To be perfectly honest, in that particular moment, I wasn't even exactly sure which I was more surprised and confused by, the idea that the future leader of the Crossroads Detective Division and inspiration for Sherlock Holmes wanted to talk to us specifically decades before any of us should have been born, or that a clearly older Aylen Tamaya was the one who had shown up to escort us there.

Wait, no, I was definitely going to go ahead and say the latter was more surprising. Maybe only by a little bit, but still. What the hell was going on with that? Seriously, how had Aylen ended up here? Why did she look several years older than when I had last seen her? Was this a version of her who had lived many years on through the future from where I had left and then came back to this time for some reason? Or was she from our exact present and had simply come back to near this time before living through several years here? And if it was the latter, then why? How the hell could that possibly have happened? Had she been sent to help me at another point in the near-past with a different rift and just stayed after that? Wait, did that mean that everyone who helped me would be stuck in that time? Was I actually sentencing my friends and family to be stuck living through many, many years to get back to the actual time period we belonged in? And wait, oh no, if that was true, how were they going to avoid existing at the same time as their younger selves? This could be bad, so very bad. Why would the Ankou let something like this happen? They couldn’t have overlooked it, right? That was too obvious of a problem. They couldn’t have forgotten, unless they didn’t understand how being in the same time as our earlier selves would affect us? What was going on?

With all those confusing, paranoid thoughts running through my mind, the first thing I did was turn to Bezique and ask her if she would mind letting us talk to our friend for a moment. Tabbris, who had sprung forward to embrace Aylen as soon as she revealed herself, turned that way and took our new friend over to a corner of the room to look at the Magic cards. That would sufficiently distract her for the moment. I didn't want the Batty-Fang going off by herself right now. I didn’t want her even leaving my sight, honestly. Not when there was a good chance of her warning ‘Jack’ and telling that piece of shit as much about us as she had told us about him. After all, it wasn't like she had actually chosen to be on our side and move against him. That wasn’t how her mind seemed to work right now. As far as she was concerned, he and I were equal. She would answer his questions just as easily as she had answered mine. The best way to make sure she didn't warn him was to keep her with us and in sight. A goal that Tabbris had, as usual, made herself indispensable for. She had immediately latched onto Bezique and was keeping her occupied so she wouldn’t wander off. As for what we were going to do in the long term, I wasn't sure. There was only so much I could actually focus on at once.

And right now, what I was focused on was Aylen. Using a privacy coin to make absolutely sure we would be safe from certain prying ears that might not have been one hundred percent distracted, I stepped forward to embrace her. She returned it tightly, before doing the same with Miranda. Only then did I find my voice. “Okay, Aylen, what's going on? What are you doing here? What happened? Why do you look like that? How long have you been… how long has it been for you? How are you with Joseph Bell? How does he know about us? How much does he know? Why does he want to talk to us? Does he even know who we are or where--when we came from? Did you help another version of me earlier? Why--”

Before I could continue along those lines, which I probably could have done for another few paragraphs of questions, the other girl held up both hands and motioned for me to stop. “I'll answer your questions, I promise. One at a time. There's a lot we need to talk about.” She sounded sort of wistful then, like she had many more emotions that she was trying not to let out right then because they would be distracting from what was going on. That reaction by itself made me want to blurt out so many more questions, but I managed to (barely) hold them in.

Aylen took a breath to settle herself before continuing. “Right now, we need to go visit Dr. Bell. Trust me, you'll want to hear what he has to say. You can trust him. I've spent over a year in this place getting to know the man. He's brilliant, and he knows how to help us. Before you go after Lechmere, you really need to talk to Bell.”

Okay, well, I just couldn't stop being thrown for a loop in this entire conversation. And neither could Miranda, as she was the first to find her voice then, stammering, “Wait, he knows who Jack the Ripper is? Why hasn't he done anything about it? Why hasn't he turned him in?” As soon as the question was out of her mouth, the other girl blanched. “Right, I mean, obviously he's too dangerous for the actual authorities. There's no way Bystanders could handle him. I get that. But doesn’t Bell already know about Heretics and all that? Wait, I think he's one of them, isn’t he? I'm pretty sure he is, so couldn't he just send Crossroads people after that piece of shit? Why would he just let Lechmere run around doing his evil shit? Stopping that sort of thing is basically the only good part of Crossroads’ existence. We know they're here in the city. We already had a run-in with them. Which was all sorts of fun, let me tell you.”

With a visible grimace, the quarter-Reaper girl acknowledged, “Yes, we heard about that. They reported the situation--at least as much as they understood of it-- to Dr. Bell, and he told me. That's how I knew to come track you down.” She offered a very faint, almost humorless smile. “It's a long story. But like I said, he can help. He's ready to help, and you can trust him. He can't turn Lechmere over to the Bystanders because they'd get slaughtered. And he can't turn him in to Crossroads because they'll use his blood to try to track you down. Jacob, I mean. He has some of your blood mixed into his. They can use that to at least try to track you, if not something worse. We're not even sure if that would work, but we don't want to take that chance. And neither should you. Do you really want them to have some sort of Jacob-detector?”

My mouth opened and shut as I slowly shook my head, digesting that. They wanted to use that bastard's blood to identify and track me? That was why Bell wasn't turning him in? That was an explanation that made me even more confused about how much that man knew about everything. It seems like every time we got an answer about what was going on, it just raised more questions. This was a lot to deal with, to say the least. I kept feeling like I was being punched in the gut. What the hell was happening around here, damn it?

I was still trying to figure out how to respond when Miranda spoke up. “So Bell knows about Flick. Or Jacob, whatever. He knows that ‘he’ isn’t the threat the Boschers think ‘he’ is. And he's protecting Jacob-Flick from what Crossroads will do if they get their hands on Lechmere. That's why he hasn't told them who that fucker is. I get that. And let me guess, he doesn't stand a chance going against Lechmere with just the two of you, or whoever else he might actually trust.”

Aylen glanced away briefly before turning back. Her eyes flicked between the two of us, with a fair bit of emotion playing in them. “Lechmere is very dangerous by himself, yes. But we also had to wait for you to show up. Lechmere is connected to the nearest rift. To close it properly, we needed Flick. That's another reason why we couldn't send Crossroads there. Even if the rift hadn't appeared yet, it would still put them too close to the area where it would probably show up. There was too much of a chance that Crossroads or the Seosten might screw with the rift or the area around it. If they found out about Lechmere’s connection to it, it could… it could lead them to it. And I think we all know how much of a complete disaster that would be.”

Yeah, that made sense. Or at least as much sense as anything made in this ridiculous situation. Which wasn't to say I didn't still have a ton more questions. They were all bouncing around in my head, and it was all I could do not to start blurting them out again. I had to trust that Aylen would explain more of it and tell us everything about what was actually going on as soon as she could. But right now, she said we had to go see Joseph Bell, that that was the most important thing at the moment, and I believed her. We could wait to get the rest of those answers. Even if my subconscious was screaming that we needed to know right now.

Yeah, that's not just your subconscious, Hot Type put in pointedly. There's a whole bunch of us in here who want to tie her down and make her answer all of our questions. They paused briefly before amending, And then there's a few of us who would just enjoy tying her down in general. You know, if she's into that.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Oh boy, did I really not need to think about that. Especially when it came to Avalon’s other girlfriend. That was a whole thing, and I really didn't need that sort of distraction. So, I gave my current closest headmate a mental swat before focusing on Aylen. “Okay, if you say our best move is to go see Bell right now, let's do it. But for the record, I really hope you're going to be ready to answer all those other questions soon.”

Quickly promising that she would indeed answer any additional questions that she could as soon as we had a chance and could focus on other things, Aylen gestured for us to follow. She had already transformed back into her disguised self, and turned to start heading back the way she'd come.

Thinking about it briefly, I took a moment to use disguise spells on myself and the others, including Bezique. That seemed to really throw her off. She kept looking down at herself and dancing around in a circle to see every part of her at once. She couldn't understand why we wanted her to look different. I told her we needed to make sure no one would recognize her later, leaving out that I wanted to hide the fact that she was put together from many different bodies. Aylen might have told us we could trust Bell, but I wasn't exactly sure how he would react to seeing someone like this. It didn't feel like the right time to push things. Not when the whole situation was so confusing and uncertain.

In any case, it didn't take long to convince Bezique to calm down and come along with us. Together, we made our way out of the apartment, and I felt both pain and relief at leaving that place behind. If nothing else, I was going to make damn sure to get justice for the poor girl who had lived there. I couldn't bring her back to life now. I couldn't undo what had been done. But I would make sure the bastard responsible for it got put down. Whatever else happened, I was going to stop Lechmere from hurting anyone else ever again.

While we were walking, Miranda moved up beside me and took my hand while speaking softly. “So, this whole thing just keeps getting more complicated by the minute, doesn't it?” She smiled a bit when I looked at her and offered a shrug. “Don't worry, whatever happens, we’ll be there with you. And hey, turns out you have more allies than you thought you did around here. Even if that just makes everything even more confusing. But let’s be honest, when is your life not baffling? If you had every answer and nothing to confuse or worry you, you’d probably decide you'd been dumped into some sort of magic virtual reality or something and start clawing at the walls of reality.”

Snorting despite myself, I squeezed her hand and nodded. “Yeah, you have a point. That would be pretty unbelievable.” With that, I looked over my shoulder. A dark-haired, slightly smaller Tabbris was walking behind us with her hand in the also-disguised Bezique’s. The two of them were deeply engaged in talking about one of those Magic cards. I hadn't even known that Tabbris was that interested in them, let alone that she carried an entire deck around. Actually, from the sounds of things, she had several decks with her. Was this a new development? Who had gotten her interested in that?

Okay, yes, this was not a thing to be thinking about right now. I had so many other distractions to focus on. So, I pushed all that out of my mind and picked up the pace, trailing after Aylen. Which gave me time to look around as we were going. I didn't have to think about our destination, since I was simply following the other girl. Instead, I kept my eyes out on everyone around us, just in case there was any trouble. The streets of London in what was apparently sometime around the 1890s were a hell of a lot different then they were in our time. Which, yes, sounded like a staggeringly obvious thing to think, but still. Just walking along that street, watching the horse-drawn carriages (along with a few cars here and there), the people pushing carts, boys hocking newspapers, and yes, still the smell that I hadn't grown accustomed to and really hoped I never would, made me want to just forget everything else and stare for a few hours. These people were simply living their ordinary, personal lives, with absolutely no idea what the world would be like even a mere twenty years in the future, let alone almost a century and a half. Even simply as far as the mundane, Bystander world went, the future would seem completely alien to these people.

Which also raised sobering thoughts about what else they didn't know about, like a couple World Wars that were on the horizon. It would be so easy to try to warn them about that. But not only would it do no good, because no one important had any reason to listen to us, but it wouldn't matter anyway. It was the same reason why I couldn't make the world better by trying to stop any of the other bad things I knew about, Bystander or Heretic-related. All I would do was create a different timeline and trap us in that one. We might be able to go back to a different future, but it wouldn't be ours. Our timeline would be somewhere else, somewhere we couldn't affect anymore. Which would be a complete nightmare, honestly.

As I was lost in thought about that, Aylen glanced over her shoulder and obviously read my expression. “Yeah, it's really easy to get lost in the possibilities, isn't it? Believe me, I've been there. I've been over that entire trail backwards and forwards more times than I can count.”

Before I could say anything to that, Miranda spoke up. “Aylen, how long have you been in the past?”

The question was met with a wistful smile before the other girl replied, “We should wait until we get to Doctor Bell. Then we can get into all of that.”

So, we just kept walking, and I kept looking around. It was fascinating, seeing how people actually lived in these days. It made me wonder how people from the future would find the way we lived in our time to be fascinating. Would they think we were strange and backwards? How far in the future would they have to come from before our society looked as different to them as this one did to me?

And, most important of all, would there actually even be a future society for people to come from at all? Not if we didn't deal with this Fomorian thing, so I picked up the pace a little to catch up with Aylen.

It took a while, but eventually, we stopped in front of a very nice-looking estate behind a large metal fence. There was a guard there, who opened the gate as soon as we approached. He gave Aylen a familiar nod of acknowledgment and then turned his gaze away. It was like he specifically wasn't paying attention to us. Something told me he was being paid handsomely to ignore people like our group. Which gave me another rush of questions.

The house was a beautiful, four-story affair, and I took a moment to gaze up at it while giving a low whistle. “Looks like Dr. Bell has done well for himself.”

Aylen shook her head while going up to the door. “He's just visiting here because we can have more privacy. It's not his place, it's mine.”

Well, now I was even more confused about what was going on with her and how long she had been here. But it was obvious that she wasn't going to talk about it until we met up with Bell. So, we all followed her in, with Bezique and Tabbris bringing up the rear. I really did have to thank my little sister for keeping our new friend so occupied. And it didn't sound like she was just playing along. She was telling the stitched-together girl all about the rules of Magic, and her companion was listening intently. Pretty soon, they were going to actually be able to play a game together. Which sounded like it would be completely fascinating to watch, no matter how distracted I was right then.

We made our way through the front door, then an entrance foyer before Aylen took us into a parlor at the back of the house. There were a few servants cleaning the place, and I gave them a double-take before trailing after the other girl. Yeah, I had a lot of questions.

Finally, we made it into that back room, and saw an older man standing there by the window. He was a very handsome gentleman, with brown hair and sideburns, who seemed to be right between being young and being distinguished. There were hints of gray-white in that hair, but it hadn't fully shifted yet. He was wearing a brown suit, and holding a pocket watch in one hand.

I had seen the older version of Bell before, from a distance when he was talking to Sean’s parents. Back then I had thought, again, that he looked quite distinguished and that he could have been played by Malcolm McDowell. I supposed that meant this version could have been played by a younger version. Though maybe not quite Clockwork Orange young.

As we came in, he clicked the watch off before returning to face us. His intelligent, quick eyes looked each of us up and down briefly, taking in absolutely every detail in those brief opening seconds. Finally, he offered a smile and stepped forward. “Good evening. That seems like such an inconsequential thing to say in a case such as this, and I did consider many possibilities. But none rose to the occasion properly. So why make a fuss?” He extended a hand while giving us a warm look. “Dr. Joseph Bell. Such a pleasure to finally make your acquaintances. Miss Tamaya has told me a great deal about you.”

I made a noise deep in my throat before looking that way. “How much did you tell him, exactly?”

Aylen smirked slightly. “There's only so much I had to tell him. For one thing, he's not considered the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes for nothing. He's helped more than you can imagine with that mind of his. Besides, this is kind of personal for him too. Bell?”

At her words, the man’s appearance shifted. He looked younger, his hair lightening and lengthening somewhat while he gained a couple inches of height and muscle. He offered a rueful smile. “It is a pleasure to see you again, milady.

“They call me Joseph Bell now, but when I met the other you, I was known as Bedivere.”