Seeing the absence marked on the young Ori—an entire year, lost by someone who had barely finished her first year of college abroad— Nico suddenly became cognizant his ears had drifted downward. He corrected himself quickly, flicking them upright again, then gave Lani a small nod. She put her mask back on.

  Zhou moved first. “What have you tried doing to get out?”

  “If I go past a certain distance, walking or transit, I faint and wake up here,” she replied. “Same if I take off my mask where the princess can see. The villagers ignore me even if I’m screaming, but they’ll dance with me if I act like I’m celebrating.”

  “Where the princess can see?” Zhou pressed.

  “Anything the moon can see, she sees.”

  Nico spoke, much gentler than Zhou. “Have you tried anything with your reflection?”

  “I don’t have one anymore.”

  That gave Nico pause. He realized none of them had checked their reflections—in the water or any reflective surface—since the first encounter. What would happen if—

  “Have you tried killing yourself?” Zhou asked just as casually as his previous question.

  Nico stared at him in disbelief. Zhou turned his head and gave smirking energy, throwing a peace sign that was deeply unwanted by Nico.

  Lani answered plainly. “I’ve drowned a few times, but just woke up here again.”

  “What’s it like for the rest of the year, after the festival ends?” Nico asked.

  “The festival never ends. The same five days loop over and over.”

  “Have you counted the days you’ve been in here?”

  “Loosely. Everything resets after the fifth day. If I die or faint on any of the five days, I wake up on day one again. It became hard to remember, since any notes I take are reset too.”

  She pointed to a section of wall where she wrote her estimates each cycle. The earliest entries were scribbled on hastily, while the most recent were scribed with more thought. Her guesses fell between 320 and 360 days. There were also 12 deaths recorded with vague time frames— seven of them were recent, spaced five days apart every time.

  “Is it just you?” Nico asked, studying the marks.

  “No. But I’ve decided not to interact with the others after I saw one kill another. They both returned after the reset.” She paused in thought. “…A lot of them weren’t pleasant in the real world either.”

  “Who do you recognize as real?” Nico asked.

  “The husband baker of the famous mooncake bakery,” Lani said immediately. “He’s always been a mean drunk… even meaner and drunker here.” She crossed her arms in disdain.

  As usual, Zhou steered the conversation where he wanted it. “You’ve been dying more often lately.”

  “I think the rift opens to the real world during the actual festival. I’ve drowned a few times trying to get out…”

  “It’s the first night of the festival in the real world,” Nico confirmed.

  “I was actually planning to go up to the aqueduct before the lanterns flew tonight,” she said, looking up blankly at the ceiling. “I’m going to try everything I can think of at the Lunar Fall Lake. Bringing things I had on me from outside, performing rituals from the folktales…” She looked back at them. “What will you two try?”

  “Following you,” Zhou admitted far too casually.

  “Our reflections are still here, so we should probably handle those before we follow Lani back to the aqueduct,” Nico thought aloud.

  “Are you going to jump into the moon’s reflection?” Zhou asked Lani.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Nico made a mental note to reprimand Zhou the next time he said something tactless.

  “If I jump now, I waste the remaining days if it isn’t the solution. I’ll do it on the fifth night if I don’t make it out by then.”

  “Good,” Zhou affirmed.

  “It’s fine. I can fly away if your reflections appear. I don’t want to waste my only chance to get out of here,” Lani said resolutely.

  “…” Nico was impressed with how well Lani handled Zhou’s bluntness.

  “What makes you think we’ll get you out?” Zhou continued, relentless in his rude tyranny.

  Nico cut in. “We’ll get you out.” He glared at Zhou through both of their masks.

  “I uhm…” Lani started to falter.

  Even with the mask on, Lani’s body language read as bashful. She started twiddling the feathers around her mask’s edges, humming and hawing; a stark contrast to how composed she had been moments earlier. Only Minny had been able to elicit an emotional reaction from her until now.

  “Uhm… you two seem too confident to have come here accidentally… and I’m studying to be a wind elementalist in Lumere…” she stammered.

  Zhou rested his elbows on the table and leaned his face on his hands; something finally entertained him.

  “…And I was researching the guilds… and I recognized your voice from interviews.” Lani’s voice shrank the more she spoke.

  She glanced toward Nico, then quickly away. “And the, uh… you’re just as nice as the internet says and…”

  Zhou looked over to the fox with a tilt of his head. Nico could hear the Sage’s shit-eating grin through the mask.

  The Ori covered her mask with her hands as if it could show her blushing, “Your ears are even cuter in real life, Alchemist Yun…”

  Zhou laughed, tapping his fingers lightly against his own mask. “I agree with that,” he said, still facing Nico.

  She nodded at Zhou’s affirmation, then turned back to Nico and gave him a small, courteous bow that did nothing to hide how flustered she was.

  Nico considered jumping into the moon’s reflection tonight to escape how warm his ears were getting from Zhou’s comment.

  ***

  As they made their way back up the aqueduct, Nico turned over what Lani had told them. Every time she removed her mask in front of the princess, she passed out and reset. He looked up at the open sky. From where they stood, the moon was plainly visible.

  “You took off your mask earlier,” Nico said to Zhou.

  “I told you the scarf was only important for guys like you,” Zhou replied, laughing.

  “Aw…” Lani chimed in with genuine regret as she skipped between them in bird form, wings and tail fully feathered. “I should’ve asked to see your face while we were still inside.”

  Zhou laughed at the comment that Nico didn’t even acknowledge.

  They moved in a loose formation, Nico leading, Lani between them, Zhou lingering at the rear. Foxfire bobbled around the group: two near Nico, two near Zhou, and three orbiting Lani as she bounced along.

  Nico had been against letting her come while their reflections were still unaccounted for. Zhou countered it with, “It’s not like she actually dies. She’ll just get ejected when the rift unravels.” Nico thought about how that logic was unsound in many ways.

  Lani, puffing her feathers, assured him she could handle herself. Nico suspected she just wanted to watch field alchemy up close. Which honestly, fair enough. He would have wanted that too when he was a student.

  He somewhat related to that, with Zhou here; it was interesting to shadow him. But he would sooner jump into the moon’s reflection than say that out loud.

  Lani hadn’t recognized Zhou. Courtesy of the rift, his outfit blended in and no one would guess ‘Arcanite Sage’ for who could possibly be annoying Nico throughout his survey of Tellur. Zhou had introduced himself as an “independent contractor,” phrasing it as Nico’s “(mission) partner, or something like that.” Lani accepted this without question while Nico screamed internally. More 100 year old hot guy antics.

  Once she found shared interest, Lani warmed to Zhou almost immediately. That would have been great, if the shared interest had not been Nico.

  “What else draws you to our esteemed alchemist?” Zhou asked, directing the question to her. “It’s good for us to know for future campaigns.” He borrowed marketing terms like he planned to do anything useful with the information.

  Lani fumbled over her words, enthusiasm taking over. “Ah, well, uhm. The skills he develops are my favorites to use! A lot of them are open source, so they’re great for students like me…” Her feathers fluttered as she trailed off, excitement getting the better of her.

  Zhou egged her on. “Ah. How generous of our fox~”

  “Y-yeah!! And it’s always really cool when someone not from the major cities like Lumere or Nireya becomes an A-Class…”

  Zhou hummed along. Nico wondered, not for the first time, whether Zhou had even known his name before today.

  “And, uhm… I think you noticed too…” Lani’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper as she covered her mask and leaned closer to Zhou. “But he and his guildmate Kai…” Her gaze flicked toward Nico ahead of them, ears held upright as he walked.

  “Tell me more,” Zhou prompted, the smirk clear even through the mask.

  Nico drifted toward the side rail of the aqueduct, foxfire trailing after him obediently.

  Lani, incorrectly assuming his upright ears were proof he hadn’t heard a thing, went on. “They look really good… together,” she said at a volume where every word was fully audible to a Lycan. A giggle followed, and she spun in the air, feathers fluttering.

  Without comment, Nico sent his foxfire forward—

  “Jumping already, Mr. Alchemist?” Zhou teased as the Ori flapped excitedly next to him.

  —and looked over the illuminated edge, directly at his reflection.

  A column of air burst up from the water below, scattering mist and droplets as gold mana flared through it, static crackling in its wake. A fox landed on the stone without fanfare. Its mask was stylishly attached to its head at an angle, not hiding its lack of face whatsoever.