Everything a premium carries above its intrinsic value. It reflects how long is left and how much movement the market is pricing into that time, and it decays towards expiry — faster in the last days than earlier, and even on a session where the index closes exactly where it opened. It is largest at the money, where the outcome is least settled.
Mayawhat these words mean
Maya reads the desk’s written explainers and the glossary. She holds no market data at all, so she can say what a thing is and cannot say what it is doing today.