Kaelen remained at his desk long after the others had left, staring at the gently pulsing disc before him. The spiral patterns had stilled now, frozen mid-turn, as though waiting for something—him, perhaps—to take the next step.
He reached out once more, letting his fingers rest just above the surface. It was still warm. Still alive.
Professor Alaris hadn't spoken since the dismissal, content to let him remain in quiet contemplation. The silence between them wasn't awkward—it was meditative, respectful. She knew better than to disturb the flow of a student mid-thought.
"Professor," Kaelen said eventually, his voice low. "Is it possible to... wrap a moment around itself?"
Alaris looked over at him from her desk, her silver-threaded robes shimmering softly in the ambient light.
"To what end?" she asked gently.
"I want to condense an experience," Kaelen said. "Not just speed it up, but... pack it so tightly that someone can live through it in a breath."
Now her interest visibly piqued. She stood, walking slowly toward him.
"That depends," she said. "Do you want them to remember it afterward?"
Kaelen blinked. "Yes."
"Then it's not a fold. It's a thread."
She reached toward the nearest floating hourglass and held it aloft. "Time, as most understand it, is a line. But it can be coiled. Bent. Woven. A fold lets you skip, but a thread lets you compress, carry, and unwind—just at the right pace. But it requires precision."
Kaelen leaned in, curiosity sharpening. "Could I anchor a moment to a single point? A single touch?"
"You could," Alaris said. "But you must shape the moment carefully, and be mindful of how much weight you tie to that anchor. If you thread too much through a single instant, you risk fraying the fabric around it—or overwhelming the mind of whoever touches it."
Kaelen's mind raced. He was thinking of his workshop. Of the sigil on his door, which had always pulsed faintly but never revealed its function until Martice had pulled him aside the day before, eyes gleaming with excitement.
"Those sigils on our doors?" Martice had said, practically beaming. "They're locks, yes—but more than that. They're keys. Interfaces. Whatever you channel into them changes how your workshop responds to you. And I'm starting to think we can mess around with it big time."
They had planned to meet again later that evening to experiment, comparing the differences between elemental signatures, domain affinities, and whatever strange effect Kaelen's time magic had already triggered by accident.
Kaelen hadn't told Martice yet, but he had a theory of his own.
Something more personal.
Something that felt like a signature only he could make.
"What if I only anchor observation?" he asked. "Let them see the space, feel it—walk it—but nothing changes. It's just... experience. All packed into a blink."
Alaris gave him a knowing smile.
"Now that," she said, "is very doable. And very clever."
Kaelen smiled, relieved—and something else too. A strange warmth of being understood.
"Thank you," he said, bowing his head slightly.
Professor Alaris nodded once. "You've seen time as a river. You've stepped into it. Now you're learning to bottle it. Just remember…" she paused, her voice softening, "time is always flowing. Even when you hold it in your hands."
That evening, Kaelen met Martice just outside the entrance to the workshop corridor. The hallway was quieter than usual, save for the soft echoes of mana hums drifting from behind a few closed doors. The sigils above each room glowed faintly—personalized beacons, each tied to a student's magic.
Kaelen's own pulsed in a subdued gold, flickering like starlight trapped in amber.
Martice stood beside it with his arms crossed and a wide grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You're late," he said. "I've been dying to get in there."
Kaelen raised an eyebrow. "It's barely sundown."
"Exactly! That's basically midnight when you're excited." He nudged Kaelen toward the door. "So? You gonna let me in or what?"
Kaelen smirked, already channeling a soft pulse of mana into the frame. "That depends. You remember how you said these sigils act like interfaces?"
Martice perked up immediately. "Of course."
"Well… I want to try something," Kaelen said, his voice a little more serious now. "Professor Alaris taught us about threading time—condensing it into a single moment and anchoring it. I think I can store an entire experience inside the sigil.
Martice's grin faded just slightly, replaced by a flicker of awe. "Like… someone touches the handle and just knows what's inside?"
"Not just knows," Kaelen said. "Lives it. The moment gets delivered all at once. Total sensory experience—like they walked through the whole place, saw every detail, and left again, but all in a blink."
Martice stared at him. "I know I already said something similar, but time magic is totally cheating."
Kaelen chuckled, then stepped in closer to the door and held out his hand. "I'm going to start anchoring a thread now. I'll need to cast the moment from memory—compress it, shape it, and tie it to the sigil's mana response."
Martice leaned in beside him, clearly fascinated. "Want help?"
"I could use a second pair of eyes to stabilize the moment once I feed it through. Time magic tends to… twitch when it's forming new anchors."
Martice nodded and pulled a chalk stick from his pocket, already inscribing a stabilizing sigil into the floor around the doorway. "Alright," he said, "you pull the thread, I'll hold the frame."
Kaelen closed his eyes.
The memory came easily—his workshop, as it had been that morning. The slow rhythm of ticking devices, hourglasses set in careful rows, gears whirring in calm unison. The room wasn't chaotic or grandiose like Elias's supposed forges or Martice's shifting cathedral of ink. Kaelen's workshop was quiet. Thoughtful. Measured. It breathed.
He summoned the memory of being inside, gathered it tight in his mind, and fed it into the sigil.
Martice's stabilizing lines glowed faintly, absorbing the temporal pressure radiating from Kaelen's hand. The sigil above the door began to shift, its lines turning, folding in on themselves, pulsing in increasingly complex rhythm.
Kaelen muttered under his breath, locking in the thread. "Condense. Anchor. Deliver. On contact."
Martice watched, wide-eyed. "It's working, i think."
There was a final pulse—a soft chime, like a clock reaching the end of its cycle—and the sigil settled. Golden light rippled across its surface and dimmed to a calm, steady glow.
Kaelen stepped back, breathing hard. "It's done."
Martice circled the door, inspecting it like a curious archivist. "So now, anyone who touches the handle…"
"They'll get the thread," Kaelen confirmed. "Experience the whole thing in a blink. And the best part? The sigil refreshes after each interaction. It re-delivers the moment with every new contact."
Martice whistled. "That's one hell of a handshake."
Kaelen chuckled. "Figured it might be more impressive than explaining it in words."
There was a brief pause. Then Martice stepped up, hand outstretched toward the door.
"Mind if I try it?"
"Be my guest," Kaelen said, a flicker of nervous pride in his chest.
Martice touched the handle.
For a moment, he stood perfectly still—then blinked, blinking again, and stepped back slowly.
His expression had shifted entirely.
"That was…" he began, searching for words. "That was like walking through your mind. Everything was so precise, so deliberate. The way that clocks echoed the pulse of your mana, the way the light changed depending on where you stood…"
Kaelen raised an eyebrow. "So it worked?"
Martice looked at him, genuinely impressed. "Kaelen, it sang."
They stood in silence for a few moments, letting the weight of that success settle between them.
Kaelen smiled faintly. "Thanks. I wasn't sure it would hold."
Martice clapped him on the back. "You've got to show the others."
Kaelen nodded. "I'll run it past them tomorrow."
"…And that's how it works," Kaelen finished, his voice steady. "The moment you touch the door, it threads a single experience directly into your consciousness. It's seamless—no time lost, no energy wasted."
Kiran blinked a few times, still a little dazed from his earlier contact with the door. "I've got to admit, it's kind of freaky. But also… amazing."
Elias nodded, visibly impressed. "I felt like I actually walked through the whole thing."
Martice, standing with his arms crossed and his head tilted thoughtfully, let out a soft whistle. "Still jealous of how clean it felt. My workshop's like a living book that keeps rewriting its margins."
Kiran turned to him, brow raised. "Yeah, what is your workshop, exactly? Kaelen's got this time-folded palace, Elias has a fire-forged madness den… and you keep calling yours a 'shifting cathedral of ink.' What does that even mean?"
Martice's grin was instant and smug. "It means it's the only place in the world where metaphors literally bite back."
Kiran groaned. "Alright, that's it. I need to see the inside for myself."
Martice gave an exaggerated bow. "Then by all means, prepare your mind, because The inkwell awaits."
Kaelen chuckled under his breath. Elias rolled his eyes.
And with that, they turned toward away from Kaelen's door—its sigil glowing a quiet, inviting light.