"Again."
You try.
"Again."
You try.
"Again."
It's been going on like this for the last hour: you try, and Josephine says "Again," and you try again.
Your lesson today is about the magical barrier that encloses the Timeless Circle. "Sense its structure," Josephine told you. "See how it is woven from the fabric of magic and time. Take hold of a thread—just one thread!—and move it to a more secure position."
(You're more aware of that barrier every time you come near it; the soothing protection that it offers, the liberating feeling of floating free from the constraints of time once you're inside it.)
And so you've tried, again and again and again.
It's getting hard to tell which attempt is which, and which were the few attempts that earned a rare response of "good. Again." instead of just "again." Everything is running together, the way it does more and more often these days when you're doing magic within the Timeless Circle. You feel like you're floating above yourself, above time and outside of time.
Finally, just when you're pretty sure you've focused on every individual thread in the weave of the barrier, Josephine declares, "That will be all."
You sit back with a sigh, letting the physical world gradually filter back into your mind: the feeling of the chair under you, the sound of the other people in the Timeless Circle going about their peaceful daily business, the scent of lilacs and young leaves that pervades everything here.
And the sight of Josephine's calm face, just as cool and unruffled as she was before you spent however long it's been working with intensely complex magic, watching you. "I have heard that this week, there is going to be a competition at the camp. They call it Colorwars?" She speaks the word as if it were a strange new food that she's still trying to figure out whether she likes or not. "With the Cedarcrest Cup as a prize."
Wow. Colorwars is such a big deal even Josephine knows about it?
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