Page 56 of Butterfly Effects

“You know, if you gave the dimensions names that didn’t correspond to specific planets, it might be easier for other people to tell the difference between them,” said Sam.

“Might be,” Alice agreed amiably. “Alas, we do not live within that happy filing system, which was established long before anyone in this room was even considered, much less conceived. Whoever started it was thinking from the perspective of ‘Well, this is obviously the part of the dimension that matters.’”

“Arrogant,” said Sam.

“Yup.” Alice tapped the map, gesturing for Thomas to come closer. “Based on these pathways, the Kairos on Earth definitely arrived by way of Johrlar.”

“It makes sense,” I said. “They were here, and Johrlac are good at moving between dimensions. At least a few Kairos must have stumbled into the right place at the right time to make their escape through the transit paths.”

“Yes,” agreed Alice. “You can’t really keep people who treat coincidence like a trusted friend confined for very long. We’re keeping this.” She rolled the map back up, shoving it into her pack. “If nothing else, we can return it to that village you saw. Show them how they’re supposed to get out of here, assuming they even want to. This is their home after this long spent living here. They may not feel like Caerus has anything to offer them.”

“Where do fūri come from?” asked Sam abruptly.

Alice blinked at him. “You know, I’m not entirely sure? I always assumed Earth. More of our local cryptids evolved there than came from some other dimension. Why?”

“Because if we’re from another dimension and somebody showed up with a map offering me a way back to a place I’d never been or seen and didn’t know anything about, I don’t think I’d want to go. I like it where I am.”

Alice nodded. “Same here. I’m not packing my bags and heading for Caerus any time soon. But these Kairos were brought here to serve, and they’ve been hiding in the woods since they got away from the people who wanted to own them. Maybe they’ll feel differently than we do. The polite thing is to give them the choice.”

“And the clever thing is not to get ourselves caught here by standing around arguing about it,” said Thomas. “What do you think the chances are the charm will keep them from catching you again, when they already know you’re here?”

“They know I can move between dimensions—or think they know, anyway, even if I can’t do it anymore. And I know, from past experience, that the way the tattooed crossings work doesn’t disturb the math the Johrlac need to keep track of things. Meaning they won’t think it’s that strange for me to have just disappeared from a locked room.”

“Alice…” said Thomas, a warning note in his tone. “Did you know they were going to catch on that quickly?”

“I don’t want another argument about being careful, so no, I didn’t,” she said. “I knew there was a chance, but I had no way of knowing they’d already have recalled Lybee, or that she’d walk in on us like that. I wish I had known, because then I could have been braced to give her a more knuckle-forward hello. She knew I wasn’t consenting back when she was messing with my memory. She was inside my head—she knew I didn’t understand what she was doing, and she did it anyway. If I’d been trying to engineer an encounter with her, I would have made sure I was in a much better tactical position. Believe me, if I see her again, it’s going to go very differently.”

That wasn’t the most soothing declaration of innocence I’d ever heard, but I could tell it mollified him; he relaxed as she spoke, and by the end, he was nodding.

“All right,” he said. “So is there anything else we can do here?”

“I don’t think so,” said Alice. “They don’t keep municipal blueprints, because that’s not how building works here. As far as I’m aware, they don’t write everything down for long-term storage. I always wondered why they wrote anything down, since they store it all in their mental filing systems. I suppose the Kairos answer that question.”

“Why did they need the Kairos anyway?” I asked.

“Only the queens have access to any form of telekinesis,” said Alice.

“Like how Emma Frost unlocked a whole bunch of new powers when she was possessed by the Phoenix Force?” I asked.

“I have no idea what that meant, but you sounded quite confident, so I’m going to nod and say that yes, that is probably a reasonable comparison,” said Thomas.

“It’s an X-Man thing,” I said.

He didn’t look enlightened, but he didn’t ask any follow-up questions, so I presumed the topic was closed. I turned to look around the map room. There were two entrances: the one we’d come through, and the one Lybee had entered through. The only windows were more like skylights, set high above the shelves themselves. I nodded toward them and Sam grinned.

In the twinkling of an eye he was halfway up the wall of hex-shaped cubicles, moving almost faster than the eye could see. When he ran out of hexes, he launched himself across the room to snag on a shelf, dangling for a moment by his fingertips before flipping backward onto the narrow top, balancing on the balls of his feet. Stable, he moved closer to the windows.

“Annie, what is Samuel doing?” asked Thomas.

“Checking for other exits,” I said. “Give him a second and he’ll be back on the floor for you to look at disapprovingly.”

“It’s not that I don’t approve. It’s more that he seems to have a rather … negotiable relationship with gravity.”

“You still haven’t spent much time around Verity, have you?”

Thomas grimaced. “I make her somewhat uncomfortable, given the background I share with her late husband.”

“Yeah,” I said uncomfortably, turning my attention back to Sam.