Some girls did the princess thing when they were little, and I might have had a bit of that phase for a while, but mainly for me it was fairies. My mom had some books on fairies she didn't like me looking at, probably because most of them were not about the Disney version of the fair folk - similarly I read some of the original Grimm's Fairy Tales when I was a teenager and even knowing they would be different from the versions I'd known I was caught off guard by the brutality, racism, and antisemitism. But anyway, I did occasionally get my grubby little hands on those fairy books and I was fascinated. I hadn't actually read them, just skimmed through and looked at the pictures. Then I had climbed under my bed and pretended to be traveling through a tunnel to fairy land where I would grow giant butterfly wings and live in a hollow tree.

When I was little we would still go camping sometimes and my mom would always tell me to go search for the fairies in the woods to keep me busy - and it worked every time. I'd spend hours calling to them, trying to sneak up on them, examining each tree stump and mushroom in case I found a tiny door. But I had to be careful, because if I wandered too far from camp mom would pack up the car and drive away. Once she even skipped the packing part and left the tent, which came in handy since it rained that night. The camping trips stopped once child protective services was on her case, and my fascination with magic and fairies faded as I got older and realized that it wasn't real.

Except now, apparently, magic and fairies were absolutely real.

I tried not to think about my mom most of the time, not after that last carefully planned abandonment in Arizona, but I found myself wishing I could tell her that fairies were real so I could see the look on her face. It was probably the only interest we had in common. Of course these weren't quite the fair folk as I had imagined them, but they had enough in common from what Cyne told me as he rested and regained mana that I felt like there had to be some connection.

The Sahrger disliked iron, for example, although it wasn't clear if it actually harmed them or was just against some social rule of theirs since in some cases they could touch it and in others they would flinch back like it had burned them. Cyne said there were a few theories, including the idea that intent was the important thing - that iron harmed them only if you willed it to. That didn't feel like something that fit in with the rest of what I knew about magic at a glance, but if Cyne wasn't dismissing it out of hand then there must be some mechanic for it.

The general vibe of them seemed similar too, and some of the things they were rumored to be able to do. The only thing they had natural inborn ability with was curses, but while races other than humans weren't supposed to be able to use wild magic some thought the Sahrger were an exception. If the rumors were to be believed they could do all sorts of things, most commonly tricking people into seeing things - which fit in with the legends from Earth well enough that it seemed like it couldn't be a coincidence.

I wasn't sure what to think about that. Clearly there was some connection between this world and Earth or I wouldn't have been transported here, but I refused to believe that people on Earth could use magic and were just keeping it secret. That meant the most likely explanation was that there was no ambient mana on Earth at all, or even a negative amount that somehow leeched mana away from people - Connie had told me there were beings called the Uldrati that could drain mana and keep people from using magic, so it was plausible that something could be doing that to Earth as a whole. Of course, anything seems plausible when you don't really know how magic works. At some point I knew I would need to talk to an actual scholar if I wanted to really figure anything out.

For the moment, I felt like I knew as much as I was going to. I thanked Cyne and went to sit with Katrin and Errod on a wide rock next to the wagons. "Hey. What are Connie and Aestrid talking about?"

Katrin smiled at me, but still looked a little worn from overexerting herself. "They're talking about what to do with the Halenvar soldier. The current plans are either to release him and let him fend for himself, or present him as a gift to the Sahrger."

"That's... no. That's like selling someone into slavery. And these are the kinds of people that torture animals for fun, it's... ugh. I don't care what Aestrid's logic is, there's no way I'm agreeing to that plan."

Errod nodded, looking relieved. "I agree. But it wasn't Aestrid arguing for that."

"Oh."

"It's okay. You're not her. Something... something changed in the years that separate you."

I got up and headed over to the two of them, and listened for a moment to confirm they were still having the same discussion.

"Aestrid, you think we should send him off into the woods and let him fend for himself? You've got my vote. Leave him a little knife and some trail rations too, tell him where he is, and tell him we're going to start hunting him in fifteen minutes so he'd better put some distance between us."

Connie threw up her hands in exasperation. "Fine. Could have killed two birds with one stone here," - the translation was only slightly different for that one, it was arrow rather than stone - "but instead we're giving our enemy a chance to attack us or to make a deal and get home so he can tell everyone where we went."

Aestrid smiled at me, looking for the first time like she might actually like me a little, and then walked off to where Sige was guarding our captive. Connie pulled me aside deeper into the woods until we had some privacy, and then switched to English for good measure.

"Listen. I'm not stupid, or at least not any stupider than you are. I saw that look, you think I'm some kind of monster. You're looking at me like mom used to."

"I'm not going to sell someone into slavery, Connie."

"So you're having a high empathy day, fine. But you act like that's the normal thing, like when we feel less emotions that's wrong and bad and unnatural. But I was like that for... years, I don't know exactly, and maybe that's the actual normal thing for us. And maybe that's okay! The rules don't have to be the same here, it's a whole different world with different cultures and different morals. Plus, you've killed people now. You'll do it again before this is all over, it's virtually guaranteed. We're not killing this guy, even though frankly it would be justified. Instead he would be held onto by the fair folk for a while until they got bored of him or forgot about him or whatever at which point he could maybe escape or something."

"I'm not having a high empathy day," I said, and Connie stopped just as she was about to launch into her next point. "I don't really give a shit about that guy right now. If Sige had broken his neck I wouldn't have minded at all. But he didn't, because Cyne and Errod and probably Katrin - and maybe Mila if she noticed - would have been pissed. And now that that decision is made, he's our responsibility and we're not going to give a human being away as a housewarming gift or something. Because I don't need to personally have empathy for him to know that some things are wrong and some things are right."

"Like volunteering at soup kitchens every weekend?"

"Exactly, you don't do it because you give a shit or because you enjoy it, you do it because it's a thing you should do."

"You've never volunteered at a soup kitchen, not once."

"Of course we did, we..."

It was every Saturday, right? Even if I locked my bedroom and pretended to be sick, we would go and... no. I hadn't had a bedroom of my own, because I was in high school but the last time I lived with my mom was when I was twelve. I shared a room in all the group homes. Plus, how would I do anything every Saturday when I was constantly running away and sleeping on the street? I'd eaten at a soup kitchen before, was I getting confused with... no, I was for sure serving. Right?

"Let me guess," Connie said, "as soon as I mentioned serving people at a soup kitchen you remembered doing it. Every weekend, probably on Saturdays, and you hated it at first but eventually came around and started to feel like it was a rewarding and good thing to do."

I nodded.

"It's not a real memory. It didn't even exist a minute ago. We're broken, Callie. Maybe just totally insane, or maybe something is oozing in because of all the shit that happened on my timeline. I warned you about this, I've been remembering things that didn't happen. Things from lives I didn't live. Just little bits, little flashes. Stabbing some people to death in their sleep, I think they were abusive foster parents or something. Meeting with an adoption case worker and actually being excited about it. Being chased through secret tunnels by some creepy old dude. Growing up by myself in the woods. Random shit. Shit that not only didn't happen, but couldn't plausibly have happened."

She sighed, and leaned back to look up through the branches of the trees around us. "And when you feel like you're supposed to be a good person, like you had some moment of character growth and vowed to do the right thing and help people even when you weren't capable of actual empathy? That's always part of the fake memories, Callie. Think about it next time you have a burst of moral outrage. Trace it back. It's a lie, it's a dream, it's... it's bullshit. Just be yourself, don't worry about that nagging little voice. And I'm not saying you should go out of your way to hurt people - obviously not. I care about you, and Errod, and Katrin, and Mila. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to any of you. But for people like that soldier? You don't care if we give him to the Sahrger, so don't pretend you do."

She stood up, stretching, and started to walk away before turning back. "Just don't give me that look, okay? You want to override me on something, fine. It's not a big deal that we let him go, I think the odds of him causing us more trouble are slim. So fine, fuck it. But don't look at me like I'm some monster. I'm you, without a false memory making up rules."

I felt shaken, but as always the lack of empathy also came with a general dulling of my emotions and so I took a few deep breaths and tried to examine my memories. There really wasn't anywhere that the soup kitchen memories would fit, plus they were indistinct - my memory was usually pretty good, and yet this was all jumbled and lacking detail. But I'd been trying to be a good person for a long time, hadn't I? It was hard to say. At the very least I had long ago learned to fake caring about people, but that wasn't the same thing. I could remember being at the Desert Oasis apartments and helping that older woman that lived across from me carry up groceries just because it seemed like the right thing to do. Unless that was a fake memory too.

Or even if it wasn't, it could be that things were slipping into my head back on Earth. Magic had reached me there to transport me away, it could have also tampered with my head. Or it could be that it had nothing to do with magic at all, and I was just crazy. Like mother like daughter, although as far as I knew her memories hadn't been the issue. Or had they? Could that have explained why she kept trying to leave me places?

Katrin and Errod were lurking nearby looking concerned, so I waved them over. "Okay listen. I still don't really feel right talking to you guys about this sort of shit and I'd rather lie to you and then hope it goes away. But you've been nice about the whole thing where my brain doesn't work right, so... I may be having some false memories."

Errod raised an eyebrow. "Is Earth a false memory? Are you actually just from this world like everyone else?"

"Fuck. No? No. I mean there's a whole language, and more than that. Details, a whole society and crazy shit like internet memes and... that's not fake. But there's some chunk of my life that has... overlapping memories? I think? Some time two or three years ago, though if Connie is to be believed it will get worse and I'll have other parts that are like that too. Or I already do, but I can't tell because they seem real."

Errod looked disappointed, presumably because he thought all of Earth being a fever dream would make things simpler. "Well, if you want we can just... remember for you. The big things, I mean. You can tell us whatever seems important from your life, and then later on if you think your memory has changed you can tell us again and we'll let you know. It won't work for everything since there's no way you could tell us your whole life story, but it's a start."

"Yeah. That... that could work. Not now though, I'm worried the Sahrger are listening in or something. But once we get out of here and back on the road, maybe. Speaking of... are we ready to go or what?"

As if on cue, the wagons began to move. Katrin reached an arm up and Errod pulled her to her feet. "I think the plan is just to head in a random direction and wait for the Sahrger to find us and take us to the local noble family. Cross your fingers it's one that likes humans."