina looks askance at the construct. "Of course I do. Isn't that the whole point?" She pauses then, considering. "Wait- you're the only phantom that's able to remember yesterdays, either. Why?"
"I wish I knew," it mutters angrily.
Once she really thinks about it, Katarina realizes the Maria-construct is undoubtedly an aberration. Where all the other phantoms take the same routes every day and never remember yesterday, the Maria-construct behaves like...well, like her. Could it be that she and Maria were trapped in hell together?
She proposes this theory to the being she's increasingly certain is the actual Maria, and the blonde nods. "Yes, you got caught in my loop somehow." She's clearly displeased, brow furrowed in worry.
"Your loop?"
Maria ignores the question. "You used to be just like the- um, phantoms. You'd be in the same place, doing the same thing, every day. And a few days ago, you started moving, showing up where I wouldn't expect you, and now you're remembering yesterdays... do you wear any protective enchantments? Or practice any sort of non-standard magic?"
"No to both," replies Katarina, even more confused.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
With that, Maria abruptly walks off, leaving Katarina alone among the phantoms again.
That afternoon, the exile scene plays out again, and Katarina finds herself at the inn with the guard. This time, she pays for dinner, and thanks him again when he repeats yesterday's advice. She doesn't bother trying to stay awake this time, and falls asleep as soon as he leaves.
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Katarina awakens. Today, she decides, she will learn to cook. She's getting quite bored of chicken milanese. Maria finds her pulling an only slightly mangled pepper-steak from the student kitchen's oven.
"Hi," she calls in greeting, dress flecked with meat-juice.
"You should wear an apron," says Maria. "Do you mind sharing that?"
Katarina shrugs. The commoner must be tired of the milanese too. "I can't finish it on my own, so you might as well join me."
She puts the steak-pan on the wooden table, which singes from the heat. "You can't just-" Maria begins. "-oh, whatever." The light mage pulls cutlery and plates out of a cabinet as Katarina uncorks a bottle of wine she stole from the pantry. They settle down to eat quietly, until the steak is gone and Maria is on her second glass of wine, and Katarina on her fourth.
"You don't seem that angry at me," she slurs. "Given that I tried to kill you."
"You don't seem that angry at me," counters Maria. "You died because of me."
"That's a little self-centered, don't you think? I died because of Keith, really. Anyway, since we're both dead now, none of it matters."
"...Right, dead," repeats Maria, pressing her red cheek to the table's surface. The wine is catching up with her. "I'm stuck here, with you."
"Trust me, little light mage," laughs Katarina, "you aren't my first choice either."
"Who would you choose?"
"My mother." She thinks of Anne, at first, but Anne wouldn't belong in hell. Miridiana Ames, on the other hand, is ruthless enough to end up here.
"Really? I expected you to say Jeord."
"There's only one person I'd want here more than Jeord." Oops- she hadn't meant to admit that, but it seems the wine was loosening her tongue as well. Hastily, she tries to redirect the conversation. "Who would you choose?"
"Keith," sighs Maria. "Keith, my beloved..."
"Not your parents?" asks Katarina, curious.
"My mother is better off without me," the other girl replies.
Katarina can think of nothing to say in response, so she offers to refill Maria's glass instead, but finds the bottle empty. "-Oh," she mumbles, woozily. "We're out. I'll get some more."
Halfway through the next bottle, Maria is fast asleep on the table, and Katarina's vision is so blurry she can barely walk to the bathroom. The Jeord-phantom spots her stumbling about, and strides over. To her, he's but a blur of white and gold.
"What the devil have you done, Katarina?" Its hands are on her elbows, steadying her. "You smell like a disreputable tavern."
"What do you care, hellspawn," she spits. "I just want to use the bathroom-"
"I'll walk you there," replies the suddenly-interested fake-Jeord.
"...Fine." It would take longer for Katarina to get there herself, anyway.
The construct waits outside politely as she finishes up, and places her hand into the crook of its arm again. "May I escort you to your room?"
"No," she mumbles into the familiar-smelling white-clad chest. "Gotta see- Maria-"
"Maria?" asks the construct, alarmed. "Fine, where to?"
They stumble forward a few steps until phantom-Jeord loses his patience. "This is too slow," it proclaims, kneeling with its back to her. "Come, I'll carry you."
"Really?" Katarina is so touched, she wants to cry. "That's so nice of you! Thank you, hellspawn!"
The construct laughs, more genuinely than she's ever heard from Jeord since they were children. "All right, hop on."
Giggling, she directs it toward the student kitchen, and it puts her down before opening the door. Maria is awake again, drinking another glass of white. "Oh, Kati, I was wondering where you went," she says, teeth bared in a wild, open smile.
"Bathroom," replies Katarina, stumbling back over to her chair.
"Oh, and you brought the third prince back with you, how nice," continues Maria, cocking her head to the side as she considers phantom-Jeord.
"The construct followed me," Katarina faux-whispers. "It wouldn't leave me alone."
"What the devil is going on here?" it asks, looking between Maria and Katarina with alarm. "Did she get you drunk?" It's addressing Maria.
"Nooo-ooo," Maria replies. "I got me drunk." This sends her into a fresh round of giggles, as Katarina attempts to myopically stare down the construct. She slides off her chair and stands, raising the empty bottle of red as a gavel.
"Silence, hellspawn!" she yells, waving her implement threateningly. "Begone, continue with your devilry elsewhere- for this is- is a quarantine meant for dead human souls exclusively-"
At that point, she runs out of steam and sits, pressing her own forehead to the table. She's quite proud of herself for managing so many lengthy words. She waits there, for what feels like just a moment, listening to fake-Jeord and Maria talk.
"This is an absolute disgrace to the student council, Maria," fake-Jeord is saying. "What if Sirius had found you, instead of me?"
"Damn the student council," she snarls. Katarina hears the construct step back in shock.
"Maria!" it chides, scandalized, but with a glimmer of- of interest? God, the Jeord construct really is the creepiest one.
"You and your blasted student council- yes, everyone knows it's yours, Jeord, because Nicol does whatever you tell him to do- is really none of my concern. It's not like anyone but Keith helped me when it mattered, so why don't you take your scolding and shove it up your-"
"Okay," declares fake-Jeord. "That's quite enough, you've made yourself clear." Katarina looks up then, and its eyes are practically glimmering with curiosity.
"I would hope she has," she says. "Well, I mean, it was a little unfair to Nicol," she continues, turning to Maria, "but that's all right, I suppose you didn't know him for very long before-"
"I agree," it interjects. "That is a rather uncharitable view of Nicol-"
"Ugh," groans Katarina, disgusted. Even talking to the construct suddenly feels like trailing her fingers through slime. Concentrating hard, she raises an earth bump below its feet, nearly toppling it- but it has Jeord's innate grace, and much like the Keith-construct, catches itself quickly. She scowls. "Out!" she yells, pointing at the door, and the hellspawn has the good sense to obey.
Maria begins to giggle again. "Katarina Claes! I never thought I'd see the day you pushed Jeord away!"
"Uh-oh," mumbles Katarina, watching the sun dip lower on the horizon. "The last time I stayed on campus this late, there was a- a tribunal-"
And the guard is back, right on time, appearing at the door to the student kitchens to escort her there. He bows. "Lady Katarina Claes, your presence is requested immediately for a trial, by the authority of Sorcier Academy of Magic."
"See you tomorrow," she promises, and Maria waves as she walks off with the guard to repeat the exile scene yet again.
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The next day, Katarina seeks Maria out, and finds her reading in the library.
"We should drink again," the blonde says. "No hangover, you know."
"You aren't the same as life-Maria."
She cocks an eyebrow. "No?"
"Not a bit," replies Katarina. "It's odd. Good, but still odd."
"You think it's good?" She sounds incredulous.
Katarina shrugs. "You were boring, before."
"You and that prince are quite the pair," the other girl replies. "Do you want to know why I seem so different?"
"Yes."
"Tell me first, how long have you been reliving this day?"
"Twice I left campus, and thrice I was exiled- so it's been five times."
Maria laughs, hollow and empty. "How many times do you think I've lived this day?"
"Same as me, I thought..."
"I've lived this day one hundred and thirty-one times, not counting today."
Katarina's mouth drops open in shock. "You've been alone with the constructs for that long?"
"Yes," she sighs. "And I miss Keith like you wouldn't believe."
A rush of sympathy fills Katarina so quickly she can barely breathe. "When I miss Jeord," she admits, "I like to sit by the fire. It makes me feel closer to him."
"Want to know something else?" asks Maria, completely ignoring her admission.
"What?"
"I think might be able to get us out of here, but I'm going to need your help."
"What?! To heaven?"
"...Yes. To heaven."
"Yes! What do you need me to do?"
Katarina isn't the world's best student, so when Maria says she needs her brain, she can't help but feel alarmed. But as it turns out, she only needs her for memorization.
"There's a lot of information in these books," explains Maria. "But I can't take notes or keep references to any of it except in my mind, because they'll disappear the next day. For the references I use currently, I composed a song to memorize them, to the tune of twinkle-twinkle-little-star. Feel free to use that memory device, or another, but I'll need you to remember a list of names and page numbers."
Katarina takes her suggestion, and memorizes her song to the itsy-bitsy spider. She hums it throughout their their study session (Maria reading and asking her for references, and her folding paper birds). "Are you sure you don't want my help?" she asks.
"The theory is beyond you," comes the reply. "And your earth magic is useless in this case. If that could fix things, Keith would have rescued me already."
Katarina's still humming the itsy-bitsy spider through her trial and exile, and falls asleep in the forest yet again.
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Through the following week, they settle into a routine. During school hours, Maria researches, occasionally asking Katarina to change or add a reference in her song, and Katarina cooks anything she can find other than chicken milanese. In the afternoons, Katarina goes through her tribunal and exile, and Maria does... whatever Maria does, though Katarina bets she's spending time with the Keith-construct.
One day, Maria shuts her book abruptly in the middle of their study session. "Katarina," she says.
Katarina looks up from where she's butter-basting a pan of scallops. "Hm?"
"It's time we tried an experiment."
"An experiment?"
"I want to change your ending. The end of your day, I mean."
"I've changed it before," replies Katarina, confused. "On my first and second days here, I wasn't exiled."
The light mage shakes her head. "That's not what I mean. I want you to fall asleep in your own bed, in your dormitory."
"You think this will help us escape?" asks Katarina skeptically.
She receives a shrug in reply. "Maybe. Are you opposed to trying?"
"No. What exactly do you want me to do?"
The tribunal is initiated by the Claes' and Ames' political enemies' children, via written documents of testimony- so Maria reveals to her the location of the documents, and asks her to burn them before the trial.
They try her strategy the next day, but news of the testimonies has spread far enough that the tribunal is willing to meet on their spoken testimonies to exile her. Then, they try hiding Katarina, but air mage Nicol finds her quickly (though he is quite confused as to why Maria, of all people, would conceal her). They go through numerous other strategies to disrupt or cancel the trial - they poison the jurors, they poison the nobles' children, Maria even blasts the hall apart mid-trial with a powerful burst of magic- but nothing can stop the exile. Even when Maria denies the veracity of the charges, the tribunal continues to run through the night until a solution is reached- and of course, the entire process is forestalled by the usual midnight reset.
They meet again, in the library.
"I'm thinking about this wrong," declares Maria. "The loop is focused on me, obviously-"
"You? Why you?" asks Katarina, annoyed.
"I'm the light mage," she replies flatly.
"...Um, if you say so."
"So I need to change my actions in some way."
Their next experiment is simple - a re-enactment of what had happened on the last day of Katarina's life, including her attempted attack on Maria. Katarina is afraid to face an enraged version of Keith again, but the thought of remaining here forever is far, far worse.
"Sorry I have to attack you," she says.
"You're going to feel the most pain from this," Maria replies, grimacing.
Maria is right. When Katarina is flying through the air, watching blood spurt from her broken veins, she deeply regrets ever agreeing to this. Unsurprisingly, she dies before the day resets, though she still harbors a little fear she may not wake up.
But wake up she does- and she was right, the devil couldn't kill her once she was already dead- and Maria comes to her room with another bright idea. "Feeling okay?" she asks.
"All my ribs are in place, at least," replies Katarina. The Anne-phantom in the corner is mystified, but Katarina does no more than give her a perfuctory squeeze of the hand before she walks down to the library with Maria.
"Today, I want you to succeed in killing me before Keith finds us."
Katarina dies, and the doctors manage to heal Maria. Typical.
Much like the tribunal experiments, they try innumerable permutations of location, timing, and behavior, but none of it can forestall both a Keith-induced death and the tribunal. However, Katarina does come up with a way to avoid the pain- she knows Keith's attack pattern like the back of her hand, now, and can simply trip him up with an earth bump and run, hiding in her room until the tribunal.
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They're in the library again, Maria spinning her pen quickly in frustration.
"Look," interrupts Katarina. She's trying to understand Maria's books now, just in case it might help. "If it's focused on you- what if you broke up with Keith?"
"Break up with Keith?" The pen pauses in her fingers.
"That's the cause of- of everything, isn't it? The death routes, at least."
"But what if it works?"
Katarina frowns. "Then it works. We go to heaven."
"I- ugh-"
"Oh, you don't want to go to heaven without Keith. I'm sorry, Maria, but homicidal maniacs just don't make it there, most of the time- maybe if you said you couldn't be happy without him, they'd bring him up for you, though."
"-Just, shut up. We'll try it."
After Maria breaks up with Keith, fake-Jeord asks her out that same day. Katarina is disgusted. She refuses him, of course, and Katarina is exiled yet again. She knows quite a few things about the guard who takes her, now- his name is Patrick, and he has two sons and a daughter, and he and his family live in a town just a few miles from the Academy, and he became a guard after serving in Sorcier's army for nearly fifteen years.
But then, they decide Maria should try allowing Jeord to court her. Then things get so, so much worse. Katarina rushes in at the preplanned time to attack Maria with her little letter-opener, and Jeord steps up to defend her- and where Keith's eyes were panicked, frantic, Jeord's are completely cool. He raises his sword, and the highest-ranked swordsman in Sorcier cuts her apart efficiently, sliding his sword gently through her chest.
"J-Jeord," she gurgles, blood filling her mouth. "Wh- how-"
Unlike the empty hallway of the Keith-induced death, her, Jeord, and Maria have attracted a crowd of spectators. The fourth prince and his fiancée are there, his expression vengeful as Marquess Hunt hides her face in his shoulder. Nicol is behind Jeord, unreadable as always, covering his sister's eyes. And next to them, Keith- Katarina feels gratified for a moment, because he's glaring daggers at the third prince- and finally, her faithful friend Sienna, expression resolute, pulling her weak air magic between her palms as if she intends to attack Jeord immediately.
"Sienna," she tries to say, but all that comes up is more blood. Maria is as stunned as she is, and ignores Jeord completely in favor of kneeling down next to her. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I know dying isn't fun- I had no idea he'd do that."
Katarina can see Jeord pulling at the other girl's shoulders, trying to force her away. Her "I can't believe it either" doesn't come out, but she thinks Maria understands.
"See you tomorrow," the blonde girl whispers, and Katarina shuts her eyes.