"Yeah, I'm sure."

"All right. Ready when you are."

And she is presently ready.

Malcolm removes a ring from his little finger and looks at her through it. Then he does something hard to follow. "You should test the time skip first, to make sure the safeguards are deactivated right. Wouldn't want you having to concentrate on skipping forward again every few hours for decades.

It's a purely mental action. Feels a bit like you're pouring your concentration through this ring, is the best I can describe it." He sets it on a nightstand.

If her glasses were off she'd see that it's an extremely magical ring, tied to the house and all the family members and especially him. Large and gold, featuring a family crest.

She does raise her glasses to squint at it. "If they're deactivated right won't that just make me slide the sixty years right away?"

"I'll stop it after a few hours. Once you confirm you didn't experience any time passing we can do the whole thing."

"Alright. I'd still rather not lose too much time before I'm ready, so don't let it go more than two hours?"

"All right. You should be sitting or lying down before you start, and then two hours can happen any moment."

She does that.

It's not the same sensation as falling asleep. More like spacing out until the end of a boring class, except more so. She can notice her train of thought losing focus as she pours it through the ring, and just before she's entirely stopped thinking Malcolm says "welcome back." He's standing closer to the door than he was a moment ago.

She blinks several times. "Wow. Yeah okay I see what you mean by getting stuck."

"It worked, then?"

"It did. I'm ready whenever you are."

"All right, then."

He offers a jade pendant, carefully maneuvering it with pliers in gloved hands. He's not even touching the chain on this one. "It shouldn't activate until it's worn; I'm just not taking any chances. I'll reconnect you to the time slide effect as soon as it's on."

"Okay."

She wears it.

A few seconds afterward she goes stiff. Not that it feels stiff; she's exactly as relaxed as she was before. Her muscles just aren't responding anymore. The voluntarily controlled ones aren't, and the others are just as paused. She is very extremely locked in.

Malcolm re-does whatever it was with the ring. It's harder to follow this time, on account of she's halfway through a blink. "If you can signal me, something went wrong and we should redo it to make sure you don't age sixty years."

He waits for her to try, and sees nothing. "You don't actually need to be able to see the ring to start skipping forward, but it won't hurt. I can leave it here for a bit."

Well she by definition does not respond!

"Good luck. We'll be here when you get back."

He leaves the ring behind, and then can't think of much of a reason to stick around. It's kind of unsettling, being around someone who's doing a perfect imitation of a vacant shell.

It must be, mustn't it.

Still can't really tell him anything.

Definitely not.

If she wants to spend the time plotting, she's got all the time in the world.

She does.

She thinks.

She doesn't get tired. Or hungry. Or thirsty. Or anything, really. It's... kinda claustrophobic, in a way. Not exactly, but almost. It's like she's a ghost, trapped. She needn't scream, but if she did, she'd have no mouth. She might... not hold on for as long as she thought she would. But she'll have long enough.

She thinks.

Enough time passes that she's a he. He's a he, trapped in her body. He's... dealt with dysphoria all his life, it's not that different, except getting used to the magic means he's unused to it, and coupled with the freezing effect... it is extremely unpleasant.

He thinks.

They didn't leave on a TV or anything, partly because Malcolm underestimated how long Sadde planned to stay like this and partly because it's 1943. It's probably boring in addition to unpleasant, but at least nothing is urgent.

No, nothing is.

After a very, very long time, or perhaps not that long at all, he doesn't keep track, but some time, he decides to slip some.

It's not obviously different, except that the clock on the wall advances further between times when he decides to pay attention. (It's the Behaim house. They have clocks everywhere.)

Eventually sixty years will have passed.