“It does, but only while you are here. That said, it is always easier to replicate magic when you’ve felt it before. You know what you’re looking for. That is why we come here.”
“I used to come here when I wanted to quiet my mind,” Arielle said in a low voice. “It may sound weird because there are lost souls here.”
Magdalena smiled at her. “Mages come here for all sorts of reasons. Sadly, it is only those gifted with the ability to use time who truly wield the magic converging in this remarkable place.”
The hum in the air shifted, pressing gently against my skin.
Then I feel it…
The threads.
Magdalena was right. Itwasdifferent here. I could sense the changes even stronger now that we were deeper inside the cave.
Magdalena focused on me again, her eyes bright in the dim glow. “Today,” she said, “you will not chase time. You will stand inside it and allow the continuum to guide you. Are you ready?”
I nodded. “I am.” Part of me was scared too, but that part needed to stay quiet.
“Let’s start with some balancing exercises to align with the continuum.” She spread out her arms and we followed. “Close your eyes and feel the air.”
I did as she instructed. The moment my fingers brushed the air a warm sensation swirled low in my chest. Then the hum beneath the stone sharpened, and something inside me answered it.
The threads I’d learned to harness didn’t feel distant here. They pressed close, grazing my skin like fine strands of silk drifting in water. I inhaled slowly and the feeling grew stronger.
It pulled at me. Not forward. Not backward.Outward.
As if every direction at once had opened and was waiting for me to choose.
“Do you feel it?” Magdalena asked.
“Yes.” Arielle and I answered in unison.
“Now open your eyes.”
I opened my eyes and there were threadseverywhere.
We looked around completely overcome with awed.
Fine strands of gold stretched across the cavern, suspended in the air like a vast, intricate web. Some ran straight and unwavering. Others forked, split, rejoined, spiraled. They crossed above us, beneath us, through us—so numerous and interwoven that for a dizzying moment I couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.
It was a picture-perfect vision of the night sky turned inside out.
A constellation of time.
I lifted my hand slowly and the threads nearest to me trembled in response.
“Come let us go further in, this is just the beginning.” Magdalena waved us forward and continued on the path.
We followed.
The cave grew wider the deeper we went, and the threads multiplied. We stopped in a wide, spacious cavern that was as big as a field and had a lake running through it.
I gasped at the sight, not expecting to find something of this magnitude inside here.
“My gosh. It’s so… wow,” I stuttered.
“And there’s more, you could spend days inside this place and never reach the end,” Arielle explained.
“It’s true,” Magdalena agreed. “I’ve never known anyone to reach the end. Some say there is none, that the cave continues into the eternities because of the strong time magic.”
