Borrowed Time

Author's Note: Check this out to find out what's going on among various branches today. The following is, in any case, canon in The HH.

Andy surfaced into morning through warmth first, then weight, then the slow arrangement of bodies: Claire at his right, eyes already open, cat ears at full mast and tail sweeping a pendulum under the comforter; Erin behind Claire, mint-cool skin pressed to his own, arm thrown across both of them in a lazy bracket that said no one would be escaping without her say-so. Both Lauras were on his left. One was flush along his ribs, her hair a drape of black across his chest and throat; the other curled behind the first, her palm cupped on her other self’s hip, both their faces nearly parallel.

Andy kept still for a long moment, inventorying the tableau in the hush before anything happened. The bedroom was awash in the blue-grey early light that got through the curtains, soft enough to trick the senses into thinking there was still more night than day. The air smelled faintly of skin, and the salt of last night’s sweat, and underneath, the faint whiff of lilies from a vase that Mildred must have somehow brought in while they were all asleep.

He thought about Laura’s speech from the night before—the practiced cadence, the deliberate way she looked at each of them, the certainty underneath the words that came only from making the hardest possible choice and deciding to own it.

He risked a glance at Claire, and found her looking back at him. Her cat ears swiveled in perfect stereo; her tail, under the sheets, ticked twice, then stilled. She blinked once, then gave him a slow, deliberate nod—exactly the one she had given Laura in the dark, only now it was for him, and he understood it as approval. He could feel Claire’s happiness today, and he was grateful that the bond with her was back.

On his left, Laura’s self closest to him rolled her head just enough to meet his gaze, the sheet falling off one bare shoulder. The other self mirrored the movement, and for a second the eyes of both of Laura’s selves caught his at the exact same instant.

On his right, Erin was still out cold, but her arm tensed and tightened around Andy’s midsection, drawing him a little closer to Claire. She mumbled something into his shoulder—vowel sounds only, maybe a word, maybe just a noise—and then relaxed again, her breathing slow and even. In sleep, what was left was so soft and unguarded that Andy had to **** himself not to stare at her face for fear of waking her and shattering it.

It was Claire who did it. She sat up, fluid and silent, and extricated herself from Erin’s grip with the minimum of disruption. The movement was careful, practiced. She pivoted off the bed and landed on the rug, flexed her toes, and stretched, her arms overhead and her whole body a study in kinetic grace. She moved to her bag at the side of the bed and retrieved her notebook, flipping it open without looking, and scribbled something with her favorite blue-ink pen.

Erin, deprived of her human pillow, stirred with a noise that was half protest and half confusion. Her arm flopped onto the now-empty space and her hand found Andy’s chest. She curled her fingers into his pectoral like she was testing its reality, then made a quiet, contented sound and burrowed deeper into the mattress, face first. The green of her skin looked almost iridescent in the morning light, a blend of jade and something softer that Andy couldn’t name. Her hair, half-out of its ponytail, flopped across her face and covered most of her features.

Laura remained in her position for a while longer. Eventually, the self closest to Andy stretched, catlike, and rolled toward him until her forehead bumped his chin. She smiled, eyes still not entirely focused. “Hi,” she said in stereo.

Andy said, “Hi, yourself,” and Laura grinned, both faces at once, the double effect almost dizzying.

The Laura closest to him finally rolled so her face was next to his, her chin on his shoulder. Her hair spilled across his neck and collarbone in a tangle that Andy knew would take three brushes and a prayer to undo, but she didn’t seem to care. “Did you sleep at all?” he whispered.

She smiled, both bodies at once. “I didn’t need to.”

He was about to ask a follow-up, but Laura beat him to it, voices perfectly in sync. “I was awake the whole time.” She didn’t say why, but she didn’t have to.

There was a lot to think about, after last night. What had happened in the Suite had broken the usual arithmetic—no more winners, no more losers. Even the old resentment, the need to be “the one,” had gone flat. He wondered if it would last, or if the old competitive nerves would crawl back in once the novelty and the excitement of the previous night’s Challenge wore off.

He was about to ask, gently, if everyone was ready for breakfast, when Laura uncoiled herself and stretched with a doubled luxurious, feline extension. “I’m starving,” she said.

Claire, somehow already dressed, had just finished writing. She flicked her notebook shut and raised it in a silent yes. Erin muttered something into the mattress about “pancakes or ****,” and that was enough for Andy.

He extricated himself with as much grace as possible, but Erin wouldn’t let go easily; he had to peel her hand off his chest, and even then she clung for a second before letting go. It was oddly flattering.

As he got dressed, Andy caught himself humming. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up with nothing urgent to fix, nothing to repair, nothing to brace for. Maybe he was getting sentimental, but it felt like the first day of summer break when he was a kid—everything was still possible.

He pulled on a soft t-shirt, rummaged in the drawer for shorts, then looked around to see which of the women were following suit. Claire was already dressed; Laura had somehow slipped into twin blue sundresses, the fabric catching her shape in a way that managed to be both demure and impossible to ignore. Erin simply sat up in bed, fully bare. She yawned, stretched—her arms above her head, her huge breasts arching forward—and said, “If I don’t get food and coffee in ten minutes, I’m going to eat the mattress.”

Andy grinned, “It’s nice to see you motivated.”

“Survival is my primary motivator,” Erin said, deadpan, but there was a warmth to it.

Laura padded over to the bathroom, both bodies moving in perfect sync, and Andy took a second to appreciate it. He could only imagine what it felt like to be that in sync, even when split in two. She walked in, closed the door behind her, and Andy turned to look at Erin and Claire. The former smirked at him, while the latter had already finished combing her hair, with the help of a comb she had retrieved from her Inventory.

It was a few moments before Andy noticed that something felt off. Just as he realized the bond with Laura somehow indicated she was now infinitely distant, the bahtroom door opened and Andy saw her: tall, wine-red hair in a French twist, dragon wings folded with military precision across her back, dark blue skirt suit immaculate even this early in the day, breasts as big as Marissa. Laura Black.

Andy had no time to process the shock, because she was looking at him with the cool, assessing stare of a woman who had seen enough strange things in her life that this one simply added to the pile. “Not to complain, but this isn’t my room,” she said, with the exact tone of someone requesting a different hotel for her next business trip.

---

Emily woke before her alarm with the sensation, not of urgency, but of a silence too absolute to be real. She lay still in the gray dawn and listened for Dawn’s breathing, which should have been a slow, deep pulse against the hush, but what came instead was lighter: a sequence of shallow, almost deliberate inhales, each one spaced so precisely that it might have been measured by metronome.

She opened her eyes to the familiar pale ceiling of Room 43. The blackout curtains were only half-drawn, so the light came through in angled strips, painting the beds and the wall in stripes. There was, as always, the faint tang of ocean, the memory of frangipani, and the little hum of the air exchange.

Emily lifted her head and scanned the room: her own bed, perfectly undisturbed, hair splayed across the pillow and covers draped just so; the other bed, a neat lump beneath the white comforter, was—off. She blinked a few times to clear the static, then sat up, letting her hair fall over her chest as a shield.

The sleeping figure was smaller than Dawn. Compact, arms tucked, face half-buried in the pillow. Not the dark, wild spill of Dawn’s hair, but instead a tidy ponytail, medium brown, and a set of brown cat ears poking up from the top of the head like radar dishes. Even asleep, the woman held a composure that was almost aggressive in its calm. Emily blinked, then squinted, as if the second look would clarify it into something she recognized. It didn’t. She tried to remember if they’d had a guest stay over last night—she definitely had not slept enough—but no, she and Dawn had gone to bed alone.

Emily stared until she started to question her own memory, then stood and crossed the floor, tiptoeing, her toes curling on the cool stone tile. She wanted to be careful, but the urge to check was overwhelming, so she leaned in for a closer look. The ears, on closer inspection, were definitely not Dawn’s: smaller, more angular, similar to Claire’s, fur a soft brown instead of black. The woman’s skin was pale, and her hands—tucked under the edge of the comforter—were small and precise, the nails trimmed in a way that suggested not just routine, but discipline. A cat’s tail, same color as the ear, was curled around the woman’s leg as she slept.

She knew this person. It took a second, but the memory clicked: the birthday party, the woman who’d spent most of it with Claire and the other catgirls. The woman had introduced herself as Dawn Willowbrook, and was, according to Claire, a brilliant veterinary doctor, with an eidetic memory and a habit of studying everything in a room before deciding if she could be comfortable. She’d been perfectly polite, but Emily remembered thinking that if Dawn ever decided to kill you, you’d probably never see it coming.

The realization that Dr. Willowbrook was now in her room, in Dawn’s bed, hit like a cold snap. Emily’s brain ran through a quick inventory of possible explanations—surprise Challenge, prank, one of those “accidental” transformation swaps—before settling on the simplest: something was wrong, and nobody had noticed.

She debated waking her, but didn’t have to decide; Dr. Willowbrook’s eyes opened, sharp and immediate, with no trace of sleep. She clocked Emily in one second flat, her gaze moving from Emily’s face to her hair, then down to the rest of her. She took in the nudity without comment, the way a doctor might note a tattoo.

“You’re the naked bartender from the birthday party. Andy Cooper’s set,” she said, as if it were the most obvious observation in the world.

Emily considered defending herself, then realized it wouldn’t help. “That’s… correct. Emily Allen,” she said, trying not to sound as awkward as she felt. “Sorry for the confusion. I thought you were—”

“Dawn,” Dr. Willowbrook supplied. She sat up in one smooth motion, arms still under the comforter, her cat ears flattening and then rising again as if testing for new frequencies. “I’m aware. I woke up here an hour ago. Assumed it was some weird prank by our Host, like the ‘high school reunion’ from last time.”

Emily blinked. “You’ve been awake for an hour and you didn’t say anything?”

“I was waiting to see if anything else happened.” Dr. Willowbrook tilted her head. “Plus, you were sound asleep. I didn't want to disturb you.”

Emily had no idea how to respond to that, so she defaulted to hospitality. “Do you want breakfast? Or, um, to use the bathroom?”

“I already did, thank you. Your shower is much nicer than mine, I wish I could bring your shampoo back with me,” Dawn said. She looked past Emily, scanning the room for other variables. “Do you have any idea how this happened?”

Emily shook her head, her hair swishing forward and drawing Dawn’s attention, however briefly, back to her chest. “No. Dawn and I went to bed at the same time last night. She usually wakes up earlier than I do, but—” She shrugged, letting the motion convey the rest.

Dawn considered this, then shrugged as well, in a gesture that was both resigned and practical. “However it happened, we should probably find someone to report it to,” she said, and Emily could have sworn she heard “emergency alert” in the subtext.

“Arabella, probably,” Emily agreed. “Though she’s usually aware of everything on the island before we are.”

Dawn nodded, then swung her legs out from under the covers, revealing a pair of forest green pajama shorts and a matching tank top, both tailored to accommodate her tail. “Is there a dress code for breakfast?” she asked, as if nudity and pajamas were both equally plausible.

Emily tried not to stare at the tail, which flicked with a precision that was almost hypnotic. “Not really.”

“Good,” Dawn said, standing and stretching her arms over her head. She was so compact and efficient in her movements that it made Emily acutely self-conscious about her own perpetual state of undress, and she wrapped her hair a little tighter over her chest.

There was a moment of mutual assessment, each deciding how to proceed, when a sudden chime sounded from the wall. The familiar, honeyed voice of Arabella floated in, perfectly modulated as always: “Emily, Ms. Willowbrook, please do not be alarmed. There has been a minor system error. You are both safe. Please proceed to the Banquet Hall for further instructions.”

Emily exhaled, relief mixed with embarrassment. “See? She always knows.”

Dawn didn’t even flinch. “Noted.”

They moved to the door at the same time, neither quite sure who should lead. Emily, with a sense of social obligation, gestured for Dawn to go first. Dawn accepted, and for the briefest moment, Emily wondered how the Audience saw this from the outside: a naked, pink-haired former bartender, now trailing behind a miniature catgirl veterinarian, both on their way to breakfast with absolutely no idea what reality they’d woken up in.

It was, she thought, kind of riveting.

---

The Banquet Hall was more subdued than usual, which Andy attributed less to the lateness of the previous night and more to the general sense of the world having shifted slightly to the left while everyone was asleep. The sun was already up, but the morning air had that cool, flat quality that made the chandeliers’ gold light seem unnecessary. The tables were set, the buffet was stocked, and the long wall of windows let in a view of the zen garden, where two Mildreds were quietly tending the raked sand.

Andy and his group arrived just before the main rush. Laura Black took a place at one of the side tables, businesslike in her crisp power outfit, wings furled and hands folded in front of her. She looked like she was still expecting a quarterly briefing.

Emily and Dawn arrived together a moment later, the effect so improbable that it drew a momentary hush from the room. Emily was as naked as always, and she moved with the easy confidence of someone who had learned long ago that you couldn’t be embarrassed if you simply refused to acknowledge it as a concept. Dawn, by contrast, wore her pajamas, her brown cat ears flicking constantly as she assessed every new input, gaze moving from the buffet to the faces at the table and then, finally, to Andy.

Andy’s mind tripped over the realization: There are two guests at this breakfast who shouldn’t be here. And worse, there are two who should be here, but aren’t.

He didn’t have time to consider further. Arabella was already there, standing at the head of the room in her customary morning suit, her hands folded in a precise knot just above her waist. She waited until everyone was settled, before calling the room to attention with a clear, “Good morning, everyone.”

There was a quieting of plates and a slight shifting of chairs. Andy noticed that, even now, everyone looked to him for the first cue; he nodded, just once, and the rest followed.

Arabella didn’t smile. She had the composure of a surgeon called in to explain a complication to the family: brisk, gentle, and completely unflappable. “I want to apologize for the irregularities some of you may have noticed upon waking,” she began, her gaze traveling the table from left to right. “Due to an error on the part of one of the Harem Hotel’s junior archivists, two of our guests have been… briefly relocated. Please rest assured that both are safe and will be returned to their proper season before end of day today.”

Andy could hear the ripple of anxiety travel around the room—Chloe’s mug halted in midair; Myra’s tail, previously curled around her leg, snapped upright; Erin, not usually the nervous type, set her fork down and stared. He saw the same thought jump from person to person: How could this happen?

Arabella seemed to expect the question. “Laura is currently visiting the Haunted Castle,” she said, “and Dawn is spending a brief sojourn in the Island Vacation season. Both are quite safe, and the presence of Ms. Black and Ms. Willowbrook on your set is, for the moment, simply a matter of technical necessity.”

Dawn commented, “"Compared to the time I was cloned, or to the funhouse mirrors, it's not the oddest thing that's happened to me. As long as it's just for the day I can live with it.”

Sam, perhaps to lighten the mood, asked, “So what’s the score? Is this like, cosmic Freaky Friday or more of a hostile merger?”

Andy stifled a laugh. The bond with Laura still held, even across this distance. It was the only thing that kept him from getting anxious, he knew. Norah’s voice cut in, more practical than worried: “How does something like this happen?”

Arabella answered without missing a beat. “All information in the Archive is cross-referenced, but occasionally, small filing errors can result in temporary overlays between instances. It’s rare, but not unprecedented.”

Claire, who had been scribbling in her notebook the entire time, now held up a card: If our lives can be upended by a filing error, does that mean none of this is real? The card was underlined three times.

Arabella met Claire's gaze, held it for a beat, and said simply, “You are quite real, Claire. I assure you.” Her tone closed the subject.

Andy noticed the subtle shift in the room—some tension released, some new layer of anxiety installed in its place. Chloe visibly relaxed, even smiled a little. Norah, though still tight, seemed satisfied that her question had gotten a straight answer.

Arabella scanned the table, making sure all concerns had been aired. Then she said, “One more point. As a courtesy to our guests, the next transformation round will be delayed by one day. Please use the time to enjoy the amenities.” She turned to Andy, her gaze both warm and absolute: “I would appreciate it if you and your harem could see to the comfort of Ms. Black and Ms. Willowbrook during their time on this set.”

Andy nodded, accepting the role with the muted dread of a man who suspected it would be more work than it sounded like.

Arabella then smiled, just a little, and said, “If there are no further questions, breakfast is served.”

She made her exit with the neat efficiency of a stage manager. For a moment, the harem was left in a silence that was both uneasy and full of potential energy.

Andy watched as Sam poured a mug of coffee from a large coffee pot on the side table, took a sip, and turned back to her conversation with Erin. Norah made a sharp comment to Riley, who fired back with a retort about the data pointer in her own brain. Dawn and Claire were already comparing notes, Claire’s tail swishing happily, heads bent together in silent, mutually absorbed curiosity. Laura Black, for her part, started her breakfast with the composure of someone for whom temporal dislocation was a recurring feature of the workday.

Andy’s eyes drifted down the table. He wondered if—wherever Laura and Dawn were—the same conversation was happening, the same questions being asked and answered.

---

They took the path from the Banquet Hall in silence, at first. Andy led, letting Laura Black fall into pace beside him, matching her long, purposeful stride even though the morning’s tension still clung to his neck. For the first hundred meters, neither spoke. The two Mildreds raking the path to the beach bowed slightly as they passed;.

He offered the beach before he even meant to: “It’s nice in the mornings. Unless you’d rather walk the upper path?”

Laura considered, then shook her head. “Let’s go to the water. I still dream of the last time I swam here.” The corner of her mouth quirked—dry, but not unkind.

They cut down the path to the shore, where the sand was still cool and pebbled underfoot. The early light made the breakers look bruised with violet and gray. Andy moved a little ahead, then stopped at a spot where the surf hissed just shy of their toes. He knelt and pulled off his shoes, letting the sand grind between his toes, and Laura did the same. She spread her dragon wings just enough to catch the light, and for a few seconds she just watched the horizon.

“I missed this,” she said, not looking at him. “Sunlight, I mean.”

Andy grinned, low and a little sad. “Castle lighting has its perks. Less melanoma, probably.”

Laura barked a laugh. “That, and the lack of mosquitoes.” She squinted out at the ocean, as if tallying the differences between worlds. “You want to tell me what happened since your party, or do I have to extract it by ****?”

He smirked. “You could try, but I’m not sure even you have the bandwidth for everything that’s happened since the party.”

“Summarize,” she said. “Top five.”

So he did. He told her about Laura’s resurrection, the mess of emotions that came from seeing your thirteen-year-old soulmate show up as a grown woman with two bodies and zero apologies. He mentioned the Harem Queen announcement. He told her of the strange portal that briefly brought him and Laura back to Warrenville, and of the oneiric wedding Inanna officiated on the footbridge.

He mentioned how the hotel seemed to be gently pushing him to take on more authority, as if Arabella were testing him for a job interview he hadn’t applied for. He told Laura about the Consort role, and of the harem’s decision to speedrun the Sixth Round in a bid to end early and avoid too many further transformations... but also because they were all eager, now, to start their new lives together. And he topped it off with the Fifth Challenge, the masks, the dancing, the logic puzzle that turned out to be less about deception and more about understanding each other.

Laura listened, the whole time, with her head slightly turned toward him. She never interrupted, but when she wanted more, she said so—“Stop there, what did she say?” or “Did Riley actually try to punch you?” or, at one point, “Sam’s still your best friend, isn’t she.”

He gave her the look. “That’s not going to change.”

Laura's smile was quick, all the sharper for how rare it was. “It’s good. You need people who aren’t afraid of you, if what you’re telling me about your Gifts is true.” She arched her wings a little and shook out the left one, as if stretching a sore muscle. “So what’s today, in your time?”

Andy did the calculation. “One day after the Challenge. Sixteen, seventeen days since the party. But for you it’s… what, two days after the party?”

Laura nodded. “Shar said something about time dilation, but I didn’t expect it to be so—” She made a rolling gesture. “Significant.”

He nodded. “You feel like you missed a lot, huh?”

“I don’t mind missing the hangover, but I would’ve liked to see the wedding. This Inanna sounds like a ****.” She said it dryly, but Andy could feel the sincerity, the way she looked at the waves when she didn’t want to look at him.

He picked up a chunk of shell from the sand, turned it in his fingers. “It was very unexpected. Even we didn’t know it was going to happen.”

Laura looked at him sidelong. “Small, then. That’s how I’d want it.” She paused, then asked, “This bond you have with Laura. Do you know why it works the way it does? Why it’s as strong as it is?”

Andy blinked, caught by surprise, then shook his head and shrugged. “No, not really. It’s always just been there. Even Arabella couldn’t fully mask it.”

She nodded, and for a while, they let the noise of the surf fill the gaps. Then Laura asked, “You ever get tired of being the only grownup in your season?”

Andy blinked. “That’s not how my girls would describe it. But it does feel like wrangling cats sometimes.” He let the breeze flatten his hair and cool the sun off his skin. “You want to go for a walk?” he asked.

She nodded, and they set off, shoes in hand. The next mile passed in easy rhythm, neither pushing conversation, but picking it up again whenever it felt natural.

They covered her experience at the Castle more in detail—the best and worst of the season, the babies already on the way in her own harem. She told him that Candy gushed over Chloe, about her sisters and how Tracy was ecstatic that Sam had let her play in their last Pathfinder game.

Andy talked about the Garden of Glass, about the flare-ups and the changes in the women and in himself, about the Sanctuaries Arabella had had the women build, and about the underlying sense that whatever game Arabella was playing, it was coming to an end soon.

After lunch, they headed up the volcano’s winding path. The sun was overhead, the air thick with the honeyed scent of bougainvillea. Last time they had flown up the volcano, Andi and Laura , carried by Laura's dragon wings. This time they walked, and Andy led the way, taking each bend of the trail with brisk efficiency. Laura's wings glinted in the sun, and her stride never once faltered. She didn’t bother with small talk, but Andy found that he didn’t mind.

The terrace at the top was empty but for a single Mildred, dusting the glass banister. Laura ignored her, and leaned into the wind, eyes closed, letting the breeze ruffle her hair and rustle the scales at the edge of her wings. Andy watched her, admiring the way she owned her space.

---

Claire led Dawn up the long, echoing staircase at the back of the library, pausing only once to check that Dawn hadn’t doubled back to the nearest bookshelf. She didn’t. The woman moved with such brisk assurance that even Claire, who prided herself on efficiency, felt like she might be lagging.

The top of the stairs was a trapdoor, a thin blade of blue light shining through the crack. Claire pushed it open, and the Sky Archive unfolded around them: walls of glass, a shifting balcony with a clear view to the far ocean, and inside, the air alive with the hiss of memory.

Dawn stopped in the threshold, brown tail flicking in a slow S-curve. She scanned the Archive in one sweep, then stepped forward with none of the awe most guests brought. Claire found herself watching Dawn's face for the reaction that didn't come, and filing the absence as data. Instead, Dawn went straight to the nearest shelf and began reading the spines with quick, deliberate focus, head cocked to one side, ears pivoting every so often as if sampling the room for more data.

Claire followed, a few paces back. The space was more than familiar to her—she’d spent days in here, reading and re-reading the way the Archive reorganized itself, the way it gave up secrets if you phrased the search just right. What interested her now was not the contents, but how Dawn navigated them.

They made a full loop of the main floor before they wound through the rare section, Dawn pausing every few yards to tilt her head, as if listening to some private radio. “Unlived Lives,” Dawn read on a plaque, pointing to the partition at the far end, where Claire was taking her. “Is this what you wanted me to see?”

Claire considered denying it, but there was no point. She nodded. It changes for everyone who enters it. I wonder if it works for people outside our season.

Dawn drifted to the Unlived Lives alcove and stood very still, reading the spines. Each book was different—sometimes a different binding, sometimes a different thickness, sometimes the same as another except for a tiny change in type. Some volumes didn’t even have titles; just a blank stretch where the title should be, as if the possibility inside had never been realized.

Dawn's face was perfectly neutral, but her tail was now almost still. “What is this section?”

Claire wrote, Every book here is about a life you haven’t lived. Sometimes because something was different during your lifetime. Sometimes, because of your ancestors. Sometimes it’s because of something you haven’t yet done.

Dawn turned to Claire and said, “Do you ever want to read one? A book about who you might have been?”

Claire shook her head. She took a step closer, reached up, and pulled down a single volume with a blank spine. She opened it, flipped through three pages, then closed it and replaced it on the shelf. She tapped her temple and pointed to her notebook: I know what’s in mine, she wrote.

They moved away from the shelf, but as they did so, Claire noticed a detail that had not been there before. Two books, shelved side by side with identical spines but slightly different thicknesses. Curious, she ran her fingers over their spines: it was unusual for two nearly identical books to sit next to each other in this section. The contact was electric: the first book reminded her of bittersweet partings, of the laughter of children and the strange juxtaposition of happiness mingled with a simmering sorrow. The second book filled her with wonder, grief, awe, and for a moment, the sense of being adrift among the stars.

Claire hesitated, then followed Dawn out of the section, and found the reading table. Dawn claimed a chair, curling into it so that her feet barely grazed the rung. Claire stood, notebook in hand, and waited.

Dawn said, “Why did you want to bring me here?”

Claire wrote in the notebook: Wanted to see what you’d do. Then, after a second, added: Also, I wanted to talk.

Dawn gave a tiny smile. “About what?”

Claire thought, then wrote: About what it’s like to always be right, and to always be different.

Dawn's lips twitched. “I wish people would just listen more,” she said. “But sometimes, if you meet another person who understands the rules, it’s better.” She leaned back, her gaze going distant for a moment.

Claire nodded, her cat ears going flat. She wrote: People want to be understood, but only as much and in the same way as they already understand themselves.

Dawn's tail flicked. “Exactly. You see that too, don’t you?”

Claire nodded again.

Dawn's eyes dropped briefly to Claire’s middle, still flat beneath her blouse. “By the way, I meant what I wrote in my letter. Congratulations. You’ll be an excellent mother.”

Claire’s pen hesitated above the page. Then she wrote: Thank you. I’m still getting used to the idea. She paused. You’re the first person who’s congratulated me without asking if I’m scared.

“Are you?” Dawn asked.

Claire considered, then wrote: Yes. But not about the things everyone expects.

Dawn nodded once, decisive. “I understand. I’m sure everything will be allright.”

Claire nodded, a hand instinctively moving to her stomach, still flat beneath her shirt. They sat in silence for a while, two brains working on their own problems, but parallel. It was the kind of silence Claire didn’t get to have with most people; the silence of being known.

A while later, they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Erin appeared, her hair still damp, skin radiant in the midmorning sunlight, a large thermos in her hand. She took in the scene, Claire at the table, Dawn at her side, and said, “What’s the topic?”

Dawn looked her over, quick and efficient, as if scanning for symptoms. “You’re Erin, the one who received the plant transformation,” she said.

Erin stopped. “That’s right.”

“Do you mind if I ask some questions, as a scientist?”

Erin considered. Then, with a slight roll of her eyes, said, “Go for it.”

Dawn began: “I’m curious. Do you know your chlorophyll type—A or B, or something more specialized? How efficient is the capture in indirect light? Do you get a measurable ATP boost? Is there a homeostatic cap?”

Erin fielded the first two with short, precise answers, but as Dawn's questions doubled back and grew more technical, Erin’s expression went from polite to strained to the particular blank she used when she was deciding how much more she could tolerate. “It’s not all that different from what you’d get in a C3 plant,” Erin said at one point, but Dawn was already writing in a notebook she had conjured from her pocket.

After a while, Erin caught Claire's eye with the particular look she used when she'd reached her limit and was deciding whether to push through it or reroute.

Claire, who had been watching with interest, scribbled something on her own notebook and angled it so Erin could see: She’s not normally like this.

Erin read the note, then actually laughed, the sharpness in her face dissolving into something closer to amusement. “Okay,” she said, “fine. Keep going. But first. Coffee?” she asked. Her tone was half challenge, half olive branch.

Dawn accepted, never missing a beat in her cross-examination. “Yes, please. Black.”

Erin poured, passing the cup with a careful hand, her eyes lingering just a second too long on the way Dawn cradled it.

Dawn sipped, pronounced it “very good,” and then continued her questioning. At the end, she finished the cup, refilled it, and kept going, the pace of her speech accelerating in lockstep with her consumption.

Four minutes later, Dawn was explaining, at double speed, the probable long-term effects of rapid cell division on Erin’s skin elasticity when she stopped mid-sentence and blinked, once, then twice. Her ears twitched and her tail went rigid.

“Wait,” she said, voice a little louder than necessary. “I am drunk. Very drunk.” She looked at the cup as if it had betrayed her.

Erin stared. “You can’t be. It’s coffee.”

Dawn set the cup down with great ceremony and said, “Nope. Thish definitely isn't coffee. Thish is alchohol, it just looks like coffee. Even what Gina's tried to give me wasn't as strong as this. I-” she hiccupped, "Shit. I'm absolootly sloshed.”

Erin snatched the thermos and sniffed. She scowled, then took a cautious sip, and made a face. “Damn it. That’s almost pure ****.”

Claire tapped her pen against her notebook, then wrote quickly: Where did you get this coffee?

“Coffee pot in the banquet hall,” Erin said, still grimacing at the taste.

Claire’s eyes widened. She scribbled rapidly: Sam was serving herself a cup at the morning meeting. Her Beerista transformation must have triggered accidentally.

Dawn nodded solemnly. “I should not shtand up for the nexsht twenty minutesh.”

Erin couldn’t help herself: she laughed, the sound loud and genuine. “You want some crackers? I think Claire’s got protein bars, too.”

Dawn brightened. “Yesh. I have alwaysh wanted to try one of thoshe.” She reached across the table, missed, then corrected, grabbing the nearest protein bar and tearing it open with her teeth. “Wow,” she said, mouth full, “thish ish abysssmal. Ish thish what you eat on purposhe?”

Erin shrugged. “It’s food. Or food-adjacent.”

Claire, meanwhile, was scribbling furiously, trying to keep up with the barrage of drunken insights now pouring out of Dawn. The woman’s filters were now fully offline, and her commentary took on a new volume. She started critiquing the organization of the Sky Archive itself, pointing out three redundancies in the main index, two circular references, and a typographical error on the spine of a book in the fourth row. Each time, Claire would check, and—annoyingly, marvelously—Dawn was right in half the cases, though Claire was successful in explaining away the other half.

Dawn then turned her attention to Erin’s biology, launching into a detailed explanation of how Erin’s chlorophyll density could be optimized by adjusting her light exposure at dawn and dusk. “A minor shhhift in your amino acid intake,” she announced, “would make you twicccce ash efficient at glucoshe shyntheshish. Twiccce.” She held up three fingers for emphasis, then studied them as if surprised they were hers. Erin listened, incredulous, and then said, “I’m not a houseplant, you know.”

Dawn nodded sagely. “Noted.” She held up a finger with great solemnity. “But if you were — hypothet'cly — you could be a better houseplant. Thish way.” She gestured broadly at Erin's entire body, as if presenting evidence. She paused. "No offenshe.” She reached for another protein bar, this time with greater accuracy, which she appeared to find personally satisfying.

At one point, Dawn stood (against her own advice), faceplanted, stood up again and, undaunted, tottered to the Unlived Lives shelf, where she pulled down a single volume. She read the spine, scanned the first few pages, and then placed it back with a flourish, saying to the shelf: “No,” she told the shelf, with great firmness, “thank you. I already know how that one endsh.”

The three of them passed the rest of the morning in a kind of structured chaos: Dawn, pontificating with increasing energy, Erin alternately amused and exasperated, Claire writing it all down for later. Occasionally, one of them would remember the time, but then lose it again to the next round of debate.

Eventually, Dawn's words began to slur and she rested her head on the table, still talking, her tail waving slowly behind her. “Thank you,” she said, not quite to anyone in particular. “Thish was more fun than I had antishipated!”

Erin said, “You’re welcome. Next time, I’ll bring real coffee.”

Dawn, eyes closed but smiling, murmured, “Doeshn't matter. I like it better thish way.”

Claire, at her seat with the notebook open, looked from one to the other, then down at the pages. She’d written every word, every tangent, every small truth that surfaced. She knew, with certainty, that she’d remember this day. And, for once, she was glad to.

---

The terrace was all sun and sea, the afternoon heat just beginning to mellow into something bearable. Andy sat with his feet propped on the low wall, watching Laura Black pace the edge of the space, her dragon wings trailing a lazy wake of air behind her. She'd been quiet since lunch, turning the last of her iced tea in its glass like a puzzle she was halfway to solving.

"You're going to wear a path in the tile," he said, when she'd made her fifteenth circuit.

She didn't break stride, just shot him a look that was half amusement, half professional impatience. "If I'm only here for the afternoon, I'm not wasting it sitting." She stretched one wing, letting the sun catch the scales and sending a flash of wine-red iridescence across the railing. "Besides, when you live with as much night as I do, you learn to hoard daylight."

Andy was about to answer when the terrace door swung open and Sam appeared, a little out of breath and carrying three sweating bottles of water. She dropped into the nearest lounge chair with a thump that suggested she'd been running, and held out the bottles like peace offerings.

"I come bearing hydration," she announced. "And also to find out if the legend’s true." She twisted the cap off one, took a long swig, and then leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "Is it really you, Laura Black? The Mistress from Castle Creepy?"

Laura's wings snapped flat to her back in surprise. She turned, slow and measured, and took one of the water bottles. "It's me," she said. "Though I've never heard it called Castle Creepy before."

Sam's smile was unrepentant. "I'm creative," she said. "And also, between you and me, your wings are fucking cool." She turned to Andy. "You could've texted that the most interesting person on the island was hiding up here, you know."

Andy shrugged. "I didn't know you were looking."

"Everyone's looking," Sam said. "Riley's been dying to find out what your show's like for the last two hours, and all we've gotten from Tracy during the game is that you have a big lake and—" she leaned forward, lowering her voice to a stage whisper, "—your sister is hot."

Laura snorted. “Tracy never fails,” she said. “But yes, it's true, we have a big lake, which Shar calls a pond.” She finally settled onto the edge of the lounger next to Sam, tucking her wings so they wouldn't knock over the water bottles. “And no, you cannot come visit without permission from your Host. But I am sure Shar would invite you, if she hasn’t already.”

Sam's face fell, then brightened. “Fair enough. But can I ask questions? Like—” She counted off on her fingers. “One, does your show have Mildreds, or are they just a tropical thing? Two, how many wings does your castle have? Three, how haunted are we talking? Like, a single poltergeist, or a hundred headless horsemen? And three—” She paused, then grinned. "What's it like to have a sister who's in the same harem as you?"

Laura blinked, as if the last one had caught her off guard. She took a slow drink of her water before answering, her eyes on the horizon beyond the terrace. “Yes, we have staff, but they're invisible and don’t have names. No idea why, but they're the same idea—invisible unless you need them. Second, haven’t counted. Third, not sure, but if you don’t count the invisible servants, then probably only Shar. And fourth—” She hesitated, then said, with a kind of painful honesty, “It's complicated. And there are two of them. The strangest part isn't having them there, though. It's realizing how much you didn't know about someone you grew up with, once you're all in the same place and the game starts peeling things back.”

Sam nodded, as if that was exactly the answer she'd been hoping for. She sprawled back in her chair, legs dangling over one armrest. “So,” Sam said, leaning forward. “Your Host is Shar, right? What's she like?”

The question seemed to catch Laura off guard in a way that none of the previous ones had. She looked at Andy, then at Sam, then out at the sea, as if buying time to decide how much to say. “Shar is...” She trailed off, then started again. “Shar's the reason I'm here at all. Not just on this terrace, but in the Harem Hotel itself.”

Sam's eyebrows shot up. “You got scouted?”

Laura shook her head. “Shar's my great-aunt. Was my great-aunt. Now she's...” She waved a hand, as if that might encompass the transition from mortal to immortal. “I never met her before the show. She's the one who pulled me into the game, who made me the Mistress of my own season.” She paused, then added, “She used to be a Contestant, too. A long, long time ago.”

Andy watched Sam's face as this sank in. There was the immediate flash of curiosity, then the dawning realization that this was a kind of family history no one had prepared her for. “Holy shit,” Sam said, finally. “So when you’re getting transformations from her, you're getting them your...?”

“My great-aunt, yes.” Laura's wings twitched, a ripple of scales from the shoulder to the tip. “It's complicated. But the weirdest part is that she remembers being human, and she still... cares. About what I'm doing, who I'm with, how I'm treating people.” She looked directly at Andy then. “Is Arabella the same way? Does she check in, or just hand out the rules and let you figure it out?”

The question landed like a stone dropped in still water. Andy had to think about it—the times Arabella had stepped in, the ones where she'd let things spiral, the careful way she'd managed the disaster of Laura's return without seeming to manage anything at all. “She's... present,” he said finally. “But she doesn't hover. It's more like she's watching to see what I'll do before she decides if she needs to step in.”

Sam snorted. “She's like the world's most patient babysitter. 'Let's see if he figures out not to touch the stove himself before I have to tell him.'“

Laura laughed, a sharp, surprised sound that seemed to startle even her. “That's exactly it,” she said. “Shar's the same. She'll let me make a mess, as long as I'm the one who cleans it up.”

The three of them sat in a brief, comfortable silence. Andy watched the way the late afternoon sun hit Laura's wings—the deep wine-red of them catching the light and throwing it back in ripples of copper and burgundy. She was watching Sam, he realized, with the same careful, measured attention she'd given the view from the terrace. As if Sam was just as worth studying.

“How did you end up here, then?” Laura asked. “Were you scouted, or did Andy bring you in?”

Sam's face split into a grin. “He wished me into existence, like a genie with bad taste in friends,” she said. “No, Arabella plucked me right out of my coffee shop, mid-latte. I spent the first three days convinced I was having a psychotic break.”

“And now?” Laura pressed.

Sam shrugged, one of those full-body motions that encompassed too many feelings to name. “Now it's just... Tuesday. But with more nudity and slightly better food.”

Laura's laugh was genuine this time, her wings flaring a little with the **** of it. “God, that's it exactly. The first time the girls had an orgy—” She broke off, shaking her head. “You get used to the strangeness faster than you'd think.”

Andy let the conversation flow around him, watching the easy way Sam drew Laura into stories about the other women. “Do you like it?” Laura asked Andy, halfway through a story about the Fifth Challenge. “Having this many people who all want something from you, and having to keep track of who's who and what they need?”

Andy and Sam exchanged a look—the kind of silent, whole-conversation-in-a-glance that only comes from years of friendship. “It's not about keeping track,” Andy said finally. “It's about... they tell you what they need, if you're listening for it. The hard part is when what they need isn't what they're asking for.”

Laura nodded, as if that was exactly the answer she'd been hoping for. “Shar says the same thing,” she said. “That the women will teach you how to love them, if you're paying attention to the right cues.” She stretched, her wings arching to their full span before she deliberately folded them again. “Would you want to come visit? My set, I mean. If Arabella would allow it.”

Sam's face lit up. “Hell yes,” she said. “Does your castle have a dungeon? Because if it does, I have questions that cannot be answered via text message.”

Laura grinned, sharp and a little wicked. Sam grinned. “You,” she said, pointing a finger at her, “are a terrible tease and I'm holding you to that tour, dungeon or not.”

They fell into a easier rhythm after that. Andy watched as Laura gradually relaxed, her wings settling from their alert, half-spread readiness into a more natural drape along her back. “The weirdest part,” Sam said, when they'd reached the dregs of their water bottles, “is that you look at Andy and you'd never know he's got thirteen women who'd probably set the world on fire if he asked. He's still the same guy who used to fall asleep on my couch after too many study sessions.”

Laura's eyes flicked to Andy, then back to Sam. “Is that the test, then? That he's still the same person underneath?”

Sam considered, head tilted. “No,” she said finally. “The test is that he's still trying to be better. For them, but also for himself.” She reached over and poked Andy's shoulder. “Even when it's hard. Even when he's scared.”

Andy swatted her hand away, but there was no heat in it. The sun was starting its slide toward the horizon, and Laura's wings twitched, as if she could feel the day shortening. "I should probably head back down," she said. "If Arabella is right, it’s almost time to go home."

Sam stood first, stretching her arms overhead until her back popped. “If Arabella and Shar find a good time,“ she said, “my bags are already packed. Just saying.”

Laura's smile was quick and genuine. “I'll put in a word with Shar,” she said. “No promises, but... it's not impossible.”

They made their way back down the winding path from the terrace.

---

The Banquet Hall hummed with the particular energy of a group trying very hard not to stare. It was just after dinner, the last plates being cleared by a swift, silent contingent of Mildreds, and the women had drifted in by twos and threes - some from the garden, some from the library, a few still damp from quick showers. They arranged themselves in the loose half-circle that had become their default for announcements, with the subtle, **** hierarchy of who stood where.

Andy stood a little apart, arms crossed, watching the room settle. Despite the pleasant day, he couldn’t relax, not until Dawn and Laura were back. The bond still thrummed, and he couldn’t sense any negative feelings from Laura, but he would feel better once his two wayward girls came home.

The hush, when it came, was subtle - just a gradual dimming of voices as Arabella stepped through the far archway. She wore a simple white suit, her hair pulled back in a sleek knot at the nape of her neck, and she moved with the particular grace of someone who knew exactly how many eyes were on her. She didn't raise a hand or call for attention; she simply walked to the center of the room and stood, and one by one, the conversations died.

"Thank you for gathering," she said, when the last murmur had faded. Her voice was pitched to carry, but not to echo - the practiced modulation of someone who had done this a thousand times before. "As you know, we've had two guests with us today due to a filing error in the Archive. That error has now been corrected, and it's time for both Ms. Black and Ms. Willowbrook to return to their proper seasons."

There was a ripple of movement through the group - a straightening of spines, a few exchanged glances. Andy caught the way Laura's wings gave a single, involuntary twitch at the word "return," and how Dawn's ears flattened briefly before she controlled them.

"The transfer will happen now," Arabella continued. "There's no need for concern - you'll simply walk through the door with me, and find yourselves back where you belong." She turned to the two guests, her expression gentling. "Ms. Black, Ms. Willowbrook, thank you for your patience and your good humor. Your hosts are waiting."

Laura stepped forward first, as if she'd been counting the seconds. She turned to Andy, and for a moment, the public face slipped - just a flash of something like regret crossing her features before she mastered it. She leaned in, said something too low for anyone else to hear, and he nodded, once, sharp and definitive. Whatever it was, it made her smile - a quick, private thing that vanished as soon as she straightened.

“It was good to be here,” she said, loud enough for the room to catch. “Next time, I expect a proper tour of that volcano.”

Andy grinned back. “Next time, wear shoes you can run in. No more 'I'm fine, it's just a little lava' from you.”

Across the room, Dawn was having a more complicated goodbye. She and Claire had their heads bent together, Claire's pen moving rapidly across a page while Dawn pointed to specific lines. They were speaking too quietly to overhear, but the intensity of it was clear - both tails lashing in tight, controlled arcs, Dawn's hands punctuating some emphatic point with sharp, precise gestures. Finally, Claire tore a page from her notebook, folded it twice with methodical care, and pressed it into Dawn's palm. Whatever was written there made Dawn's ears perk straight up, then swivel forward as if she was physically restraining herself from reading it immediately.

Arabella waited until both conversations had reached their natural pause, then gestured toward the main doors. "Shall we?" she said, and it wasn't really a question.

The two guests fell into step beside her, Laura with her wings now fully extended in what might have been excitement or nerves, Dawn with her tail held high and her steps quick to keep up with the taller women. They reached the door together, Arabella's hand on the polished brass handle, and then - with a practiced twist - she pulled it open.

Not onto the garden path, as it should have been, but into a swirl of something that wasn't quite mist and wasn't quite darkness. Andy had a split second to register the wrongness of it - the way the light bent around the edges of the doorway, the sudden hush as if the air itself had been muted - and then Arabella stepped through, drawing Laura and Dawn with her. The door swung shut behind them with a click that seemed to echo too long in the suddenly silent lobby.

For three heartbeats, no one moved. Then Sam whistled, low and impressed. "Well," she said. "That's one way to make an exit."

The tension broke, and the room erupted into a dozen overlapping conversations. Andy was halfway through explaining that no, he didn't know exactly how it worked, when the door swung open again. And there they were: Laura and Dawn, blinking in the sudden light of the lobby as if they'd stepped out of a much darker room. Laura’s bodies moved in perfect sync as they took in the crowded space; Dawn behind her, one hand still on the doorframe as if she wasn't quite sure it would hold her weight. They both looked... Andy searched for the word. Not tired, exactly, but displaced, as if they'd been somewhere that ran on a different clock.

The room's chatter faltered, then surged again as a dozen voices called out at once:

"Laura!"

"Dawn, you're back!"

"Did you see the castle?"

"Was it really all vampires?"

Andy didn't call out. He just pushed away from the wall and crossed the room in six long strides, catching both Lauras and Dawn in one sweeping hug before any of them had finished orienting. Laura's doubled arms came around his waist from both sides, her face(s) pressing into his shoulder with a **** that suggested she'd been holding the pose in her mind for hours. Dawn, caught in the same embrace, made a startled sound that turned into a laugh, her bunny ears tickling his chin as she ducked her head.

"You're crushing us," Laura mumbled in stereo, but she was smiling too wide for it to be a real complaint.

"Good," he said, and didn't let go. He knew he should step back, should give them space to greet everyone else, but the relief of having them both here, solid and real under his hands, kept him rooted in place for three more heartbeats.

Finally, Laura's left elbows dug into his ribs - both left elbows, from either side, in perfect unison - and he loosened his grip enough for them to slip free. Dawn immediately turned to embrace Chloe, who had appeared at her elbow with the particular focused concern that meant she'd been worrying silently for hours. Laura’s two selves stayed close, though, each of them holding one hand on Andy's arm as if making sure he wouldn't vanish if they looked away.

"Welcome back," he said, quieter, just for them. "How was it?"

Laura's faces split into identical, complicated smiles. "Tell you later," she said, both voices overlapping. "When there isn’t a room full of people trying to eavesdrop."

He nodded, and let his hand rest briefly on the small of her back - a touch too light to hold her there, but enough to say I'm glad you're home. Then he stepped aside, letting the wave of welcome wash over them both as the rest of the women descended, questions and hugs and the particular chaos of twelve people trying to hear two stories at once.

From the edge of the room, Arabella watched, her expression composed into something that, if you were not looking carefully, could have passed for simple satisfaction.

---

Bonus! Did you ever wonder if Erin wrote Holly back after the last fanmail, and if she sent pictures? Wonder no more!