The next part of the rather shaky plan that we had come up with had to do with how to handle all the other creatures like Bezique. They were living, breathing creatures who had been put together out of dead bodies. They hadn’t chosen to be created any more than any other living being chose their birth. It would have been utterly beyond monstrous to kill them, but leaving them on their own was a bad idea. They didn’t know anything about how to live in the real world, how to hide from Boschers, how to disguise themselves, or anything like that. They were practically infants as far as that went. Okay, maybe not quite infants, but still. They were pretty clueless. Leaving them on their own would’ve been about the same as killing them, to be honest. And if they lashed out at anyone, we’d be responsible for that too.

So no, we couldn’t do that. We had a responsibility to take care of these creatures. But they couldn’t exactly walk through the rift with me, and it wasn’t fair to force Aylen to be responsible for them when she was busy with everything else that was already on her plate. She was busy as it was.

We could have sent them over to the Roundabout. It was long past the time when that place would be around. But I had no idea what life over there would be like right now, how many others would be there, what condition they’d be in for teaching and helping these guys, or anything like that. Of course, if it had come down to it and there wasn’t another choice, I could’ve sent a message to check in and find out if they could take these guys. It wouldn’t have been that hard. I’d contacted and summoned the Cryptseeker, after all. That was always a real possibility.

But no, we had another solution that didn’t involve the Roundabout. We had this place. This Archive. I had already linked it to my own before killing Lechmere, and now it was even more connected to me. I could control it, manipulate it, keep it linked to my own so we could pass back and forth. These beings that Lechmere had made could stay here where the other members of the Flique could visit them, teach them, play with them, and just be there with them all the time.

At least, they could do that assuming we could get rid of that link to the Fomorian homeworld. I really didn’t care if it was only one-way right now. We couldn’t let it sit there. I was not going to allow a connection to the Fomorians to exist inside what had become my own Archive. No way.

Yes, I had considered the fact that it might be a way of getting to the Fomorians directly, past all their defenses. But honestly, there were too many ways that could go wrong. Plus, at this point, it wasn’t that kind of connection. It was just sending Fomorian images through, along with some sort of Fomorian… teaching or whatever. Enough to have taught Lechmere how to work with corpses to create living beings. And, in that pivotal moment, it had taught me how to use my own Necromancy to manipulate their bodies. Plus, now that I had absorbed that knowledge from him, I could… probably do something with that t--yeah I didn’t want to think about that too much yet.

The point was, I didn’t want the link to continue to exist. Anything I could have easily learned from that connection I had picked up from killing Lechmere, and to leave it active would be too dangerous. We had no idea when that connection might change, might grow stronger and give them a chance to potentially come through. Which would end up with a bunch of Fomorians inside my Archive. Better to just get rid of it while we had the chance. Fortunately, Aylen had an idea about what to do with that. She’d spent enough time among a few other rifts, and had been doing research when it came to manipulating energy around and in them, thanks to the whole plan about sending Ehn’s Dragon power to Arthur’s body. This wasn’t exactly that, but apparently it was close enough for her to immediately have a few big thoughts.

First things first, she said we needed to trap the energy that was already here. There was knowledge in that energy, stuff about the Fomorian history and their abilities. Part of me wanted to question how you could essentially be zapped with… with radiation or whatever and suddenly learn new things. But it was hardly the most ridiculous thing I’d heard of in this life. Case in point, the fact that we were talking about it inside the pocket reality originally belonging to Jack the Ripper before I had killed him after he was surrounded by dozens of my duplicate selves who existed in my own pocket reality, so now his pocket reality belonged to me. Stuff like that made it a bit easier to accept weird things. Plus there was the fact that I had actually experienced the knowledge bestowal myself. That helped too. It was all super-weird, but it really worked. So sure, if there was a way to contain that energy so it could be used again without keeping the actual link itself open, I was all for it. I was sure there would be some way we could make use of that stuff.

It turned out the way to do that was with a prepared book. Not just any book, it had to be one that was made out of some sort of special animal skin, both the cover itself and the parchment within. The animal was known as a Khulmaia, something that apparently looked like a cross between a giant goat with three horns and a spider. So, three-horned goat with eight legs and--yeah, gross. They were incredibly rare, unsurprisingly. But Aylen happened to already have the body of one, and had been experimenting with creating things out of its magic-absorbing skin and hair. Which meant she actually had one of those very special blank books we needed.

Miranda and I both asked if she was sure she wanted to use that instead of saving it for the Arthur thing, and she said it wouldn’t work for that one anyway. She needed something better for that, after having experimented with the Khulmaia body a bit. So she might as well use it for this.

It was pretty complicated stuff, but the gist was that the energy swirling around that link to the Fomorian world would be absorbed into the book. As long as the book was shut (there was a special lock for it), the energy would stay inside. Every page you turned to after unlocking the book and opening it would release more of that energy so it could go into you. There was a lot we could do with that at some point, but for now, we would keep the book firmly closed and locked.

While Aylen did her thing to absorb that energy into the book, Miranda and I followed her instructions about how to close that link to the Fomorians. Again, it all had to do with using the knowledge she’d picked up while planning out the whole Ehn energy manipulation thing. I just hoped it would actually work for this particular job. If it didn’t--well, we’d just have to figure out something else. I wasn’t going to go around with my Archive connected to the Fomorians.

Given the size of the link, this was also a thing that should have taken either several days or a few dozen people who were quite talented with magic to put together. Fortunately, while we didn’t have days, we did have both Miranda, who could create clones of herself, and several other members of the Flique who weren’t busy helping lead Lechmere’s poor confused patchwork creatures through the doorway I’d made and getting them settled into this place for the moment. Between all of us, we easily cut through the time that would’ve been needed to put this together.

Every once in awhile, as the various Miranda duplicates, other Flique members, and I were doing the work with the magic setup, I would glance over and watch Tabbris with Bezique. The two of them were helping explain what was going on to the other patchwork creatures. From what I could pick out, it sounded like they had all been released from the firm, almost worship-like control that Lechmere had had over them as soon as he died. They remembered being incredibly devoted to the man, but didn't actually feel it anymore. Now they were mostly confused and lost. Not to mention very childlike. They were going to need a lot of help learning how to exist in the world. So yeah, it was probably a good thing that we were giving them the training wheels version by letting them stay here.

Obviously, I wasn't going to leave this place looking like a dirty old trainyard. Not when I could fix it up. Though on that subject I would need to give those snake-trains a place to stay as well. They had been quiet and kind of cowering on the far side of the yard this whole time. I needed to go reassure them too. I honestly wasn’t sure how much they understood or what sort of intelligence they had. But it was high enough for them to know that they shouldn’t blindly attack anymore ever since the tide had turned so thoroughly against their creator, and for them to have become frightened. I needed to let the snake-trains know that I would make a space for them here too. Yeah, fighting against them had been kind of terrifying, but like the rest of those creatures, they only did it because their creator made them. Now he was gone and they didn’t deserve to be punished for his evil.

Miranda and I took the time to talk while we were working on our parts. Not about everything that was going on here, not about my mission to deal with all these rifts through time, not about the Ehn thing or any of that. No, we talked about movies we liked from back when we were little. Was it dumb to spend our time discussing our favorite family and kid movies, or stuff like what different actors grew up to be like? Yeah, probably. We could have talked about something useful. But I didn’t care. I needed to relax a bit. I had been running basically nonstop in the hours since I had shown up in this time period, and I just needed to take a minute and talk about something completely pointless like this. I needed to have time with my friend to discuss and debate utterly unimportant bullshit.

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It was even better when Tabbris and Bezique came over to join us. Tabbris helped with the magic bit, while Bezique just watched with obvious interest. She also listened while the three of us talked more about movies. Which, naturally, the patchwork girl knew nothing about, but we promised to show her when the time came. We also promised that she would be able to see many more of those pretty cards she liked so much.

In the end, it took a couple hours for us to get this all set up. Fortunately, that was a couple hours inside this Archive, where we had a bit of control over how quickly time passed. As far as the outside world was concerned, it had only been about three minutes. Which was still pushing things considering the Seosten and Boschers were actively searching for that place. Not to mention Invidia could decide to point them directly to it at any time. But we needed to get it done, and we were going as quickly as possible. It might be pushing things a bit, we just had to hope we could finish and send me through that rift before… before this whole situation got worse.

Finally, it was ready. We had the Khulmaia-skin book, and had finished drawing the intricate spell around the ground directly below the spot in the sky where those Fomorian images kept appearing. Images I had been doing my best not to pay too much attention to over these past hours. And Aylen had finished her part, having followed along behind the rest of us as we drew those designs, so she could empower them bit by bit at the right points.

With that, we all watched the images in the sky. Even the rest of Lechmere’s creations were watching, especially once the light show started. It was like dozens of lightning bolts, colored purple, blue, red, or green, kept jumping from the ground where the spell was, up to the images in the sky. And after each bolt, the images got a little dimmer, a little smaller. I was holding my breath the entire time, afraid that something would go wrong, that the images would become an actual portal somehow, or… or anything to make this situation worse. But no, Aylen knew what she was doing. Bit by bit, the strange link to the Fomorians was diminished, weakened, and closed. And the energy that was already here, with their knowledge and skills, was absorbed by the book before the thing finally snapped shut. As soon as it did, Aylen locked it up. The book glowed brightly for a few seconds before fading.

And just like that, the images in the sky were gone too. It was done. The link to the Fomorians was closed. Thank fuck, it was--okay that part was over. And we had gotten through it without any more catastrophes. Everyone in the Archive space, even the patchwork creatures, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as soon as the Fomorian images disappeared. Hell, I was pretty sure that the snake-trains were just as happy as the rest of us. About that bit, anyway. They were still pretty skittish in general. But hey, getting rid of that connection to the Fomorians had to help. Honestly, when they weren’t trying to throw their giant mechanical bodies with those biological eyes and teeth at me, the things were… maybe cute was the wrong word, but still. Or maybe my definition of cute had changed a lot since becoming a Necromancer.

With the Fomorian link gone and the teaching energy (I really didn’t know what else to call it) absorbed safely into the book, it was time for the next part of the plan. The part that involved me using my imagination. Okay, that was a bit of a simplistic way to put it, but really. I was going to make this part of the now-joint Archives, the bit that had belonged to good old Lechmere, into a better place for all these guys to stay and learn. They deserved something more than a dingy old trainyard. Aside from the snake-trains, for whom this was probably a pretty great place. So I would leave part of it for them.

Soon, every active member of the Flique, including myself, were gathered in a circle. It kind of felt a little weird and goofy that we were literally holding hands and focusing on our imaginations, but what else were we supposed to do? That was just how the Archives worked. Technically they were controlled by the owner, which was me. But in this case, ‘me’ was spread out across all my other selves. We needed to focus together and picture the same thing pretty hard to make real changes.

As silly as it might have felt, it did work. While the others watched, we made grass appear over the dry dirt and hard ground. We turned the ratty old train station buildings into large houses of varying descriptions. Some were designed to hold human sized people, a few were meant for smaller creatures like the Batty Fang, and a couple were designed to be more comfortable for much larger beings. We made several park and recreation areas as well, places they could exercise, run around, or just play. There was a large pit area where the big strong creatures who liked to hit things could wrestle with one another.

We also designed a school where the creatures could learn from several of us. It wasn't much, just a large open building with a white board, various learning supplies, and desks of every needed size.

We would add more as needed. For now, we just wanted to show these creatures, after everything they had been through, that they had a home they could stay in for as long as needed. They were welcome here, and we weren't going to treat them as disposable experiments. Anything more than that, well, we would deal with it later.

As planned, we also created an area for those snake-trains. It was basically a lot like the area they had already been in, what had been this entire Archive once. But after some deliberation, we created a sort of natural Hot Springs area under the ground that would heat up the rocks and give them a nice place to relax. Nervous as the poor things seemed to be, they did like that. I managed to walk right up to them while they were checking out the hot boulders and touched one of the box cars without making the creature freak out.

Yeah, time. It was just going to take time to bond with these guys, with all of them, really. For the moment, they were as comfortable as we could make them. So it was time to move on.

Moving on, in this case, meant talking to Tabbris and Miranda. Both of them wanted to go with me through the rift. But I told them I didn't know how that would work. I really had no idea if even having Tabbris possessing me would keep her along as I joined up with the rest of my other selves, or what. I just wasn’t sure. As far as I knew, they would simply disappear once I went through the rift. That's what Aylen said had happened before at other rifts.

However, when I explained that, both Miranda and Tabbris pointed out that they could stay inside these Archives. They wanted to be with me through the next stage of this, just in case anything else went wrong. They said they could be inside the Archives, and if the rift still made them disappear back to the present, then so be it. But they wanted to at least try it this way so they could be there after all the different versions of me finished going through all the rift and were brought together again. For some reason they thought there was a good chance there would be another problem to deal with.

When I asked Aylen what she thought about it, she said she had no idea if it would work or not, but that we might as well try. And how could I argue with that? Especially given if it worked, I would have my sister and best friend right there with me in case anything else went wrong.

So, those two would be staying in the Archive right alongside Bezique and the others. Speaking of the little Batty Fang, I promised her I would come back in and talk about everything else we needed to do, and help them get settled in, as soon as we had a chance. For now, she could just stay there with the others and she would be safe. I was pretty sure she didn't fully understand what was actually happening, but she was happy enough to stay in their new territory and explore a bit. Especially since Tabbris was staying too.

All of which meant that eventually, Aylen and I were back in the real world, in that throneroom buried beneath the most infamous mental asylum in history. I glanced to the other girl, frowning. “I’m sorry about Bell. We should’ve been--we should have--I’m sorry.”

Aylen shook her head. “We’ll take it as it comes. She’s not going to keep him, and there’s a lot she can’t do. It’s not like she can go change a bunch of things. She has to let history play out properly or she’ll end up in a completely different timeline, while we stay in this one.”

“Is that the way it works with multiple time travelers?” I asked curiously.

A snort escaped her. “Apparently. If she changes things while she’s time traveling, it will move her to a new timeline, not us. So we’d never know the difference anyway, aside from her disappearing. So as far as we’re concerned, she’s trapped following the way history went.”

I absorbed that a bit. “Right, well it could be worse. But either way, we’re gonna yank that cunt right out of Bell as soon as we can--you know-- find some of Charmeine’s blood.”

“I’ll make sure to tell the other yous about it, maybe one of them can get lucky,” Aylen noted. “And I’ll keep Lechmere’s timeline intact.” She would be posing as the now-dead man for the next couple decades, whenever she wasn’t busy with her own work. She’d show up as him just enough to make people believe he was still alive. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best we could do. It would also give her a chance to get close to his children to find out if any of them had inherited my power.

We both considered that for a moment before Aylen glanced up toward the ceiling. “We need to hurry, they’re coming.”

Well, what else was there to say? I quickly embraced the other girl, thanking her for everything and telling her to be careful. Then I walked up to the rift, the forcefield parting since I was holding that key. Feeling the rift pulling at me, I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Aylen wave once before vanishing as she teleported far, far away.

Okay guys, I sent inwardly, to the rest of the Flique, Miranda, Tabbris, Bezique, and all the other patchwork creatures, let’s all wish each other good luck.

Figures began materializing all around the room then. I didn’t give myself a chance to identify who they were. Instead, I just jumped forward. The sound of a shout filled the air, but it was too late.

I hit the rift and was gone.