It felt strange to be back where it all started after the better part of a year; before being teleported to another world, I hadn't left the Phoenix metro area since mom had dropped me off when I was twelve. Now everything looked wrong, somehow, like it had been destroyed and re-made when I wasn't looking but they'd gotten little things wrong. The sky was a little too big, the roads a little too wide, the buildings just models that I'd find were solid concrete all the way through if I tried to go inside.

We got two rooms at a tiny motel along Grand Avenue, not too far from the self-storage place. The motel looked like it had probably been there since before the city reached this far, back when it was just a long empty road and some railroad tracks. There were stains, and peeling wallpaper, and outdated decorations... but the stains were old, and the sheets were clean, and my usual bedbug check came up all clear. We convened in one of the rooms to talk about priorities - we'd discussed a little on the road, of course, but we'd sort of circled around without making a decision.

Katrin took the lead, probably because I'd complained about being in charge back at Monument Valley. "We have two high priority tasks, and two low priority tasks," she said. "The two high priority tasks are to eliminate Greg, and help Zoey's paradox twin. The two lower priority tasks are to get eyes on Bill and confirm he's on Earth, and take Matlyn to the botanical garden because they have plants she hasn't sampled yet. Those lower-priority tasks can happen while we plan for the higher-priority ones.

"Originally we'd agreed to immediately attack Coelestis, but since the incident in Albuquerque I'm not so sure it's a good idea. Right now, our biggest obstacle is finding a way to hurt Greg; he's very powerful, and if we attack here at his chosen base of operations he'll have even more of an advantage. Until we have a better plan than anything we were able to come up with on the way here, my vote is that we focus on helping Zoey. There's some overlap, of course, because one of the challenges with helping Zoey's paradox twin is that Greg may be keeping tabs on her."

Zoey nodded. "Right. That being said, I'm pretty sure I know which hospital she's in now. I think... this could be crazy, but I've been reading all my little sister Emma's posts and she seems pretty cool. So fucking strange that she's as old as I was when I left Earth, I'm not going to get used to that. Anyway, I don't think Greg could possibly be watching her; we saw how empty Coelestis was in New York, he's not dedicating agents to some random sibling. Also, I've been in contact with Catastrophe - sorry, 'human Calliope', and she hasn't seen any sign of goons coming to check on her. So I figure we talk to Emma, tell her who I am, and see if she can help us without drawing attention."

It seemed a little risky, but the risk was almost entirely to Zoey and her sister Emma so I figured that was their business. "Okay," I said, "take Katrin with you. Errod can take Matlyn to the botanical garden, and I'll try to make contact with Tony. It'll probably mean I just sit around waiting a lot."

Katrin grinned. "You're splitting things up so you're alone again. Also, don't you need to go with Matlyn?"

I threw a pillow at her. "No, I think probably she can grab samples from the plants without getting caught rather than trying to make me template everything. Also, I've been trying to avoid that since it's probably driving Zoey's paradox twin crazy." Except for important stuff, like that plate of fried pickles I templated at lunch.

For being such a big city, Phoenix had shitty public transportation. I blamed it mostly on the low population density, with everything smeared across the desert in all directions. There were busses, but they took ages. There was a light rail system, but it was pretty limited in where it stopped. Zoey and I spent some time getting Uber set up and showing the others how to use it, which was a bit of a pain thanks to needing to use our prepaid credit cards and running into some errors.

Once that was done, we all went out to dinner. There was a restaurant on top of a hotel downtown that rotated, and I'd always wanted to go there. Katrin called a car so she could practice using the app, and we all headed down there as the driver blatantly hit on Zoey and tried to explain his views on cryptocurrency. We were a little underdressed for the restaurant but not so much anyone said anything, and it lived up to my expectations - the food was good, the view was good, and for the most part I managed to enjoy myself. For the most part. There was still that nervous feeling about Bill, and on top of that this ridiculous dread that I was going to find out everything had been a dream and I'd never left Arizona.

Zoey had figured out where her sister would be the next day, and I had a good idea of where to find Tony, so after breakfast the next morning we went to work. I milled around what appeared to be Tony's favorite burger place, watching as I dicked around on my phone. I didn't have Tetris on the new one, and the old phone was back at the motel, so I tried to download a version of it from the app store. They were all wrong; even though Tetris seemed simple you needed just the right speed and feel, plus some of them had a ridiculous number of ads.

I thought about trying to get my version of Tetris onto the new phone, but I was skeptical that my old cloud account for the project was still active. Anyway, I'd need to fix it since it had that glitch that kicked in after playing for a while where it just gave you a left-hand squiggle block over and over until you were forced to turn it off. Katrin had said she was going to get a proper laptop while they were out, maybe once we had that I could check if the files were still out there or even just re-make it from scratch.

That reminded me of XCog+ being similar to the syntax of High Imperial, and I took a moment to search it up online. There wasn't a name on the books about it, but some further digging got me to an archived Reddit thread where someone linked an old post on a now-defunct forum via the Wayback Machine. The post was about developing a programing language, and it was by a user named CoelestiSacrilegium. The Reddit thread said that was the oldest mention of XCog+, and it seemed to be correct.

Presumably CoelestiSacrilegium was Greg, so I searched by that and found something else on a Google archive of old Usenet stuff, which seemed to be some ancient text-only Reddit or something. It was a question about how to search for old pre-Internet missing persons records. Interesting. The poster specifically wanted to know about Virginia, and had a broad date range. We'd found that picture of Jake Ross torn out of a missing poster in Worthington Hardware, so I had to assume that was what he was looking for. Why did Greg want to find missing person records for Jake Ross? Or... wait.

The date range he was asking about for the missing person was between February of 1929 and October of 1966. Could that be the one I was thinking of? There was a serious problem with that, which I confirmed with one more search - the Van Halen logo on the shirt I'd seen in Jake Ross' room wasn't in use then. Hell, the band didn't even exist until a decade later.

The scrap of missing poster I'd found could have been from practically any year and I wouldn't have known; it felt old, but that didn't help much. Some research told me that the classic MISSING posters were extra big in the 70s and 80s, but I did find examples from the early 1900s which meant that didn't narrow things down. Still, if the missing poster was in Virginia that seemed relevant. Could Greg have just had the dates wrong? The logo with the curved wings had been in use from '86 to '98, though the shirt could have been old when Jake was taken to Brinkmar. Still, with the limited life expectancy of kids' clothing it would have been at latest '08 probably even if it had been from Goodwill.

Not that the later end of things mattered, it was more a question of the early end. '86 was twenty years off of the search Greg had asked about. Also... yeah, the post in question was from shortly before Jake Ross and the Forgotten Throne was published. So it wasn't based on the books, and if Greg knew about the shit in Brinkmar first-hand as he'd implied in that memory he would have known the logo. He'd know that Jake Ross couldn't have been from that early. So... he was looking for someone else.

Although, the picture had been in Jake Ross' room. If it wasn't Jake Ross, who the fuck was it? Did someone from Brinkmar come to Earth? No, they had pretty Earth-y features. Okay, so maybe it was Jake Ross, but the times didn't line up because... uh... because he was returned to the wrong time, maybe, and then started a new life in Virginia, and then went missing again? That seemed too convoluted, but I already knew we were dealing with some degree of time travel since the events in Brinkmar were from long before Jake Ross would have been alive.

The suggestions about how to find the missing person records weren't a lot of help to current me, since the Internet had been a very different place back then. Searching through microfiche or microfilm or whatever was the main one, and if I'd wanted to do that I would have needed to be at the library in Virginia in person. Out of curiosity I went to the library site and after poking around confirmed they did have that, dating back to the 1700s. Also, for some reason, you could check out framed art for six months or camping equipment or... all sorts of shit. Huh.

I was about to leave the page, when I saw another option: Ask A Librarian. "Do you have a reference or research question? Or need help with our online resources? Fill out this form and a Librarian will get back to you." Well... why the fuck not? I explained what I was looking for, along with a made up story about my dead grandmother and a purchase from Worthington Hardware, then uploaded the photo I'd taken of the missing poster scrap. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack, but filling out the form hadn't cost me anything.

After that I was back to being bored. I tried some other games on my phone, checked out the pictures Matlyn had sent - there was one of her standing under an enormous saguaro, but the rest were just photos of nice desert scenes. She was, apparently, devastated that they'd just barely missed the butterfly pavilion that had closed for the winter a week before. Zoey, meanwhile, had yet to meet up with her sister and was instead showing Katrin our old high school.

Out of things to do, I flicked on threadsight and immediately noticed that - under the faint web I'd accidentally created back in New York - one of my fate threads was moving. I knew one went to the box, but this one I had figured was leading to the vault under the self storage place; I'd checked it from the road as we got to the edge of Phoenix, and it had been pointed in at least generally the right direction. But now... yeah, it was moving. A lot. That meant it was either going very fast, or it was very close.

I hid myself from view behind the corner of a building, and got ready to call Katrin. This was likely to be someone from Coelestis, at which point I'd have to start worrying about how they'd known where to find me. The line whipped around, and it became clear that it was leading to a car. An older Plymouth, but in good shape. I didn't recognize it, and the windows were tinted. It came to a stop in the parking lot, and... oh, hey. It was Tony.

I followed him to the burger place, and walked in just as he was ordering. I stepped around him as he was about to pay. "Actually, same thing for me too. I'm paying, I think I owe you at least a dozen burgers at this point."

He stared at me as I paid, and then - unconvincingly - tried to act like he didn't know me. "Sorry, ah, have we met?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "I'll grab straws and napkins. Pick a seat."

Why was he acting like we didn't know each other? What the fuck would that be about? He sat down all the way in the back corner, and rather than watching me he kept his eyes on the door. Uh-oh. That wasn't a great sign. I had to hope it was his own personal shit, but given the fate thread it seemed like maybe he was already entangled in Coelestis stuff.

I sat down across from him. "Hey Tony, how's business?"

He hesitated, then smiled. "I'll be a billionaire by Wednesday."

Well, there was our old call and response. I decided to just be quiet for a moment, and see if he said anything. He was acting squirrely, and I wasn't sure what to ask - maybe if I didn't ask anything at all he'd assume I already knew what was going on and spill something. After a bit, voice low, he finally spoke.

"Listen, I have an important question. You have to answer me before we talk about anything else, understand? When was the last time you saw me?"

Oh, this was interesting. The last time I'd seen Tony... was right before Paul the security guard grabbed me and I got hauled off to the police station. Then Bill had come and picked me up, and then... well, all that other shit. But if I'd seen Tony after that, those memories would have gotten wiped. That had to be why he was asking, but if so it would imply he knew about the memory manipulation. If he knew about the memory manipulation, then presumably he'd learned it from me. That would put it near the end of things, between breaking into the vault and getting almost murdered by Greg in Universal Servicing Systems.

Universal Servicing Systems, right where Tony used to sell drugs. Okay. So maybe I'd... what, told him some part of my plan? "The last time I remember seeing you," I said, putting extra emphasis on the word 'remember', "was when I was telling you I wanted to find a key for a lockbox in that was in the old office building I was living in. You said I was going to get caught, I said I wasn't, and you turned out to be right."

He nodded, looking thoughtful. "Yeah. Yeah. And you've been good since then? Living somewhere better than that abandoned building, right? Where'd you go after you got caught? Juvie?"

It was transparently a test. "No. I went to live with my old case manager, actually. But I think probably you knew that, because I think we've spoken since then. Maybe around the time something fucked that old building up?"

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He took a deep breath, blowing it out from his nose slowly. "I kept it safe for you, sis. Whenever you need it back. You just have to tell me what it is I'm talking about."

Oh, fucking jackpot. Yes. "Oh, a game. Okay. Let's see... how many guesses do I get?"

He smirked. "Until I think you're just trying to get it by luck. You're off to a bad start with that question."

"I can get it in three, I'm sure of it. Okay. Guess one would be... a device that removes memories." I hadn't seen that in my recovered memories, though I'd confidently told Greg that I'd smashed it. I knew at least some of what I'd told him wasn't true, so that seemed like a good guess. Tony shook his head no, but leaned forward with an excited look on his face.

"Okay, okay, guess two. Hmm." The brooch had been with me in Universal Servicing Systems, and I'd burned Jake Ross and the Shattered Crown. "My phone, or a hard drive, or something like that with stolen information on it."

He grinned openly, shaking his head. "Getting closer, sis. You did something else with that, told me you'd have it when you needed it."

Well that was going to require further investigation. "Okay, fuck. Guess three... the boots were destroyed... could be a Coelestis pin but that seems dumb... Shit, the only other items of interest I can think of are accounted for."

"Accounted for how?"

"There was a book, Jake Ross and the Shattered Crown, but I burned that. And there was a gold brooch, but I had that on me when... some shit went down. It would have been taken."

He leaned back, smiling even bigger now. "You're sure you're not being watched? You're certain this is safe?"

"Tony, buddy, this isn't remotely safe. But they're not watching me right now, I can tell you that much. Looking for me, maybe, if they've figured out I'm back, but they don't know I'm talking to you. Fuck, this is killing me. What did I give you? I can find the memory if I try hard enough, but it's a pain in the ass."

They called our number, and Tony got up to retrieve the burgers. When he came back, he still didn't answer my question. "Why are you here, if you don't remember giving me anything? Where have you been the last... what, two and a half years?"

"Tony, the two of us last spoke way more than two and a half years ago. Have you been keeping tabs on me?"

He shrugged.

"Well, fuck it. I'm here because I was going to ask you to do something for me. I can pay, I have cash or gold or - I don't know what you're into, but I have guns. Probably want to be careful with that option, though, considering where they came from."

"Holy hell, sis, you're into some real shit now. No, I don't need guns. I'm legit now, for the most part. The most dangerous thing that happened to me since we talked was when my thumb got cut real bad, see? Check out that scar. You always liked stories, making up all kinds of shit, tell me how you think this happened."

Okay... hmm. This felt like another test. "Some asshole named Greg... no, he'd just kill you. Uh, you cut it while slicing up some pot brownies to serve to your book club."

He shook his head. "Wrong. Anyway, what's this job you want me to do that's worth gold and guns?"

"Man, I hate feeling like I'm on my back foot here. I was supposed to be the mysterious one, swooping in with a job offer. Instead, you know something I don't and you're just... dangling it over me."

Tony laughed. "Yeah, well, payback is a bitch. You already got to be the mysterious kid with a job offer once before, even if you don't remember it."

Fair. Okay, well, it seemed like I should just tell him. "I need you to get eyes on Bill Young, my old case manager. I just need to know if he's here."

Tony snorted. "He's not, I'm always checking in on that guy."

What the actual fuck was going on? "Why? Why are you checking on Bill regularly? And - okay, actually this is great, but just tell me when you last saw him." The masked guy had been with Harmid and human Calliope since around mid to late August, if I converted the dates over. He would have passed into Brinkmar on September 27th, and then we'd last seen him right around the second of October.

"He just left this morning, actually. Went to the airport, I don't know what flight or anything."

Okay, that was more likely to be related to us being here. I needed to warn human Calliope. "Huh. Okay, what about September? Was he here for most of that month?"

Tony shrugged. "All of it, so far as I know. He could have ducked away on a trip at some point for a day or two, but nothing long. Now it's your turn, why are you asking? I mean, I have guesses, but I want to know specifically what you're up to."

So Bill wasn't the mystery man, unless something extra strange was happening. "I... am going to fuck up the people that messed with my memories. Maybe not Bill, because I think he might be a victim in this or... well, partly a victim at least. And fundamentally a good guy. But the main fucker, Greg, is going to die as soon as I figure out how we can kill him. I don't know what you know, but he's not someone you can just shoot."

Tony started eating, and it was clear he was thinking through some stuff so I took that opportunity to eat as well. I also messaged human Calliope to warn her about a possible visit from Bill. She replied that she was back home with mom and would be keeping an eye out, and asked how I wanted her to handle it and under what circumstances she could kill him.

That was a heavy question.

I replied that I wanted her to play dumb and pretend to be me, a me who didn't remember ever living with Bill. As for the possibility of killing him, I just said "please don't" and trusted that she'd do her best. If he forced her hand... well, I wasn't going to think too hard about that.

As soon as we were done eating, Tony got up and gestured for me to follow him. We went to his car and got in, and he started driving without telling me where he was going - I wasn't too worried, but there was a tiny voice in my head coming up with possible scenarios where this was something bad. Maybe he knew about Bill because he worked for Coelestis. Maybe he was so nervous at first because he was worried I had the others with me, and now I'm all alone with him and... well, actually, I could for sure kick his ass. Not only was I in fucking amazing shape, with nine weeks of intense hand to hand combat training from a terrifying veteran soldier under my belt, but I could attack him with my ghost or something. I was fine.

We pulled up to a normal-looking ranch house, the kind built around 1970 when entire huge neighborhoods popped into existence around Phoenix. I'd been in enough of them to know most had the same basic layout originally, but fifty years later they all had been added onto, repaired, or fucked up in ways that made them unique. This one had the carport turned into another room with its own door, and Tony led me through into what turned out to be a sort of apartment.

It was pretty clean, with some posters of half naked women holding bongs on the wall. Classy. There was a snake lounging in a big tank along one wall, and a very nice computer at a desk in the corner. "Hey, not bad Tony! Is the rest of the house family, or roommates, or what?"

"Family," he said, "cousins specifically. So, first of all, here's the thing I was holding onto for you."

He handed me... a thesaurus. Okay. I flipped it open, and immediately realized what I was looking at. "Oh, shit. I switched the dust jackets?" I was holding Jake Ross and the Shattered Crown, which meant the book I'd burned had been some random thesaurus. Huh. I saw some sticky notes with my handwriting tucked into various pages, but none of the ones I looked at had anything useful. One had some speculation on Brinkmar being a real place, but most were just pointing out plot holes or discrepancies between books. I'd have to read through them in more detail later.

"Yeah," he said, "you told me it took a while to find one that was the right size and had the gold shit on the edges of the pages. And then you handed me the book, and gave me some batshit insane instructions. You said I needed to hold on to this gold pin thing, and stare at it - you told me don't even blink, don't look away for one second, unless I heard shit going down like there was a problem. And if there was, you said to drop the pin and look away from it.

"So there I am, staring at some jewelry. I keep thinking I hear something and then deciding everything is fine, you know? And right when I'm feeling stupid and wondering if this is just a prank, a motherfucking death ray punches a hole in the side of the building. A perfect, circular hole. Craziest thing I'd ever seen. I drop the pin, honestly by accident, but then when I look down it's gone. Vanished, like it was never there.

"So I ran over, trying not to be seen but also trying to get an eye on things and see if you were going to come out. For all I knew, you were already dead. I went to the exit, the side door you normally used, and right as I got there something happened and this crack ran all down the side of the building. The door popped open, the whole frame had bent, and when I peeked in there you were. Bleeding, all fucked up, unconscious. You looked really bad.

"There were chunks of concrete on you, one had fucking ruined your leg. I lifted it off and you woke up, screamed, and then looked at me - I'll never forget, all that blood on your face and one eye not focused - and you grabbed my hand. And, well. Remember I said payback is a bitch? Hold out your hand, sis. It's payback time."

Fuck it. I held out my hand, and he flicked a knife open. "With me," he said, "it was some jagged piece of metal. So you're getting off easy." he sliced the side of my thumb, right where he had a scar on his, and then lifted his shirt to reveal the planar lodestone pinned to his jeans. He pulled it off and pressed it against the cut, and when he took it away I saw the blood seemingly get absorbed into it and vanish. "Congrats, it's yours again. I'd say to take care of it, but you can't exactly lose it, can you?"

Holy shit. This was fucking amazing news. We could come and go. We could supply up before attacking Greg. Hell, I could bring Sige and Mila and everyone with me even, show up with serious force. Greg was absolutely fucked. Although... there was still that feeling, like I wasn't going to be able to come back once I'd left. It was probably nothing, but considering my prophetic photograph I didn't want to just dismiss it. Still... it was good to have the brooch even if it was just an escape option.

Back to Tony's story, though... "Wait. What happened to me, after that?"

"That security guard showed up, already on the phone with 911. He was really shook up when he saw you, started crying, saying he thought he'd gotten you somewhere safe. And then while he was standing a little bit away, talking on the phone, some guy in this crazy outfit - helmet and shit - steps out of the shadows, shoves this metal thing in your mouth, a little vial or flask or something, and then looks up like he's surprised and tackles someone I couldn't even see. Just this gap in space, like my brain wouldn't look at it. And then there was lightning, and then... I lost track of them.

"The ambulance showed up pretty quickly, and they took you to the hospital. I saw them take you away, and your leg looked way better than it should have, so I figured maybe that guy helped you. I don't know. I got out of there, you'd said - right before you wiped your memories - that I had to make sure they didn't know I knew anything. But the hospital was so close, I couldn't help going. I was going to check on you, but I was scared... So I sat in the parking lot by the emergency room, and just argued with myself. Then, not that long later, William Young showed up. He ran in, then came walking out with you still in bloody clothes. Nobody stopped him. They'd come closer, then look like they just realized they left the oven on and walk away.

"I followed him, to his house. Spied through a window from the side yard of the next house over. I couldn't hear anything, I didn't want to get close, but you were awake. You were talking to him in the kitchen, him and Gregory Booth. You looked upset, then sad, then... I don't know, it was all over the place. Then you kinda glazed over, stared at nothing, and you were like that for a long time. Young came outside at one point, looked like shit. He paced around and then just sat on the ground for a while.

"After an hour or so, you came out dressed in new clothes. They put you in a car, still looking like you were sleepwalking, and drove off. That's it. I've kept an eye on him some, partly because I was curious and partly because... I figured out if I stand next to his house for like an hour then the next time I open a door it leads to somewhere else."

Oh, shit. Okay. There was mana around Bill's house, and it let the brooch charge up. Tony excitedly showed me pictures on his computer, some of Nusos and some of him carefully tracking how long it took ephemeral matter taken from there to lose its shape and then sublimate into nothing. It wasn't anything I didn't know, but I needed a moment to think and he was just so excited to talk to someone about it.

I'd known I might have my memories wiped, and I'd told him not to give me the book back unless I already knew what was going on. I could have just told him to tell me everything right away, but... it did make some sense. If he told me everything and it turned out I was being closely monitored, they'd find out and shut Tony up too. If I remembered on my own, I could be careful about when and how to approach him. Unfortunately, it had meant I never came to him before now. How had I thought I would figure things out?

My phone rang. It was Calliope. "He's here," she said, "He just got out of a car. If you wish, you can watch through our connection."

She hung up, and I told Tony to give me a second so I could meditate. It took a little more force than before, but I was able to establish the connection and see through her eyes - as with the last time, I used my memory palace and made it so I was watching from next to her, with the details she couldn't see filled in with mostly-accurate guesses. There was a knock at the door, and she walked forward to open it.

"Bill?" She asked, "what the fuck, I haven't seen you since I was... what, fourteen? What are you doing here?"

Her impression of me was flawless, matching my tone of voice and even posture. I was impressed. Bill had a look of relief on his face, which was otherwise... kinda rough. He needed to shave, and there was a lot more gray hair at his temples than I remembered, and he just had this slightly haggard look to him. He opened his mouth to speak, and then... stopped. His face fell, and he took an involuntary step back while shaking his head. "You... you're not her," he said.

"What are you talking about? Jesus Bill, are you drunk? It's fine, it's five o'clock somewhere, but like... what's going on?"

His jaw clenched. "Where is she?"

"Where's who? My mom? She's out right now, I don't know if -"

"Where is - where is the Calliope I know? Please. Just... is she safe? I just want to know if she's safe."

She kept up the act, managing to fake looking freaked out pretty well. "Okay, you're scaring me a little. It was nice to see you again, I guess, but I think you need to go."

He caught the door as she tried to close it. "I know who you are, or I can guess. And I know you've probably gone through a lot. If you... I understand you might have... did you kill her? Please. I won't... I won't... I just need to know, I won't hurt you or your mom even if... I need to know what happened to my Calliope. Please."

The false body language fell away, the slight slouch and the head tilt. Her face became harder, and she crossed her arms. "My sister is unharmed, and will remain that way. If you or your friend Greg attempt to hurt either of us, or tamper with our memories, you will die in agony. Is that understood?"

He nodded. "Don't say anything else. I have to... there's an oath, I have to tell Greg about this. Stopping me would just alert him faster, on the off chance you could actually kill me, but right now he's busy - he has something he's working on for the day after tomorrow, I don't know details. I told him I wouldn't disturb him, so that gives me leeway to not mention you. Then the next day is Thanksgiving, and I... I can convince him to eat at my house. If I invite him over, and plan on telling him at the very end of the night, it can satisfy the oath while making him think he's just there for dinner.

"Don't answer, but... if she's back home, her home, she's going to be in danger from... everything. If she's here, the only danger is Greg. I don't know what her plan is, I don't want to know. But tell her, if she cares, that the way in still works and that he won't be there Thanksgiving night. I hope that helps. She can't kill him, it's just not possible for her, but if she can separate him from his resources... I've done everything I can to cripple Coelestis Acquisitions, but I know he's still finding ways around it. We can make him powerless, even if we can't kill him. Just be sure to leave the door at the back closed."

He let go of the door, and started to leave. After only one step he turned back, eyes glistening with tears. "Thank you for calling her sister. If you talk to her, let her know... I don't expect her to forgive me, but I do love her. Also... I'm sorry I couldn't come for you and bring you home as soon as I knew, I... I can't explain why, but it wasn't an option. I would have done that, for you and your mother, if I could have."

And with that, he walked back to his car and left.

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