“Should I pretend I don’t understand?” Derek eyed him and adjusted the coarse apron he was wearing. It was old, cracked leather, inscribed with some minor arrays for deflecting heat and light.

  “You could. I’d tell my students that lying helps no one.” Elias offered.

  “High school teacher?”

  “Primary.”

  “Yeah, I guess by high school lying’s part of the deal. Derek. Derek Loken here. Auto mechanic there, damn good one.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Derek. Elias. Elias Varen. As for high school—ethics classes existed for a reason.”

  They both sighed and observed each other, the way people do at a party when the host has dashed away for topping up someone’s drink.

  Elias was content to wait.

  “Now what?” Derek rubbed his eyes.

  “You shouldn’t rub your eyes. My wife always—” His wife. It had been days since he arrived. Why hadn’t he thought of her?

  Derek chuckled. Grim. “Oh, you’re new here. Let me guess. Less than a month?”

  Elias nodded.

  “Happened to me too.” Derek’s lips twisted. “Whatever brought me here—well, let’s just say it sucks.”

  “You don’t remember?” Elias was still trying to remember. There were soft hands when he thought of her. Plenty of glares. Was she angry often?

  “Some,” Derek hesitated. “Loken’s life is clearer.”

  “Not reassuring.”

  “Aren’t teachers meant to be the reassuring ones?”

  “To children. I’m perfectly capable in winding myself into a mess. Isn’t it polite to offer me coffee?”

  “Coffee’s too expensive. I have tea.”

  “That will do.”

  Derek brought out a battered tray with two steel cups and a pair of heating arrays. He poured water into both cups, the sound filtering thoughts of hot drinks across both Elias’ memories. Elias placed his cup onto the array and channeled some mana into it. The mana turned to heat, metal coils on the arrays turning red.

  Both their arrays fizzled out.

  Elias frowned. Derek sighed.

  “Fourth one this month.” He tapped the arrays helplessly and glanced at Elias. “Fifth, if I count yours.”

  “Bad luck?” Elias moved the cups aside, scrutinizing the arrays with mana.

  “Don’t I just have all the bad luck? These are brand new, paid a pretty penny for them too.”

  “Shouldn’t be too difficult to fix.” Elias weighed the array disk in his hand, cataloguing the mana traces. It was a standard heating array.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “You can fix it? Arrays? In one month?” Derek gawked. “Did your local persona know arrays?”

  “Persona?” Elias laid the arrays side by side to check for differences.

  “That’s what I call my memories. Persona- comes from the Latin for masks. Has an older ancestry; Etruscan I believe.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I’m a bit of a dilettante. Read quite a lot in my free time and spent plenty of it on the net,” Derek smiled. “But seriously, your persona must have been exceptionally talented.”

  Elias cast a few flashes of mana into each disk and considered the book showing 8 days in his mind. “Yes I—he did learn plenty of things. This is a mana problem, won’t need any materials, just a minute. Do you mind?”

  “Yes—I mean please do so.” Derek watched the mana slip from Elias’ fingers, brows drawing down and mumbling under his breath. Elias moved between the discs smoothly, realigning and reintegrating. The arrays snapped together with an audible click, and he infused a little mana into each to ensure they were working.

  “You saved me quite a bit,” Derek commented. He added tea leaves to boiling water, and they sipped in amicable silence.

  “The tea is good,” Elias offered after a few minutes. “Has an earthy aroma.”

  “Because I plucked it from my yard this morning. Fresh stuff always tastes better. Organic and no GMOs.” That had the ring of a famous advert, but Elias couldn’t place it.

  Elias placed the cup down, realizing the black spots floating at the top weren’t leaves. Tea was supposed to be dried, wasn’t it? Certainly, green tea shouldn’t look like soil.

  “I take it you’re more of a coffee man?”

  “Yes, I always did prefer grinding my own. Not roasting, though.”

  Elias nodded. “So. How long?”

  Derek spun his cup on the array, letting it hum softly as he ran his finger along the rim. “Two and a half years.” He didn’t look at Elias.

  “Does your—persona—have family?”

  “Some. I visit once a year. Love the old woman to death; sister’s a bit of a brat. You?”

  “Yes. Some distance away.” That brought a twinge to his gut. Varen got along well with his family. His mother always hoped he would get married young and move to the city. Elias coughed. “I don’t feel an urge to go back.”

  “Neither do I. Miss it though.”

  Elias downed the cup, dregs and all. “Weather’s nice today.”

  Derek looked out at the grey clouds gathering over the city. “That it is. Mayweather friendships form fast.”

  “Haven’t heard that one before.”

  “Made it up just now.”

  “Impressive.”

  They grinned at each other.

  “I stay at Forest’s Rest. An inn in the East district.” Elias said.

  “Forest’s place? She’s a curious one.” Derek looked at his sword. “I heard she likes to spar.”

  Elias winced, shifting in his chair. “Sparring isn’t so bad. It’s like exercise.”

  “Yeah, with a blade at your throat. They don’t use training blades. I tried to make some.”

  Elias followed Derek’s outstretched finger. In a corner of the room, dozens of bronze tinged metallic weapons were gathering dust and cobwebs. “No one wanted to buy them?”

  “I had some inquiries, but the masters think cuts teach better than bruises. I had a sect deacon come down and explain, firmly, but politely, that injuries could be healed, dullness not.” Derek placed a finger under his nose and hunched over. The deacon would likely explode if he saw it.

  “Parents were interested.” Derek continued. “Would stop their precious babies from getting hurt. It was a good market, but I was new.”

  “You didn’t patent.” Elias finished for him.

  “Your persona’s also a merchant?” Derek tapped the tray with a finger after Elias nodded. His eyes lost focus for a moment. “Would you be interested in a business proposition?”

  Elias felt Varen’s memories stir. He imagined himself sitting in a dark room, a cat in his lap and leaning back while listening to supplicants. “Sure.”

  Derek asked him to wait and went into the back room. A few muffled curses and clangs of metal later, he returned with a wooden box. He opened it carefully and withdrew a 3x3 cube. Elias leaned in closer, marveling at the differences in Derek’s design. Molded from wood, the cube felt spongy to the touch. Each face was a different color, and Elias rotated the divisions, watching the carefully crafted segments create shifting patterns.

  “What do you need my help with? This is done.”

  “Almost.” Derek’s eyes shone, and he was rocking back and forth in his chair. “I need someone to craft arrays. Design them actually. I want this to be able to reset on its own, to create variations on activation. To play music when you get it right.”

  “An automatic Rubik’s cube.” Elias breathed. He spun the cube a few times. “Sure. We have 8 days.”

  Derek tilted his head, eyelid fluttering at the timeline.