Des led the way, walking faster but intermittently distracted by pigeons, bumblebees, and things Kayla couldn’t even perceive let alone identify.

JC greeted them with a smile, and gestured to the table, hardly missing a beat in stirring the pots on the stove. “Help yourselves. Real food isn’t ready yet, sorry. Thank you for helping my friends.”

On the table were two wire cooling racks with what certainly looked like peanut butter cookies spread neatly on them.

Callie’s light-blue eyes widened, and she took a deep breath. “Oh, this room smells so wonderful right now, no matter how much I hate this building. You’re JC? I’m Callie. This is Sly.”

JC nodded. “Yes. And I do too but it’s what I have available for feeding my family and friends. I found peanut butter and sugar in the pantry and there are always plenty of eggs. Cookies are best when they’re warm. You too, Kayla. I think saving us all deserves cookies.” She picked up one of the bowls of chopped vegetables and carefully added the contents to the pots.

Callie chuckled, picked up a cookie, and handed it to Kayla. “Agreed.” She passed one to Sly, picked up another, and looked thoughtfully at Des. “I’m not sure they’d be good for you.”

Des shook her head. “Smell wrong. Have be’er.” She headed straight to the fridge.

Callie took a bite of cookie, and her eyes closed in bliss. “Oh, I never would have thought something so simple could taste so good.”

“I’m glad,” JC said. “There are more in the oven. Des told me you get hungry after you’ve been healing people. I wish I had something more substantial ready but for now, eat more.”

“These will be just fine,” Callie assured her.

Des brought over two glasses of milk, gave one each to Callie and Sly, and darted back to get two more for Kayla and herself. The cat set hers on the table so she could tear off a bite of the thick slice of meat in her hand. “Yummmm.” The final sound was extended into a hum that was nearly a purr.

Callie chuckled. “You’re adorable.” She finished her cookie, took a slow sip of milk, and claimed another cookie. “They might be sweet enough for the wisps, at least in moderation.”

“I have treats for them,” JC said. “Found orange Jello, added a chopped-up peach and a few raspberries and strawberries and blueberries. It’s chilling. Should set fast, it’s in single-serving dishes. Generous ones, but still.”

“Oh, they’re going to love that!”

“I can’t do treats for the whole island. I’ll try for any in reach.”

“I never was any good at cooking anything more complex than a boxed brownie mix or quick simple spaghetti sauce. I’m too grateful to be jealous of skills like that.”

“Delicious,” Sly said, speaking up for the first time, and reached for another cookie.

Des’ ears twitched, then one swivelled to the side. “Hear wagon. Ali back.”

“Seven of you together,” Callie said, with a shake of her head. She finished her second cookie and gulped down her milk. “All with full memories and completely unimpaired abilities. That’s more than ever before. To say nothing of determined and unusually-resourceful friends on the outside. They bit off much more than they could chew with you lot. Good.” She scooped up one last cookie and winked at JC with a flicker of that metallic gold highlighting her eyes. “I’ll be back.” Nibbling on the edge of her cookie, she followed Kayla and Des outside, Sly following.

“Right,” Kayla said. “Does Ali have a bunch of faelings with her that I can’t look at directly?”

“If she has the wisp flock, then yes,” Callie said.

Zach was in the doorway of their makeshift prison, where he could keep track of the interior. He beckoned Kayla over, and she detoured closer to him.

“What’s up?”

“Talk to them,” Zach said quietly. “It’s important. Be you. Life was known scary. Now it’s unknown scary. Everyone’s tired of being scared and having no hope. Everyone will fear the worst of any change. Just... tell the truth. Just be you.”

“Be me. When I can’t actually look at them for long, and I probably have less idea what’s going on than anyone else around. All right, I’ll try.” If Zach considered it that vital, and given his experience with children and adolescents who were sometimes an emotional mess she was inclined to trust him on that, she’d do her best.

She veered back towards the wagon, which Alison had parked next to the fountain.

Suzi helped Alison with the snaps holding the wagon to her harness, while Erica scooped a giggling blonde mermaid with a long silver tail out of the wagon. Despite whatever seven or eight feet of mermaid weighed, probably quite a lot, Erica carried her up the broad steps to the top of the very wide wall ringing the lowest level of the huge fountain. Theo called a cheerful greeting, pulling herself up to sit on the edge.

Erica crouched to release the mermaid carefully into the fountain, while Kayla went up the steps.

“Hey, Kay!” Theo called. “This is Paz and Orfeo’s friend Dulce. Dulce, mi amiga Kayla.”

Dulce looked at Theo, then at Kayla, then at Kayla’s wrist. She said something rapidly to her two friends, who were already on the fountain wall, then looked at Kayla shyly and ducked her head in a kind of greeting. A heartbeat later, she dove under.

“Being stuck in a lake leaves you kinda isolated,” Theo said. “And they’ve been here a while. Let her get used to people again. Okay, how bad are our wisps, really?”

“Worse than we would like,” an unfamiliar female voice said, from the direction of the wagon. “I hope Callie can help. Considering the story we heard, it was worth it.”

“Of course I can help,” Callie said. “The only question is how much. But faelings are tough.”

Suzi reached around Kayla to urge her arm into reach. “Don’t turn, Kayla, too many wisps are going to reinforce each other, but hold out your arm some?” Suzi raised her voice. “You know what that is. Kayla’s our friend. She came looking for us. Between us, we won. Isabel and Nestor and Phrixos aren’t in charge here anymore.”

“Which should be celebrated. But it does raise the question of what happens to all of us now.”

“We’re working on that,” Kayla said. “The dust hasn’t even quite settled yet. I’m really sorry, I wish I had answers, because being stuck in limbo waiting for other people to do and decide things seriously sucks. But we don’t know how many people are here, how much any of them remember, whether memories can be regained, what condition anyone is in physically and mentally, or much else, really. I don’t know what resources the friends I’m expecting back any minute now might have available, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to be upset that this happened to you. But no one’s going to be vanishing, I’m not letting that happen, and everyone is going to get their own say in what happens to them. I just don’t know how long it’s going to take or what we’ll be able to do, but I want everyone free and happy somewhere.”

“Some have no memories at all of ever being human and no idea where they came from.”

“I know. I’m not sure what we can do for them, but even if we can’t get their memories back, there’s gotta be a way to help them start building a new life.”

“Some of them... there might be consequences to simply setting them free. Hating specific humans spills easily into hating all humans, and life here... how can I put this?”

“It’s anarchy,” Theo said. “With a shot of survival-of-the-fittest. Inhibitions break down, including against violence. Everyone’s at least a bit messed up. Adaptive behaviours for surviving here are sometimes going to be really counter-adaptive in the real world.”

Kayla sighed. “So we need to be careful not to unleash broken faelings to wreak havoc. Of course it couldn’t be simple. Balancing that against everyone having a say in their own future should make this a pain in the ass. We might need to ask for names of people we should be particularly paying attention to, but I don’t want this to become a witch-hunt either.”

“I’m not entirely sure what to make of you,” the unfamiliar female voice said. “But I think I believe you about your intentions. It seems unlikely life will be any worse, at least.”

“I’m feeling cautiously optimistic, myself,” Callie said. “Based on what I’ve seen.”

“It’s the truth,” Suzi said firmly. “Kay won’t do anything terrible or let anyone else. That’s why we made sure she got the cuff. We were waiting for her to get here. And from Kay’s perspective, we disappeared less than a full day ago, and in that time she met her first medium and two friendly wizards, came here, helped us, and is now working on ways to minimize the damage.”

“Which is impressive,” the unfamiliar voice mused. “It says a lot about your... resourcefulness, maybe, or determination? I’m not sure what.”

“It adds up to a long day, though,” Callie said. “And you might consider getting a couple of hours of sleep.”

“Sleep?” Kayla echoed.

“You remember what that is,” Theo said, from the edge of the fountain pool. “You actually lie down and close your eyes.”

“When I fall asleep, I might be down for a while, and we don’t have time. Max...”

“Kay. If he and Heather are coming from her house, that’s going to take them fifteen or twenty minutes. That’s hours here, and you can’t change how fast time moves.”

“Like adrenaline would let me sleep anyway.”

“We can find some blankets or something and you can crash here. I can sing you to sleep.”

“You should listen to Callie,” Suzi said.

“Yes, you should,” Callie said. “You’ve already been a key part of something that is going to save lives, and I for one am grateful that whatever happens to us, at least there won’t be any more. You’ll be better able to cope with the future if you look after yourself. Nothing will collapse in a few hours. Your friends know how to keep normal routines going for the moment, and I have more than enough extra hands to help with medical care. You’re asking us to trust you. Right now, you need to trust us.”

Kayla spread her hands. “I surrender—after Riley and all get back I’ll look at grabbing a nap. Before that, can I actually get introductions to whoever I’m talking to? Not being able to safely make eye contact feels rude enough. Not knowing someone’s name just pushes that over the edge of what I’m comfortable with.”

“Names don’t matter to some of us,” the unfamiliar female voice said. “I’m the queen of the local wisp flock of five... approximately. That’s the only thing that’s relevant. You’re not being rude. You have a very good reason for not looking. Five wisps together would probably overwhelm any protection you might have, even if we aren’t trying and with one seriously injured.”

“How seriously injured?”

“I’ve got it,” Callie said. “This is what I do.”

“All right. I know when I’m not useful. I’ll leave you to it.”

What could she do to keep busy until Riley got here and they could maybe start devising some real plans? Possibly JC could use extra hands again, but she wasn’t at all sure of that. Callie had everything involving health under control. Theo had gotten distracted already, chatting in a fractured mix of French, Spanish, and charades with furry Paz, green Orfeo, and shy mermaid Dulce.

What she wanted was to know just what they’d been through, but she had no intentions of demanding that they talk to her about it before they were ready.

But it would be useful to gather as much information as she could about what the current situation was. What the goals of the research had actually been, and what had been done in that direction. They must have records of that, right?

She couldn’t see Suzi, so she was probably with the other wisps. Des had vanished, not for the first time—she’d be back soon, but Kayla didn’t feel like waiting. Erica couldn’t answer, and Alison was headed towards the stable with the wagon.

So she left the area of the fountain and headed for their prison building.

Zach was in the inner large room, the one with the somewhat-padded floor.

This whole building was disturbing. Lock a group of people in here overnight, nowhere to sleep except on the floor with no bedding, bathroom with zero privacy... it was dehumanizing. Although that might have been part of the intention behind it.

Zach was sprawled on the floor in a lazy curve, ignoring the thumping and cursing from one of the doors, his attention on her.

“Quick question,” Kayla said. “Did Isabel and all keep any kind of research notes? Records, plans, that kind of thing?”

“Yes. Jace knows where. In the house. Dark stuff.”

“I wasn’t really expecting anything in it to be cute bunnies and rainbows. Thanks, hon. I’ll go ask Jace about it.”

Zach sat up, expression troubled. “Don’t leave it where Theo can see.”

“What?” That was weirdly specific. Kayla knelt facing him. “Why?” she asked gently.

“Henchmen. Doubt they were paid well. Weren’t really happy here. Didn’t get along well. No women to hit on. No entertainment. Why were they here and cooperative?”

“I... don’t know.” Kayla frowned. “Presumably they had a reason.”

“Bad feeling. Think they might have been hiding. Could see any doing... bad things. Barry gets violent a lot, easily. Can hear him now. Tantrum. Knows door can hold faelings, can hold him.”

“Right. Makes perfect sense. And Theo... oh shit. That high sex drive means...”

Zach nodded. “All four. Most days, I think. They brought little bribes. Often food. Things Des could eat. If they came to the lake... why is complicated. Hard to explain how strong instincts can be. But didn’t want them. Wants Max. Felt bad at first. Turned it around to practising siren voice tricks. Do not want Theo thinking of what they might have a history of.”

Kayla digested that. “Fuck yeah. Maybe after she has Max back, she’ll be able to cope, but before then... right. That bit of info stays out of Theo’s hands. Thank you for the heads up.”

“Don’t want Theo upset.”

Kayla nodded and got up. “You and me both. You okay on guard duty?”

“Yes.”

“Did you eat?”

“Don’t eat much. Stop worrying. I’m okay.”

“All right. I’ll take your word for it.”

JC, when asked, simply nodded and left the kitchen briefly, returning with a thick dark blue binder.

“This has their research in it?”

JC nodded again. “Other good source is Isabel’s journal but it’s multiple volumes of handwritten notebooks.”

“I’ll stick with this for now, then.”

“You won’t like it.”

“I won’t like reading the details about war-crimes-level experimentation on people? I’m shocked.”

“Keep it safe.”

“Of course I will. How about I stay right here to look through it? The table’s a good place. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re all trying to make sure I’m always close to at least one of you.”

“Safer. Not all faelings will be friendly. Drink?”

“I’m probably not lucky enough for decent coffee.”

“Will put some on. No flavours. Just basic.”

“Eh, good enough, although I’d bloody kill, or at least maim, for a really good mocha coffee right now.” Her mind substituted Irish coffee instead, but she banished it. It had been a long time since she’d treated alcohol as a way to cope with stress and she refused to go there again. “Whatever there is would be great, Jace, thanks.” She set the binder on the table, avoiding the cooling peanut butter cookies and the plastic storage container that held what remained of the earlier batch, and sat on the bench in front of it.

She wasn’t particularly looking forward to this, but she was only reading about it, not living it. She could endure that.