Normally they were at the whim of the dragonflies, but then Kits found a teleporter. It was a handheld device with a glossy flat screen that burst into three-dimensional holographic displays if you poked it. Their translation spell didn’t work unless they heard a few sentences of verbal language, so navigating the controls became an issue. Neither of them had experience with whatever language dominated the interface. It turned into a spat. Kits kept flipping the teleporter over and around to see if she could find a familiar landmark, accidentally changing what was displayed every time, and Kaia kept snatching it out of Kits’ hands to try and get it back the way it was when they’d first poked it.

“Would you stop that.” Kaia spun the teleporter in the exact opposite sequence Kits had subjected it to.

“Stop what? I’m helping.”

“You’re so not helping.”

Kits crossed her arms and plummeted the air a few degrees.

“Don’t be dramatic,” said Kaia.

The temperature plummeted even more.

“Stop that.”

Kits held the temperature at that exact degree.

Kaia groaned, but there wasn’t anything she could do about Kits’ lack of maturity. She studied the teleporter itself instead of its display and made thoughtful noises. If she spent enough effort she might be able to crack it, and then they could use it to get an edge on the dragonflies, which was all either of them ever wanted.

“Surprised she hasn’t stolen it yet,” said Kits.

“Don’t tempt her.”

“Think she’s paying attention?”

“She will if you keep running your mouth.”

“Maybe we should speak in code. I met a guy who spoke in code. He fed me some good meals.” Kits inched closer to Kaia and rubbernecked. “Did you figure it out yet?”

“Do I look like I figured it out yet?”

Kits shrugged with her arms out and made a placatory noise. Kaia exhaled sharply and fiddled more with the teleporter. She could tell she was getting the hang of something, just not what that something was.

“Hey,” said Kits and the temperature fluctuated wistfully, as a candle’s flame might flicker. “If we weren’t stuck dealing with her, where would you wanna go?”

“Dunno. Somewhere nice.”

“But there’s lots of nice places.”

“Nice for us.” Kaia flopped her wrist at Kits to indicate this conversation was distracting, but they both knew she didn’t really mind the topic. “Just somewhere.”

“This whole time all we’ve been is ‘just somewhere.’ You wouldn’t have a top pick?”

“Do we really need to be having this conversation? I’m trying to concentrate.”

“If we’re gonna have it,” said Kits. “Now’s a good time. We have a teleporter. One teleporter. Don’t you get it? This time we have an actual choice. For real.”

Kaia looked her kindred in the eye.

“Anywhere,” said Kits seriously. “Our choice. What if it only works once? What if it only works for one person?”

“What if it works splendidly forever and we can take whoever we want?” countered Kaia.

They stared at each other. The teleporter’s unknown power source hummed, its display gone eclectic without either of their input. The link between Kits and Kaia snapped into stimulating awareness, the soul between its bodies having an argument with itself. Neither moved, but they felt themselves within the other, their magic building and twisting until Kaia broke off the eye contact.

Kits shook her head.

“If we’re gonna use it,” said Kaia. “We’re gonna do it cleverly. How sucky would it be if it was one use and we got to somewhere perfect and she swept us away from utopia?”

“You think there’s a utopia?”

Kaia thought about this. Then made a face and a so-so motion with her hand.

“Yeah,” said Kits. “Me neither.”

Just as Kaia was about to discover what input sequence they’d need to pick destination coordinates, phantom giggles filled the air. Both Kits and Kaia straightened, and Kits’ body temperature skyrocketed toward volcanic levels of heat. The foliage at their feet burned, melted, caught fire. Kaia was immune, but the teleporter wasn’t. She hopped away, landing out of range of Kits’ thermal influence.

“Kits, be careful! We don’t know what kinda heat this thing can take.”

The giggles erupted into maniacal girly cackles. A silver dragonfly appeared—just appeared, as they always did—in front of Kits, and flitted around. Kaia instinctively hid the teleporter behind her back. Not the best idea since it drew attention to the fact she had something, but she tried to play it off like it was normal.

Didn’t work.

“I heard you say teleporter,” said the dragonfly in the voice of a little girl. “Whatcha got there, Kaia?”

“Nothing.”

The dragonfly giggled some more and vanished. Kaia predicted where it would reappear. Obviously it was going to poof into existence behind her to see what she was holding. So she spun around and faced it as it did. It manifested where she’d expected it to and bobbed back and forth in the air. Kaia took a step away from it toward Kits, the teleporter still hidden behind her back.

“Buzz off,” said Kits. “We don’t have any requests.”

“Really?” The dragonfly vanished again and reappeared between Kits and Kaia. “No wishes? You have two more. Why not use them? You know I could grant them. You could wish I went away. Do you wish I went away?”

Kits maintained her superheat, crossing her arms.

“Do you wish you went away? Is that why you have a teleporter?”

“We don’t have any requests,” said Kaia.

“Why isn’t Kaia coming closer?” The dragonfly’s head twitched back and forth. “I know she can’t be burned.”

“We’re arguing,” said Kaia flatly.

“I heard. About the teleporter. You could wish to go somewhere. You could wish it.”

“Maybe we don’t want it that badly.”

“Then why argue about the teleporter?”

Kaia stared past the dragonfly at Kits. Their shared soul meant they could both feel the dragonfly’s silvery cold thermal signature in a tactile sense, and Kaia knew the only reason Kits hadn’t yet made an aggressive move was because she was heeding Kaia’s warning about breaking the teleporter. A thought occurred to Kaia. The dragonfly probably wasn’t going after her, even though it could, because it might not see the point if she could use the teleporter to reverse the damage. That was what these dragonflies did. They moved things. They were tricksters.

Maybe Kaia could be trickier. Releasing it from her grip behind her back, she dropped the teleporter to the ground, muffling the sound of it hitting the grass with speech.

“Kits broke it,” said Kaia. “Y’know. Like she breaks everything.”

Kits caught on immediately and played her part. “That was your fault! You stood too close to me!”

Kaia let out a dramatic huff and turned her head away from Kits. Keeping the dragonfly in her peripheral vision, she put her hands on her hips and moved in a semicircle, simultaneously getting closer to Kits and farther from the teleporter, which thankfully was hidden from sight by an unmarred patch of foliage. Kaia counted her steps as she went to make sure she wouldn’t lose track of where she’d planted the teleporter and gestured in a way that would make it obvious to Kits she no longer had it in hand, all under the pretense their argument was heating up.

“How is this my fault? You’re the one with the thermal nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense!”

They kept this up for an impressive amount of time, mainly because it was an argument they’d actually had in the past. The dragonfly didn’t need to know they’d gotten over it. They milked it for all it was worth and then some.

“And what about that time you burned down a house? Clearly I’m not the one who needs to work on my priorities.”

“Oh yeah? Well, what about that time you—you…” Kits made a frustrated noise. It was an honest noise, because she actually couldn’t think of something reprehensible Kaia had done. “Whatever! Y’know what I mean!”

“How come you have to run around getting involved with everyone we meet, anyway? It’s like you’ve got some hero complex. All it does is get us into trouble.”

“That’s better than other people getting into trouble!”

“Listen to yourself!”

“No, you listen!”

“I am listening, but all I’m hearing is stupidity.”

“Well what do you expect me to do, Kaia? Huh? Let people get hurt all the time even when I could do something?” This was turning into an actual argument now, and the temperature around Kits fluctuated hot-cold-hot-cold-hot-cold-hot. The dragonfly flitted backward to avoid her unhinged magic. “If it were up to you, we’d never make friends with anyone. We’d be too cautious to do anything. And worse, we’d be convinced it was the right thing! But it’s not the right thing. Being a bystander is never the right thing!”

Kaia gaped at her.

Kits realized she was breathing hard and impromptu remembered to rein in her magic. If anyone had been around during that rant, they’d be thermal shocked beyond repair. Lucky thing Kaia was immune to Kits’ magic.

And even luckier, the dragonfly had vanished. Kits reached out with her thermal sense to double check. Yup. It was gone. Kaia was still gaping at her. Kits cleared her throat. She tried for nonchalant, but the words came out bitter.

“Crisis averted?” Kits copied the ambient temperature of the world they were on, which had a mild climate, and then scanned the ground to see if she could spot the teleporter. She found it, jogged over and reached down to retrieve it.

Kaia didn’t move.

“Right?” Kits glanced at Kaia then busied herself inspecting the teleporter. Undamaged. It was a miracle.

“You meant it,” said Kaia. “You meant every word.”

Kits turned her face to the sky and took one deep breath.

“Don’t try and act like you didn’t. I could feel it. You’re really mad at me.”

“It’s not anger,” said Kits, her eyes closed, a chill rippling out of her. “It’s… I just don’t see why you bother if you don’t really care about people.”

“I do care about people.”

“Then why don’t you ever consider their feelings?”

“Kits. We’re the same person. Same soul and all that.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe feelings are your department. Maybe my job is focusing on the task in front of us so we don’t die before we can help anyone. We ought to be working together.”

Kits blinked at the teleporter. Her eyes blurred. Her chest hurt. She felt like crying, but she couldn’t figure out why. Sure, she knew Kaia was getting on her nerves, and she knew this whole thing with the dragonflies weighed on her a lot even on the best of days, but there was something deeper rending her emotions right now. She started thinking of what ifs. What if they did beat the dragonflies? Then what? What if they succeeded in getting out of this wisher crap and then couldn’t figure out what to do with themselves afterward? What if deep down she and Kaia disagreed about everything and they could never be happy with each other no matter where they were? What if the dragonflies were distracting them from some terrible truth about themselves?

What if their Handlers were right?

Kits shuddered.

The shudder latched onto Kaia through their soul link, and she shuddered too.

“When did I become so worried about the future?” asked Kits.

Kaia crossed the distance and stood next to her. They both stared down at the teleporter. It was so small but so full of possibilities. Kinda like the dragonflies.

“Maybe since we figured out we might have one.”