Riley packed up the leftovers neatly, and Kayla took them while Riley brought the mouse cage and her large bag, and Xeno his backpack. Kayla led them inside and invited them to make themselves comfortable in the living room, while she put the food in the fridge. She'd been told that a physical doorway would help Arctos enormously, and the sliding patio doors into the living room were apparently less than ideal. Not entirely thrilled with multiple strangers in the house, she was willing to concede by this point that Riley and Xeno, however improbably, appeared to be genuine. And in the house, privately, was probably better than the side door off the driveway, in plain view of the street.

Riley glanced at her phone as Kayla joined them. “Almost half an hour, Arctos will be here any time.”

“And at that point, what happens?” Kayla asked. The food had a kind of grounding effect, along with the physical sustenance and emotional comfort; she felt ready to tackle whatever came.

“I'm going through it,” Riley said. “One of my most useful tools is a kind of portable Gate anchor, I can get back to it from anything that looks like a doorway, so getting home won't be a problem. Then I find our wizards and this mystery medium your divination kept bringing up and see if I can convince them to just end this peacefully right now. I don't have any blackmail I can pull on them. They might be willing to bargain, which sucks but since the priority is getting your loved ones home it's a feasible option. If necessary I can use threats, but I really hope it doesn't go that far, and I want even less to actually act on those threats.”

“Theo and the others don't know you. Is there any reason why I can't come?” She shivered, rubbing at her suddenly chilled arms, and looking down in surprise to find that the fine hairs were all standing on end as though she were in a strong static field.

“Having someone present they recognize would very likely make it easier,” an unfamiliar male voice said mildly, as the peculiar sensation faded.

Kayla jumped and yelped; Xeno, on the couch beside Kayla, turned in place to look, though without haste.

Riley just sighed. “Couldn't you at least pretend to knock or something?”

“I told you thirty minutes, which is exactly what it's been.” The newcomer's appearance was as thoroughly unremarkable as his voice, the kind of face and build that no one would ever really remember—not tall or short, not heavy or slender, not dark or fair, any age from mid-twenties to mid-fifties, in utterly nondescript shades of dull brown and slate blue that could pass for pretty much anything. “Why waste time?” He inclined his head to Xeno in what looked to Kayla like friendly greeting. “I see you made contact. I did some research on that island. It isn't Nestor's official one, which is still anchored in Montana right where he's supposed to be. This one should have ceased to exist several years ago, when the wizard who created it, Alkaios, died of, to all appearances, natural causes at an unexpectedly young age. He had no student to take over and no one officially claimed it. I suppose Phrixos might be considering it his by some logic, and the social mores and common decency around moving into an existing island without it being a gift or inheritance isn't something likely to trouble him. It honestly would have been a shame and a tragedy for it to simply stop existing, even from outside it's a work of art, but still. It's old-school, one of the massive self-contained pocket environments that one could plausibly just disappear inside for years at a time. Alkaios was an introvert, an artist, a pacifist, and a nature-lover, which means that inside it's probably beautiful and extensive and complex, since he built it so that he and several companions and family members could live there quietly while the human world went to hell with twentieth-century wars. Nestor, on the other hand, has a fairly standard castle-in-the-clouds type.”

“Can you tell how badly it's timeslipped?” Riley asked. “And which way?”

Among those explanations had been the warning that part of what kept islands from melting back into the main reality was keeping time on them running at a different speed, doubled and re-doubled or halved and re-halved. Xeno said his was doubled twice: in the eight hours he could be sleeping, he could go there, sleep, spend sixteen hours working on something, sleep again, and be back in his real-world life with no one the wiser.

Kayla closed her eyes briefly, wishing for just a heartbeat that there was anything she could pray to.

“Faster. Not extreme, I think, I would say it's at a factor of five. Four isn't impossible, but I think five.”

“Eight is three, four would be sixteen, five would be thirty-two times as fast? Oh, great.”

“What?” Kayla had been braced for it having been a few days, maybe. “To them, they've been there for weeks?”

“I believe so. That might have advantages as well as disadvantages. Most things do, if you look hard enough.” Arctos glanced in Kayla's direction, then looked again, regarding her measuringly. His gaze flicked to Riley, and he asked, “Psychic?” with a toss of his head in Kayla's direction.

Riley shook her head. “Not as far as I can tell. Natural at divination, though. That's where we got most of what we do know.”

“There's something more there than willpower. That's a very interesting and unusual aura.”

“I figured that particular mystery was less urgent to solve,” Riley said pointedly.

Arctos' attention returned to Kayla. “Granted, but it could be relevant if she has gifts that might help.”

“I'm not going to say this the way I normally would, because you are here to help us,” Kayla said, keeping her voice under tight control, “but I'm not terribly fond of being discussed as though I'm not present.”

Arctos inclined his head. “So suppose you just tell us what makes you different from most people?”

Kayla met his gaze, held it, though not easily. Though his eyes seemed as unremarkable as the rest of his appearance, something in them was much deeper and distinctly alpha. It reminded her of a particularly responsible and self-assured domme she hadn't talked to in a long time, actually, when in scene-mode and taking control. That made it less difficult and told her how to handle it: having made her point that she wasn't intimidated, she deliberately looked away, not down in submission but to one side.

“Oh, any number of things. From what Riley's said about wizards, I think the one you're looking for is, I'm transsexual. Although it stopped being a major issue in my life years ago.”

“Well, that might help explain the unexpectedly clear results,” Riley reflected, unfazed. She looked more relieved to have an answer than shocked at what the answer was. Xeno's eyebrows rose, then drew towards each other, his expression thoughtful. “Any current relevance, other than satisfying your curiosity, Arctos?”

“I have no idea, but since the answer to that would be considerable evidence in favour of one theory or another of wizardry per se, it would be interesting to find out at some point. Riley's charms should work extremely well for you, if you were getting such good divination results, so as long as you follow Riley's lead, you should be in no more danger than she is, and I imagine your friends would like to see a familiar face.” He frowned. “If I haven't heard from you within half an hour real-time, I'll come looking for you, and you can feel free to tell them that I will. At a factor of four that's eight hours, and at five it's sixteen, so that should be more than enough time for you to establish negotiations if it's going to be possible at all. But please be careful, I'd prefer not to need to.”

“As much as I possibly can,” Riley said. “I don't want either of us, or our lost ones, in danger either. There's a medium there, we can probably deal with this by negotiation alone.”

“Not all mediums have the same values and priorities you and your sister and your family and allies do. You trust other mediums too readily sometimes.”

“I don't trust anyone I don't know extremely well,” Kayla pointed out.

“Good. Don't. Put this number in your phone.” He waited until Kayla unclipped it, and recited a number to her. “Send a text—make sure it's a single SMS message, the shorter the better. Direct calls are difficult at best past a timeslip boundary but a text message can usually get through. Once this is over, you can delete it. Until then, better if you both have it. Xeno,” out of nowhere, he tossed something small to him, which Xeno caught in his cupped hands. “Just in case something worries you. I assume you're staying here, under the circumstances.”

“That'll work well,” Riley said, touching the newest of her necklaces, a simple dark blue cord onto which was strung a bit of sheet copper cut into a sort of figure-8 or pierced hourglass, the cord threaded through both holes. Kayla had its twin. According to Xeno, if the metal was broken, he'd know and interpret it as trouble; Kayla figured a couple of bends across the narrow neck would snap it easily.

“Do we both have to be there openly?” Kayla asked. “If we don't know whether we can trust anyone on that island, wouldn't both of us walking in give them more info than necessary? Is there any way I can kinda take a look behind the scenes at the bits they might not let company see? If negotiation works, then cool, but if not, maybe I can collect more info. I might not recognize some stuff, but I'm an artist, I can describe it even if I don't understand it.”

“There's some sense in that,” Arctos said thoughtfully, with a slow nod.

“It could throw a wrench into negotiating if you're caught,” Riley argued. “And there could be traps or other kinds of risks you wouldn't spot.”

“Then I'll be very very careful,” Kayla said. “And if I get caught, feel free to disclaim any knowledge of me if you can get Theo and the others home that way.”

Riley sighed. “All right, I surrender, and you might be right.”

Xeno offered a pendant on a black cord. Smoky quartz, Kayla decided, wrapped in silver wire. It tingled against her skin as she took it, as though charged with powerful levels of static. “It will work against most humans, including wizards and mediums, much better than it works against you. Or against cats or fae. But be careful—it will keep eyes off you directly, but there may be a visible shadow or reflection someone alert could catch, and the more exposed you are the less effective it will be. If I'd opened the gate, you would have seen that, even if it was difficult to focus on me directly. Think of it less as invisibility and more as camouflage. Nor will it make you silent, though it will mute and muffle sounds.”

“Right.”

Riley pulled off the ring-on-a-cord necklace that had showed Kayla the tree fae and handed it to her. “Here, take this, it'll show more than just fae. And I've got a couple of things in my bag that should be protective...” She rummaged quickly, and offered another pendant, this one thin sheet copper that had been folded and twisted.

Kayla, having put the ring's cord around her neck, reached for this new one with her free hand, but immediately dropped it back into Riley's grasp and rubbed her palm hard on her jeans. “Nope. Just... nope. I think it's either that or Xeno's invisibility charm, not both, because they both started to feel way too weird as soon as I was touching them both. The vision thing seems to be okay.” She felt irrationally grateful that there had somehow not been an electric jolt running through her from one to the other, although she had no idea why she considered that even possible.

“Protection magic is mostly passive,” Xeno said, “but it has to have an active component to allow it to detect threats in advance. It isn't very good protection if it only begins to work after you're already being affected. And the hiding charm is certainly active, although as quiet as possible to avoid drawing attention to itself. It shouldn't be a direct conflict, however. Possibly you're just that sensitive. At least the sight ring is entirely passive, but you might get an odd feeling when actually using it if you still have the hiding charm on.”

“Try this one instead?” Riley suggested, offering one that looked like it might be wood carved into a kind of asterisk and stained blood red. Kayla reached out warily to touch it, but drew her hand back before she made contact.

“That one too. I think I'm just going to have to be alert.”

“I don't like it, but I suppose it's better than your being distracted or worse by the charms that are supposed to protect you. But please be careful.”

“Oh, you'd better believe it.” Her lockblade utility knife was in her back pocket, of course, and her cellphone in its case clipped to her waistband on the other side. All set, she thought wryly, settling the smoky-quartz pendant around her neck.

Riley looked intently in her direction, but her eyes didn't come to rest on Kayla. “It works well enough to hide you from someone who can see auras,” she said.

“And from a wizard, so long as he isn't making a deliberate effort to see through it,” Arctos said. “As Xeno said, avoid drawing notice and you should be fine.”

Kayla looked down at herself, saw nothing at all different, but figured she'd take their word for it.

Riley finished adding things to her messenger bag, and looked at Xeno. “Keep an eye on my mice for me, please?”

“I will.”

Arctos positioned himself facing the open doorway to the kitchen, feet spread.

Something shivered against Kayla's skin, like a cool wind; she wrapped her arms around herself, shivering, determined to ignore both that and the prickly static feeling. She distracted herself from her apprehension about this whole adventure by thinking about Theo's laughter and hugs and gentleness and silliness.

Not just Theo, either. Des had been a valued friend nearly as long as Theo had, and she liked the others when she ran into them. Good people, all seven of them, that her life would be better for becoming closer friends with—if she got the chance to live up to the resolution she'd made at the barbecue, to make up for that oversight in several cases. No, when, not if.

“It's open,” Arctos said, drawing her attention back. The doorway that should have led to the kitchen now showed rough grey stone beyond, instead. “Go. And remember, half an hour, real-time.”

Heart pounding, Kayla followed Riley towards the impossible doorway. No matter how scary this was, it was unarguably real, which suggested that Riley and Xeno had been telling the truth about the rest, which meant there was a high probability Theo was on the other side, and that topped everything.