“Oy, we gots another one! They’s be springing up like weeds in a garden. Really scrawny weeds.”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I should have been more or less insulted that the assessment came from a creature who stood barely a couple inches tall and probably weighed less than the remains of my last haircut. The guy speaking was a pixie, who hovered right in front of my face with a dubious expression. But he wasn’t dressed like any pixie like I’d seen before. And he had a lot more facial hair. This one wore what looked like American army green fatigues, and had a tiny but very accurate-looking rifle slung over his shoulder. His bushy blond mustache seemed to take up a full third of his face. It seriously just looked like I was facing some old-school soldier aside from the fact that he was small enough to have stood in the palm of my hand like a hummingbird. Oh and he seemed to be chewing on a very tiny cigar the whole time he spoke.

Okay, so I’d definitely been in a lot of weird situations, but facing a macho soldier-man pixie who called me scrawny while hovering right in front of my face with gossamer wings that were literally humming from the speed they were flapping at to keep him aloft was pretty out there. And that was just one pixie. He had what looked like at least two dozen or so companions who were all basically dressed and armed much the same, even if they weren’t getting as close as he was.

It made me think of Namythiet. I missed her. Oh god, were one of these pixies a relative of hers? Note to self, do everything possible to keep absolutely each and every one of them alive. Not that I wasn’t going to do that anyway, but still. Underlining the mental note to keep them alive, just in case. Even setting aside the whole timeline issue, I really didn’t want anything to happen that could make the future not have Namythiet in it. That seemed like a really sad future all around.

Oh yeah, and I wasn’t here alone facing these pixie soldiers. Columbus and Koren were both here too, while what sounded like some sort of battle was going on in the distance. A battle that, if I was judging by the biplane sitting nearby in this field we were all standing (or hovering in the case of the pixies) around in, was probably taking place sometime during the first world war. Well, of course there were other battles and wars that happened while there biplanes like that, but I was going to go out on a limb and guess that it wasn’t one of those. It just felt like if a rift had to appear at any point even vaguely near World War One, it would totally do so during and physically in the middle of that.

Then, of course, there was the fact that I felt death. Like, I really felt death. There was a lot of it very close by. It was a distracting sensation, right there at the back of my mind constantly. No matter what I did, I could always feel the… the death energy right there. It kept pulling at me, distracting me. And worst of all, it kept getting stronger, which meant there were more deaths piling up.

The pixie in front of me started to say something else, but Columbus spoke up first. “Uh, Flick? There’s a lot of gunfire over there and I’ve just been looking at that plane and thinking about where you--what you were doing the last time we talked and uh--are we, you know, doing that?”

Before I could say anything, one of the other pixies, this one a red-head, flew up with a barked, “Hey! Don’t you go treating us like idiots, we know when you’re speaking in code.” He visibly paused to look back at the others who were all murmuring amongst themselves before noting, “But at least you don’t sound like you’re part of the Krauts, so you’ve got that going for you.”

“You’re not afraid of us?” That was Koren, sounding curious as she added, “You know, for the whole being Boschers thing. Not that you should be, but--I mean, you’re definitely not though?”

It was a third pixie, one who looked younger than the rest with a fresh face and rosy cheeks, who piped up. “Well you’re part of the Underground, ain’t ya? The ones what don’t exactly hold with the ‘kill everything’ stuff. We just figured you was since--well, you did more talking than the ones who aren’t part of the Underground tend to. They go for murder right quick.” His words were accompanied by enthusiastic chorused agreement from the rest of the pixies.

“Plus,” another pixie put in helpfully, “Boschers don’t usually spend much time around Fae.”

Koren, voice blank, muttered, “But we just met you, what do you mean, spend much time?”

Me, I realized immediately. The pixie was talking about me. Somehow, they could tell I was Fae. They weren’t talking about the whole ‘Pixie Fae’ thing, which clearly wasn’t even true anyway. That’s not what Fae were. Somehow, these pixies knew I wasn’t a ‘regular’ (for whatever use that term had) Boscher. They knew I was Fae and thought that meant the two Boschers who were here must have been okay with that sort of thing.

“That and we were told it’d be safe to land here by a very reputable source,” that first pixie, the one with the thick mustache, put in. “Though I’m not sure any of you are the guy we’re here to pick up.” He gave me a doubtful look, followed by the same for Koren before flying over in front of Columbus to gaze at him a bit judgingly. “Ehhh, I dunno, does this one look like a Jacob to you guys? This ain’t the sort of face I think of when someone says Jacob. He’s more like a… Wilbur.”

The other two immediately blurted a confused, “Jacob!?” Which I thought was a weird and kinda over the top reaction for the name of someone they’d never heard of. What was up with that?

But I couldn’t focus on it very much, because one of the pixies flew in front of Koren. “Yeah, that’s right, Jacob! We was hired to find him in this here battlefield, so unless you lot know where he is, I suggest you shove off. Only maybe don’t go that way.” He pointed in the direction of the gunfire. Unless you wanna get yourselves involved in the Bystander war to end all wars. Or so they call it.” A heavy, mournful sigh escaped him. “Personally, I got my doubts. But maybe it’ll be enough.”

“Okay, seriously,” Koren quickly blurted, “what is going on and where are we?” Her gaze snapped to me, and I could tell there was another word she wanted to ask. When. When were we? She wanted to ask when she and Columbus had been dragged back to, but didn’t want to say that much in front of the strange pixies. Which, honestly, Koren being able to control what she said and thinking about the consequences of her words showed a lot of development. Was it weird that I was proud of her in that moment? At the very least, it wasn’t the right time or place.

Is it ever the best time or place?

It took me a second to place the voice in my head, and boy was it weird that there were so many possibilities. But finally, I realized, Mountebank? You’re here?

So it would seem! His voice (Mountebank was a male-presenting member of the Flique) was bright and almost cheerful despite the general situation. But then, that was just Mountebank in general. Even when he was upset or sad about something, he didn’t tend to show it. From what I understood, that version of me had been tied to the ghosts of a couple members of this troupe of healers and medicine people who had flown their rickety old ship from planet to planet, selling their services to those who needed them most. At first they had been in it purely for themselves, but the version of me that had eventually become Mountebank had communicated with the living members of the troupe through the ghosts of those who had already died, and together they convinced the others to--well, grow beyond all that. But he and the ghosts had done a bit too good of a job, and the rest of his new (well not new by that point, they were together for over a decade) friends had ended up getting themselves all killed when they wouldn’t leave the area of a horrific battle. They’d stayed, trying to help all the people they could. When the fighting came back around again, they’d been caught in it and… yeah, I was pretty sure Mountebank felt guilty and--well, conflicted about the whole thing, to say the least. But on the outside, he carried on like nothing really bothered him. Stiff upper lip or something like that. It was a lot to get into.

In any case, his cheerful voice continued. Our best guess is that going through those rifts jumbled up which of us was---ahh most present at the forefront of your mind. If you prefer, we can pull in someone else who might be a bit better suited to handling this particular situation.

I’m not sure who that would be, I admitted weakly. I--just hang on, we’ll figure it out. I just have to tell these guys… um. Yeah, that was a good question really. What exactly was I supposed to say to these guys? They were here looking for Jacob. Which could mean we should go with them, but what if the person responsible for sending them here to pick me up had… uh, bad intentions? Just because they were pixies didn’t mean they couldn’t be dangerous. Or have a dangerous boss. And even if they weren’t, telling them I was Jacob, that a blonde girl was secretly this Jacob guy they were looking for felt like it could be a bad idea all by itself. I wasn’t sure how they knew that name, or why Columbus and Koren had reacted to it the way they did, but obviously it meant something. If the name Jacob was important enough for that sort of reaction and for someone to send these pixies to come find us, it could screw up the timeline. I had to be careful.

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Which, of course, was the moment that the choice of being careful was taken completely out of my hands. Another of the pixies came flying over from further off in the field, shouting, “Cap’n, the battle’s moving back this way! If we wait much longer, we’ll be right in the thick of all the killing!”

The pixie with the mustache cursed before looking back to us. “Jacob, do you know him or not?”

Koren started to say something, but I spoke first. “He’s a friend, he sent us here to speak for him. If you have a safe place to go, I can get us there.” Behind me, I heard the other two make noises of confusion, but at least they didn’t say anything. They were, however, watching me very intently.

From the look on the assortment of pixies’ faces, they weren’t sure they believed me. But the sound of gunfire and screaming was getting closer, so it wasn’t like they had much of a choice.

Ah of course they have a choice! Mountebank reminded me. They could leave without giving us any information at all, if they aren’t convinced that we are actually allies of the one they’re looking for. Yeah, though his voice might have always sounded cheerful, he did have a bit of a tendency to give negative possibilities. He just did so in a voice that sounded like he was wishing someone happy birthday or something. It could be a little disconcerting sometimes. Or a lot disconcerting.

Shaking that off, I focused just as the lead pixie spoke up. “Whether you really are allies of the old wily Necromancer or not, we’ll sort it out once we’re in a better spot. I never was one to want to leave a man--or women behind. Come, board our airship!” With that, he pivoted in the air, pointing back toward the biplane. “You’ll find it a bit cramped, but we do our very best to accommodate our larger passengers. Just don’t go touching things you shouldn’t, or you’ll all find yourselves pitched right overboard to sort things out amongst the Krauts and their damn friends.”

Airship? Columbus, Koren, and I looked at each other very briefly. There was so much I needed to say, so much I wanted to get into. They looked fully and utterly baffled by this entire thing, understandably enough. The best I could do was promise, “Soon.” It was the only word I said, but they understood. I would explain soon. They would get answers soon. At least as many as I could give. Right now, we just had to get out of here before that World War One battle made its way over to us and forced us to choose between defending ourselves or being killed. The sort of damage we could end up doing to the timeline if we… I really couldn’t think about it. Put it fully out of your head, Flick, and focus on getting the hell out of here before it becomes an actual issue.

With that thought probably playing through all three of our minds, we ran to the plane. I was still confused about why the pixie had referred to it as an airship and talked about accommodating their larger passengers. Maybe it was just the way pixies talked? Maybe airship was just the way they referred to anything that flew. Which really raised the question of how they piloted the thing.

As soon as we got close enough to the plane, I got my answers to all of that. First and foremost, this wasn't an ordinary biplane. It might have looked like that from the outside but from up close, we could see how wrong that was. There were tiny windows, barely as large as my thumb, spaced along the side of the plane starting about halfway down. They sort of looked like the windows on a passenger jet or a ship. When I leaned down to peer in through them, I could see a whole structure on the other side. There were chairs, hallways, control stations, cots, and more, all of it perfectly sized for pixie-sized creatures. There was even what looked like some sort of slightly diagonal elevator. I watched one pixie run through the narrow corridor to it, climb in, and then the thing went shooting upward and forward. Leaning around curiously and looking the way it would have been going, I saw a wide, somewhat narrow window along the front of the top wing. Inside there was what looked like the bridge of a ship. It had a captain’s chair, an old sailing-style steering wheel, and everything. These pixies hadn’t just been referring to this thing like that for no real reason after all. It might’ve looked like a biplane from a distance, but this thing really was--

“An airship,” Columbus blurted from right beside me, where he had been staring as well. His voice sounded as awed by the thing as I felt right then. “It’s a damn airship, a real--holy shit.”

The mustached Pixie (I really did need to learn their names) flew right between our heads, waving for us to keep moving. “Yes, yes, the Felicity is a fine vessel, but we need to be going!”

It was a good thing I wasn't drinking anything at the time, because it would have ended up sprayed all over that plane. As it was, I sputtered in abject confusion and bewilderment. Nearby, Koren and Columbus loudly echoed that name, both of them pivoting to stare at me intently. But we absolutely didn't have time to get into any of it. Not from the sound of how close the battle was. Any minute now, we were going to be knee-deep in angry, violent, probably bloody soldiers.

So, I pulled the other two toward the small ladder I could see between the two seats in the plane. That was, the two holes where the human-sized seats should have been. Clambering up, I saw… well, yeah there were seats there. They were just, as our new friend had said, a little cramped. Instead of allowing someone to sit with their legs all the way down like in a chair, it would be more like sitting on the floor. There was a slightly padded bottom just far enough down for someone sitting in the hole to look like they were seated normally, while their legs would be stretched out in front of them. The rest of the plane’s structure was taken up by the Pixie space inside.

Airship, Mountebank corrected cheerfully. It’s a Pixie airship disguised as an ordinary old plane. And I count two slots but three people, so a couple of us are gonna have to get pretty friendly.

“Koren,” I announced out loud, “come on.” Climbing up in the space between the holes, I reached down to give her a hand. She took one look at what we were dealing with before sliding down into place and shifting a bit to the side to give me as much room as possible. First, I took a second to help Columbus up and gave him a little push to the other spot, before squeezing down next to Koren. It was a bit of a close fit, but we both managed to get into place. Meanwhile, Columbus settled himself in the rear spot. As soon as we did, a couple straps emerged to wrap around us like seatbelts. I could hear the steady thrum of a powerful engine making the plane vibrate a bit.

Several of the Pixies told us to hang on and enjoy the ride, before they all disappeared down through a couple hatches that opened in the side of the airship slightly in front of us, just past where our legs could reach. The one with the mustache popped back up, told us to keep our heads down if shooting started and that they’d take care of it, then dropped down again with the hatch closing right behind him. A second later, the steady thrumming sound of the engine got louder and the vibrations were stronger, as we started to move. The thing taxied around, aiming itself toward the far end of the field before picking up speed quickly. We bounced along the ground a bit, even as the first few soldiers broke into the open just a bit to the side. They were wearing--okay I wasn’t sure what uniform they were wearing, but it didn’t look American. Not that that meant much. Also, they opened fire on us at that first glance. Which also didn’t mean much, but was rather rude. Seriously, what did we ever do to them? And didn’t they already have an ongoing battle as it was? Why were they cheating on their current enemies by trying to jump straight into another fight with complete strangers? The other soldiers were going to be crushed.

Fortunately, none of the bullets actually hit us. At least not the fleshy us. They did bounce off the plane, but didn’t seem to do any damage. I heard a few triumphant Pixie cries from below, just as the plane reached the end of the field and rose into the sky. There were angry shouts and more gunshots (I was pretty sure people from both sides were shooting at us by that point), but it was too late. We rose higher, and I was given my first real look at a battlefield from the first world war.

Immediately, every dismissive, snarky thought I’d had completely vanished. Like throwing water on a campfire. I saw death. So much death scattered throughout that wide dirt expanse stretched out below us. But that wasn’t the worst of it, not by a long shot. If it had just been death, if I had just seen bodies laying completely still, it would have been better. I would have preferred that.

So many of the bodies were moving. Not in a Necromancer way. In a ‘not quite dead yet but still suffering’ way. I saw broken forms, limbs torn off, insides spilled across the ground to mix with one another. Soldiers in different uniforms sprawled together, too intermingled to tell where the parts of one ended and another began. Some tried to crawl back to their trenches. Others didn’t seem to know where they were going. Most simply reached out whatever limb they had that was most intact and tried to grasp at anything.

But the worst part was the crying. Even as we flew over the field, I could hear it. They were crying, some for help, some for their mothers or fathers, or other loved ones.

Mostly, they just cried.

It was the single most awful few seconds of my life, right then. I was silent, while we flew over that field and away from the battle. Ten seconds, maybe, that was how long it took for us to get away. But it was ten seconds that I would never forget. Ten seconds that would be seared into my memory for the rest of eternity.

“Flick,” Koren finally spoke, almost a full minute after we had left that battlefield behind.

“Why are we here?”