Felicity sat on one end of the sofa and gently placed stones on the Go board. She and Camilla were at it once again. Though it had only been a few days since she first learned to play the game, she was now well addicted to it. Kono and Eden didn’t seem to mind, as Camilla now had someone to play with during the evening other than just the two of them.

They would joke and she would tell the Spirit the few stories of her experiences she thought were worth telling. The Spirit herself was enthused to hear more about the world away from Kyoto and the Mageocracy.

Across from her, Skylar was sitting in a reclining chair with a blanket covering her legs. Her older sister was watching the game with mild interest after the rules had been explained to her. Occasionally she would ask questions like why stones were placed where they were or why creating a seki always seemed to be advantageous even though Felicity had learned it could easily be turned on the one using it to their advantage.

Eden and Kono were snuggled up together on the loveseat making idle chatter with their guests. It seemed they were also not keen on discussing the difficult subjects that they inevitably were going to speak about, such as what they were going to do about their parents.

Next to her, Camilla loudly tapped a stone onto the board and looked up at her with a smirk.

While her mind wandered about the awkwardness that was currently occurring, she’d lost track of how she was playing and let Camilla claim far too much area on the board, not that the Spirit seemed to mind. Any victory she could get was one she would take.

“Looks like I’ve gotten you beat Felicity,” Camilla teased.

Felicity had to admit the Spirit had a point. There was no reason to continue playing if she knew that she was going to lse.

“Alright, you win this time. Tomorrow night I’ll make it extra hard to beat me,” Felicity replied as she began cleaning up the board.

“Awww. One more game, please?”

One more game couldn’t hurt, she supposed. Though having that game would only delay things further. Perhaps they could talk and play?

“If it’s alright with sis and Kono. I know there’s something we need to discuss and I don’t think it’d be fair to them or Skylar to delay any further.”

Camilla must have sensed the tenseness in the air, because after looking at the Biomancer, she yawned and stretched her arms out wide.

“I think I’ll go to bed then. Stressful conversations are no fun and I’d rather just sleep through them. Good night,” she said before suddenly disappearing with a burst of blue mana.

Kono lightly chuckled.

“My little Camilla loves to walk to her own beat. I’ll wake her back up after this. I feel like what’s said next should stay between the four of us. Even though Camilla is quite carefree she doesn’t do well under stress,” the Biomancer explained.

“I know this is a bit rude, but if I may ask: how old is Camilla,” Skylar inquired.

That was a good question. From what she knew Camilla was a sort of fae Spirit.

“She’s never told me that even though we’re really close. My best guess is she’s somewhere around thirty to forty. Unfortunately, because we don’t know exactly what she is we have no real way of knowing for sure what her age is without her telling us,” Kono admitted.

“That’s mildly concerning. It has to be tough raising a Spirit that’s about to reach the equivalent of being a teenager not knowing what they are. I don’t want to pry too much into the matter.”

“I admit it can be difficult. It’s a long story that would take a couple of hours to explain and for now we have another matter to discuss. The best I can shorten it to is that Camilla was found wandering the Star Seeker Enclave’s woods alone, with nothing sentient for about a dozen kilometers roughly twenty-five years ago. She had no recollection of anything before she was found wandering the woods, despite the elves’ best efforts to help her recover her memory.”

“I see, well regardless I think you’re doing great. Far better than our parents seem to have been doing.”

Felciity admired how smoothly Skylar eased into the subject of their parents. It was akin to a well-oiled machine completing its task. The gift of casual gab was something she’d always wished she could have been gifted with, but alas she was too formal.

“Well, seeing as how Skylar has stepped on the elephant in the room, we might was well get to it,” Eden sighed. “I suppose Felicity told you what happened in Sydney?”

“She did,” Syklar confirmed. “I’m… both hurt and angry at what’s apparently been happening. Though I don’t want to admit it, I feel as though I remember but can’t actually remember some of the things that have happened these past three years.”

Remembering but not actually remembering? How did that work?

“Could you elaborate on that a little more,” Kono asked in her analytical doctor voice.

“Right. I can recall all the spellcraft knowledge I’ve gained during the past three years, but I don’t have any memory of actually learning it. The same goes for my memories of whenever something is brought up about our father or the interactions I’ve had with other people. For some reason I know that he’s had a hand in my situation, but I don’t remember why.”

Kono tilted her head at her older sister and tapped her lower lip a few times, mulling something over.

“I believe with the right kind of treatment you’d be able to recover the memories you’ve lost which would be fantastic, but the only place I know of that has what we need is Kyoto. Though that you know your father has a hand in this is concerning, even if you don’t recall why.”

Skylar's expression slowly changed to one of defeat. She understandably appeared to have been hoping for a more immediate solution to her problem. An aura of disappointment surrounded her.

“Still, our father is definitely a problem that we need to take care of. We can’t leave him as he is. With what’s happened to both of you, I think it’s safe to assume that we have another problem on our hands that only we can fix, at this point. It’s not like our grandmother is going to do anything,” Eden said quietly.

Eden looked at both of her sister after finishing and sighed. An invisible weight she seemed to be carrying was crushing her. What could be more pressing than the matter with their father? Was he not the cause of their current misfortune? Surely Eden knew that he was the one they needed to find a better defense against.

Then an epiphany crossed her mind and she instantly felt guilty. If Eden was implying what Felicity thought she was, then she was right; there was a more significant crisis at hand. The amount of damage their father could do just multiplied ten-fold.

“You’re saying that mother…,” Felicity trailed off, still trying to process the implication.

Skylar seemed just as dumbfounded as she was. It took her a brief moment to catch up, and when she did her face became pale.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. He’s doing the same thing to mom that he did to me,” she scoffed.

“Worse,” Eden said grimly, clasping her hands together and leaning forward in the way one would when thinking deeply. “Skylar, for some reason when you felt threatened by that team that came after you, whatever glamour had been placed on you weakened you to the point where you resorted to seeking my help. That’s something you would have never done while fully in your altered state.”

Felicity felt like she was going to be sick to her stomach. Skylar had been lucky from what Kono and Eden had told her. Given it was a lesser charm affecting her, then no term existed that could describe the situation they were presented with.

As for Skylar, the woman had become a few shades paler and now appaeared as though she’d seen a ghost.

“She’s gone then…,” Felicity trailed off as though she’d just witnessed something impossible. Tears forced themselves to the corners of her eyes, ready to start gushing out like a raging waterfall. “Just say it. There’s no chance she’s going to be alright.”

In front of her, Eden seemed as immovable as a stone golem. One that was trying to present a painful fact to them, but was struggling to do so.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Seiko chimed in. “Rather, I believe that your mother can still be saved. Your eldest sister’s just got too much on her plate right now, so she might be overthinking what I told her. Skylar, as I recall you’ve told us you recall everything from before a certain point in time.”

“Yeah, I can recall everything up to September 20th, 1999. Anything after that I have no memories of, though as I mentioned before for some reason I recall the knowledge I gained related to spellcraft.”

“Exactly. So there was likely a failsafe in place in case that spell needed to be replaced with another so that your personality would remain but you yourself wouldn’t. It’s an odd form of mind magic that requires the mind to be functionally left intact. Eden has her theories about why your mind was modified as it was, but I believe you just happened to be in the wrong palce at the wrong time and were posed to be useful.”

Skylar leaned back in the chair a bit and Felicity could see the cogs visibly turning in her sister’s mind. The woman tilted her head to the side, glanced at Eden, then to her, then back to Kono and nodded.

“So I’m a convenient experiment of sorts.”

“Most likely. You’re probably the trial run of whatever spells are currently afflicting your mother. Mind Blanking her and then creating a personality that was the likeness of her wouldn’t work because she’s part of the Nobility. While I myself have never associated with any nobles, there are some basic expectations that paint a clear picture. Your mother would be under close scrutiny. Basically, the differences in her likeness’ persona and her actual persona would be glaringly obvious.

“In keeping your mother’s personality intact by utilizing a spell that suppresses her persona, one could theoretically puppeteer her or so I’ve been told. The amount of effort required to make something like that is ludicrous and possibly even groundbreaking according to your sister. Which probably means elves either from Snowdonia or another Enclave are involved. My bet is on Snowdonia.”

Elves? Her father was a well-known racist. Why would he accept the help of an elf? It didn’t logically make sense for him to do so, as he wanted to eradicate all of them.

Felicity shuddered, recalling all the abuse and hatred Luna had to endure. Though it made sense that their mother was under a spell. When they were children Elsie dearly loved her adopted sister as if she were her own blood relative. Now that she thought about that, Eden and Kono’s case for Elsie being under some sort of mind control spell was highly plausible.

“Why would he do that,” Skylar asked, likely thinking the same thing as herself.

“I fear our father is seeking to gain power and further his ideals. He’s always wanted to whip the Militant Faction into a frenzy and reclaim vast swaths of land that humanity lost during the tide. A lofty dream, but we all know just how much of a human supremacist he is. He’s likely planning on re-entering the Nobility to gain more influence. To do that, he’s using our mother’s connections and making allies as he does so,” Eden explained.

With his temper that’d end poorly. Felicity knew all too well her father often struggled to keep a level head, and one could always tell when he was agitated or angry, because even though he could hold a stone-face expression, his veins tended to bulge when he was unhappy.

Eden and Skylar knew this just as well as she did.

“What does this mean for our mother then? We know that’ll likely never happen because of his temper, so what would be his backup plan?”

Eden frustratedly sighed and was met with a quick hug from her girlfriend, which seemed to calm her down. She then looked up to her sisters, still frowning.

“He might be planning on using Luna as a pawn. I know a bit more about elves than the normal person, mostly thanks to Seiko. From what she’s told me, Luna would be worth retrieving for… studying. And possibly worse. Part of that is because Luna is abnormal. We all know she’s not aging like a normal elf. Garnering that kind of favor from Snowdonia is sure to put him in a good position.”

Felicity rapidly sucked in her breath. If it weren’t for Luna being a world away she would have instantly panicked. That her father would use his own adopted child as a tool for gaining power was a low she couldn’t fathom. Yet at the same time it made logical sense.

He seemed to feel little if any attachment to their younger sister, and he had much to gain by trading her off to these elves from Snowdonia if they really wanted her, because from what she’d learned Western Spellcraft was heavily influenced by elven spellcraft so it was possible to improve one’s craft by studying the elves and that was something the Nobility would love to take advantage of.

“So what do we do? We can’t just leave them in Sydney, can we,” Felicity asked her voice shaking.

“It’s alright Felicity. That issue has already been taken care of. After you went to sleep I talked with Magus Stone for a while longer. While keeping it a secret that Luna was an elf, I was able to explain to her the gist of what I believe father is up to. Apparently there’s already been an incident, so it won’t take much to convince Magister Ferris to make sure the ISTC is on alert to not allow our father or anyone affiliated with him below the rank of Magister to enter Sydney until we arrive in a few months and watch over her ourselves. They really don’t want him back and causing more trouble.”

Felicity breathed out a sigh of relief. At least they didn’t have to find a way out of the Mageocracy immediately. That would have been just as bad as continuing to live with her parents.

“Seiko, back to mother. So it’s possible that the spell on her can be broken and she’ll remember everything from before it happened?”

Seiko laid back in the loveseat and nodded at them. Before she spoke, she placed her hand on the small of Eden’s back, which seemed to calm the woman down as her muscles appeared to relax.

“It can be done, but we’re going to need help. I have some people who watched over me in Kyoto who can help. We haven’t actually talked much about this, but I figure we should all be on the same page since we all have a stake in this, if that’s alright.”

Kono and Eden’s selflessness were like a warm blanket to her. They relaxed her nerves and soothed her mind of worries. Surely between the four of them they could come up with a plan to rescue their mother.

Then again, it would be best to gain solid proof that their father truly was responsible for everything that had happened. They were about to take drastic measures to help their mother, so they ought to find definitive proof that something was wrong. Then they could go about rescuing their mother from their father’s clutches.

After relaying this issue to Eden, the woman smirked.

“I have just the person in mind for that task. Do you remember aunt Cleo,” she asked.

How could she forget her favorite aunt. That wasn’t to say there were any other contenders as Cleo was the only aunt she’d ever met but still, she was her favorite. She still had all the little gifts from across the globe that the woman picked up for her on her travels.

She recalled the fond days spent idly listening to stories of lands far away that at the time she could only dream of. The Americas, Europe, Russia, Japan, her aunt had been to all of them and had made friends all across the globe.

Unfortunately after Eden left they hadn’t heard from nor seen her. With the abrupt stop to the visits she made, Felicity could only guess that her mother had a falling out with her sibling and forbade her from visiting Sydney.

“How could I forget her? She was so nice to us.”

Eden grinned at her somewhat mischievously. It was the same grin she flashed whenever she had a plan or an advantage that worked heavily in her favor, to the point she became giddy.

“We know where she is. Our aunt is currently in reclusion, but I’m sure she’ll come out of it temporarily if she learns of what’s going on with mom.”

“Where is she,” Skylar asked, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t tell me she’s in Kyoto as well.”

Eden remained absolutely silent while looking at her younger sister knowingly. Skylar sighed and held her hand to her face.

Felicity could understand her frustration. There were so many odd links forming between Kyoto and their family now. The more they appeared, the more intrigued she grew. There would be a time to speak of it, but she lamented that now wasn’t that time.

“I actually didn’t believe it either, if it helps,” Eden admitted. “We just so happened to bump into each other by accident while I was in Kyoto. She left me her LRC glyph in case of an emergency, and I’d say this is the kind of emergency we could really use her help with.”

Felicity felt like she had a burgeoning amount of questions for her older sister, who still seemed to be harboring secrets from her. Not that they were bad secrets to keep, or even secrets at all. For all she knew, the reason why Eden hadn’t told her of any of this was because of the flood of information she was already receiving was already almost too much for her.

Skylar, their ever reasonably doubtful sister, didn’t seem so easily convinced.

“She’s halfway across the world and yet you’re sure she’d be willing to drop whatever she’s doing to come here?“

“Yes. Skylar, she and our mother may not have parted well but they’re still siblings. I know our mother would have at least tried to help our aunt if the positions were switched, why should I expect any less from her?“

Skylar opened her mouth to reply but closed it and seemed to return to her thoughts.

“I think we should trust her. Out of the three of you, Eden is the only one who’d be able to get close enough, but her social skills are still sorely lacking. If your father is puppeteering his wife, then he might know before the conversation even begins that something isn’t right,“ Seiko said.

Felicity could imagine that scenario in her mind as clear as day. Her sister going up to her mother, only for the woman to know something wasn’t quite right and trying to avoid the conversation altogether. That was an undesirable outcome.

In that regard, Kono was right. If she went then her parents would just hold her hostage again and might even try to hurt her body again. If Skylar went, then the same exact situation would occur, only it was entirely plausible Skylar’s mind would be messed with once more and they’d be in an even worse situation than they were currently in.

“She does have a point Skylar. Think about it for a moment. We can’t go for obvious reasons, and if Eden goes and accidentally trips up we might not ever get close enough to verify mother’s under a more powerful version of the spell you were placed under.“

Skylar sighed, not keen on admitting she was right. However, the girl nodded her head in an accepting manner and turned her gaze to the currently empty fireplace.

“I honestly don’t have a choice but to trust you guys. I just don’t want to make a mistake that ends up putting me back in the situation that I was before you saved my life.”

“Don’t worry dear, that’s not happening again, though that does bring up another matter which we’ll soon need to discuss.“

“What’s that?“

“As the two of you probably already know, Eden and I intend to leave the Mageocracy in the next few months for my home, Kyoto. When we leave, the two of you can come with us so long as you want to. You don’t have to make the decision right now, but it’s something to keep in mind over these next few weeks.“

Though she knew Skylar hadn’t made up her mind, she had. Going with Eden and Kono was her only real option at this point given everything that could happen if she stayed. Plus, she might get to see Iris and Luna again sooner.

“Kono,“ Felicity spoke up. “I’ve already made my mind up. I intend to leave with my sister because I believe that I can learn far more by studying under her than I would studying at a college here in Cambridge. Plus, Kyoto is much closer to Japan than here in Cambridge, so I’d like to come with the two of you. “

Eden’s expression immediately brightened. Kono seemed enthused as well by the smile she gave.

“I promise you, you’ll love Kyoto. It’s a peaceful place far away from the politics of the Mageocracy. The food is amazing too. I bet you’ve never had elven grown Wild Mier before,” Kono gushed.

“I haven’t but I’d like to try it,” she replied earnestly.

Felicity tried to imagine whatever exotic food Mier was, but drew blanks. The closest thing she could imagine it to being was grass, but she was almost certain that wasn’t the case. Who would even eat grass? Unless, perhaps it was some type of thick, filling grass-like plant. Even then, who would eat such a strange kind of food.

“Though I’d like to come with you,” Skylar spoked up. “I’m not so sure about coming with you. I hope youi can understand but I’m also tempted to return to Sydney. Staying here obviously isn’t an option, but I feel as though I’d be better off in a place I know feels like home.”

Kono nodded at her in a knowing manner.

“I can understand that sentiment. When I first came here all I wanted to do was go home. I wouldn’t go back to Kyoto without Eden though. If she wanted to stay here, then I’d stay here with her.”

“And this is why I love you,” Eden said affectionately nuzzled her girlfriend. “Take all the time you need Skylar. We don’t mind waiting for you to make your decision.”

Felicity felt a twinge of envy. Perhaps someday she would get to know a romance like the one her sister and Kono shared. Though that would be far off into the future. With everything that was going on now there was no time for romance and relationships.

There was just one more matter that needed to be discussed. Currently, all the guest rooms were taken up.

“So sis, if Cleo is going to come then where is she going to sleep?”