I had gotten some sleep that night. Not much, bits and pieces of restlessness. Not enough for me to slip into dreams. Meaning there was no escape this time. Nowhere to run or hide from this.

I could do this. It was just a meeting with my friends.

About the truth. That it was my fate on the line. My life.

Red had once told me she'd wanted to graduate. That meant I didn't have that much time if I wanted to change it.

Still, there was some time. Not much. But maybe we could do something. I could do something. Maybe that's what Red has been doing all this time, trying to get me ready to save my own life.

Self-healing spells. All but telling us we would be dealing with a wraith. Even showing me snippets of the fight. Not quite training, but maybe just as valuable.

She… I'd been trying to help. It was reassuring, in its own way. That I would at some point have a plan. But it also meant I had been trying and the odds of success weren't great.

But maybe.

We had to try.

No amount of magic was going to tell me I couldn't have control over my fate. I wasn't going to let a curse do it and this was barely any different. Ancient magic was not going to control me.

I stepped out of my room and closed the door behind me.

The first thing I saw was the Jarec Blue. Twisted together like a rope with bits of thin sheets sticking out at all angles. Yet, when I touched it to hoist myself up into the attic it was as sturdy as stone and thrumming with all the heat of a campfire.

Everyone else was already in the attic. The anxiety in the air wasn't surprising. And judging from the looks on everyone's faces, Hypnos abandoned all of us last night.

That means I needed to step up as leader. I didn't ask for it, but it was my responsibility. So I had to try.

"I'd say good morning, but skipping pleasantries might be for the best," I said as I stepped back to lean against the wall and closed the hatch.

Russel and Jarec looked more confused while Fethris and Celica looked like they got even less sleep than I did. Celica still had more effort in her hair than I would ever, but the braids were thicker and looser than usual. And I could see shadows under Fethris' eyes.

We really needed to talk.

"To get us all on the same page," I began as I tried to figure out what to say to make them feel better about this. "Last night we found out who Red really is."

The look of eager anticipation on Jarec's face made me feel bad for what I had to tell him.

"So that's what all the fuss is about. This really that big of a deal?" Russel asked.

I couldn't hold in my wince at that. This was a landmine I needed to navigate very carefully. "Kinda. Yeah."

I needed to just say it. Courage don't fail me now. My friends needed me to stay strong here. For whatever my strength was worth.

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Red is me from the future."

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There. Pin pulled. Now to see how bad the explosion was.

A single momentary pause. Shock? Processing?

"What?!" Russel nearly screamed. "What the hells happened last night?"

I should probably start from the beginning. "We've been seeing a lot of Echoes downstairs, knocking on the same wall with the same pattern of knocks. M wanted me to try it. I asked Fethris to come with in case anything…strange happened."

"In case the curse did something," Jarec commented. The past evidence spoke for itself in that case.

"We found some stairs leading to a room under there," I explained.

Fethris decided to say something and cut in, "It was completely soaked in magic. I'm convinced it's the center of the Echoes enchantment. I've never seen mana so dense in an area before."

"Let me guess, the curse really didn't like it down there?" Jarec phrased it like a question, but his tone told me he'd already guessed the answer.

"As far as I can tell. There was a flash and I think I fainted, Fethris?"

"It was only for a few seconds, but something definitely happened down there."

"I felt okay so we thought everything was fine. But then Celica was bringing Hope upstairs," I continued.

"Hope reached out for Serafina," Celica finally spoke.

"That means there's some lingering power from down there inside of you, that's concerning," Jarec commented. "It also means you're tied to the enchantment now in some way."

"That's what happened next. It started like an Echo of…when I opened Dragon Tower's door for the first time." Spiders. A locked door. And my first encounter with Red.

"Past Serafina saw her," Celica said while pointing to me. Like she was still trying to believe what she'd seen. What had happened last night was still hard to process. Part of me had hoped it was a bad dream.

"Did the conversation match your memories of what happened that day?" Russel asked. That was a far better question than I'd expected any of them to ask.

"As far as I can remember. It was a stressful situation and I don't remember exact details." I wondered if he thought about intersections of timelines and splintering caused by the wings of butterflies. I wasn't an expert, but if anyone here would understand a sci-fi concept like time travel… Russel was probably a better bet than the others.

I was not letting myself think too much about the mild bit of time travel I'd found myself stuck with. I could think about that in more detail when we weren't possibility on the brink of multiple emotional breakdowns.

"Closed loop then," Russel commented. "That's not reassuring."

"We don't know that for sure though, and we won't know until we at least try. What's stopping us from doing that?" I couldn't let the doom of the situation overwhelm the truth. Regardless of any strange magic there was still danger and we were still the ones best equipped to deal with it.

I just needed to convince them of that.

"What are two talking about?" Celica asked. She was starting to sound like her usual self. I hoped that was a good sign.

"Being able to interact with the flow of time, but not able to change anything because those interactions were always part of the timeline," I explained. "But we don't have nearly enough data to say for sure that's how this works."

Then Jarec said the thing I hadn't wanted to put into words. "If Red is you, then that means the wraith is going to be after you. If we don't find a way to change things, you're the one who's going to be bleeding out in the hall."

"Yeah. That is what this means. But that doesn't change anything," I told him.

"What? That changes everything!" Celica cried.

"We can't stop the wraith attack if we don't know who's going to be behind it. The only way to learn that is if Hope finds that knife. Which is what we're already working on. So, what does this really change?" It was the best reasoning I could think of. Something to focus on more than undead claws in my gut.

Celica's tone took on a disbelieving tint, "Um…that you're going to die if we fail?"

"We always knew someone was going to die if we failed, that's not exactly new," I shrugged.

"Yeah but a stranger dying and you dying are different," Jarec pointed out.

I was taken aback by that. A part of me felt uneasy as being seen as worth more than another life. Another was touched at the sentiment. That my life meant more to him than a stranger's. I gathered my thoughts and took a moment to word it carefully, "Regardless, I don't want anyone dying. And it's not just…" I needed to take a deep breath before continuing. "It's not just my life on the line."

"If Red is you from the future," Fethris commented. "Then that means the wraith could still be alive."

"Exactly. So, nothing changes. We have to find Death's Echo. That's the best way to save whoever our thief is planning to kill." I was more involved than I ever expected, but it wasn't just about my life.

Too much was on the line. We had to be very careful. But we'd been doing well so far. It had been nearly a week and we hadn't been caught. If the school's security was going to notice Hope then it would have happened by now, right?

"That means you want us to do what, wait and see?" Jarec asked doubtfully.

"Not quite. We're doing all we can, if we think of more we can do then we will. But we still need to avoid getting caught by anyone. The last thing we need is to attract the attention of our thief."

"Great. Well, that sucks," Russel commented.

"It does," I agreed. "But it's not like we have more options."

"Keep eyes and ears peeled," Jarec said with a sigh. "And our way to contact you still isn't fully done. Needs finishing touches, think we'll be done tonight?"

"Should be," Fethris responded.

"Awesome. That'll make things a lot easier." It was exciting to me, plus being out of the group chat was horrifically inconvenient. And with what we knew now, potentially dangerous.

There was no way to know for sure if any of these things would get us out of this mess, but we had to try. Doing nothing wasn't an option. Had never been from the moment M told us the knife was here.

"We should probably get going, but I just…I don't regret coming here. Danger or not. I'm glad I met you. No matter what does or doesn't happen."

"Nope, no giving sentimental goodbye speeches. We're stopping this wraith before it's even turned. No arguments." Celica insisted.

I could only hope she was right.

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