Epilogue

Things were nice and quiet in the Wright household.

Emily had spent a week expecting... something to happen, but no. Things were calm.

Well, things were relatively calm. She was trying very hard to do some homework, legs up on an ottoman that had just appeared in their living room one fine day and her laptop on her lap. The girls were being themselves all over the place, but it was no louder than usual.

"Teddy, stop choking out Athena," Emily said without looking away from the monitor.

"How'd you even know?" Teddy asked from somewhere behind the couch.

Emily sighed. The truth was that Athena hadn't said anything snarky in several minutes, but she wasn't going to say that aloud. "I can hear her choking, and I have Bis Sister Magic. Let her go."

"No fun," Teddy muttered. A moment later she yelped and there was a crash as she landed hard on the floor. Emily imagined that Athena had just kicked her legs out from under her.

Looking up, Emily scanned the room. Trinity was sitting next to her, on both sides. It was actually kind of nice. The girl was watching the TV--the volume on low--and chewing on her thumbs while using Emily's sides as a pillow. "Where's your third body?" Emily asked.

"She's with me!" came a call from the kitchen. Aurora, who was even now cooking something.

Having an older girl in the house was a blessing. "Thank you!" Emily called back. That left... Sighing, Emily sat up straighter and turned her head around as much as she could to see into Maple's bedroom. "Maple, what are you up to?" she asked.

It took a few minutes, but Maple's head eventually popped out of the room. Her hair was frazzled, as if she'd been licking a live wire. "Science?"

"What kind of science?" Emily asked.

"I made a machine to hide us better," Maple said. "But I'm having a hard time dialing it in."

"What does it do, exactly?" Emily asked.

"It makes people forget the first letter in your name!" Maple said.

"So... what, I'd be Eddy instead of Teddy?" Teddy asked. "That's stupid, people would still know who I am! Because I'm awesome."

Maple puffed her cheeks out. "I guess?"

"Does the machine just do it from the point it's activated onwards?" Athena asked. "Because then there would still be records, and if a bunch of us suddenly have the same error on our records, then that would just make it obvious that something's up."

"No no, I made it so that it's retroactive," Maple said. She smiled. "That's why I needed an old clock! I'm trying to make it work on just our names, but I think I set it to everything but names instead?"

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Emily blinked. "So... what, it would change the name of everything?"

"Uh," Maple said. "I guess?"

"Well, we still live in Anada, so obviously it didn't work," Teddy said.

"I know that!" Maple said. "If it had worked, then it would be super obvious. I mean. Not really, since it's retroactive, but still!"

"I don't get it," Trinity said. "Am I gonna be... Rinity from now on?"

"No sweety, you won't," Emily said. "Maple, next time, ask before making a machine that changes anything that big, please? Even if it's for a good cause."

"Ah, okay," Maple said.

Emily shook her head. Sometimes, Maple scared her. But so far she'd been diligent enough to catch the girl before she did anything irreversible. Emily shook her head and returned to her homework.

A few minutes later, Aurora came out of the kitchen with a plate covered in hot dogs, and that had all of Emily's sisters calming right down. She had to wipe more than one ketchup stain off the couch and off of messy cheeks, but it wasn't so bad.

She was just resettling herself to work some more when she got a text from Sam. It was labelled Urgent.

Frowning, Emily opened it, then looked up to the TV. "Trinity, do you mind if I change the channel? Ah, where's the remote?"

That triggered a fresh remote search. It wasn't between any of the cushions, under the couch, or in the kitchen or bathroom. She ended up discovering it semi-disassembled in Maple's room. Maple focused really hard on the floor and went red in the face, and Emily couldn't find it in herself to chastise her. Instead she flicked the TV over to the news.

There were ads playing.

Emily waited impatiently for those to finish and for the breaking story of the hour to come on.

A man was standing in a field somewhere, several vans behind him, and what looked like HRF troopers running about and setting up barricades. He brought a mic up to his face. "It seems as though the cordon is still going up around Saint-Arie now. The city is still early in its evacuation, a process made more difficult by the early stages of the End--"

The newscaster was interrupted as it started to pour.

Not a light drizzle, but an absolute avalanche of water that came down atop the area as if someone had just emptied a lake overhead. He coughed and sputtered, then tugged his coat over his head for cover.

"As I was saying!" he shouted to be heard over the rain. "It seems as if the first Endgame in Anada in several years is starting very soon! The HRF--"

Emily muted the TV.

She stared.

This... could mean a lot of trouble. Or it could be an opportunity like none other.

In either case, she had a bad feeling in her gut about it.

***