"Close a curtain?"

"If I borrow a drape or something from Bar could I put it over my mirror, duck through, tug it closed, wander around, and come out? So nobody would accidentally stare into a me-mirror."

"Yeah, you could do that."

"Okay, I think I want to try it more than I am spooked by the idea of someone looking at a mysterious City of Bella, or whatever I get if I'm not a city. And if this winds up being cover for any non-privacy-related unpleasantness Bar assures me that security here is really good at its job, just FYI."

"Noted. I am not, for example, suggesting you use the Mind Palace Gateway, like, at all."

"That one's riskier?"

"If you move stuff around in there, it stays moved. So, for example, if you went into that scene you just saw and removed my mental representation of you, I would immediately lose all memory if interacting with you until it got put back. As far as I know nothing you can do with it is irreversible, but still, that is not the kind of thing you want to trust a stranger with."

And Edie--very carefully, so as not to let herself or Emily get a glimpse--makes a mirror.

Which Bella drapes, and then hops into.

There isn't any particular time dilation effect between the outside and inside of the mirror, so however long Bella decides to poke around they'll end up waiting.

At some point during this interval, Emily discovers that Bar does the first drink free!

"Nah. Casting spells takes some energy, but maintaining a long-term one doesn't do much of anything. It really is an experience, isn't it?"

"Oh, yeah, I could probably wander in there for days if I didn't need to be out of here in a week."

"...Why a week, in particular?"

"My magic, and also just my baseline existence even if I don't do anything, takes a finite resource. I can't replenish it in here. If I keep it way down, I will have enough leeway to get out, collect more valuable prizes, and recharge. If I wind up in some kind of bar emergency or really, really want to push it, I still need enough that I can go out and - this is going to sound very strange, it's mostly okay and there's an explanation but not a succinct one - if I run too low on magic to be able to take the steps necessary to get more, I need to exit the bar and commit suicide."

"...What good does suicide do you? I'm not doubting you, here, but you've got me curious."

"I'm in a time loop. Which doesn't usually have Milliways in it, so I'm going to milk the place for all it's worth. I didn't find out that my loop resets if I die on purpose, but it does. From where I currently am, the nearest place to get more magic recharging swag is from some monsters I don't have down pat yet - I'm in a city I don't usually visit on a standard run - so I'd have to use some magic to beat them up. If I reset, that doesn't reset my magic, but as long as I have an hour of baseline operation I can steal a recharge object from another puella magi while she's sleeping. If I have four hours I can get to Seattle and find a monster I've fought often enough to reliably kill with no magic, and if I fuck up that option I can still go the theft route."

"Aha. That seems...profoundly disturbing, but in a way that's inarguably not your fault."

"Oh, the fact that I'm in a time loop could easily be construed as my fault."

"Oh?"

"So, puella magi happen when a fluffy alien offers a teenage girl a wish. The wish must be within a certain power limit, but it's still a wish, pretty legit, very appealing, most people don't make good use of them but that's not actually the fluffy aliens' fault. In exchange for your wish you become a magical girl, which has some side effects that people really overreact to - to wit, I am not actually the physical body you see before you, I'm this jewel on my hand, here, operating the body by magic - and some side effects that really ought to be printed on the fucking label. The fluffy aliens are evil, puella magi who run out of magic or get too emotionally fucked up turn into the aforementioned monsters with valuable prizes, and the aliens are running the entire gig because they can get negentropy out of human emotion and this is the most efficient way to do it if you happen to be evil."

"...Okay, I can definitely see where the argument comes from that this is your fault, but I also see that the blame is much more accurately laid at the feet of the fluffy aliens."

"I'm pretty sure they don't handle the detail on the wish execution finely enough to actually have decided to put me in a time loop. I mean, for one thing that would be strategic insanity on their part - they're not looping, only I am, and I now hate them. They're not stupid. Magical girls get bonus magic themed around whatever we wish for. And I watched the biggest fucking witch of all time eat large portions of the world as an appetizer, and I didn't have enough wish to wish her gone - but I figured she had to have been smaller, before - so I wished for another chance to fix it. Only, my magic time travels with me, so there goes my wish, all used up. I have to do it the hard way. It's not that bad, really, between magic and the delight of modern aircraft I have the whole planet to play in before the world ends if I want to take a loop off learning to dictionary-attack the sucker."