Out of everyone involved in our little Choo maneuver to connect my dad to my grandmother, the only one whom I had been completely confident was safe from any kind of emotional explosion during the whole thing was Sariel. After all, she might have issues with Puriel, but she knew how to handle those and she knew just how dangerous he was. She also had the most experience, by a magnitude of like a million, with possessing people and using recall. There was no reason to think she would have any trouble at all keeping things calm. Hell, she was the one who was supposed to remind the rest of us not to lose it. She was the main stabilizing factor.

Except all of those assumptions were from before. Before those words came out of my grandmother’s mouth. Before she said what was, if not the very last thing I had ever expected to hear (the bar for that was set pretty damn high by now), at least really far up there.

Her children. The girl with half-black and half-blonde hair, and the brown-haired boy. They were Sariel’s children. More of her children. Two more kids whom she very clearly hadn’t known about at all, and was now being smacked right in the face (and heart) by the existence of.

If she lost it now, if she pushed to physically be where these brand new, previously unknown children were, what could we do about it? Would Tabbris, Dad, and me be enough to hold us back, even with the added help from the spell that Dare and Mom were doing? That whole thing was never intended to keep the ancient Seosten woman from recalling, it was supposed to help her stop the rest of us from doing so.

I felt… the burst of emotion from the woman. Considering the situation, it wasn’t as much as most would have shown, of course. Her control was too good for that. But the fact that I could pick up anything from her was pretty telling. And while the reaction was somewhat muted, there were still a lot of different parts to it. I sensed confusion, hope, joy, loss, anger, love, disbelief, and more. Tiny fractions of those emotions, just what bled out. But again, feeling anything was a lot.

Mama. Tabbris was the first to find her voice after that, even as I realized that my grandmother and the kids had continued talking in the background. Mama, are you okay? Are you–

Yes. Despite the rush of emotions, Sariel’s actual voice (or thought-voice) was fairly steady. I was pretty sure that hearing from one of her other children was exactly what she had needed. Tabbris being here, being able to speak to her mother and draw her attention, probably saved us in the end. It’s alright. I just… I don’t… how? There was wonder in her voice, and I could tell she was drinking in every detail she could while Grandmaria was talking to the two kids.

We can ask, Dad reminded her gently. We’re here to get details. We can ask what happened.

Just like that, my father had switched from his own issues in needing to know about what was happening to his parents, to helping Sariel with hers. Or rather, accepting hers with his, I supposed. Either way, it was an immediate shift. This was about both of them now. And, I realized, they were both helping to keep the other centered.

Ask… Sariel echoed that single word, trailing off before seeming to collect herself for a moment. The emotions I was feeling from her didn’t exactly disappear, though they did dampen a bit, replaced by determination. She was going to find out how two of her children were here. And, more importantly, she was going to get them the hell away from Puriel, whatever it took.

By that point, Grandmaria had called the rest of the assortment of kids over and was showing them how to form the vegetable and meat mixture she had been putting together into some kind of patty, which was apparently going to be cooked like a veggie-beef burger. She made them all wash their hands one at a time before being able to form their own patties they would eat. It was–it was Grandmaria. It was just the way I remembered her, though with different ingredients and in a very different kitchen. But beyond those specifics, I could remember essentially this exact same scene playing out with my grandmother and me. It made me oddly nostalgic in that moment. Almost painfully so. Boy, were those incredibly and far simpler times, before I had any worries about–well no, I wouldn’t trade those days for these because now I had my mother back. Still, I missed my grandmother so much right then, it was an almost physical ache.

“Oh, I miss you too, sweetie.” The words were spoken aloud by Grandmaria seemingly before she even knew that she had said them. Immediately, I sensed a sudden spike of confusion and a bit of worry. We were keeping ourselves separated from her enough that we weren’t picking up her thoughts directly, in an attempt to avoid being physically transported. But I could still feel an echo of her concern that she had started to lose it, imagining her granddaughter’s voice. Meanwhile, the other kids were looking at her, also confused. One of the group who apparently weren’t Sariel’s spoke up slowly to ask if she was okay. He sounded genuinely worried at the prospect that something could be wrong. Actually, they all looked worried.

Mom. My father’s voice was urgent, yet clearly as calm as he could make it. He was doing his best not to freak her out. I had the strangest feeling that might be a bit of a lost cause. Listen, it’s Lincoln. Lincoln and Felicity, with… with a couple friends. You’re not hearing things, you’re not imagining it. I know this is probably impossible to understand but–

“Oh, Lincoln!” My grandmother’s voice was both cheerful and decidedly not confused. “There you are. Are you using magic or one of those Seosten possession-mind transfer thingamaroos?” Without missing a beat, she waved one hand to calm the kids down while pointing to her head with the other. “It’s okay, it’s my son and granddaughter in my head. Spark, sweetie, would you be a dear and tell Puriel that–”

No! That, of course, was Sariel. Her blurted word came quickly and with such force that it made Grandmaria stagger back a step. Immediately, all of the kids came rushing up asking if she was okay, and I felt a pop in the air, even through Grandma’s senses. Teleportation. It was a sudden burst of magic, as an older guy with gray hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and bushy eyebrows appeared right where the pop in the air had been. He was already turning our way. “Maria?”

Boy, now I really felt it. Sariel was angry. She had missed out on getting her own justice against Kushiel, had lost that chance to Theia, who was probably the only person we knew who had a better claim for it. That woman, who had tortured her for so long, who had taken so much away from her, was dead already. And good riddance.

But Puriel was alive. And Puriel was the one who had created the situation that led to Sariel losing her family for over a decade. Puriel was the one whose actions resulted in her being tortured, imprisoned, becoming a lab experiment repeatedly, being forced to be pregnant over and over again, losing gods only knew how many of those in the process and having any who might have survived taken away from her save for the one she had managed to sneak out. It was Puriel who had come to take her away from Haiden and her first two children.

And yet, it was those very actions that had led to Tabbris even existing. That realization, that thought, was what I could feel Sariel cling to in order to stop herself from doing anything too bad. She held to that, held to the sense of Tabbris right there with her, to stay anchored and not yank us all the way out into Seosten space just to attack the man in front of us the way a large part of her desperately wanted to. She knew it was futile, knew how much stronger than her the man was. But that didn’t matter. She wanted to take a chunk out of him. But, again, she stopped herself, albeit barely.

“Oh dear,” Grandmaria murmured under her breath while glancing toward Puriel. “This woman with my son and granddaughter, she truly does not like you.”

I saw the man absorb those words, processing them even as the door slid open and Popser came rushing in. “Maria, is everything–”

“Sariel.” Puriel interrupted. There was… emotion in his voice. It cracked slightly, his gaze locked on my grandmother. But, of course, he wasn’t really looking at her. He was looking through her, to the woman whose family he had torn apart. “It’s really you, isn’t it?”

I need…. a minute. Speak to your mother, Lincoln. Sariel’s voice was tight, clearly taking everything she had not to do something we would all regret.

Mom, it’s us. Dad was clearly shaken and uncertain, but he spoke up. I don’t know how you–tell him if he hurts you–

“My dear boy, he’s not going to hurt us.” There was a mixture of gentle understanding and almost playful reprimand in my grandmother’s voice. She looked to Puriel again, adding, “Yes, she’s there too. But I feel that… it may take her a moment to be ready to talk again.”

Grandmaria! The word escaped me in a blurted rush. You’re okay! You and Grandpartie, how–where did–how did you–what happened?!

“There she is. There’s my granddaughter.” Those proud words from Grandmaria sent a tingle through me. And that tingle got even stronger when Grandpartie came forward to stare intently into his wife’s eyes, the same eyes we were seeing through.

“Lincoln and lil’ Flick’s in there?” he asked with a broad smile. “Well, what took you so long? We were starting to think we wouldn’t hear from you until we trotted our butts right back there to Earth ourselves.”

I… I don’t… I can’t–what? Dad sounded just as flabbergasted as I felt. This whole thing was not at all how I had expected this to go. Seriously, we had anticipated finding my grandparents locked in a cell or something, where we could quietly communicate with them to let them know we were going to save them. But this? This was something totally different and strange. This was like… like…

Are you friends?! The blurted question came before I could even think about it. Are you friends with Zeus?!

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Of all the reactions she could possibly have, Grandmaria chuckled softly. “I’ve missed you, Felicity my dear, so very much. You always did know how to get right to the important questions. Now, I think we all need to take a minute to go back and forth and explain a few things, don’t you all agree?” She was addressing not only those of us inside her head, but Puriel and Popser too. And the kids, who had all remained silent through this whole thing. “That’s what I thought. Let’s sit down, take turns, and get all of us on the same page.”

Okay, well, I could say one thing for sure at least. Okay, two things. First, this was still not going at all the way I had expected.

And second, even Zeus himself couldn’t stop Grandmaria from taking charge of things.

*******

So, while Sariel collected herself and pulled it together, Dad and I went back and forth quickly with Grandmaria and Grandpartie, with a few interjections from Puriel when needed. They explained everything that had happened to get them out there, and what had happened next. We heard about the attack by Antaeus, about being teleported all the way to Puriel’s own home island on the Seosten capital world, meeting the man himself along with these kids, finding out just who their long-time friend Al really was, all of it. A lot we had put together already as far as what happened at the cabin went. But it was still good to get it from their point of view. Plus I just loved listening to my grandparents explain things. It was like getting them to tell me a story.

For Grandmaria and the others’ part, they wanted to know everything that had happened to all of us in the past year. But that would have taken way too long. So, we just gave them a quick set of highlights and promised to say more later. Apparently they’d gotten some of the details already from Puriel, which helped.

And yet, it also led to a few very obvious questions. The most pressing of which was finally voiced by Sariel after she and Tabbris had collected themselves through all of that.

Why, the Seosten woman put in. Her voice was still tight from emotion, but she had control of it. Why is he doing this? What does he get out of it? What does he want from you? And who are these children? With that final question, her voice finally cracked just a little, as Grandmaria’s eyes moved briefly to where those kids were standing in a huddled group with the two who had been singled out as hers standing at the front as they all stared at her. At us.

“Puriel,” my grandmother spoke gently to draw the man’s attention. “She’s ready to hear from you.”

I saw what I swore were a rush of emotions play out across the man’s face. He hesitated before stepping over carefully. Putting himself directly in front of my grandmother, the old Seosten spoke carefully. “Sariel. I have made more mistakes in my long life than I could begin to count. And yet, perhaps one of my largest failings was in how I treated you. You and your family. I was obsessed with the idea that our people were better than all others, that every other species was inferior. An inescapable pitfall of how our people operate in this universe, perhaps. It is hard to be a species that enslaves all others for what they call the greater good if you do not see yourselves as ultimately more important, stronger, better. When I saw you, as I believed at the time, lowering yourself by marrying a human, having children with him, it…” He sighed, clearly taking a moment to put his words together properly. “It made me believe that you were soiling our species. Physical intimacy was one thing, some of our people do that, even if it’s not spoken of very much. But you–you were being romantic with him. You were treating him as your equal. And that… At that time, I did not see it as raising the humans or any other species to our own perceived level. I didn’t see it as meeting in the middle. I didn’t even see it as being equal at all. I saw it as you lowering yourself to wallow in the mud, as you putting yourself even lower than the humans. I saw it as dirty and wrong, not for the physical pleasures, but for the fact that assuming our species deserved to be equal with the humans would mean that we were as low and inferior as I believed they were. That is why I could not accept your relationship, your family, any of it.”

There was a brief pause then, during which Sariel spoke up. He keeps talking as though this is past tense. What would have changed? Why would he feel differently now? Again, there was a tightness to her voice that made it clear she was barely keeping herself in check, and that it was taking a lot to avoid transporting us there.

Grandmaria passed that along, and I saw Puriel wince. From the expression on his face, it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about it. But he did. Meeting our gaze, the man carefully explained what had happened to him after being hit by the shattered banishment orb. His mind and memories had been broken, making him incapable of remembering anything about who he was. He had ended up on some other world far away, and had been taken in by some sort of Alter orphanage. An orphanage full of innocent children and their caretakers from all manner of species. There, he’d had a good life for awhile. He got along with everyone, as they helped him try to remember who he was. The children and staff had all become his friends.

Then the Fomorians had come. Somehow, they had learned about his presence, and about how important he was. They came for him, and the people of the orphanage suffered and died for it. They hid him away and refused to surrender him.

It was that trauma, hearing the suffering and dying of those he had grown to care about, that finally unlocked Puriel’s memories… for the most part. Remembering who he was at that moment, he had destroyed the Fomorians who were attacking. But it had been too late to save the people of the orphanage.

Puriel had apparently returned to his own people then. But his mind still wasn’t fixed. The damage the shattered banishment orb had done to it was too thorough. He constantly lost track of where he was, what he was doing, even when he was in his own memories and thoughts.

I felt something else then, a new rush of emotion from the woman but I didn’t quite understand. Hearing that had made her feel something important. As soon as Puriel mentioned losing himself in his memories, something in her impression of him softened.

“And then… she came.” Reaching one hand out, Puriel beckoned until the black-and-blonde haired girl moved closer. The smaller boy was right with her.

“Sariel,” the man continued, “this… this is your daughter. Kushiel–she brought her to my medical room as a–I don’t know. A prize? She is… she is what our people call a Mendacia. Kushiel referred to her as–never mind. It doesn’t matter. But she would have done very terrible things to the girl. It made me remember how I treated you and your family on Earth. So I did the only thing I could in that moment, the only thing that came to mind to protect the one child of yours I still could. I allowed her to possess me, and she has been doing so ever since. What you see here, she is using magic to project an image.”

I had no idea what Sariel was feeling right then. She had closed off entirely through his explanation of who the girl was.

Sister? That, of course, was Tabbris, her voice trembling. She’s really a sister?

“I–what?” Grandmaria was clearly taken by surprise. “A sister?”

That made Puriel’s gaze snap up. “Your other daughter–wait, which…”

Stop, Sariel immediately demanded. Just stop. Maria, please, just… look at her. Look at them.

My grandmother did so, holding a hand out for Puriel and the others to be quiet. She got closer, staring directly at the girl and boy. I could feel Sariel drinking in their appearances, seeing herself in them. Mine… they are my children. There was wonder and awe in her voice then. Puriel… saved my… children.

Once it was clear what was happening, Puriel quietly spoke. “Her name–I have called her Spark. She saved my life, Sariel. She has saved me in more ways than I could ever explain. She is brilliant and perfect. And your son–we only met him recently, but he is so very curious about everything. We call him Omni.”

For their part, both kids stared right up through Grandmaria’s eyes and into the gaze of their mother. The boy found his voice first, quietly murmuring, “Mater?” He was reaching up as though to touch her face before seeming to catch himself. The boy looked… oddly ashamed before quickly lowering his hand, and I felt a pang of shame from Sariel that she couldn’t pick him up.

So, Grandmaria did just that. She reached out and picked the boy off the ground. Which was surprising, given I didn’t remember her being strong enough to do something like that before. Sure, he was only a little kid, but still. She plucked him off the floor and held him up easily, before reaching out. Her hand brushed slightly over Spark’s face. Apparently her image had been created out of a solid-light hologram.

“Mater,” Spark quietly spoke, “he did bad things. He knows that. But he helps now. He saved me. We saved Omni, and… and the others.” She raised her hand to gesture to the other children. “They were experimenting on them, and we saved them. He didn’t have to. But he did. We did.”

At that moment, I felt a decision come over Sariel. The confusion and uncertainty melted away, along with most of the emotions when it came to Puriel. It was clear that the woman had decided only one thing mattered. She spoke in her own voice, and Grandmaria translated aloud.

How do we bring you all to Earth?

Puriel’s voice actually almost sounded amused. “Actually, we’re working on that ourselves. Do you recognize this kitchen?” He gestured around them, and Sariel finally seemed to pay attention to the place after being distracted for so long.

…. The Olympus. This… this is your own personal kitchen on the Olympus.

After Grandmaria translated that, Puriel gave a short nod. “Exactly. We–ahh, liberated it from storage, thanks to a little advice from Arthur there. It’s not quite ready to go yet, but with some more work, we’ll get underway eventually. And with Spark’s improvements, it won’t take long to get to Earth once we do.”

Wait, Tabbris immediately put in uncertainly, Spark’s improvements?

Once that message was passed along, Puriel smiled proudly. “Oh yes. Sariel, I told you, your daughter is brilliant. She is, to put it simply, the best ship and weapon designer I’ve seen since Radueriel himself, and she does it with no extra powers or inherited gifts. Believe me, I checked. As a matter of fact, she designed something I hear you’re acquainted with. A ship capable of instantly jumping from one universe to another, from planet to planet in no time at all.”

The prototype ship?! Spark–this kid–was the one who designed the prototype ship?!

Just as we were all reeling from that, I felt a tug, followed by a rush of emotion from Sariel. We can’t maintain the connection for long. We’re being pulled back. We’ll come again, we’ll talk again. Please, tell them.

So Grandmaria did. And for the next few seconds, she embraced Omni before putting him down to do the same with Spark’s solid-light holographic form. She hugged them for Sariel. And for Tabbris, who was clearly overwhelmed by all this but still introduced herself. She introduced herself to her brother and sister, through my grandmother’s words as the older woman acted as a go-between. It was rushed, and it was awkward, but it was also perfect in its own way. Tabbris met her Seosten brother and sister for the first time.

Then Sariel and Tabbris both focused on doing all she could to hold us there while Dad and I had a moment with my grandparents. A moment where there was so much more all of us wanted to say, yet so little time to do so. Instead, we mostly focused on saying how glad we were that they were okay, and in promising to visit soon to see how they were coming along. With each passing moment, I felt our grip slipping. We were going to be pulled away any second.

“Sariel.” It was Puriel, speaking up once more even as we started to be pulled away. “I will bring your children to you. I will bring Maria and Arthur to the Chambers. Whatever it takes, I promise you that. I will bring them safely to Earth. You have my life oath on it. Whatever else happens, I will get them to Earth.”

Those were the last words we were able to hear. Because an instant later, our grip on my grandmother failed entirely, as we were sent rebounding back to our physical bodies on Earth like a rubber band had snapped.

We literally popped apart once we hit our physical bodies, all of us separating from our combined possession form to fall apart from each other and collapse to the floor. As we lay there on our backs, Mom appeared standing over us. “So?

“How did it go?”