The fog surrounding Whisperfen did not move naturally.
It gathered around the buildings, roads, and trees as though the town were holding it close. The wooden welcome sign remained behind Vemi and Shella, its faded letters barely visible through the grey.
Shella remained in her enormous wolf-dragon form. Her pink-and-purple fur carried moisture from the fog while her dragon wings stayed open, prepared to move at the first sign of danger.
Vemi stood beside her with one hand near her jagged black bow.
Before either sister could begin searching for the thing hiding inside Whisperfen, another portal opened directly in front of them.
This one did not resemble the Soul Seam.
It opened easily.
Casually.
As though whoever created it had already known exactly where Vemi and Shella would arrive.
A female rabbit stepped through.
She had tall cream-and-pink ears, pale hair with an orange forelock, and bright pink eyes filled with amusement. A small crown floated above her head, surrounded by thin golden rings and hanging crystals. Her fitted cream-and-pink clothing carried delicate gold trim, while a hooded pink cape rested across her shoulders.
A chained black book spun around her.
She twirled it by one of its chains as though it weighed nothing. Gold decorations covered its black surface, and a purple jewel glowed at its center.
Then Vemi saw the name written on the cover.
Her expression changed.
Shella saw it too.
Both sisters moved.
Vemi drew her enormous bow as her black-and-crimson dragon wings spread behind her. Divine power rushed across her body, making the air surrounding her burn with a dark red light.
Shella released her god power at the same moment.
Her enormous wolf-dragon form expanded, claws tearing into the ground as purple and pink energy gathered inside her open mouth.
They charged.
The rabbit woman smiled.
Red chains erupted from her back.
They crossed the distance before Vemi could release her arrow. One chain wrapped around her bow arm, another caught her wings, and a third closed around her waist.
Shella attempted to fire.
More chains twisted around her muzzle, wings, legs, and body. They pulled tight and forced the massive wolf-dragon to the ground.
The rabbit woman never stopped smiling.
"Don't take it personally," she said. "I have known where you two would land for twenty years. I have had a very long time to decide where to stand."
The chains tightened once, gently, the way someone adjusts a grip they are in no danger of losing.
"On a day you chose, in a place I did not already know? You would have made me work."
She tilted her head.
"That wasn't a nice thing to do, by the way. To something that has been inside your father and watched both of you grow all that time."
The chained book stopped spinning.
It opened.
Its pages turned on their own until two empty spaces appeared. Glowing letters formed across them.
SHELLA THE CASTER
The second space remained blank.
Letters began forming, then dissolved. They formed again. Dissolved again. The page trembled as though the book were attempting to write two different things in the same place and refusing to choose between them.
Finally it settled.
VEMI STRAYHEART
No title followed.
Lupin looked at the empty space beside the name with open interest.
"How rude of you," she murmured. "You've confused my book."
The book closed.
Shella forced her head upward despite the chain around her muzzle.
"How are you here, R—"
A red chain slid completely across her mouth.
"Ah, ah, ah."
Shella's voice disappeared.
Two unused chains rose behind the mysterious rabbit. They wrapped around nearby branches and lifted her from the ground until she floated eye-to-eye with Vemi and the enormous Shella.
She placed one finger against her lips.
"It is rude to say my name."
Shella glared at her.
"You never know who might be watching," the rabbit continued. "Or listening."
The chains lowered Vemi and Shella carefully to the ground. They remained restrained, but the crushing pressure around their bodies loosened.
Vemi tried to speak.
"How is Fa—"
A glowing magic circle appeared over her mouth.
Her voice vanished before she could finish the word.
"You cannot say that either," the rabbit woman told her. "Not here."
Vemi pulled against the circle.
"For now, you will call him Chaos Series: Volume One. He prefers that name, and using it will prevent certain paradoxes from forming."
Shella's muzzle chain loosened enough for her to speak again.
"I understand. He cast aside his body and became a Calamity book."
The rabbit woman stared at her.
Then she laughed.
"No, no, dear."
She landed gently on the ground and pulled the pink hood over her tall rabbit ears. Her expression shone with barely contained delight.
"Number One is something far greater than those old artifacts."
The book's chains rattled beside her.
She began walking around Vemi.
"Your five-step plan will fail."
Vemi's rabbit ears stood upright.
The rabbit woman continued circling her.
"It doesn't matter how many memories you read. It doesn't matter how many plans you and your other half create. Every version fails."
Vemi followed her with her eyes.
"You don't know my entire plan."
"I know enough."
The rabbit disappeared into the fog.
A branch moved above them.
Vemi and Shella looked up.
The rabbit woman now balanced on a tree branch with both arms spread. The chained book hung beneath her, swinging gently over the ground.
She allowed the silence to remain.
Not because she needed time to think.
Because she enjoyed making them wait.
"We are going to be a team," she finally announced.
Vemi narrowed her eyes.
"No."
"That thing is about to emerge."
The playfulness in the rabbit's voice remained, but something colder moved beneath it.
"You want it gone," she said. "I want it to become sentient."
Vemi and Shella answered together.
"Absolutely not!"
The force of Shella's voice shook water from the nearby leaves.
"That creature becomes far more aggressive once it understands its surroundings," Vemi warned. "Its awareness gives it access to memories it should not possess."
"Disaster always follows when one of those things wakes up," Shella added. "Chaos Series: Volume One warned us."
"Yes," Lupin said.
Both sisters stopped.
"It will be worse." She said it without any change in her expression. "Considerably worse. For as long as it takes me to close the cover, that town behind you will be standing inside the worst few minutes of its history."
She looked down at them from the branch.
"I find that acceptable."
Shella's growl rolled through the fog.
"Whisperfen has people in it."
"Whisperfen has people in it now," Lupin agreed. "In my time it does not have anything in it at all." She let the chained book swing. "One of us is trying to change that. The other two charged at me."
Neither sister answered.
The rabbit woman's smile widened.
Her body began to change.
She grew taller.
Larger.
The softness of her normal appearance became something predatory. Her pink eyes burned with a violent magenta light while sharp teeth appeared behind her smile. Her royal cape expanded into a heavy pink, white, and black mantle lined with fur and decorated with flowers and paw-print patterns.
Gold chains crossed her enlarged body.
Her feet changed into powerful clawed rabbit paws. Purple-pink flames gathered around one hand while the chained book swung beside her.
Then her tongue slipped from between her teeth.
Too long.
Too dark.
Far too pleased.
Before either sister could move away, the larger rabbit leaned down and dragged her tongue across Shella's face.
Then across Vemi's.
Both sisters froze.
Something went with it.
Vemi felt it leave — a thin thread of the divine heat that had been burning across her skin since she drew her bow, pulled out of her as neatly as a stitch coming loose. Her wings dropped a fraction lower than she meant them to. The dark red light around her dimmed and did not fully return.
Beside her, the energy still gathered in Shella's mouth guttered out.
The rabbit pulled back, looking satisfied.
She swallowed.
"That is exactly why I need it to become aware."
Vemi wiped her face with one sleeve.
Her arm felt heavier than her arm should feel.
Shella's fur stood on end.
"Once the creature is sentient," the rabbit continued, lifting the chained book, "I can seal it inside here."
The purple jewel on the cover glowed.
A little brighter than before.
"You want it stopped. I want it contained. Your plans will become much easier if you allow me to help."
Vemi looked toward Shella.
Shella looked back at her.
Neither trusted the rabbit.
But the red chains had already answered the question of whether fighting her was possible, and whatever she had just taken out of them had answered how quickly she could do it again. She understood the creature inside Whisperfen. She carried something capable of imprisoning it.
Vemi looked at the fog, and at the shape of rooftops somewhere behind it.
This is what they blamed him for.
The thought arrived fully formed and would not leave.
Her father had spent twenty years being called a monster for destruction he had not chosen. And his daughter had travelled through the stitching of the world to fix it, and had been standing in the past for less than an hour, and was about to agree to let something wake up inside a town full of people.
He would tell me not to.
He also told us he does not care anymore.
Vemi released a slow breath.
"Just this once."
The rabbit's ears rose beneath her hood.
"But you're coming with me to Carrot Field after this," Vemi continued.
"That's fine."
The answer came too easily.
Vemi frowned. "Why?"
"There is already a god there that I need to fight."
She said it with the same casual tone someone might use when mentioning a forgotten errand.
The rabbit released Vemi and Shella from the remaining chains. She returned to her smaller normal form before extending one hand toward them.
"Do we have a deal?"
Vemi looked at the offered hand.
Then she took it.
Shella returned to her upright wolf-dragon form and shook the rabbit's hand after her.
The agreement settled between them.
The rabbit woman looked pleased.
"If we are going to work together, you need something to call me."
Vemi waited.
The rabbit glanced toward the fog, thought for barely a second, and lifted her chin.
"Call me Lupin."
She added a dramatic pause.
"Lupin, the Siphon Deity."
Shella stared at her.
Vemi stared too.
"You thought of that name on the fly," they said together.
Lupin's face turned bright red.
"Yeah," she answered, pulling her hood farther over her ears. "So what if I did?"