“Her mother?” My own mom echoed in a whisper that I could barely hear, giving Dad and me a bewildered look. I couldn’t help but return it, because I didn’t understand any more than she did.

  Sariel had regained control of herself by that point, at least somewhat. Enough that when her mother, Korsmea, turned back to look at us, she didn’t immediately realize something was wrong. Well, no more than the fact that we were right on the edge of some big alien battle.

  Instead, she took in the sight of us briefly before snapping, “What ship are you with? Did the admiral send reinforcements already? I thought we were going to have to hold out all week.”

  As she was snapping those questions, I had my first decent glimpse of her. I could see the family resemblance with Sariel, but maybe that was only because I knew it was there. She was… fit, that was for sure. The clothes she was wearing amounted to form-fitting black leggings and a sleeveless white tank top sort of thing. Her arms were visibly muscular, her light hair was cut short, up above her ears and styled in small spikes. She had a belt with several pouches on it, a holster for her gun, and a pair of metal wristbands with spells drawn on them.

  Before even waiting for a response to her question, the woman shook her head. “Never mind, it’s too hard to have a discussion out here.” Her hand gave an idle gesture toward the scene of all that fighting in the distance. It was still going on, soldiers from both sides tearing into one another. They were just close enough that we could hear the screams from the injured. Which was a bit distracting, to say the least. Fortunately, Korsmea was on top of that. She produced some sort of silver rod thing from one of those pouches on her belt, activating a spell along the side before throwing it into the ground. A steady thrumming sound filled the air, and a set of blank white walls appeared around us. It was like we were in a tent or something. A tent with a running generator, going by that humming noise in the background. We couldn’t hear the fighting anymore. Or see it. Which I hoped meant they couldn’t see or hear us. I also hoped it would give us some sort of warning if the fighting happened to come our direction, otherwise not being able to see what was going on out there seemed like a pretty bad idea. They wouldn’t do that, right?

  “Privacy stick,” the woman noted, apparently in response to our confusion. She was speaking in quick, clipped tones, clearly accustomed to getting answers when she asked for them. “Rare and expensive, only craftable by the finest spell artisans. I’m not exactly surprised you haven’t seen them before. You don’t ahh… seem to be the types to carry them. Or the types to study much in the way of… advanced magic.” Those words came with a quick, clearly judging look at how we were dressed.

  That included Sariel, who was doing her level best to look as normal as possible. It was clear that she’d already worked out this had to be some sort of weird time travel situation, and it was taking everything she had not to throw herself at her mother and start babbling away. In her place, I really wasn’t sure I could’ve done the same. I would’ve been so tempted to say all the things I never could before, all the things I would have spent those years dreaming about.

  Finally, after silently looking us over, Korsmea continued. “In any case, this will buy us time to talk. Enough time for you to explain who you are and what you’re doing here. Because something tells me you’re not with any of the ships in my fleet, are you? The admiral didn’t send you here.”

  I picked myself up off the ground, trying to figure out what to do or say to that. This was--well, a lot to take in, to put it mildly. All of it was. Mom was already on her feet, pulling Dad up. It rapidly became clear that Sariel might’ve managed to stop herself from exposing who she really was and all that, but she was in no condition to come up with a story. It was obviously taking everything the poor woman had just to stand there silently.

  Fortunately, she wasn’t the only Seosten we had with us. Or, well, sort-of Seosten. Cassiel was still here, and as soon as they realized that Sariel wasn’t going to take the lead, they spoke up. “You’re right, we uh, we’re definitely not with your fleet. The truth is, we’re not supposed to be here. On this planet, I mean. We’re part of a silver-site. A uh, a very minor part of a silver-site.”

  Well, I had no idea what that meant, but Korsmea seemed to. Her chin rose, frowning slightly. “A silver-site? You’re telling me that the five of you are part of the team looking into ways to create reliable fleet-sized instantaneous travel across the universe?” Somehow, she sounded doubtful.

  Cassiel offered a little shrug at that. “Just a minor part, like I said. We aren't exactly at the top of the food chain. We still like to think that we contribute though. It’s just nice to be part of a team that’s going to end the Fomorian war. Even if it’s just one tiny part of one piece out of an entire organization. But we might not be part of it for long when they find out what happened. We were running routine maintenance on one of the machines in our lab and… uh, well, as I said, we aren’t supposed to be on this planet. We might’ve just used all the energy they’ve been storing up for the next test, and you know it takes forever to gather enough for those tests. Sixteen labs spread across seven solar systems. We just used enough energy to piss off the directors of all sixteen of those labs. They’re gonna play scheytball with our heads if we don’t come back with some answers for them. You know how our big brain people can be.”

  It was kind of astounding. They came up with all that so easily. Obviously this silver-site thing had been around for long enough that Korsmea knew about it, and it was some sort of secret mass teleportation science project. It was a good way of explaining why we had suddenly ended up on this planet without anyone knowing who we were, or why we were here. And, from the sound of things, the project was widespread and secretive enough that it would be difficult to easily confirm that we weren’t part of it. It would cause enough uncertainty that we could hopefully do something to avoid being completely screwed by the time they confirmed we were lying. And hopefully hopefully we wouldn’t be here long enough for any of that to even matter.

  Also, was it just me, or did they say ‘shitball’ just then? What kind of sport was--no, never mind.

  The point was, Cassiel lied very easily. Which made sense, they’d been forced to lie for a long time. They just did it so smoothly, coming up with the perfect cover story about where we were from and how we had been transported here just like that.

  It made me wonder if they’d been looking into ways to potentially--oh. Yeah, that was it, obviously. They knew about this silver-site project because they had been looking into ways to potentially get home. Which would have involved looking up any sort of secret, super-special teleportation projects the Seosten had going on. No wonder they’d been able to pull this one right out of seemingly nowhere. They probably knew this project had been going on around the time that Korsmea would still have been active because they’d been digging deep into any and all possible information about that sort of thing.

  After taking all that in, the woman in question paused for an extended moment… then gave a short, barked laugh. “Oh yes, tell me about it. Don’t get me started on scientists. They can be real pains in the ass. Think they’re so great, then they just expect field ops to go out and put their theories into practice. If they’re not imploding one thing, they’re exploding another.”

  Nearby, Sariel made a pained noise very quietly. She kept switching between staring at her mother and pointedly trying not to stare at her. It seemed like some part of her kept saying that she should take this chance to see her mom being totally fine while she had it, before another part told her she was going to give too much away if she didn’t stop staring, and the two parts were in constant battle over which of them could maintain control over her head and eyes.

  From beside me, my mother took a step forward. “Um, where did we end up, exactly? We’d like to know exactly how much trouble we’re going to be in once we have to contact our superiors.”

  Korsmea grimaced at first. “Yeah, good luck with that. I don’t think this is the sort of thing you’ll be able to easily explain away.” She paused as though trying to decide how to continue. “We’re a bit off the beaten track, let’s say. But hey, maybe you can make your superiors feel better by telling them how far the system was able to transport you. Even if it was an accident, it’s an impressive jump. And ahh…” She rubbed the back of her neck self-consciously. “I’m sorry if I sounded judgmental before. I wasn’t expecting company out here, and… well, I suppose I slipped back into old habits. The habits of a person I’m trying not to be anymore, from a family that… a family that really shouldn’t exist, not after everything they’ve done. I’ve been trying to be better than I was, trying to create a better legacy for the future. I walked away from the person my family wanted me to be, but sometimes she sneaks back in and takes over when I’m not looking.”

  After getting all that out, she took a breath before actually telling us where this planet was. Which started a whole back and forth between her and Cassiel. But honestly, it meant nothing to me. It was all just gibberish. I had no frame of reference, and what was I going to do, ask her where this place was in relation to a planet she didn’t even know existed? A planet that her entire species didn’t know existed at this point.

  Anyway, it sounded like this planet was in some sort of civil war and the Seosten were trying to nudge a certain faction into winning because they would be more likely to be useful when it came to contributing to the Fomorian situation. They were hoping that they could accomplish that with just that bit of nudging rather than involving an entire fleet to take over the planet. They could do that, of course, but the less effort they had to expend on something like this, the better. Plus, the less damage they did to this place, the better shape it would be in to start helping. In the end, it was just better for them to help one group win their civil war so they could move on.

  All of which meant they were talking about stuff I could tune out for, so I was able to focus on thinking about our actual situation. And honestly, what… the… fuck? No, seriously, what the hell was going on here? What was going on at this rift in general? Or that rift, since we were now nowhere near it either spatially or temporally. None of this made any sense. I had thought that I had a handle on things. There was a pyramid, the rift that I was supposed to throw myself through was in there, and it was somehow giving off a spatial distortion effect that kept us from getting closer to it no matter how much we walked toward the thing. That I could totally deal with.

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  Then things got more complicated when the Olympus showed up. And even more complicated than that when it turned out that they had someone with them who was actually secretly a human-- or at least a former human, from one of the worlds that Sariel’s magic orb daughter had created. They were some former human who became a Seosten through magic or something and ended up on the Olympus in the past. It was worrying that I had never heard of them, but there might be an explanation for that. And really, Cassiel’s whole thing might be somewhat into the upper range of ridiculous things I’d heard of, but they still weren’t completely breaking the scale or anything. Look at me.

  But that wasn’t the end of it. Suddenly something… those blasts of energy had hit us and we were in that orchard, that forest area. We walked through that forest until we found more and more weird spatial problems, pieces from all across the timeline showing up here in what should have been ancient Egypt. The Olympus was completely taken apart into all its separate pieces and scattered through that whole territory to the point of almost having one of the engines explode. And after Sariel had started to lead Cassiel and me to the pyramid itself, we found a forcefield over a chasm blocking us. A forcefield that had reacted to us trying to simply go around it by yanking us in and trying to slam us down all the way to the bottom of that chasm.

  We got through that, and what happened? We found the symbol on that bit of buried machinery that Sariel had recognized, and then ended up getting… what, transported somewhere else? Over to where my parents were. Over to where our parents were, because somehow… somehow Sariel’s mother was here too. She was just here, throwing a grenade at some sort of giant super tank because the people on this planet were in the midst of some big civil war that had nothing to do with any of us.

  It was gibberish. It sounded almost incomprehensible. Why would all that have happened? Why did those blasts of energy hit us before? What was all that about? Why were all those pieces of architecture from the future being pulled back? Why was the Olympus ripped apart? What was going on? Why would we suddenly be transported over to where Sariel’s mother was? Why would my parents be here? They just happened to be transported to this place back when all that happened, and we eventually showed up here too? Something was… weird, very weird.

  Story thought it was weird too, as did everyone else in the Flique, apparently. Unfortunately, we hadn't come up with a satisfying answer about all that before our musings were interrupted. Thankfully, not by our little privacy tent thing being blown up by a random artillery shell. No, this interruption came in the form of Korsmea abruptly shouting a warning. I spun that way just in time to see the woman throw herself at, of all people, Sariel. I caught the slightest glimpse of the same sort of energy bolt thing that had emerged from the pyramid to hit us before. Which was also what had hit us just before we ended up here, come to think of it. The energy seemed to come out of nowhere, almost colliding with Sariel just before Korsmea knocked her out of the way, taking the hit herself instead. Immediately, before she had even landed on the ground, the woman vanished. She was just gone that quickly. None of us could even say anything, let alone move before the only sign of her existence was the active privacy spell.

  “Mother!” Sariel shouted, already lunging that way. She stopped short, looking at the spot where her mom had been before turning back to us, voice raised sharply. “What is this? What just happened? How are we here? You time traveled from the future to get back to when we were, that much I understand. But why would we suddenly be brought back to this even earlier time in another part of the universe? What spell did you use to time travel in the first place? Is this something the energy in that pyramid did?”

  My head shook helplessly. “I'm sorry, I really don't know. I mean, I know more than I can say. But I give you my word, I have absolutely no idea why this would be happening. I don't know why all those buildings from across the future were showing up where the pyramid was. I don't know why the Olympus was split apart and scattered. I don't know what's going on. I sure as hell don't know why we were suddenly sent here. And considering Manakel hasn't popped up to freak out that we’re completely changing the timeline, I'm guessing this was all supposed to happen and he can't tell us what we're supposed to do next because it would change things.”

  My dad spoke up then. “It's true, there are things that we know and can't say because we have to protect the timeline. And if you knew anything about me at this point, you’d know how strange that sounds for me to say. But we genuinely do not know why this is happening.”

  Oh wait, Story suddenly put in, maybe we do know what's happening. Or at least, a bit of it.

  Do you want to share with the rest of the class? I asked. Or at least share with this specific pupil so I can share with the rest of the class. Actually, why don't you take over and explain?

  So, she did. Before Sariel could really freak out too much, Story took over our body and went right into it. “Okay, hang on, I think I might have something. When we were back on Earth just before this started, all of us were hit by that energy from the pyramid. As soon as it happened, we all ended up in different places. Where did you guys end up? Was it some sort of forest?”

  Our parents and Sariel all confirmed that they had been in a forest, though in different areas. Mom and Dad had been together, but Sariel had been with Sachael. They had all done what we did, wandered through the forest until suddenly finding themselves amongst all that strange architecture, with random pieces of the Olympus scattered everywhere. Sachael had been contacted by Puriel and took off to deal with some catastrophic problem or another, while Sariel had gone to find the time travelers to get some answers. On her way, she had seen the pyramid, before being contacted by Manakel (the living version) and summoned to where he was to help escort me.

  Story continued as soon as that was confirmed. “I think the forest is some sort of blank slate, an empty canvas or something. When we were hit by that energy, it gave us some sort of power to pull things to us, across space and time. Even if we don't know what those things are, and even if we don't know what we're doing. When the entire crew of the Olympus were all scattered down through that forest, they all started thinking about how they wanted to be back to their ship. All of them, the entire crew, wanted to have their ship back. This power couldn't make a thousand different copies of the Olympus, so it split the whole thing up and scattered all those pieces everywhere, sending one piece of the ship to every crewmember. Yes, it could've solved the problem by taking the crew members and putting them back on the ship, but whatever this power is seems to be really dumb. Like, profoundly stupid. It's basically a computer program. It doesn't think like that. It doesn't think at all. It split up the ship because that seemed like what it was being asked to do. It had hundreds of separate people all wishing for the same thing, so it did the best it could by sending a piece of the ship to each of them.

  “Then, when we fell down in the ravine, Sariel saw that machine with the symbol drawn on it, the same one that her mother drew, the symbol that no one could explain. She saw that symbol and it made her start thinking about her mom. It was probably the first time she had any clue about what that symbol was, so she was really thinking about her mother. She wanted to see her, and get answers about what the symbol meant. That time, the power sent her, and everyone with her, over to when and where her mother was shortly before the symbol became relevant. It was trying to help. It was trying to do what she wanted. And because I was thinking about… my friends…” She looked at our parents briefly. “It sent them here too. They just ended up here first. I don't know why, magic is weird. Anyway, it grabbed my friends and put them here, then sent us here, and just… expected a pat on the head for doing a good job. It’s doing its best to give everyone what they want, what they’re thinking about. Home. It’s trying to give everyone a piece of their home.”

  Mom raised a hand with a grimace. “But why would there be pieces of architecture from all across the timeline?”

  I didn't need Story to answer that one. It had dawned on me as soon as Mom started to ask. If this power was reaching out to try to pull familiar things back to us, trying to give us a piece of home or whatever, maybe it couldn't figure out exactly when or where my home was. After all, there were supposed to be a lot of me spread across the timeline. What if this energy from the rift could see all those other versions of me and was just grabbing random buildings and other pieces of landscape from around them to put here?

  I couldn't get into too many specifics, obviously. The best I could do with Sariel there was simply say that it probably had something to do with the time travel. We had time traveled, so the rift was probably confused about what time period we were supposed to be from.

  She had other things on her mind anyway. “And my mother? Why did the energy come out of nowhere to hit her?”

  Cassiel shook their head. “Hang on, that’s the thing, it wasn't trying to hit her. It was trying to hit you. Actually, I think it was trying to hit all of us. That energy was just starting to split apart when she dove into it. She got hit by all of those bolts at once. Maybe whatever that energy is was trying to fix its mistake and pull us back, and she got taken instead. Which would mean--”

  “Which would mean that she's back on Rysthael,” Sariel finished. “And if she's in the same spot we left from, that would mean she's standing in front of that machine with the symbol on it. That explains why it was in her head. But if that's one of her last clear memories, that must mean that she's about to--”

  She stopped short, straightening with a choked noise. “We have to get back there. We can't stay here anymore.”

  My hand rose, pointing to a spot nearby where a crackle of energy had appeared. “Something tells me that's not going to be a problem. Looks like our shuttle just came back around for us after all.”

  Some part of me wondered if this was crazy, if we should try to get away from that energy. But honestly, what else were we going to do? We really couldn't stay here, for so many reasons. We just had to hope that this was really going to take us back to where we had been like we thought it would.

  Then it was too late to worry about it at all, because the energy lashed out, colliding with all of us. Just like that, we were gone again, hopefully being pulled back to when and where we had left from. And this time we would be with Sariel’s mother, who had just been pulled through an unstable time rift that wasn’t actually intended for her to use at all.

  You know, I was starting to think Korsmea’s memory problems might not have anything to do with an intentional magic curse after all.

  Joke Tags: Cassiel Might Have Had Feelings Of Their Own About Korsmea’s Whole ’I Come From A Family Of Rich Entitled Assholes And I’m Trying To Make Up For That’ Thing