He looked… see-through.
Yes, he was a ghost. Technically, he was always see-through. This looked different. His blue-white fog was fading into faint wisps, the outline of his body fuzzy. I could always see his features if I looked closely enough, but today they were hazy. All I saw was the faint outline of where his eyes and nose and lips were.
Zan shouldn’t look any different from every other cycle, unless he was the one turning back time.
Time-bending magic was taxing, but perfect. First thing in the morning, before I’d changed the course of time with different actions, everything should be the same. How he looked, his words, his position in the bathing room. If I had a timer, Kirin would always burst through the door the same number of seconds after Zan asked if I was alright, unless I got to him first.
If the mage or other magic-user taking me back didn’t have the power necessary to create a perfect rewind, the rewind wouldn’t happen. All or nothing. That was one of the reasons most mages didn’t mess with time-bending, aside from the fact it was extremely illegal. If caught, the Hallowed Council would have a mage killed on the spot.
However, the caster was partially exempt from the perfect rewind. They were brought back to the same location, wearing the same items and physically the same age. A time-bending mage couldn’t replenish their own magic, though, so if their reserves were low enough to be showing the physical effects before turning back the clock, that wouldn’t change.
How many times had I been brought back to this point by now? It had to be around fifty. No matter how strong his magic, he couldn’t recover fast enough to keep doing this eternally.
“Are you… OK?” he asked hesitantly, moving back toward the bathroom door.
“I am.”But you’re not,I added silently. “I’m going to get dressed. Meet you in the living room? And tell Kirin so he doesn’t bust in here.”
“Um, OK?”
He floated through the door and away. Hopefully, Kirin listened to the ghost, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me naked before. He’d seen a heck of a lot more.
For the first part of the day, I went through the motions. Zan stayed out of the way, like he always did, and it gave me time to think. Clearly, he was reaching the end of his rope, which meant I had to do something to stop the rewinds. Getting us out of here, namely. I had all the tools and was hesitating, but the time for hesitation was over.
I wanted to have all the information first. Not having enough information had gotten me into this mess.
The best person to ask was Zan.
Which would let on that I knew he was the one turning back time, and I may have to divulge the fact I knew they were all taking turns killing me. Then again, I would have to be stupid to have not figured that out yet. Leaving the familiar comfort of the library, I wandered the house until I found Zan in his room, hovering over the bed and fiddling with a deck of cards in his solid hands.
“Oh!” he exclaimed when I opened the door, dropping the cards to the floor. “Hadley? I’ll leave.”
He was halfway to the closest wall when I stopped him with my words. “I’m here because I wanted to talk to you. We can’t talk if you leave.”
I closed the door firmly behind me and wandered over to his bed, which was pristine. Did ghosts sleep? Research showed they did, but rarely. Even asleep, he wouldn’t mess up the bed since his body wasn’t tangible. I climbed onto the mattress and leaned back against the headboard, legs pulled up to my chest.
“So, are you going to tell me why you’re all killing me, and why you keep turning back time when I die?”
His cheeks flashed with the glowy blush, but it was faint just like the rest of him. Zan didn’t come any closer, but he also didn’t move farther away which I would consider a win. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The tremble in his voice gave him away. He was a terrible liar. “Yes, you do. You’re basically invisible, Zan. If you keep doing this, one day it won’t work, and then I’ll be dead. I don’t really want to be dead for good, so I’m going to need you to answer my questions.”
“I h-had a r-rough night.”
He hadn’t stuttered around me in a while, but this conversation reintroduced the verbal tic. “I’m sure you did. But we aren’t talking about the night I wandered into this forsaken house, because that happened ages ago in both of our perceptions.”
“I don’t know w-what you’re talking about.”
Resting my head on my hands, I stifled a sigh. I’d hoped he’d be forthcoming when backed into a corner. Zan lying at all was shocking. He was too sweet. It wasn’t in his nature. Uncle Felix must have coerced him into it and forced him to play this ridiculous game that I still hadn’t determined the purpose of. “Please, Zan. We can go back and forth on this all day until I die, or you can admit to me you know what I’m talking about. You denying it doesn’t change me knowing the truth.”
I could hardly see the movement, but it looked like he bit his lip. His hands were wringing together in front of him, one of his typical stress indicators. The silence was so long I almost launched into an interrogation again, but I kept my patience. “Fine. I… I turn back time for you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re supposed to live.”
“If I’m supposed to live, why is everyone in the house taking turns killing me?”
“Um… I haven’t killed you.”
