The Night Market was chaos.
Good chaos, for once. Not the "demons are invading" kind or the "temporal paradox is collapsing reality" kind. Just normal, human chaos—vendors shouting, crowds flowing, music playing from street performers.
We'd changed out of our academy uniforms. Sarah wore a simple dress that probably cost more than my mother made in a month but looked casual enough to blend in. Celeste had on practical clothes, her hair down for once.
I'd put on a plain shirt and jacket, trying to look like I belonged in the crowd instead of standing apart from it.
Luna had appeared as we left campus, materializing with that unnerving way she had.
"Night out?" she'd asked, amused.
"Apparently I need to practice being a normal teenager," I'd said.
"Good luck with that. You're about as normal as I am."
She'd come along anyway, existing in that half-present way that made people's eyes slide past her unless they were really looking.
Now we stood at the edge of the market, lights and sounds washing over us.
"Where do we even start?" Celeste asked.
"Food," Sarah said immediately. "I've heard the street vendors here are incredible."
"You're a princess. You eat in the royal dining hall."
"Which serves very boring, very proper food. I want something with actual flavor." She grabbed my hand, pulling me forward. "Come on. Live a little."
Her hand in mine felt warm. Natural. Like we'd done this a thousand times before.
Maybe in some loops, we had.
We wove through the crowd, stopping at various stalls. Sarah bought something called fire-spiced dumplings that made her eyes water. Celeste found a vendor selling crystallized honey that glowed faintly with residual mana. Luna watched it all with quiet amusement, occasionally pointing out interesting things only she could see.
"That man over there," she said at one point, "has three possible futures branching from this moment. In one, he becomes a successful merchant. In another, he dies in a robbery next week. In the third, he meets the love of his life tonight."
"Which one happens?" I asked.
"Depends on his next choice. That's the thing about futures—they're always shifting."
"Must be exhausting to see."
"It is. But it's also beautiful. All that potential, all those possibilities."
We continued through the market. At some point, Raven appeared—because of course she did.
"Oh good, a party," she said, falling into step beside us. "I was in my room analyzing soul fragments and got bored."
"You got bored analyzing a piece of my soul?"
"It's very complicated. Needs processing time. Meanwhile, I heard rumors of the legendary Night Market dumplings." She looked at Sarah. "Are they as good as advertised?"
"They're incredible. Also possibly lethal if you can't handle spice."
"I'm a curse specialist. I regularly handle things that would kill normal people. I can handle dumplings."
She bought a serving. One bite later, her face turned red.
"These are biological weapons," she gasped, fanning her mouth. "Why would anyone create these?"
"Because suffering builds character," I said, stealing one from her plate.
"You just ate one without even flinching."
"I've died 127 times. My pain tolerance is exceptional."
Celeste laughed—actually laughed. "You're all insane. I'm surrounded by insane people."
"Welcome to the team," Sarah said cheerfully. "Insanity is our primary qualification."
We found ourselves at a section of the market dedicated to games—the kind of carnival attractions that were probably rigged but fun anyway. Ring toss, dart throws, a strength test with a hammer.
"Oh, we have to try that," Celeste said, pointing at the strength test. "I want to see how my enhanced strength compares."
"Your mana control is terrible," I reminded her. "You'll probably break the equipment."
"That's what I want to find out!"
She paid the vendor—a burly man who looked amused by this slip of a girl thinking she could compete.
"Just hit the pad with the hammer, miss. Ring the bell at the top if you can."
Celeste picked up the hammer. I could see her channeling mana, building power.
"Don't—" I started.
Too late.
She swung.
The hammer hit the pad with a sound like a thunderclap. The weight shot up the pole, hit the bell with enough force to crack it, and kept going, flying off into the night sky.
The vendor stared, mouth open.
The crowd that had gathered stared.
Celeste looked at her hands. "Oops?"
"RUN!" I grabbed her arm, Sarah grabbed mine, and we bolted into the crowd, dragging Luna and Raven with us.
Behind us, the vendor was shouting something about property damage.
We didn't stop until we were three streets away, ducking into an alley and gasping with laughter.
"I can't believe you broke the strength tester!" Sarah was nearly crying from laughing.
"I didn't mean to! I just... forgot to regulate my output."
"That's why I said your control is terrible!"
"This is amazing," Raven said, writing in her notebook even while catching her breath. "Unregulated mana burst, estimated force equivalent to... I need to do calculations. This is valuable data."
"You're taking notes on us committing property damage?"
"I'm taking notes on everything. It's what I do."
Luna was smiling—really smiling, not her usual mysterious expression. "This is nice. This feels... normal."
"Normal people don't break carnival equipment with magic," I pointed out.
"Normal for us, then."
We eventually made our way to a quieter section of the market, near the river where the crowds thinned. There were benches along the water, gas lamps casting golden light.
Sarah pulled me down to sit beside her while the others wandered to look at the river.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"For what?"
"For coming tonight. For trying. I know this isn't natural for you—being around people, having fun, not planning for the next catastrophe."
"I'm always planning for the next catastrophe. It's my default state."
"I know. But tonight, just for a few hours, you seemed... lighter. Less burdened." She leaned her head on my shoulder. "I like seeing you like this."
I should have pulled away. Should have maintained distance. Should have remembered that in 42 timelines, this ended with her dead.
Instead, I put my arm around her shoulders.
"You're dangerously optimistic," I said.
"Someone has to balance out your aggressive pessimism."
"It's not pessimism. It's realism based on extensive experience."
"Semantics." She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Marcus?"
"Hmm?"
"In those twelve timelines where we fell in love... what was it like?"
I thought about Loop 96. About coming home to her every day. About planning a future that would never happen. About holding our daughter for the three minutes I had before I died.
"Terrifying," I admitted. "The best kind of terrifying. The kind where you're constantly afraid of losing something precious, but you can't imagine living without it."
"And you lost it."
"Every time. One way or another."
She turned to look at me, her green eyes reflecting the lamplight. "What if this time is different?"
"It won't be."
"How do you know?"
"Because it's never different. That's what 127 loops teaches you—patterns repeat. People die. I fail."
"Or," she said, moving closer, "patterns repeat until they break. And maybe Loop 128 is where it breaks."
Her face was inches from mine now. I could feel her breath, warm in the cool night air.
This was a terrible idea.
This was the worst possible decision.
This was going to end in disaster like it always did.
I kissed her anyway.
It was soft, tentative, like neither of us was sure if this was allowed. Her hand came up to cup my face, and suddenly it wasn't tentative anymore.
It was desperate. Hungry. Like we were both drowning and this was the only air.
When we finally pulled apart, she was smiling.
"See? Different."
"That doesn't mean—"
"Shut up and let me enjoy this moment before you catastrophize it."
"I don't catastrophize—"
She kissed me again. "Yes, you do. Now stop talking."
Fair point.
---
We stayed by the river for another hour. Celeste and Luna returned eventually, saw us sitting close together, and wisely decided not to comment.
Raven, however, had no such filter.
"Oh good, you're finally addressing the obvious romantic tension. I was wondering how many loops that would take."
"Raven," Sarah said sweetly, "if you don't stop talking right now, I will throw your notebook in the river."
"You wouldn't dare. This notebook contains years of research—"
Sarah stood, moving toward her.
"Okay! Okay! I'm shutting up! No need for violence against academic documentation!"
As we walked back toward the academy, I felt something I hadn't felt in loops.
Peace.
Temporary, fragile, probably doomed.
But real.
"You're smiling," Mordain observed in my mind.
"Shut up."
"It's nice. You should do it more often."
"I'll smile when we're not on the verge of multiple apocalypses."
"So never?"
"Exactly."
But the smile didn't fade.
Not even when we reached the academy gates.
Not even when I saw Professor Artemis watching us from a window, his expression unreadable.
Not even when I felt that familiar prickle of being observed—the same presence Luna had warned me about.
Because for one night, for a few precious hours, I'd been seventeen instead of fifteen hundred.
I'd been Marcus, not the regressor.
I'd been someone who could kiss a girl by the river and not immediately think about all the ways it would end in tragedy.
And maybe—just maybe—that was worth protecting.
Even if it meant fighting harder than ever before.
Even if it meant facing whatever was watching from the shadows.
Even if it meant dying one more time.
Or a hundred more times.
Whatever it took.
---
That night, Sarah knocked on my door again around midnight.
"Can't sleep?" I asked, letting her in.
"Don't want to sleep. Want to stay here." She walked past me, claiming her usual chair. "That okay?"
"It's becoming a habit."
"Good habits or bad habits?"
"Haven't decided yet."
She pulled out her book. "You know, in a normal relationship, the girl doesn't have to keep watch to make sure the boy doesn't have nightmares about dying 127 times."
"In a normal relationship, the boy doesn't have three soul fragments judging his life choices."
"Fair point." She opened her book. "Get some sleep, Marcus. Tomorrow we have Artemis's class, and you need to be awake to glare at him disapprovingly."
"I don't glare disapprovingly."
"You absolutely do. It's one of your defining characteristics."
I lay down, and for the third night in a row, I felt safe enough to actually rest.
"Sarah?"
"Hmm?"
"Thank you. For tonight. For dragging me out. For..." I paused. "For kissing me by the river."
"You kissed me back."
"Details."
She smiled, not looking up from her book. "Get some sleep. We'll figure out what this means tomorrow."
"And if I die before tomorrow?"
"Then I'll be very annoyed with you in the next loop."
"Noted."
I closed my eyes, and despite everything—despite the watching presence, despite Azkaros gathering his forces, despite my soul fracturing from too many deaths—
I slept peacefully.
Because sometimes, even in hell, you find moments of grace.
And you hold onto them as long as you can.
Before the world inevitably tries to take them away.
Again.