The thing about having an atrium inside of one's domus was that it permitted talk. There was a lot of talk that day. So much that he felt like he had told his story over a dozen times. His parents didn't understand what he had been through, because aside from staying at the temple the night prior, everything else was pretty normal.

  'Normal' on their end was different from his lived experience. It wasn't just that it was hard for him to explain it. He'd been through something that no one had ever recorded in history. He'd been through it and come out on the other side, and everything else just seemed to have paused while he was away.

  He couldn't shake that feeling that the world had stood still while he had gone through the wringer. It wasn't the first time that he had felt so disconnected, but it was the longest time. When his father had finally finished his time in the Legion, and his whole world had changed, it had felt similar.

  "I understand that you want to use your Willpower like the Senators do. They fire Will like an arrow or a javelin. They're never going to be in a prolonged combat scenario. They never plan for that. The most their training needs to cover is if someone tries to assassinate them."

  Ludere sat straight up. "That's a real thing that can happen? I thought that Senators couldn't be killed like that. They have those guards."

  "They might have guards, but there's only one or two of them at a time. If someone made a concerted effort, they could definitely kill a Senator without the guards noticing… they're always paranoid. Power makes peace paranoid. Their skills alone build the empire."

  Ludere was speechless and sat with that for a moment.

  The Oracle had been quite accommodating. She had always slowed down when he had issues and let him work around things, but this felt like a brand-new sentence that he had never turned around.

  "If you're saying that Willpower, specifically the magic that Senators have and hoard, built our Empire, then what are the common people for?"

  "They would say for labor. I don't think that's true. They rely upon the consent of the government to some degree."

  "You and I both know that any Senator worth their salt can kill hundreds of people without blinking. And that's just using their household staff. They wouldn't do it, but…"

  "But there's a reason you don't cross one of the Prefereti. There's a reason that we don't deal with them unless we have to. That's your words, right? Don't deal with them?"

  Another knock interrupted their late-afternoon lesson.

  Instantly the Oracle ducked back out of the atrium, into one of the rooms where she would be least noticed. They had talked about this. The Oracle was the closest thing to a national treasure that the temple had. Having her here to teach him one-on-one meant that he was using up a resource.

  Ludere moved swiftly to grab his spear.

  At the door, one of the guards he had talked to several times yawned.

  "Ah, Ludo. I'm here to tell you that the Senator has asked for you to attend upon his time in the morning. I can give the details to your house staff, if needed."

  Luder relaxed. "We don't have a staff. It's just my parents and I."

  The guard visibly relaxed. "This will be easier, then. I'll send a runner."

  There was no question if he was going to attend or not. It simply wasn't an option.

  He needed to speak with the man about something. He would have to hold up his deal with the Senator. Because of course the man was too busy to meet with him today. The upper class didn't wait on the lower class. He would wait on a powerful man, but it was unclear how much power he was going to end up having as a result of whatever the Senator did.

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  If he went through another loop, he might not make the same choices. He still needed to figure out how to stop the invasion, but without a clear timeline of the next gate, there wasn't anything concrete that he could do.

  He thanked the guard once he had the information. The next day was setting out to be a long one. He didn't want to go out and try to find his friends, but he knew they would have to find him soon. Erebus and Gia had told him that they would check in eventually. Or, at least, he thought they did before they disappeared. Swapping skills was going to be one of the things that he had to do to make money, but before he started that, he'd have to figure out how he was going to do it, and if he was going to hold back on any of his skills.

  To that end, he needed to find access to a private library regarding Spirit Magic. No one seemed to understand what it was, and because he'd taken it from a demon, he didn't want to feel like it was tainted. He was going to have enough problems on his own. He came back to the Oracle who was back in the center of the atrium, talking quietly with his mother.

  They both gave him a knowing smile. He didn't really understand how much the Oracle knew about that interaction, but he knew his mother, and she would have heard everything. He was willing to bet that she had some sort of Skill about that.

  And if not, he would get her a Skill. He had never scanned his mother, but he was certain that he could ask if she would now just give him the information. Did he want to know? No. Was he going to give his mother the best chance possible? Yes.

  "The Senator is calling upon me tomorrow. Or, I'm going to visit him. Apparently things are moving fast."

  "Not as fast as possible, but this is quite unprecedented. This entire situation is unprecedented. I hope that you're thinking about this. If he wants to use you for his own gain, he will ask you tomorrow to do a favor of some kind."

  Ludere knew that he wasn't in a position to refuse. His family would suffer. His friends would hear about it.

  But he personally would not feel any effect of this. Not first-hand. Only second-hand. He didn't want that to be the way. But he couldn't think of another way to do it. If he went back to the beginning of the loop and started all over again, could he conceal his identity? He could have closed the gate anonymously with a mask of some kind, and then darted out. That would preclude any sort of direction for the people looking for food during the invasion. There would be a full inquiry. Especially if demons sent one or two through before he ended the gate.

  Anything except for the elite demon he can make short work of. It was a pity that the first two demons through were always those. They did it that way on purpose.

  He got back into his studies. Conceptually, he understood what it took. But doing it with the guidance of a master helped him break through what had felt like a bottleneck. During their time that afternoon and into the evening, his Willpower stayed the same, but his Soul Magic felt so much more solid. It would take him some doing to actually have a combat application of it, but that was a problem for a different man. He just needed to not be a liability. And now he looked again at his Spirit Magic, without finding a real connection to anything that was going. All he'd done to get it to level too.

  He had to move around a bit and talk a lot. But that didn't feel… He might be stubborn, and he might be grinding his skills, but he was thinking about it. Methodically. The loops might be done. Or he might find himself back in the arena again. He wasn't entirely sure what would happen. He just knew that something would. He knew what was going to happen in the outside world.

  "How long are you going to stay here? Because I can walk you back to the temple if I have to. I haven't really done much today, so having to walk would be good. But the Senator is going to expect me to be here tomorrow."

  "That is probably going to be an issue." She looked pained.

  "Not to put too fine of a point on this, but… I understand we have a special connection, and I appreciate you coming around here. You're a lovely woman and I think that this is going to develop into something interesting, but don't you think this is moving a little fast?"

  She shrugged. "After all you just went through. It's the least I could do to be here for you. There's something about your future that makes me want to stick around. And I can't really see it. It's like your future's cloudy, but I can't leave and go away and have it not be cloudy."

  "I endeavor to be the fog in your life that keeps you from being mist." She giggled.

  "And the fact that you're cute and can make me laugh is definitely a bonus. I would like to keep this going. I also understand that I cannot be in every single high-level government meeting. Somebody's going to want to talk to me about the future, and if they do talk to me I'm going to have to talk about you, because…"

  She placed a finger on his chin. "The story is unwritten, no matter what. There's nothing promised. Even if you have the time loops I get back and call, I could die. You've got to stop thinking about this as something you can loop back around through. I need you to think about this like you got one shot. And if you get another shot then you're going to do all of this all the same."