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It had actually been complete chance, almost literally running into Keisha as she rounded the corner, a few blocks from her house. This was notable because most things in Madeline McCaffrey's life were not left up to chance, wherever she could help it; she was a girl who liked to be - or at least feel like she was - in control at all times.

So, naturally, one of the most consequential nights of her young life began with an accident of fate.

"Hey, watch--oh, Keisha!" Madeline said, blinking as she calmed down from the initial, knee-jerk indignant reaction that came from a literal collision as he rounded a corner on her usual evening jog. She watched too many true crime related things to do anything as foolish as having the same routine night after night, but that also meant that she wasn't familiar with all the particular quirks of different routes - including which ones were busy around this time of the evening and which ones were deserted.

She knew Keisha, vaguely but positively, from high school. She'd been a solid partner in group projects, and she always seemed nice, if quiet; that was alright by Madeline, as quiet was preferable to whatever nonsense came out of their other classmates' mouths most of the time.

"I'm sorry, I should've been paying attention," Madeline said with a sheepish smile. "Are you okay?" Neither of them had fallen all the way to the ground or anything, but it was still - awkward, if nothing else. She really should have been paying more attention - those same true crime documentaries and podcasts warned her against headphones or daydreaming when out alone.

And her own brother, now a magical soldier in a magical battle with magical enemies and magical friends, warned her constantly against being out at night at all. However, she wasn't going to let fear govern her decisions; she could take care of herself, she argued back, just as well as Mason could, magic or no magic, and anyway, she was the older twin. She would tell him what to do, not the other way around, so there!

She would not be letting Mason know that she'd been so oblivious that she hadn't heard or seen an entire other human being rounding the corner at the same time as she was. He didn't need the ammo against her, so he didn't need to know. It wasn't like Keisha Lyons was a villain who wanted to take her - what had Mason called it? star-soul, or something. Keisha was a friend, or as close to a friend as Madeline had, aside from her brother, and that was rare enough for Madeline to appreciate a run-in (ba-dum-tiss) with the other girl.

Besides. Two young women together was much safer than one young woman alone, wasn't it? Always bring a buddy! Madeline thought to herself - and maybe Keisha would do for a buddy, since Mason was out 'patrolling', like he was some kind of magical policeman, leaving Madeline otherwise on her own.

"It's okay," Madeline said, nodding in understanding. She glanced down at the fitbit watch perched on her wrist; while she didn't really want to lose her heartrate level, but she also didn't want to be any ruder than necessary, so she was about to make some kind of polite excuse and keep on jogging when -

Madeline heard a twig snap. Her head jerked in the direction, a frown on her face as she scanned the woods. She didn't see anything - it was probably just a squirrel or maybe a deer or something, but it set her teeth on edge anyway.

"I do, yeah, so--let's finish your route together," Madeline decided, looking back at Keisha with a smile. "Better to buddy up, right?" Madeline said with a smile. As they started jogging again, Madeline glanced over at the other girl. "How have you been? You're heading into senior year, right? Have you started looking at colleges yet?"

Because that was the biggest thing on Madeline's own horizon - college. And she had no idea why that might change, or why the shadow keeping easy, slobbery pace with the pair of them, waiting for the exact perfect moment to strike, might have taken a special interest in the two girls. She had no idea that her priorities were about to get - forcibly - thrown all the way out of whack.

Madeline - froze. She had always considered herself more of a fighter than a flighter, in terms of responses to trauma, certainly more of a fighter than a fawner.

She had never, not even for one second, thought of herself as a freezer.

But freeze she did, when confronted with the eldritch horror that greeted them.

MASON--! Madeline's thought echoed through the little black earring her brother had given her, sending the thought shooting like a lightning bolt invisibly across the city.

Madeline jolted back to life when Keisha snatched at her hand, and Madeline scrambled to keep up with her, running faster than she ever had in her life. Mason had told her about these things - these monsters - but she'd sort of...

Well, it wasn't that she didn't believe him, per se. It was just that--it was a very different thing, hearing about it versus seeing it. Seeing it bearing down on her. Where should they go? Where could they go? Where would this monster not be able to find them?

"C'mon!" Madeline said, tightening her grip on Keisha's hand. She didn't even know if the thing was still behind them - they couldn't risk slowing down to look behind and check. "Gotta--get away--"



Halfway across town, Blarney, Page of Earth, was having a perfectly fine patrol - nothing exciting, which was exactly the way he liked it. After the...everything - with Sailor Tempesti's home planet, the whirligig that had shattered his face - he was more and more relieved for the quiet nights. Everyone had been right - one hundred percent correct when they'd said he was too young, too green, not powerful enough. He resented it, but they were still right: he had not been powerful enough for that fight. He'd gotten in all kinds of trouble with Mads and Halia afterwards, but still the worst-bruised part of him was his ego.

So sure, Blarney was 'on patrol', but mostly he was sulking. He was never going to be who and what he needed to be, was he? He was going to be stuck as Blarney, Page of Earth, forev--

MASON!

It startled Blarney so bad he almost fell off the roof. "Mads?" Blarney said, looking all around him as if his sister had manifested nearby specifically to yell at him and for no other reason.

Then he realized that the voice - it hadn't come from outside. It had come from inside his head. He'd activated the earring before, on Tempesti, but this was the first time she had started the--could they call it a conversation?

Mads? Mads?? Where are you?? Blarney thought back, scrambling to get his bearings. Where are you, I'm coming!

And he bolted in the direction he thought she might be in. She was sending him thoughts - half-broken, scattered and filled with abject terror. A park, a path, a--

--MONSTER MONSTER MONSTER--

Oh fishsticks. A youma. Blarney pushed himself to run even faster - he needed to get there, immediately. It could be one of the ones that just needed a good scare, or--

Blarney's stomach turned. He couldn't think of the alternative.

I'm coming, Mads. Keep running. I'll find you. I'm coming.

It was a little bit like ice skating. She and Keisha were holding hands, moving as fast as they could, so fast the world was blurring around them in a swirl of green and brown and grass and sky and fear and they were almost flying--

And then Keisha fell down.

"No! No no no no no," Madeline panted, skidding to a stop and barely managing to maintain her own balance. "No, Keesh, you have to get--you have to get...up..." Madeline trailed off, for two reasons.

The first was that Keisha seemed to no longer be...Keisha. She was--having a moment, complete with costume change, and Madeline couldn't even react to it because that thing was staring at her now, like Keisha wasn't even there.

"Oh, no," Madeline whispered, eyes going wide. "Nooo, no no no, we're not doing this. Nice, uh, doggie...fish....bat....thing..." Why had she stopped running? Why had she even slowed down for Keisha? She didn't know her that well! Plus she clearly would've been fine! Oh god oh god oh god. She was walking backwards, slowly, away from the monster, like it was a rabid dog or a bear or something - she was pretty sure that running at this point would trigger its predator instincts, and that if she tried to play dead, she would just wind up...actually dead.

That left trying to calmly leave the situation without anyone getting spooked or excited.

"Nice monster. Goooood monster. We can, uh, be...friends! You're, uh, a very cute--gah!"

Next thing Madeline knew, she was flat on her a**. She peered down instinctively, momentarily forgetting the life-threatening demon that was stalking ever closer, and saw that it wasn't a tree root, or an animal den, or even a rock that had tripped her. It was a small, wooden, Y-shaped slingshot that had caught her ankle just where the branches of the Y connected.

She didn't have time to process beyond that. There was absolutely no way she could scramble to her feet and get far enough away from this thing to have even half a chance of surviving it.

Oh god, Madeline thought, this is how I die.

The creature - leapt at her. Madeline curled up on instinct, kicking the slingshot closer to herself entirely accidentally, grabbing it as she frantically tried to cover her head and protect her vital organs. She shut her eyes, thought one final I love you so much to her brother, and - waited.

But the hit never came.

Madeline peeked one eye open, and then the other, abject acceptance and terror giving way to slow confusion. In front of both her and Keisha was - a wall. A very large, very brown wall. There was a very loud thump, followed by confused whimpering and faint scratching noises. Pathetic little flapping noises that Madeline was pretty sure came from the creature trying, very unsuccessfully, to fly over the wall.

"...What...the...heck?" Madeline said slowly, just as--another something crashed through the trees behind her.



"I love you too," Blarney panted as he crashed through the trees - far less gracefully and suavely than he had originally intended. His heart was absolutely hammering in his chest - he'd run faster, farther, and harder than he ever had in his life, pre- or post-magic awakening. He had in fact run faster than he had thought possible, even as a Page, pushing beyond what he was sure was the top end of his endurance.

Nobody got to kill his sister. Nobody and nothing got to hurt his sister. Absolutely nothing on this planet or any other was allowed to even think about hurting his sister.



"Ma--Blarney??" Madeline scrambled to her feet and ran to him, flinging herself into his arms for a big, tight hug. She was almost crying - no, she was actually, in fact, crying, bawling her eyes out. "How did you--where did you--how--" Madeline babbled, letting him put her back down. She stepped back, her relief melting into faint confusion. Fear, at least, had been forgotten - for the moment, in the wave of the many, many other emotions that were slamming into her.

"Where did you--what's with your stick? What's with your--is that a cape?"



"What?" Blarney asked, blinking in confusion. "Who has a cape? What are you--" Blarney blinked down at his stick. His stick? His stick was no longer his stick. It was...well, okay, it was still a stick, but now it was all...different? Blarney frowned. And what was this about a cape? Blarney glanced behind him, doing a full circle like a dog trying to catch his tail. He did, after another full circle, catch the bit of fabric that was now, somehow, hanging from his shoulders.

"I have a cape?" Blarney said, but it came out like a question, because he was as confused as his sister.

His sister.

As Blarney was studying his cape, his eyes re-focused behind the cape on his sister's outfit. What was she wearing?

"What are you wearing?"



"What do you mean what am I--oh. Oh," Madeline said as she looked down at her own outfit, which was - decidedly not the jogging outfit she'd left the house in. "I'm--I'm--gah!" Madeline jumped as the wall behind them disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.

"Did you do that?!" Madeline squeaked to her brother, her eyes falling back on Keisha, and whatever Keisha was wearing now--were they all falling victim to some strange and very specific sartorial-based curse? It didn't matter--Keisha was now much closer to the monster than she and Blarney were.

"Keesh! Run!" Madeline shouted, running toward her--well, they were friends now, weren't they? Once a monster tried to eat your faces, you were pretty much bonded for life. She still had the weird slingshot thing clutched in her hand and she grabbed a rock as she ran, slotting it into the sling like it was the most natural thing in the world. She took aim, pulled back, and let the rock sail.

It hit.

The monster jolted as the rock collided with his forehead. It did not disappear in a puff of smoke or do anything she thought it might do if she hit it with a rock, but--

But she had hit it with a rock. Shot from...her slingshot. Her slingshot. Why did she have a slingshot? And what was she wearing? She looked down, frowning in confusion as she took it in: a belt with bows and arrows on it. And--Madeline patted at her hair. Horns??

"DO I HAVE HORNS NOW?" Madeline wailed, not even sure to whom she was addressing her question. "Do I have freaking horns?!"



"What? No, you don't have hor--nevermind!" Blarney said, immediately refocusing on the actual problems in front of him: namely, the fact that there were, apparently, two new Pages, right in front of him, and that one was apparently his freaking sister, and the other--

Well, he didn't know her, but--judging by the outfit, she was an Earth Knight, a Page, and he, as a Squire--

...Wait, what?

He was a Squire now?

Wait. He had done that--that wall. It had kept his sister and this new Earth Page safe, at least for a few seconds. Because he was a Squire now!!!

Celebrate later, save now, Blarney shook his head at himself. Blarney reached inside and--channeled, that's what that feeling was. He channeled and pointed the stick - engravings and stone, why was there a stone - between the new Earth Page, his sister the new Cybele Page, he realized, belatedly recognizing the bow-and-arrow symbol plastered all over her; he pointed his stick there was the wall again, clambering high into the night sky like whatever the opposite of an earthquake was.

"Don't--try to fight it," Blarney said, doing his best to sound authoritative and not scared that this monster was going to eat these tiny baby Pages. "Just run, trust me. Trust me, I'll take care of it, just--just run!"

"What--no, Keisha, we should go, if Ma--Blarney, he's my brother, if he says we should run, we should definitely--" but then her eyes landed on the stones waiting in the creekbed, like they were put there just for her. Her and her slingshot.

Because she had a slingshot now. And horns. Clip-on horns, evidently, but horns nonetheless.

"Just in case," Madeline agreed breathlessly, kneeling to grab a handful of the stones. Her mind was spinning, but Keisha was right. Just in case - and really, they couldn't leave Mason alone. That monster was after them, not him.

"What--are you?" Madeline asked, gesturing to the other girl's outfit as she stood back up. "You have the same--symbol thingy as M--Blarney. That means you're Earth, right?" Mason had been drilling to memorize the symbols, which meant that - even against her will - Madeline had been memorizing them too.



Blarney's moment of feeling very cool, very protective, and very Squire-y was shortlived. The girls ran off, thankfully, and that left Blarney alone with the creature.

The creature that tired to hurt his sister.

He almost hadn't been close enough. He almost hadn't made it. That thing had almost killed his sister.

And for that, it would pay. Dearly.

"C'mere, ugly," Blarney muttered, reaching into that deep pool from whence the wall had come before. He summoned it again, pulling it up about a foot in front of the monster. Really it had more than enough room to dodge it, but it - did not.

Blarney almost felt bad for it, watching it bonk into the wall again.

Then he remembered it had tried to eat - was still trying to eat - his sister, and he didn't really feel that bad anymore.

He ran toward it, stick raised and ready to strike, letting the wall fall away as he got close enough to whack at it.

Only.

Only it suddenly wasn't there anymore.

With a plunk and a startled, underwater-sounding gurgle, the Youma was pushed out from under the strike of his new stick. Blarney just had time to turn and watch it go sailing through the air - just had time to summon another wall, just in time for it to crash into it, spine first, and this time disappear into a pile of dust.

The only thing left, resting harmlessly on top of the pile, was the stone that had interrupted the demon's movement and sent it ricocheting back into the wall Blarney had made.

Blarney knelt and picked it up, turning as he heard familiar footfall behind him. "You did it," Blarney said to his sister as she approached with the other new little baby Page Earth Knight, more than a little amazed in spite of himself. "You--both of you. Congratulations," Blarney said, his smile widening. "You both just became Pages - of Earth," he said to the other girl, "and of Cybele," he said to Madeline, giving both a huge smile, though tinged with a bit of grim, just around the edges.

"Welcome to the fold."

"You and me both," Madeline said with a breathless, half-hysterical laugh. The rock that Keisha - Green Chapel - had handed her had hit the creature, and hit it so hard that it went flying away from her brother, and into a wall that her brother could?? Manifest now?? Apparently??

"I guess we make a good team," Madeline said, looking up at her brother with a cautious smile. At Keis--Green Chapel's question, her smile faded slightly. "I--I do. I'm...Edam," she said, confused at the word even as it came out of her mouth. "What's an Edam?" Madeline looked down at her outfit, her confusion only increasing. "Why am I--what's a 'Cybele'?" Madeline asked, the word sounding only vaguely familiar from the notecard practice. "Why am I different from you guys? We're twins, that's not--that's not fair."



"It's an asteroid," Blarney said. "And if I remember right, Cybele is one of the--she's new. But she's like, around, I think? Our Princess, the Princess of Earth," he added, addressing the other girl - Green Chapel, she'd said, "hasn't been seen in, like...forever, basically. Sorry," he said with an apologetic smile. "So we're kinda on our own on that front. But! There's still Earth Knights around!" Maybe not as many as he'd like, and at least one of them was into torture, but, hey, at least they existed. "And I'd be happy to help you get on your feet and figure stuff out, if you need it. This can be all - really overwhelming. I've only been doing this for a couple months myself, but--I've learned a lot, and I'd love to pass it on, if you're interested."

Blarney caught himself, because he was in danger of rambling and being the overwhelming thing himself, and because Mads - Edam of Cybele, gosh that was going to be weird to adjust to - was giving him the danger eyes, telling him to shush up.

"We're twins now," he continued, looking back to his sister, "but we probably weren't in our past lives." Madeline pulled a huge face at this, furious at the very idea that in any lifetime they would be separated. "But! Hey! We're both magic! And we're twins now, so this is obviously the best of all possible lives." Blarney slung his arm around his sister's shoulders and kissed her temple, careful to avoid the horns that were clipped into her hair. "Nice spikes, by the way." Mads elbowed him, but he just grinned, then turned his attention back to the new baby Page of Earth.

"So, like, an important thing, though," he said, sobering up slightly, "is that obviously you already know who M--who Edam is, in civilian life. It's really, really important that you keep your identity and anyone else's a secret. There's--I don't want to freak you out, but if the wrong people find out who's who, there can be really, really awful consequences. Like, people could get memory-wiped bad. I know it sounds crazy, but--just trust me. You can't tell anyone, unless you would literally trust them with your life. And my life. And my sister's life. Does that make sense?" Blarney gave her another apologetic smile. "Again, I know this is a lot, and I'm sure you have a ton of questions, but...maybe we should walk and talk? Or you and I can power down and talk later, somewhere else? Or meet up somewhere else, if you don't want to reveal your civilian self, which is, like I said, totally fair. It's just that when there's more than one of us together like this, we tend to...attract the wrong kind of attention."

Blarney raised his eyebrows slightly, a rush of relief running through him. He might know some stuff, maybe even more than 'some' stuff, but in truth, he didn't think he was really capable of completely onboarding absolute newbies to the whole - magic thing. It was good that Green Chapel already seemed to know a little bit about this.

"That's a good idea," Blarney said, nodding as she rattled off the basic details of the actual-history of the universe, the ways that it was different from the fake-history that most people thought to be reality.

"I...do have a place," Blarney continued, though he was slightly hesitant as he spoke. He hadn't tried to take more than one person to Castle Blarney, but...he was a Squire now, wasn't he? The cape proved it. Maybe that meant he could take more than one person?

Or die trying, he thought to himself, giving the girls a broad smile to cover up his self-doubt.

"Everybody hold hands," Blarney instructed, holding out a hand to each of the girls. Madeline--Edam, man that was so weird--raised her eyebrows at him, no doubt thinking of the way he'd immediately up-chucked upon their first visit to his castle. She hadn't been back since, but he'd described to her how the castle had grown and changed since then. She had seemed - dubious, at best, which was crazy to him, because like - hello, magic was real, what was there still to doubt? Blarney had no idea, but he figured she would see for herself soon enough, assuming he could get them there safe and sound.

"I'm going to take you to...it's called a Wonder," Blarney said, to Green Chapel. "It's where we get our names from. Mine is called Blarney, so I'm Blarney. You have a Green Chapel somewhere, and you," he added, nodding to his sister, who huffed slightly, "have an Edam. To get there, you kind of close your eyes, reach out, and say a little thing, and poof, you're there. I recommend going alone the first time, 'cause bringing more than yourself is--tricky, especially at first." Blarney chuckled and refocused, waited for the girls to join hands, and then closed his eyes and reached for Blarney--