I jerked awake, gasping as my back arched involuntarily, pulling me away from the wall I’d been sleeping against. There was water everywhere—in my mouth, splashed across my bare skin to mix with the remnants of dried blood and dust and dirt, and sticking what remained of my hair to my scalp. Coughing, I blinked blearily up at the large figure looming over me in the morning light, a blue plastic bucket—now empty—still held in his hand.

  “Good morning,” Gil said, not entirely unkindly. There was a slight sheepishness in his tone that made me feel like he at least had the basic decency to feel a little bit ashamed at the way he’d woken me up. It could have been worse, I supposed… the water he’d doused me with could have been frigid instead of lukewarm.

  I coughed again, staring up at him resentfully. “What do you mean?” I grumbled, water dripping off my chin. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it’s a good morning whether I want it or not?”

  He grinned at the Tolkien reference. “Hah! Or perhaps I just feel good this morning, or it’s a morning to be good on?” He shifted slightly, using his foot to nudge a second bucket that he’d set down on the ground a few feet away from me. “I’m afraid it’s good, whether you want it or not. Thena’s keen to get into it again. Clean yourself up a bit, then come over to the patio for breakfast.” With that, he turned and walked away.

  I glared, part of me wishing that my eyes would burn a hole in his retreating back, then sat for a moment longer in silence, hugging my arms around my knees. I’d slept outside, tucked up against the mudbrick wall of the homestead. It had gotten cool overnight, but not cold, which was another small mercy. I was still naked. There was a stained, misshapen pillow where my head had been—it wasn’t exactly proper bedding, but it was at least a small gesture toward some sort of comfort. I wondered vaguely if Thena knew about it, or if Gil had snuck it out to me without her knowing. It had gotten wet, but it should hopefully dry well enough in the sun.

  I crawled over to the bucket Gil had left behind. My muscles burned a little, though nowhere near as badly as I expected them to. Looking down at my arms, I could see some small traces of mottled bruising, but most had already faded overnight. I had gotten used to bruises and scrapes vanishing completely overnight, so it was actually kind of impressive that there were some lingering marks. I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for the minor healing factor the Heart-Shaped Herb had granted me, or annoyed that its enhancement had extended Thena’s initial ‘training’ session for as long as it had. Sigh. Stupid enhanced stamina.

  There was a clean washcloth draped over the side of the bucket but, before I touched it, I squinted at the semi-translucent reflection I could see in the surface of the water.

  My hair.

  It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t. It was… My eyes stung a little, and I sniffed and wiped at them with the heel of one palm. Taking a deep steadying breath, I forced myself to look again. It was hard to tell exactly, but I felt like what Thena had left me with could at least be tidied up into an okay-looking pixie cut. She was, in a way, weirdly good at cutting hair from an unwilling victim. I probably shouldn’t think about that too closely.

  I hated this. Thena had made me angry a few times yesterday but, somehow, this cut deeper than the rest of it. I liked my hair, and she’d taken it from me. Regardless of how the rest of my training went, even though I could earn back everything else she’d taken—well, maybe not any of my clothes, those had basically been shredded—it was going to take a long time to grow my hair out properly again. Still, it would grow back. It was temporary. Thena hadn't actually maimed me… even if, emotionally, it felt a little bit like she had.

  I cleaned myself mechanically. The water was lukewarm, the cloth was scratchy, and I let myself just… hate all of it for a little bit. My stomach was extremely talkative throughout the process; I was starving. We hadn’t stopped to eat at all yesterday, so I was extremely glad there was breakfast to look forward to. Gil was easily the best cook I’d ever met, and he wasn’t the type to hold back. It was nice to think I’d at least get a small indulgence to start the day before Thena resumed beating the shit out of me. What would Gilgamesh cook up? Fresh bread? Eggs? Maybe a spiced hash—that seemed like Gil’s type of thing. Would he have some sort of divine-grade coffee tucked away? I hoped so, but I’d settle for instant. Just… anything.

  When I was as clean as I was going to get with a single bucket of water and a threadbare cloth, I ran a shaky hand through my short hair, squared my shoulders, and padded barefoot around the edge of the homestead toward the patio. I paused, looking at the weather-worn outdoor table, the rising sun catching the edge of the roofline above. There was seemingly one place set—a metal spoon sitting all on its own in front of one of the discoloured plastic chairs. Did that count as being set? Who knows.

  Draped over the back of the chair, however, was a loose, off-white dress made from rough fabric. One of Thena’s, I guessed. I stepped up to it and scooped it up, looking around. I could hear some movement inside, but there was no one in the immediate vicinity. Part of me had observed, in a detached sort of way, that I should feel weird about walking around naked, but I found it difficult to care. I felt emotionally exhausted and just didn’t have the mental space to devote any sort of feelings toward it. It sucked—being naked was supposed to be fun, not whatever this was.

  I picked up the dress and pulled it over my head before sitting down at the table. I was pretty sure it had been left for me, but if it hadn’t—well, whatever. Thena could consider it ‘claimed’. I sighed and leaned back in the chair.

  Gil emerged from the kitchen a moment later, carrying a large bowl which he set down in front of me with a solid ceramic thunk. The contents were… grey. Somehow lumpy and watery at the same time. Vaguely porridge-adjacent, if I was feeling generous (I wasn’t). It looked like someone had magically conjured despair and regret into physical form and then tried to make oatmeal out of it.

  There was a surge of unpleasant emotions in my chest and I felt a pricking at the corners of my eyes. “…What is this?” I asked, my tone deadly quiet. “Is this a joke?”

  He fiddled with a small cloth he held loosely in both hands and offered a little bit of a forced smile. “A restorative gruel—my own special recipe of grains and root mash. Warriors of Uruk would eat this to replenish their stamina, heal wounds and gird their bodies with energy for battle. You’ll be thankful for it, once you’ve gotten it inside you.”

  I picked up the spoon and stirred once. The texture resisted. It smelled like damp stone and medicinal sorrow. “Gil, please. What did I ever do to you?”

  He gave a small shrug. “I’d say it tastes better than it looks, but,” he said, a flicker of sympathy passing across his face, “it doesn’t. Sorry.”

  Okay.

  So.

  Gilgamesh wasn’t a god in the same way that Thena was, but he was still an Eternal fuelled by cosmic energy, which I knew could have conceptual effects. If Thena could have a training booster, then I didn’t see any reason why Gil couldn’t also have other smaller abilities that I didn’t know about. There was clearly something supernatural going on with him in the kitchen—I was pretty sure, at least, that he made stuff faster than should be physically possible. In any case, he loved food and drink so he wouldn’t deliberately make something awful with no benefits, right? So the gruel might actually have some sort of mystical restorative effect and I was trying really hard to justify not snapping and laying waste to the Eternals’ homestead and everything else in a five-kilometre radius.

  I took a bite.

  It tasted exactly as it looked.

  I let the spoon drop with a dull clink, staring mournfully at the bowl, and let out a long, low sigh.

  “Eat up,” Gil said, nudging my shoulder gently. “You’re going to need it. Trust me.” With that, he stepped away, heading back toward the house and leaving me to finish my ‘breakfast’ alone.

  It was going to be a long day.

  Thena joined me just as I was forcing myself to finish the last of the gruel. She was wearing loose trousers and a sleeveless top, the same off-white as the dress I wore. She didn’t say anything about it—I still wasn’t sure whether leaving it for me was a gesture from her or from Gilgamesh. My eyes lingered slightly on her empty waist, and she noticed my gaze.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, in a tone I was pretty sure she meant to be reassuring. “I burnt it all. Are you ready?”

  I tried not to visibly flinch, dropping my eyes to the ground again. It made sense, of course. I still didn’t really know how sympathetic magic worked at all, but it was common sense for a witch to not leave a bunch of hair clippings around where someone might be able to use it for nefarious purposes. Still, though.

  Oh well. Time to get punched in the face by a goddess again.

  Once again, we moved some distance away from the homestead. Gilgamesh emerged and wandered over as well, finding a spot on a nearby rock to sit and watch from as I stretched a little before we began in earnest. Once I was ready, Thena exploded into motion—no careful testing, no build-up, just an immediate lunge without any pretence or preamble.

  We clashed, and I was surprised to notice that the last remnants of yesterday’s exhaustion had fled, my muscles feeling somehow fresh and ready. Without glancing in his direction, I sent a silent thank-you over to where Gilgamesh was watching from. I was starting to believe he hadn’t been making up a story about the gruel—I really did feel replenished and energised.

  I pressed forward, weaving between Thena’s strikes, chaos magic crackling through my hands. My movements were sharper, more grounded. It felt like I was more naturally finding myself better positions to respond to her attacks, just minor improvements in my balance and the placement of my feet. A bolt of chaos magic clipped Thena’s shoulder and my breath hitched in my throat. It didn’t stagger her, but she’d actually been forced back a step.

  Was I doing an actual training montage, yesterday and today? I was. I readied my stance, calling red chaos magic to my hands. I must be swift as a coursing river…

  There was something else. It wasn’t just me getting better… Thena herself seemed a little slower. She still moved with that impossible grace, but her timing didn’t seem completely perfect anymore. Her dodges weren’t quite as crisp. She wasn’t blocking quite as smoothly. Was she testing me? No, that didn’t seem right—Thena wouldn’t be intentionally ceding ground or going easy on me. Was she tired? Why would she be? We’d only just started and she’d fought all day yesterday without seeming to slow down.

  I ducked under the swing of a golden halberd and sensed an opening. It might have been a trap, but I took it anyway, sweeping my hands out in a wide telekinetic burst that sent her stumbling, wrong-footed. With all the force of a great typhoon!

  My face twisted in an eager, silent snarl as I lunged in. Thena was already recovering, wireframes forming into a shield on her forearm to intercept me, but I hit it before it had finished coming together, slamming into it with a point-blank flare of telekinetic energy that shattered it apart and sent her tumbling backwards. With all the strength of a raging fire!

  Thena rolled across the ground and back up onto her feet, watching me carefully.

  “Mysterious as the dark side of the moon,” I sang quietly under my breath, and then it was my turn to bare my teeth at her in a not-smile as we faced off. There was blood in the water, now. I could beat her. I was going to—

  Thena’s eyes flicked off to the side. “Gil,” she called, “You’re up.”

  Huh. Thena was tagging out? That was unexpected. I followed her gaze, turning to look toward Gilgamesh. He shrugged, rolling his shoulders, as he started toward me.

  “Et tu, Gil?” I called over to him, feeling a little guarded but still confident.

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  He shot me a grin, golden threads of energy weaving into armoured gauntlets over his hands as he readied himself in a fighting stance. “Sorry. Et me.”

  I nodded. This was fine. Gilgamesh would at least be slower than Thena. I might have trouble actually knocking him down but, overall, this should hopefully be easier than fighting her had been. Summoning wisps of chaos magic to my hands, a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye drew my attention back to Thena. Glimmering golden daggers had appeared in both of her hands and there was a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach.

  Oh.

  Thena wasn’t tagging out.

  This wasn’t fine. This was going to suck.

  Thena started to circle around. I shifted my weight, my chest tightening a little, torn between keeping my eyes on her and the looming, unmissable presence of Gilgamesh closing steadily from the other side.

  There was a flicker of motion and I whipped out my hand, weaving a shield between Thena and I. Her pair of thrown daggers hit it dead-on with a sharp crack, vanishing in a burst of golden light. I braced for more, but Gil was already on me. I ducked low under a wide haymaker, skittering sideways to try to regain some distance. I caught my balance, just barely, and twisted my fingers to push him back with a blast of red, only to be forced to throw up another shield instead as two more daggers whistled in from the right. “This isn’t fair!” I shouted.

  “Don’t let yourself get distracted!” Gil responded with a laugh as he jumped toward me, leaping into the air and twisting his body to put his entire weight behind a right cross. His golden-gauntleted fist slammed into and through my half-woven shield, shattering it like it was made of glass and barely slowing down as I just managed to jerk backwards out of the way. I hit the ground hard and rolled, coughing dust, already scrambling back to my feet, chaos magic coiling around my arms like smoke, my heart pounding in my chest.

  I didn’t have any real time to recover, as Thena loomed once again, energy glimmering between each knuckle for a moment before she flung a small barrage of golden shuriken at me.

  The next few seconds were a blur. Thena darted around the outskirts of the fight, her throws coming fast and constant, her intent not to pierce but to keep me off-balance and reactive. I raised angled shields, narrow ones, trying to save energy and minimize openings. Each flicker of red drew a retaliation from Gil: a hammering strike, a tackle, a low sweep that forced me into a desperate backpedal. Every time I tried to focus on one of them, the other punished me for it.

  A golden dagger slipped past my shield—just a graze, slicing across my upper arm—but it made me hiss aloud and falter. Gil didn’t miss the cue. He surged in and planted both hands against my midsection, lifting me clean off my feet and hurling me through the air like I weighed nothing.

  I hit the dirt hard, rolling and barely managing a burst of telekinetic energy to deflect a follow-up dagger from Thena. It buried itself in the ground, just a hair’s breadth from my outstretched hand, before dissipating.

  “Enough. Stand,” Thena commanded.

  I stood.

  She approached, then circled around me slowly—a predator sizing up her prey—while I stood there warily. “You were never taught how to use your magic properly, were you?” she asked, coming to a stop behind me.

  “No,” I said, still breathing hard. I gave a little shrug, but didn’t turn to face her. “I’ve had to figure things out on my own. I think I’ve done pretty well, all things considered.”

  We stood there for a few moments in silence before she spoke again. “A number of years ago, we had a computer here, until Gilgamesh broke it,” she said, her tone conversational. My forehead creased slightly, but I remained quiet. “Before that, he showed me a game. To play this game, there were several keys on the keyboard that were connected to different parts of a man on screen, in order to make him move. It was designed to be intentionally difficult, I think, and while it was possible to get quite good at flinging the man forward in a sort of hobbling, abnormal stagger, it was not the same as making the man truly run.”

  Okay, that did it. “QWOP?” I asked, disbelief and irritation warring in my tone as I whipped my head around to look at her. “You’re saying the way I use magic reminds you of QWOP?”

  Thena just stood there. Not smiling, not teasing. Her expression completely serious, like that was her genuine assessment of my abilities.

  I exhaled sharply. “That might actually be the most genuinely insulting thing that anyone has ever said to me.”

  “And yet it still needed to be said,” Thena said firmly, her eyes locked on mine. She took a step closer to me and I straightened reflexively. There was a slight tug at the centre of my chest, the connection that had formed between us demanding that I devote my full attention to her. I wasn’t sure I could look away if I tried. “Take the way you protect yourself in battle. It does not matter the relative strength of an attack—if you cannot avoid it, you manually weave a barrier, every time. It takes your entire focus and you go entirely defensive.”

  “Okay, yeah. The alternative being?”

  “I have fought skilled witches in the past, and that is not how they fight. You’re more than powerful enough to cast a strong, long-lasting protection spell. One that could deflect most simple attacks on its own, without you actively shifting focus to protect yourself,” she said, still studying my features. “A true shield should be reserved for attacks that warrant your full attention and power, that lesser protections will not block.”

  I threw my arms out in an annoyed gesture. “I don’t know how to do that!”

  “Learn.”

  I huffed again. “You want me to, what, just… figure out how to cast a protection spell from first principles? That’s…” I trailed off. Pushing away the force of the connection between us, I broke eye contact, turning away from her as I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to cast my mind back.

  I vaguely remembered bits of the original timeline. That Wanda. The one that my other life had seen on screen, but from her perspective. As though it had happened to me. I remembered… striding confidently forward, ignoring the repulsors of the Illuminati’s Ultron drones as I tore them apart, my magic intercepting their attacks before they could even reach me. I’d cast a protection spell, hadn’t I? I must have—multiple ones, even. I remembered tanking the blast from one of Kamar-taj’s magical cannons, having it actually slam into me and do nothing more than knock me back and piss me off. That version of me had known how to do this.

  Whatever I was somehow tapping into from that life was fuzzy. Bits and pieces, rather than fully realised memories. Intentionally trying to bring them into sharper focus might’ve been easier with the Mind Stone, but I’d always been wary of using the Stone to affect my own mind directly—given how volatile the Stones could be, it seemed like something that could be extremely risky. Thena was holding the Stone right now, in any case, so I couldn’t use it even if I wanted to.

  I opened my eyes again and shook my head. It’d be an ongoing enchantment, obviously, linked directly to my well of power to maintain it. Like what I’d learned to do to ward against detection by sorcerous magic, or the restraints I’d used to bind Bucky’s Winter Soldier persona, or the battery enchantment I’d used to fuel both. I just had to figure out the details, how to make it work for a barrier that would stay up and move with me. The shape of the enchantment.

  Almost like she was following along with my thoughts, Thena spoke again. “Your magic is a natural part of you. It’s supposed to be intuitive. Yes, there are established rituals, enchantments and spells that other witches might rely on, but they were originally codified from nothing in the first place,” she said, her tone patient. “When you first came here, you told me that you were not an ordinary witch—you were an exceptional witch. It is clear to me that this is true. That there are limitations other witches have that you lack. Why don’t you fly?”

  “What?” I asked, my thought process derailed by the sudden change in subject.

  Thena gestured toward with me demonstratively. “You use magic to enhance your mobility—hop, bounce, throw yourself out of the way—but not once have you flown. Gilgamesh has limited ability to attack at range. Witch flight can be limited and may not help against many opponents, but there are times when using it would have been to your advantage and given you the space to deal with us on a more even footing.”

  I shook my head again, already expecting how this conversation was going to go. “I can’t fly,” I said flatly.

  “As I said, I have fought witches in the past. None as strong as you. You can definitely fly.”

  “I don’t know how,” I said for the second time, feeling dumb even as I said it.

  “Have you tried?” Thena asked. “Flight is an incredibly versatile tool, when used correctly. In some circumstances, it may be your only option—what if an opponent were to break your legs?”

  I really didn’t like the way Thena seemed to be eyeing my legs as she said that, as though she were considering whether it would be worth breaking them herself in order to force me to adapt. To head anything like that off, I focused and summoned chaos magic to my hands, taking a deep breath as I wrapped myself in telekinetic energy and carefully, shakily, levitated myself a couple of feet off the ground. It took every bit of my concentration. I was incredibly wobbly—it felt like I was about to pitch over at any moment.

  Thena walked around me in a slow circle as I struggled to hold it. After a few moments, she held up a hand and golden cosmic filigree came together into a long pole. She prodded at me with it and it was all I could do to stop myself falling out of the air. “Are you pushing downwards?”

  “Yes,” I ground out. “I understand how lift works, thank you.”

  “I knew you were a witch. I did not realise you were a plane.”

  “What?” I snapped. Thena thwapped me across the side of the head with the pole, and I lost my balance, going down in a tangle of limbs. “Fucking what the fuck—” She prodded me again and I went still. “Whyyyy?” I asked, my voice pained.

  “There are certain things about the way you use your magic in battle that make more sense to me now,” Thena told me. “Your focus is too narrow, only concerned with where objects are relative to yourself. You need to broaden your perspective to include where you are in relation to them, and where they are in relation to everything else.”

  I pulled myself to my feet and sighed. “Okay, I might just be really fucking stupid, but I really don’t understand what you’re saying. Come again?”

  “You can’t fly because you’re doing the magical equivalent of flapping your arms like a bird. You conceptualise your magic as invisible arms—extensions poking out from yourself, pushing or pulling objects relative to your own body—but you do not have invisible arms, or wings. You think only in terms of how you’re manipulating things in relation to yourself and lose focus on their broader position in space. You should not be thinking in terms of ‘lift’. You imagine false limitations on yourself, born from the incomplete human understanding of base physics. Shift your frame of reference. Trust your magic more. To move yourself, focus not on where you are, but where you are going. And to move an object, move it ‘up’ in relation to its position in the space around it, not ‘up’ relative to Wanda.”

  “But that doesn’t…” I trailed off, my mind racing. I used my magic to manipulate things relative to myself because that’s how it made sense to use it.

  Didn’t it?

  I pushed things away from me or drew them toward me. I grabbed things and flung them past me, or lifted them over me. That was how I’d learned to telekinetically manipulate things with chaos magic in the first place. That was how HYDRA had—

  That was how HYDRA—the people who had no fucking idea what my powers were or how best to train me—had trained me. Dr List hadn’t known the first thing about magic at all, let alone witchcraft. He’d thought I had superpowers. Of course that was the problem.

  HYDRA had thought I was a sci-fi style psychic that could do telekinesis and mind control—wondrous, but still fundamentally bound by laws they already understood. Dr List had pushed me to find the first workable solution for what he thought I could do, crowbarring my magic through the lens of his science, but magic was more than that. Then he’d drilled his woefully inadequate misunderstanding into me until it was essentially muscle memory. It had never occurred to me that maybe I’d been doing it wrong all along.

  “Oh my god, I’m Wimp Lo,” I said aloud, a note of despairing realisation in my tone.

  Thena was right. QWOP had legitimately been a valid comparison. I’d learned how to throw myself around purely on the strength of my flailing. It wasn’t the same as actually learning to run. I needed to forget everything I knew—throw out everything that I’d fought to learn about my magic while I’d been trained by HYDRA—and reconceptualise the basic fundamentals of how it worked. Relearn how to manipulate things from scratch.

  “Stay,” Thena commanded, then turned on her heel and marched a short distance away from me.

  Gilgamesh followed her.

  When she turned back, she dropped to one knee, pressing her hands to the ground. She frowned, her brow furrowed, and took a deep breath. Golden threads of cosmic energy manifested from her hands, drawing paths along the red earth in a wide arc around me. After they eventually touched on the other side, encircling a space maybe fifty metres or so in diameter, Thena raised her voice. “You are not to leave the circle unless given permission,” she instructed, but didn’t move. Her breathing was visibly coming heavier now.

  A small flicker of concern passed across Gilgamesh’s face and he hunkered down next to her, speaking in low tones. “You’re pushing too hard.” I was pretty sure he was trying to speak quietly enough that I wouldn’t hear, but I was also pretty sure that he didn’t realise how sharp my enhanced hearing was. “It’s too much. Slow things down; give yourself a chance to recover and let what you’ve put into her settle. Too much pressure and she’ll break. You both will.”

  “I know. If we had more time, I would,” Thena murmured back. “But something’s going to happen soon. I can feel it. She needs to be as ready as she can be. Join her in the circle.”

  Reluctantly, Gil rose to his feet, leaving her there as he strode into the ring. Okay, well, that was ominous. When Thena had offered to train me in the first place, she’d said something about being able to feel the weight of battles in my future. Was that what she was talking about?

  There was… something. A fleeting instant of double-vision where I thought I saw another Thena, superimposed over the first, clad in blue armour. I blinked and it was gone. At the same time, golden lines of cosmic energy had risen up in a half-dozen spots scattered around the periphery of the circle, each coming together into a much larger construct than I’d ever seen her conjure before. Wait. Were those…?

  They were. Glimmering golden wireframes that resembled wooden carts, each with a box-like frame atop them bristling with broadheads.

  Oh.

  Oh no.

  I stared at the six hwacha aimed into the circle. “Wait,” I said, a tremor in my voice. “No. That’s illegal.”

  “Gil, keep her from shielding from all directions at once,” Thena instructed as she finally straightened up. Glimmering threads of energy connected her outstretched fingers to the edge of the circle and, through it, to the hwacha surrounding me. “Wanda, today you will improve your mobility by learning to fly, and you will learn to cast a protection spell. Whichever you would like to focus on first is up to you.”

  A feeling of raw panic had started to bubble up in my chest, thick strands of chaos magic already forming in my hands without a conscious decision from me to do so. “Thena, please, I need some time to work out what I’m doing,” I pleaded. “What if I can’t?”

  Gil looked at me, golden wireframed gauntlets already forming over his hands and forearms. “Then you’re probably about to have a really bad time,” he said apologetically.