It took Daisy a long while to adjust to the pressure bearing down on her. She could pull her vibrational frequency back under control, but her psychic awareness was harder to rein in—it stayed open, and with it came a constant, dull weight in her skull. Not as sharp as what she felt through her frequency, but it never quite left.
Wong bustled over and set a cup of tea in front of each of them. Daisy didn't touch hers. She waited for the Ancient One to speak first.
"May I call you Daisy? I'm rather old—I'm sure you won't mind."
Daisy gave a small nod and apologized for her earlier rudeness.
"Daisy," the Ancient One began, perfectly at ease, "how much do you know about time? That strange and slippery thing?"
This time Daisy had no interest in playing games. She thought about it seriously.
"Einstein's theory of relativity holds that time isn't absolute—it produces completely different results depending on the observer's relative velocity and gravitational context. In other words, your vantage point determines what you see."
She reached for everything she'd studied, turning it over carefully. "Gravity warps time. The closer you are to an object of extreme mass—a black hole, for instance—the slower time flows compared to the outside world."
Wong, standing behind the Ancient One with his hands clasped behind his back, stared at her with glassy eyes. What on earth is she talking about? This has nothing to do with magic.
As it turned out, the theory was sound. The Ancient One gave a slow nod. "Einstein was a remarkable man. I met him once. His mind was something to behold."
"But do you know about time's mutability?" she continued.
That was beyond the edge of modern physics. Daisy shook her head.
The Ancient One lifted her teacup and took an unhurried sip. She didn't bother affecting any particular posture or bearing—yet every movement was effortless, utterly without affectation.
"Time has too many variables. Too much noise. A mortal body and a mortal mind simply can't hold that many branching possibilities."
Daisy didn't have much to add on that front, but she could imagine it. Looking at the same thing once felt fresh. Looking at it ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times would grind you down. She thought of Doctor Strange cycling through fourteen million possible futures against Thanos. All she could offer there was quiet respect.
If she had lived through fourteen million iterations of the same event, she doubted she'd remember her own name coming out the other side. What was Thanos, again?
"I have seen too many possibilities," the Ancient One said. "I have seen worlds where Waterloo never happened. Worlds where Germany won a world war—" She paused, apparently reconsidering. She seemed to have decided that American kids weren't known for their knowledge of history, and she'd rather not lose Daisy in the weeds.
She turned toward Wong. "Take Wong, for example. In one timeline, his grandfather became the founder of a new nation—and Wong himself was born an heir apparent."
Daisy followed her gaze. That guy? The one with the jowls and the permanent sheen of oil on his face? An heir apparent? Almost certainly the tyrannical, women-terrorizing variety.
Wong was hearing this for the first time. A certain glow spread across that well-fed face.
The Ancient One smiled faintly. "In this timeline, however, his grandfather died in battle rather early. His father became a butcher."
Daisy thought she was beginning to understand the point being made.
The Ancient One continued with something that sounded almost like wistfulness. "And you, Daisy Johnson—in some timelines you were a Level 10 agent at eighteen. In others, you didn't join S.H.I.E.L.D. until you were twenty-four. In some, we've spoken before; in others, we haven't. Too many variables, too many crossroads. I genuinely don't know how to choose at the fork, so I leave it all to fate to sort out."
"A great upheaval is coming. The world will need your strength to maintain the balance." The last two words came out barely above a breath. Daisy didn't quite catch them—her attention had already shifted.
"You want to teach me magic?"
"Ha!" The bald woman burst into a full, open laugh. It startled Daisy badly enough that she nearly bolted—though the laughter was warm and unhesitating, nothing like a villain's cold amusement.
"Daisy, magic isn't your path. In timelines you don't know about, I've tried to teach you seventy-five times—every approach I could think of. I'm sorry to say I won't be attempting a seventy-sixth. Your road doesn't run through magic."
Daisy felt her face go hot. Was she really that hopeless? Not far away, Wong was radiating the unmistakable energy of someone thinking yeah, that tracks.
"Magic doesn't belong to this world," the Ancient One continued. "The stronger the magic you use, the harder the world pushes back. It is a power that tempts you toward ruin—every time you reach for it, you're fighting the pull of corruption and the resistance of the world simultaneously."
She looked down, her gaze seeming to pass through the floor entirely. "I have made them train their bodies. My hope was to reduce what magic costs them. Unfortunately, they don't understand what I've been trying to protect them from."
Daisy turned this over quietly. She had no way to judge whether the Ancient One was being entirely honest—but the theory itself wasn't so different from what Constantine had told her, over in the DC universe. Two masters of the mystic arts, both cautioning restraint. Use it sparingly. Better yet, don't.
The Ancient One caught the thoughtful look on Daisy's face and smiled.
"You have your own path. Don't force magic on yourself—it isn't what you've imagined it to be. Of the three hundred and fifteen experiences I've observed, your connection to K'un-Lun runs remarkably deep. You'll find a fortuitous encounter there. When you have the time, go take a look."
She tapped a finger lightly in the air. The K'un-Lun ring on Daisy's hand blazed with a sudden, brilliant light.
"Go when you're ready. I've given you a set of coordinates. That strange ability of yours will carry you there."
With that, the Ancient One gave a small nod and walked away from the New York Sanctum.
Daisy raised her palm and felt carefully. Sure enough, embedded in the ring was a set of coordinates utterly unlike anything in the physical world.
K'un-Lun passed into Earth's dimensional vicinity only once every decade. The rest of the time it existed somewhere else entirely. The coordinates the Ancient One had just given her were extradimensional—and even setting aside the destination itself, they'd be enormously useful for her long-range teleportation.
She bowed deeply toward the direction the Ancient One had gone.
To shield the Earth, the Ancient One had drawn heavily on Dormammu's dark power. That darkness had been slowly eating at her from within for centuries. She had borne it, held on for the world's sake—and now she was tired. Worn through. She had drifted along too many timelines, and though her magic remained vast, her soul had grown too heavy, her thoughts too dark. In plain terms: she wanted to rest.
"I'm heading back to Kamar-Taj. Need a lift?" Wong had already packed his things and was ready to leave New York.
Daisy thought it over. She still had too much to sort out, and the trip to K'un-Lun needed preparation.
"We'll part ways here, Brother Wong!" she said, giving a clasped-fist salute—watching his face twitch with barely suppressed irritation before he opened a portal and stepped through.
Daisy smiled to herself and headed for the door.