Nope. The only real active ingredient is already in the center.

Then they can get started.

As predicted, it's kind of disorienting.

It doesn't seem like they're doing anything at all. That is, they're deciding to chant, and Arabic words are in fact being chanted by the people standing in the practitioners' assigned spaces and responding to their muscle movements. If Malcolm Behaim's immortality curse was being locked in Sadde's own body, this feels like being piloted by someone who moves exactly the same way right down to the smallest tongue or eye movement.

Everything happens all at once: first the circle in the center lengthens to an ellipse and points toward Diana, then toward Sadde's circle, then Duncan. It's definitely in that order, but but all three of them hear the other two lines right when they say their own.

That's... disturbing. But cool! In a very... strange way.

It tapers off instantly, which probably means over an amount of time that would look gradual to an outside observer.

Duncan is grinning. "Hardly ever get to use anything that powerful. Let's see what we've got." (Diana is taking a second to collect herself, but cracks a smile at his accidental comparison to astrology.)

What they've got is, apparently, a silvery bead on the inside of the box. Duncan takes it out and hands it, still smelling faintly of cedar, to Sadde. "You were the one planning to use it, right?"

"Maybe Diana, maybe me, one of us, yes."

"When you want to, crush it. It'll break more easily than it looks. The effect lasts for seconds to minutes."

"What determines how long?"

"It pretty much means what "whatever's going on right then" sounds like it would mean. Works better if not spread out, so move fast."

She nods. "Thank you." She conveniently has the money with her.

One of the benefits of the enforced honesty thing is not having to bother counting it.

"No, thank you. And I hope you get lucky using it."

She beams, and off they go.

The city continues to have inconvenient amounts of snow, but aside from the ways in and out it's relatively easy to get around. Doug flies down to Diana and Sadde as soon as they're out the door.

"No sign of him or his people so far. How'd it go, any new allies?"

"None who'll stick their necks out, no."

"It was a long shot, anyway," she shrugs. "That was an interesting illusion he did, there, though."

"Illusion?"

"I'm pretty sure I would have noticed if that was actually hijacking our bodies or anything like that—my body's my implement, I have a lot more awareness over it than most people. And illusion is what I'm better at."

"I assumed that was us hijacking our own bodies from a split second in the past, or something like that. It is time magic. I guess illusion would also make sense since it just a side effect of a pretty small-scale ritual."

"Hang on, chronomancy?" After Diana fills Doug in, "Could be that whole ritual is illusion. You just need the moment you're seizing to look more important. If that's happening, would we know?"

She shrugs. "As long as the spirits don't."

Avian shrug. "How sure are you that you'd notice, anyway? Could have been what it looked like."

"I'm not at all sure that I would," she agrees. "I don't have to, and it's just as well."

"Well, watch out for anything else that gets labeled as 'not you doing it according to a certain metaphor' and maybe it'll come up again."

"Or," Diana smiles, "you could maybe not go out of your way to find out if being hijacked feels like anything."

"No promises."

"Of course, it'd have to wait for when you give yourself a break between crises. Outlandish enough that maybe l shouldn't bother thinking twice about it."

She laughs. "I'm not planning on being in any crises after this one, yet."

"Ha. So all we have to do is stay alive as wanted fugitives, and also win.

We should try and do that second part quickly, shorten the time for the first part, is there anything else we're waiting on?"