Chapter 7: Chapter 7: The Next Instructions

Weeks have passed since Ananke's dramatic introduction to the Twelve Hands, and her days have fallen into a gruelling rhythm of training that pushes both her body and mind to their limits, but not really like she was expecting.

The strange tower that she has not been able to pinpoint the exact location of, the Crux, has become her world. Its strange architecture is slowly becoming as familiar to her now as the alley behind the guild back in Hafen once was.

But familiarity has not bred comfort, only a deeper understanding of how much she still doesn't know.

Frankly, this place is weird.

Ananke flails desperately, her fingers slipping on the metal bar they fail to grasp as her legs kick frantically through thick, viscous, pale blue fluid that clings to her like living tar. The substance seems to have a malevolent intelligence, wrapping around her limbs and dragging her down with deliberate intent into itself. “How- is this- useful?!” she pants between gasps for air, fighting to swim as hard as she can against the gelatinous mass that wants to swallow her whole.

Above her, perched casually on the edge of the large tank, sits one of the Twelve.

Waldlaub is the name of the green-haired fairy woman whose delicate features and colourful, bubbly appearance mask a merciless approach to physical education, which is her domain of instruction. She watches Ananke's struggle with analytical eyes, her accent and name carrying tones from Arkonia. “Endurance is important if you want to withstand the debilitating effects of consistent, temporal disconnection. Dissynchronisation,” she explains with clinical detachment. “When you do what we do at our level, your body must learn to maintain cohesion.”

Ananke kicks as hard as she can, her muscles burning with exhaustion, but the slime proves stronger than her determination. The viscous liquid pulls her under despite her best efforts, and she holds her breath at the last possible second before the surface closes over her head. The sensation of being swallowed again by something alive and hungry fills her with primal terror she’ll never get used to as her body is dragged downward through the tank's depths.

But, a moment later, she flops out through an open hatch at the bottom, landing hard on the stone floor below. She's covered from head to toe in slick, clingy gunk that stretches between her fingers in translucent strings. Gasping for air, she lifts her head and tries to regain her bearings.

“Excellent progress. Almost a minute is your new record,” Waldlaub says cheerfully as she helps Ananke back to her feet with surprising gentleness.

“Is this really training, or just some hazing ritual?” Ananke mutters as she catches her breath, shooting a pointed look at her master, who sits off to the side reading a leather-bound tome with apparent fascination.

It’s upside down. She’s pretty sure he’s just here to watch her.

Feeling her gaze, he lifts his eyes from the pages he’s not even pretending to read for a brief moment. “I did warn you about the slime during my initial recruitment offer,” he notes dryly before returning his attention to the book.

Ananke does vaguely recall something along those lines, but she had assumed it was merely an offhand joke he was making at the time rather than a literal truth.

“Back in the tank now, apprentice,” Chronomancer Waldlaub says with delighted enthusiasm, clapping her tiny hands together. “We still have another hour before I pass you on.”

Ananke sighs deeply, her legs and arms already burning from the sustained effort as she sloshes her way back toward the ladder that leads to the cylindrical pool of living slime that the fairy is making her swim in every other day. “What exactly is… desynchronisation?” she asks, beginning the climb back up to her torment.

image [https://i.imgur.com/pUoDcs0.png]

A sharp, linear pointer whips against the blackboard with a sound like cannon fire. “’Desynchronisation’ is the name we give to the debilitating physical condition a body experiences in several stages when interacting too frequently with time-manipulated elements of the world,” explains a crisp voice belonging to an impeccably dressed elven man.

Chronomancer Jandal stands rigid before his teaching materials, studying Ananke's note-taking with hard, critical eyes that seem to find fault with every pen stroke she makes.

The pointer strikes the desk a second later, causing Ananke to jolt in her chair. “That's 'chrono' with an 'H',” he says sharply, the rod indicating her misspelt word with accusatory precision.

“Okay,” Ananke replies, quickly correcting the mistake. Another sharp clack echoes through the room as the pointer hits the table again.

“No talking in class,” he states with firm authority. “By the end of this week, I expect you to know the name of every affliction and condition we encounter in our work, along with their common remedies and prevention methods.”

She opens her mouth to ask a clarifying question, then stops when she sees his eyes narrow dangerously. Slowly, cautiously, she raises her hand instead. “Yes?” he asks, apparently granting permission now that she's followed proper protocol.

“But this other assignment here isn't about maladies,” she says, showing him the stack of papers he's given her earlier. “This is about cities and their histories. Is there some mistake?”

“Correct observation,” he replies curtly. “No talking in class, I specifically stated.” Apparently she wasn't allowed to speak even after raising her hand. The permission was a trap. “Since you cannot follow simple instructions, I also want you to memorise the name of every capital city in the world and their complete founding histories before the end of the month,” he says, looking at the homework he had given her in advance, as if he already knew this would happen.

“What?!” she exclaims, her hands slapping against the table as she stands in protest. “Why would I ever need to know all of that?!”

image [https://i.imgur.com/pUoDcs0.png]

“The interaction of events is complicated and fragile,” states the firm voice of Richter, the elderly chronomancer who had argued for her elimination during that first terrifying meeting weeks ago. “If you don't understand why something became the way it is, then you cannot predict what effects your interventions might have down the timeline.” She listens intently, standing in the middle of a large training chamber within the Crux. Ancient stone surrounds them, worn smooth by centuries of use. “Knowing the past is the key to understanding the future.”

He gestures casually to the space beside her. “For example, do you know what occupied this exact spot twenty years ago?”

Ananke looks at the seemingly empty area, then shakes her head in honest ignorance. “No,” she admits, unable to even begin guessing. Her eyes notice deep, old impressions in the stonework, like claw marks or impact craters.

Richter extends his open palm, then flips it with a sharp, practised motion. A second later, there's a deafening roar and Ananke lets out a surprised shout as a massive shape materialises directly beside her. A monster. The creature is a manticore. It’s a chimeric mutation, some abomination that consists of pieces of beasts and monsters glued together into one, whole, terrifying mass. Its scorpion tail strikes toward where she was standing.

She dives out of the way on pure survival instinct, the venomous stinger missing her by inches as it slams into the stone floor with crushing force.

“Are you insane?!” she yells at Richter, scrambling to her feet and looking around herself as the monster prepares for another attack. Her eyes are wide with terror, having never faced a real threat like this before. The manticore's predatory gaze fixes on her with hunger that makes her blood run cold.

Richter stands calmly with his hands clasped behind his back, completely unperturbed by the mortal danger he's created. “The work of a chronomancer isn't always preventative,” he explains in a professorial tone. “We all have our preferred methodologies. Your master, Humboldt, likes to arrange future circumstances in the moment.” The manticore growls menacingly, muscles coiling for another pounce. “Other colleagues favour travelling to the distant past to implement long-term changes before a specific point of influence. However, sometimes, we must act decisively in the present when circumstances bind us to the here and now.” His gaze remains fixed on her as she backs away from the creature that takes one step forward for every step she takes back.

Ananke takes another step backward, certain she's about to become the monster's meal. “What- What am I supposed to do?” she asks, scanning the empty chamber.

Richter lifts a hand in a dismissive motion. “Sometimes in this profession, you must buy yourself time to determine the correct course of action in the heat of the moment. In the field, you might need to survive long enough to figure out what needs to be done,” Richter continues with maddening calm.

“Survive what?!” she shouts, diving sideways just in time as the manticore lunges with claws extended.

image [https://i.imgur.com/pUoDcs0.png]

“Death,” says a cold, merciless voice that seems to cut through the very air itself with a bite even sharper than the omnipresent winter’s chill.

Chronomancer Vorskaya stands beside Ananke in a completely different environment, both of them now surrounded by swirling snow and the distant sounds of warfare. The elegant, imposing woman moves with predatory grace through the blizzard that doesn’t even seem to faze her. Ananke is holding herself, shivering. “Everywhere you travel, you will find death waiting for you,” she explains in her thick, northeastern accent. “Sometimes as your enemy.”

She has transported Ananke back in time to another place entirely.

This must be during the war, somewhere in the frozen northern territories where battles raged for years. “- And sometimes as your most necessary ally,” Chronomancer Vorskaya continues, studying Ananke as magical explosions bloom like deadly flowers in the distance. “We do not choose which role death will play on any given day. That choice is made for us by forces beyond our control. Sometimes we take from him, and sometimes we give.”

They stand in the middle of an active battlefield, somehow unnoticed by the combatants around them. Ananke's heart races frantically, and her hands are numb from both fear and the bitter cold that cuts through her inadequate robes. “You are soft of heart and stubborn of mind,” Chronomancer Vorskaya observes with those freezing blue eyes that show nothing but crystalline focus. “Your actions have demonstrated weaknesses. It is my responsibility to remedy this sickness.”

An explosion erupts directly behind them, and the woman doesn't even flinch as the blast wave sends superheated air rushing past them, instantly melting the surrounding snow and ice. Ananke instinctively covers her face and braces against the shockwave, a stark contrast to her instructor's supernatural composure.

“What do you want me to do here?!” Ananke asks, not understanding the purpose of this horrific field trip.

Vorskaya stares at her for a long moment, then looks toward the battlefield as a charge of soldiers rushes past them, around them, their forms barely visible through the swirling snow. The men carry glowing alchemical potions on their belts, and they move with the desperate energy of those who know they're probably about to die. They pass through the space where Ananke and her instructor stand as if the chronomancers were ghosts.

“This is the fourth hour of the Battle of Schandral Valley,” Vorskaya states matter-of-factly as the wave of soldiers disappears into the blizzard behind her. The faint glows on their belts fade in the snow.

Ananke's heart clenches in her chest as she recognises the name. It's infamous throughout the region, remembered as one of the most brutal and senseless slaughters of the entire war. The sheer number of casualties created such concentrated death energy that an undead plague arose from the battlefield itself, almost wiping out an entire region just from the aftermath alone.

“Your instructions? You will do nothing. You will observe,” her instructor commands simply as the men vanish into the white darkness ahead. It swallows them, like a bloated monster that can never finish gorging itself on the flesh of the living.

“Why?” Ananke asks, covering her mouth. “If we're in the past now. Can't we save at least some of them?” she asks.

Another explosion tears through the air behind them, swallowing the silhouettes of charging soldiers in flame and shrapnel. The little lights she saw before extinguished. Before the bodies can hit the frozen ground, a new wave of fighters comes charging from the opposite direction, trampling over the cracking ice beneath their feet with reckless abandon.

Ananke looks down at the surface beneath her feet and gasps, jumping back and covering a sharp scream with her tightly pressed palms.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Through the translucent ice, she can see a face pressed against the underside, a drowning soldier hammering desperately against the frozen barrier as he fights for air that he will never reach again.

“Because time kills everyone in the end,” Vorskaya replies without the slightest trace of emotion. “It does not save any of us. Ever.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/pUoDcs0.png]

It is many, many days later.

Ananke sits quietly in a large chair back in her room in the Crux, her legs tucked up with her arms wrapped around them as she blankly stares off into the distance with haunted eyes.

Down on the ground is a loose rope. Larry used to work in a circus and has made that an eternally core part of her identity for whatever personal reasons she has, so she’s been teaching Ananke to do various tricks, like juggling and tightrope walking. None of this is part of her training. It’s just Larry trying to have fun instead of instructing her in anything useful.

The weight of the past weeks' training presses down on Ananke’s shoulders like a physical burden. Her eyes carry a haunted quality that wasn't there before, the innocence of her early days gradually worn away by exposure to the darker realities of chronomantic work.

There's a loud, exaggerated yawn from across the room as Larry sprawls on a large sofa. The dark elf scratches her stomach idly and continues eating from a bowl of colourful sweets, staring with apparent disinterest through the large window that overlooks the Crux's bustling interior. Her people-watching seems more like a form of desperately bored entertainment-seeking than actual study.

“I don't think I like learning,” Ananke says quietly, resting back into the corner of her chair. Her voice carries a weariness that seems too old for someone her age. “I'd rather be outside with my master again,” she notes.

Larry chews casually, glancing back at her with mild interest. The colourful chronomancer is supposed to be teaching Ananke something too, just like all the other members of the Twelve, but Larry doesn't seem particularly invested in formal instruction. So they’re just sitting around, doing nothing today every time it’s Larry’s turn with her.

Ananke is very grateful for this reprieve from the relentless educational assault she's been enduring. Larry is the best.

“Oh, yeah, that was my favourite part with him too,” Larry replies with a nostalgic sigh. She shakes her head slowly. “Good times. Remember them while they last.”

Ananke blinks in surprise. “Huh?” she asks, sitting upright. “You used to travel with him too?” The question comes out before she can stop it, though she's not sure why she finds this revelation unexpected.

Larry unwraps another sweet with deliberate care. “Sure thing. Thanks to you, I'm not the newest member anymore,” she says, pointing at Ananke with a candy-coated finger. “Who do you think was the last apprentice before you came along?”

Ananke opens her mouth to respond, then stops, realising she has no idea what to say. The implications had never occurred to her before.

Larry turns back to the window, her expression growing more serious. “I've been finished with my training for years now. Humboldt was my master too. Richter was his master before that.” She spins her finger in a circular motion while chewing thoughtfully. “And someone else was Richter's master, but he's long gone now. Poof.” She shakes her head with something that might be sadness. “There are always only twelve, and there's always only one apprentice.”

Ananke sits in contemplative silence, processing this information about the cyclical nature of their organisation.

“Wait,” she says suddenly, unable to suppress a growing smile. “You got a crush on your teacher?” The idea strikes her as simultaneously sweet and amusing. Her master is certainly a kind, good man in some odd ways, but she struggles to envision him as a romantic figure. He's much too… eccentric. A piece of candy bounces off her forehead and lands in her lap. Ananke rubs the spot, looking at a visibly flustered Larry whose usual composure has cracked slightly. “When did that happen? How?”

“Shut up,” Larry replies, her cheeks showing the faintest hint of colour beneath her theatrical makeup. The embarrassment in her voice surprises Ananke, who responds with genuine laughter.

Larry sighs dramatically and rolls her eyes, returning her attention to the window. “You wouldn't understand,” the dark elf mutters with wounded dignity.

Ananke continues smiling, but her thoughts drift to more serious matters. There's something she's been wondering about, a question that's been nagging at her since her conversation with one of the Crux’s minutemen in the past. She wants to ask, but she's aware it might get her into trouble. Larry notices her internal struggle and glances over her shoulder. “What?”

Ananke considers for a long moment before looking directly at Larry. “Can I ask you something I probably shouldn't? It might be trouble.”

Larry immediately perks up, sitting upright and scooting toward Ananke's chair with crossed legs in an almost childlike manner. “Trouble is my absolute favourite thing,” she declares with obvious delight. “Let me have it.”

Ananke studies Larry's face carefully, wondering if she can trust her with this sensitive topic after Marshal's very clear warning to keep her mouth shut. But something about Larry's irreverent attitude to everything makes her feel safe to ask this, especially if she was also an apprentice to her master too. There’s a familiarity there. “If there are always only twelve of us, then who exactly are the Witching Hour? Aren't they chronomancers too?” asks Ananke, having been trying to dig into this topic for weeks now. Nobody will tell her anything.

Larry's expression immediately shifts, becoming more guarded as she glances around the room to ensure they're alone. “Ooh~! You're going to get big problems if anyone finds out you asked me that.”

Ananke leans forward eagerly. “Larry, please! I really want to know.”

Larry raises a single finger with theatrical seriousness but can’t hide her wide, somewhat menacing grin. “I'll tell you, but you'll owe me a favour.” She extends her hand expectantly.

Something about this forbidden knowledge drives Ananke's curiosity to new heights. “Whatever you want!” she promises, grasping Larry's hand to seal their agreement.

“…You don't even know what I might want from you,” Larry observes, raising an eyebrow at Ananke's eager acceptance. She studies her intently and then Larry sighs, her pointed ears drooping. “Fine, fine.” She lowers her voice to barely above a whisper. “How do I put this? Just because you're not a baker by trade doesn't mean you can't make a pie, get me? You just won’t have the government’s blessing to sell them on the open market without the proper paperwork.” Ananke slowly shakes her head, signalling confusion. Larry rolls her eyes. “We follow very specific rules and procedures to ensure everything is done properly. We are what you might call 'officially sanctioned' chronomancers. There are only twelve of us here, given our patron’s… budgetary constraints,” says the clownish woman, popping another piece of candy into her mouth. “We receive our gifts and assignments from upper management, complete them without question, file the appropriate paperwork, and return to our pretty little beds like good little boys and girls,” she says with a full mouth, visibly chewing. Larry crosses her legs and studies Ananke carefully. “But naturally, given the scope of what we can do, some out there might believe that our talents are being wasted with these sorts of rules and regulations.”

“So they’re just… unofficial chronomancers?” guesses Ananke, trying to understand. Although she still doesn’t understand who this mysterious power above is that everyone is already referring to.

Larry nods and reaches into her bowl and extracts a piece of candy, then deliberately takes several more. “See this?” she asks. Ananke nods, watching as she slowly unwraps the piece of candy and makes a long, extensive show of placing it onto her tongue. “Why would you settle for just one little piece when you have the power to have the entire bowl?” Her gaze fixes on Ananke with unsettling intensity. “With time magic, you can control everything in your life. Want to be wealthy and live like a princess? You can arrange that. You want your family back?” The words hit Ananke like a physical blow. “You can have them.” Her eyes widen a little.

Larry sits up on her knees and then leans in closer, her presence becoming almost shadowing as she closes the distance between them. Her widening eyes lock onto Ananke's with hypnotic focus. “Do you want to experience every possible life, every imaginable sensation?” The room around them seems to distort and swirl ever so slightly. Her finger suddenly touches Ananke's collarbone and traces slowly upward across her shoulder and neck toward her ear. “Do you want to try any forbidden, horrible thing that your heart desires most in this world? You could do anything you wanted to anyone, then simply undo it as if it never happened.” Her voice drops to an unnervingly close whisper near Ananke's ear. “No consequences, no harm done.”

Ananke finds herself pressed back into the chair, trying to maintain some distance as her heart races with emotions she can't identify or understand. “You can have anything,” a voice whispers with almost hypnotic assurance and it doesn’t sound like one that was a part of the conversation up until now. “I know you've considered it before. Some apples from a wealthy merchant, a book from a shop with hundreds. Why not?”

How does she know about that?

The scent of Larry's perfume fills Ananke's senses, something floral and intoxicating that makes her thoughts feel clouded. She closes her eyes, clenching them tightly, as if trying to wake herself from a dream. “B-Because it's wrong,” Ananke manages to stutter, though she knows that understanding that something is morally incorrect isn't always sufficient to prevent someone from doing it. She had come dangerously close to that line herself back in Hafen.

But if she could learn to move through time freely like they can, could she really stop herself from going back? From at least seeing her family again? Could she stop herself from saving them?

She isn’t so sure, really, and she can’t really think about it with a clear head as the hairs on her nape rise on end.

But suddenly, the oppressive atmosphere breaks like a snapped cord.

Ananke would have sworn Larry had been practically climbing over her like a spider about to eat a bug it had trapped, but as she sharply exhales and opens her eyes again, Larry is actually sitting casually on the floor with crossed legs, chewing another piece of candy as if nothing unusual had occurred. She’s resting there as if she had never even left that spot to begin with. Ananke rubs her eyes, clearing her head as she looks around the perfectly normal room in confusion.

What was that?

“That's exactly what the Witching Hour does,” Larry explains with her mouth full of taffy, her demeanour now as completely casual and relaxed as ever. Ananke stares around herself, not sure if she didn’t just imagine that strange transition in events. “They use their abilities to obtain whatever they want, regardless of the timeline’s stability or the consequences to anyone else. That’s dangerous stuff, Ananke,” she continues with a full mouth, leaning back against the window and popping another candy into her lips that can’t safely hold much more at this point. “Because once you start getting what you want, once you realise you can have anything, you'll always want more,” she says, swallowing. Her smile carries an edge that makes Ananke deeply uncomfortable in ways she can't articulate.

“Which is precisely why,” interrupts a third voice from beside the door they hadn't heard open, “- we must accept that we cannot always have what we desire, no matter how much we might do so. It is for our own good.”

“Master!” Ananke exclaims, jumping up in startled surprise. She looks frantically between him and Larry. “I'm sorry! I made her explain things I shouldn't have asked about -”

Her master raises his hand to stop her explanation. Ananke, flustered, lowers her eyes in shame. “You would have learnt about this soon enough anyway,” he says matter-of-factly. “We have a new assignment. I've been dispatched to travel northeast to the port city of Skrosocivo. There's a plague. You'll be joining me.”

She looks up in surprise. “What about my training and lessons here?” Ananke asks.

“Naturally, you will need to keep up to date with your coursework and-” he starts.

“- I'll handle those!” announces another voice, abruptly joining in on the conversation. Ananke can’t keep track of the conversation anymore, especially since this was her own voice this time.

All three turn to see a temporal distortion as a second Ananke materialises from elsewhere in time. The duplicate taps the side of her head confidently. “When we merge timelines, I'll transfer all the knowledge directly into her consciousness, Master.”

She’ll what?

Ananke stares at her copy. Does that work like that? This revelation suggests possibilities Ananke hadn't even known existed. Her eyes travel between her master and the copy, who stare at one another quietly. Her master turns his head, looking at the real her.

The original Ananke raises her hands defensively as her master looks back at her questioningly. “I didn't summon her! She appeared on her own!”

“That's just fun,” Larry observes with amusement. “I wish I could do that,” she ponders.

The Humming Man sighs. “I will thank every divine powers every day that I live that you cannot, Larry,” her master replies dryly. “I barely survived your apprenticeship as it was. And don’t eat so many sweets. You’ll become ill,” he admonishes in a practised tone, suggesting he’s said this exact thing many times before in the past. Larry looks at him and then back at the half-empty bowl, a confusing mixture of guilt and amusement on her face. The Humming Man turns toward the door. “Come along, Apprentice. We have a lot of work ahead of us.” Ananke hurries after him, glancing back at both Larry and her temporal duplicate.

The copy waves cheerfully, taking her place in the chair and kicking up her legs over the armrest to relax as she takes over the real Ananke’s place in the ‘lesson’. “Have fun!”

Ananke nods once to her other self and Larry and runs after her master.

“Isn’t Skrosocivo a long way away?” asks Ananke, having heard the name before while listening to some idle talk between merchants in her past. “It will take us months to get there on foot, Master,” she says.

“…On foot?” he asks, perplexed, as if she had missed something obvious. The massive clockwork gears that are always churning in the flowing water move loudly, heavy chains rattling as something is pulled along through an intricate series of mechanisms.

Behind him, in the centre of the tower’s inner hollow core, emerges a shape from below, pulled up to their level by the construct. Her master walks toward it, the ornate doors on the rectangular shape opening like those of a train car. “We’re already here, above it,” he explains to her, taking a seat on a large, decorative bench inside of the suspended carriage. “All that’s left is to get down there. Come along, this is the best part,” he says. “I love the view.”

…Above it?

Ananke looks down over the edge of the barrier, between the railing and the suspended carriage. Instantly, nausea and a cold terror fill her guts. Her legs feel like they’re about to give out beneath her.

Down below, instead of the usual empty void at the base of the tower, she instead sees a distant landmass from above that she only recognises from her studied charts and maps.

And they’re most certainly not anywhere close to her home anymore.

The tower is floating kilometres high above the continent, past the mountains, past the clouds suspended over it as if the world itself were the face of a clock and the Crux a disconnected needle hand, ticking sideways along its horizon.

There is an audible rattling as the massive chains move. He pats the bench twice with his hand, gesturing for her to come over. The platform starts to move without her and Ananke instinctively jumps over toward it, scrambling to the seat next to her master with a terrified motion. Her face is pale as she clutches the wooden rim of the bench, pressing her back to it as they begin to lower in free suspension down toward the world below.

“…I just realised I’ve never asked if you care for heights,” he ponders out loud.

Ananke wouldn’t mind as much if not for the glass window in the floor that lets her see how high they really are. “Has- Has this thing ever fallen?” she asks.

The Humming Man laughs and waves her off. “Oh no, no,” he says. “Goodness, no… I mean, not until it hit the ground, at least,” he says, apparently trying to put her at ease.

“…What does that mean?” she asks. He doesn’t respond, adjusting his hat. “Master. What does that mean?!” Ananke asks again, louder.

There’s a sudden jolt and she feels them falling in freefall straight down toward the world below. Her guts lurch and she feels her insides float upward for a brief second. She lets out a surprised cry, instinctively grabbing hold of his robes as every synapse in her brain tells her that it’s all coming to an end now.

But then the chains just catch themselves in a familiar groove in the tower’s stonework, and they stabilise, and Ananke, embarrassed, lets go of him and sits there with her palms on her lap as they gently are lowered down by the elevated carriage toward the waiting world below.

He leans over an inch. “You get used to it,” he assures her. “It just takes a little time.” He laughs at his own joke, seemingly very pleased with himself.