wenty Years Later
Their father could no longer speak.
The gods had taken that from him.
Derpy stood before his daughters in his complete Dragon-Wolf form, no longer resembling the smaller creature who had once wandered the kingdoms afraid, curious, and uncertain of where he belonged. His enormous body rose over them like a living fortress. Dragon scales, wolf fur, and folded Harpy wings formed something too massive to be called only a beast.
Each daughter looked up at him.
Then the magic writing appeared.
Letters formed slowly in the air before Derpy's face, carrying the words his voice could no longer give them.
Lenora is dead.
Vemi Strayheart's tall rabbit ears stiffened.
She stood with dark-brown hair falling around her black-and-crimson dragon wings. Her amber-red eyes remained on the words while one hand tightened around her enormous jagged bow.
She had her mother's ears.
She had known for three days. She had helped carry what was left. She had stood in the room where it happened and she had already said everything she was ever going to say about it.
But the letters were still hanging there, patient, waiting to be read a second time.
Vemi's grip on the bow began to shake.
She looked at the ground instead.
More writing appeared.
Lewd is dead.
The black music-note horns above Lora's long red hair vibrated—one flat, ugly tone that she did not choose to make. Her mismatched mouse ears, one black and one pink, lowered as her red dragon tail became still behind her.
Her mother's ears too.
Everyone in the family had someone's ears.
Vambasta is sealed.
Shella's purple horns and pink wolf ears shifted. Her purple-and-pink wings drew closer to her body, folding tight the way a child folds their arms.
She did not say anything.
She was the only one of them whose line did not end in the word dead, and she had never once been grateful for it.
Moola is dead.
Mooluine lowered her emerald staff.
Her long pink hair, fading into mint green at its ends, settled around her spotted cow ears and curved horns. The musical symbols orbiting her went quiet all at once, as though someone had reached out and stopped them with a hand.
She had her mother's horns, and her mother's habit of going still instead of loud.
The final message formed.
Revy is sleeping inside my body.
Wendi adjusted her round glasses.
Her enormous dark-crimson curls hid part of her face, but not the pain in her red eyes. Her sheep ears drooped beneath her maid headband while her hands tightened around the handles of her two enormous black-and-crimson blades.
Sleeping. Not dead. Her mother had been given a different word from the others, and Wendi had spent a long time now deciding whether that word was a mercy or just a longer sentence.
The sisters already knew what had happened.
Vemi still had not looked back up at the writing.
New words began forming before their father.
Each of you possesses a unique ability.
The Soul Seam opened behind them.
Its edges pulled apart like the stitching of the world had been cut with an invisible blade. Past, present, and future moved behind the opening in colors that had no names.
I do not care if you return and change the past.
The daughters looked at one another.
Derpy could open the way for them, but he could not follow. His past self already existed on the other side. If Future Derpy entered the same era, the two versions could damage the timeline merely by existing together.
His daughters had not been born yet.
The past had no versions of them to reject.
Mooluine entered the Soul Seam first. Lora and Wendi followed her, with Vemi stepping in behind them. Shella entered last before transforming into her full wolf-dragon form.
Her body expanded until she became a massive pink-and-purple beast capable of carrying her sisters. Her cobalt-blue and pink coloring moved through her fur, while curved purple horns rose from her head and dragon wings opened against the shifting light of the seam.
The sisters climbed onto her back.
Shella carried them through time.
There was no ground inside the Soul Seam, yet her paws found something to run across. Images moved beneath them—kingdoms being built, wars ending before beginning again, people growing younger and vanishing into childhood.
Vemi looked back toward their father.
He remained outside the opening, watching until the seam pulled him from sight.
He did not write anything else.
"Mooluine," Vemi called. "I want to talk to everyone."
All four sisters turned toward her.
Mooluine studied Vemi carefully.
"Which sister am I talking to?"
Vemi's rabbit ears rose.
"You're talking to Vemi."
She paused.
"Not Mini."
The sisters became serious.
Shella slowed inside the seam. The colors surrounding them shook as though time itself had noticed their hesitation.
Mooluine tightened her grip on her staff.
"What do you want to talk about?"
"I'm going farther back."
Lora's music-note horns produced a faint vibration.
"How far?"
"To the beginning of the period when Father received the blame."
Vemi looked at each of them.
"It was him, but it wasn't him."
No one needed her to explain what she meant.
The things carrying their father's presence.
His discarded skins.
They possessed his scent, his magic, and pieces of the power he had held when they separated from him. To magical artifacts—and to those who survived seeing them—they appeared to be Derpy.
But they were not their father.
Lora's mismatched mouse ears lowered.
"Vemi, you know how difficult those things are to stop."
"I know."
"Your mother is alive during that period."
Vemi's expression changed at the mention of Lenora.
Lora continued before she could answer, because she knew that if she stopped now she would not be able to start again.
"And my mother is there too. Lewd still needs to undergo her contract with Past Father. That moment is critical. If we interfere with the wrong event, we could prevent everything that comes afterward."
Vemi looked down at the changing visions beneath Shella's paws.
Somewhere under them, her mother was still walking.
"That is why I need to go."
Shella glanced back at them.
"What if we split into two teams?"
Everyone looked toward her.
"One team can travel farther into the past and prepare," Shella explained. "The other can continue toward the time we originally intended to enter."
Lora's musical horns vibrated again. The notes carried through the Soul Seam, remaining clear despite the noise of centuries moving around them.
"That's not a bad idea, Mooluine."
Mooluine raised an eyebrow.
"It was Shella's idea."
"I know."
Lora did not look away from her. Shella, behind them, made a low sound that was almost a laugh and definitely not a denial.
"You're the one who decides whether we follow it."
Mooluine's cow ears twitched once.
She had been the one who decided things since she was nine years old, and she had never worked out whether her sisters respected her for it or were simply relieved it wasn't them.
Lora rested one hand near the twin short blades attached to her black-and-orange combat outfit.
"One team could bring us closer to our goal by stopping some of those things—or at least stalling them. The second team could make sure the events near our original destination still happen correctly."
Wendi had remained quiet until then.
Her glasses slipped down her nose.
She pushed them back into place with one finger.
"It's a decent plan," she said. "But wouldn't that create something like a time paradox?"
Shella's pace slowed again.
Wendi continued.
"If one group changes an earlier event while another group arrives farther ahead, wouldn't that produce two different timelines?"
No one answered immediately.
Then Vemi's hair began changing color.
The transformation moved from her roots to the ends, replacing the familiar color strand by strand. Her posture changed with it. Her eyes remained Vemi's, but the person looking through them was someone else.
When she spoke, the voice did not belong to Vemi.
"My vision of the past and future says this will not create a paradox."
Mini had awakened.
Every sister leaned closer.
Mini watched events none of them could see. Her eyes followed invisible paths branching through the Soul Seam before joining together again.
"If events unfold according to this plan," Mini continued, "the timeline will not divide. The changes already have somewhere to go."
Mooluine frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Mini began explaining.
For the next ten minutes, the sisters gathered around her while Shella carried them through the shaking seam. Mini described the points where they could enter, the events that could be changed, and the moments that had to remain untouched.
Lewd still had to meet Past Derpy.
Their contract still had to form.
Lenora still had to travel beside him.
The sisters could fight the discarded beings, delay them, or redirect some of the destruction they caused. But they could not remove the experiences that brought their parents together.
When Mini finished, Vemi's hair gradually returned to its original dark-brown color.
She blinked.
Wendi had not moved.
"That still isn't an answer," she said quietly.
Mooluine looked at her.
"She said it won't divide."
"She said the changes have somewhere to go." Wendi pushed her glasses up again. "That isn't the same as saying they go somewhere good."
The seam shuddered around them.
Nobody had a response for that, so nobody offered one.
Mooluine looked between the others.
"Then it's decided. Shella and Vemi will travel farther into the past."
She looked toward Lora and Wendi.
"The rest of us will continue toward our original destination."
Wendi held her stare for a moment longer.
Then she nodded once, the way people nod when they have been overruled and intend to remember it.
The Soul Seam divided.
One path continued forward, carrying the sisters toward the time they had originally chosen. The second twisted downward through older memories, leading farther into the past.
Shella stopped between them.
Mooluine, Lora, and Wendi climbed from her back.
Lora's music-note horns released a quiet tone as her boots touched the shifting path. Wendi readjusted her glasses and secured her weapons, while Mooluine raised her emerald staff to stabilize the opening around them.
The three sisters backed toward their path.
Mooluine looked at Vemi and Shella one final time.
"Don't let us down."
"We won't," Vemi answered.
The paths separated.
Mooluine, Lora, and Wendi disappeared toward their original destination while Shella and Vemi continued deeper into the past.
The farther they travelled, the more violently the Soul Seam shook.
Shella kept moving.
"After we take care of this," she said, "I'm heading toward the Petal Fields. Maybe I can persuade Father's aunt to start searching for him sooner."
The opening ahead of them widened.
Fog poured through it.
Shella leapt.
She and Vemi emerged from the time portal and landed on damp ground. The Soul Seam sealed behind them, leaving the sisters surrounded by a thick fog that covered the road and hid most of the nearby buildings.
A wooden sign stood beside them.
Its faded letters read:
WELCOME TO WHISPERFEN
Vemi climbed down from Shella's back and studied the town through the fog.
"Fine by me."
Shella returned to her upright wolf-dragon form, folding her purple-and-pink wings behind her.
Vemi adjusted the enormous bow across her back.
Somewhere in this fog, in this year, her mother was alive.
"I already have a five-step plan. Once we separate, I'll put it into action."
"Where are you going?"
Vemi's rabbit ears turned toward the distant road.
"Carrot Field."
She began walking into the fog.
"I'll start there."