Suddenly, the book feels… heavier in my hands. I stare blankly at it as Pearl trails off. How… how old is this thing? It has to be the anomaly. It just… there’s no other option. I shakily pull out my Class Card, ignoring all the responses Jumble is still getting from the construct, and type out a simple question.

  ‘Is your volume one-thirty-three correct?’

  A bolt of magic carries my question with it. My throat thickens in the short moments where nothing happens. That’s perfect. The construct is just going to glitch out again, and we’ll have another question that gets us closer to the answer. Yeah. That’s it.

  Ping.

  Cold and sharp shivers lance down my spine. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to convince myself that it’s just an answer to one of Jumble’s questions. It can’t be anything else, after all; this book is an anomaly. Yeah. It has to be. I force a weak smile onto my lips, completely void of confidence, and slowly crack my eyes open.

  (Question Recognized.)

  That book? I salvaged it from the library; it was missing a cover, and my copy of one-thirty-three’s pages were mostly too water damaged to salvage. All of them except the table of contents and everything before it.

  No. Just… no. I hover my fingers above the text box, reluctance stilling my hand. Even though I have to, I really don’t want to type what comes next. The wording the book used… the fact that it referenced humans… that makes it sound recently published. If it isn’t an anomaly, then what kind of timeline-crushing bullshit am I staring down at?

  Hurried footsteps rush into the room. Jumble huffs like she’d just run a marathon, a frantic glint in her eyes locked straight on the book in my hands. I idly look down at it as confusion seeps into my bones, but… oh. No. God, no. I snap the book shut, take a half-step back, and summon some coins into my knuckles.

  Jumble thrusts a hand in my direction. “Give me the book.”

  I set my jaw and shake my head. “Tell me why you want it first.”

  “You don’t want to know.” She says seriously, but pulls out her Class Card with her other hand. “It’s bigger than you, me, or anyone else.”

  Euro looks between the two of us with genuine concern and confusion. “Jumble?! What’s going on? Why’re you angry at Shelby?”

  Real pain flashes over Jumble’s face. “Euro… please. Just… keep searching the room. I’ll sort all this out.”

  My Class Card chimes. I glance down, and… there’s a message on it. From Jumble. Who I didn’t give my contact info to. It reads: ‘Please, don’t do this in front of Euro. I’m the only one you have to be angry with; they’re innocent. All of them. All of my PARTY.’.

  Even though I’d sort of started to suspect something, Jumble’s words crack me over the head with awareness I wasn’t ready to hear. All the connections fall into place with violent ease. The reason Clutter knows so much about them. Why only one of them has power, and why that source is a book. Euro. Dani. Rina. Ward. Rogue. Paladin. Barbarian. Wizard. Which leaves only that one name Pearl read to me.

  Darb.

  Bard.

  All four letter Jumbles of the words they come from. Except, right in front of me, the bard has a different name. The only one that doesn’t match up. The only one I’ve seen pull out their Class Card. The only one that’s used magic in any skillful way.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  Euro’s face screws together in confusion. “Jumble? What’s she talking about?”

  “Go. Please.” Jumble begs Euro without turning to face them. “This is between me and Shelby. You aren’t a part of it.”

  “Shelby. Scan through the other book.” Pearl whispers, as if Jumble can hear her. “I really need to confirm something.”

  I slowly set down the book and pick up the last volume I haven’t flipped through. Without breaking eye contact with Jumble I flip through the pages, Pearl stiffening with each and every one.

  “A lone bard named Darb finds a magic book. She sets out to right the wrongs of her people and record the real truth of the world. It’s a direct continuation to the other story.” Pearl swallows hard, gripping her ‘dress’ with enough force to make it bubble up through clenched fingers. “In this book, she meets her first friend who shares the same goal. An eccentric paindne wizard named Ward. And this change of heart… came from Darb working with humans.”

  I raise the book as I search for my words. “How long ago was this written?”

  It isn’t aimed at anyone in particular. Part of me expects the construct to chime in without the need for my Class Card, or for Pearl to find some specifics that could link it to an exact time between when Gil and the other first-generation world hopping humans disappeared from Earth and now.

  Jumble clenches her teeth. “Thirteen years ago. Please, Euro, just… just go. I don’t want you to hear this. You can’t hear this.”

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Euro takes a half step back. “J-jumble? What’re you–”

  “Please.” Jumble reiterates without raising her voice. “Help us get out of here. I promise I won’t hurt Shelby, and she won’t hurt me. Don’t worry; I’ll be back in… ten minutes at most.”

  “But that’s not what I’m worried about!” Euro grabs Jumble’s arm and stares into her eyes. “You’re acting really strange! Beyond strange! Just tell me what’s going on!”

  Jumble returns Euro’s gaze. “You won’t go.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Then… I can’t say anything.” Jumble sighs in defeat as her entire body violently relaxes. “I’m sorry, Shelby. For everything you’re about to find out soon enough.”

  She turns away, but as she starts to walk back to the room, she taps her Class Card against her leg. I return the motion almost reflexively. Then… she just leaves. Euro looks between her and me multiple times before eventually deciding that they want to follow Jumble after all.

  “Wait for me! Jumble! Come on, talk to me!” They call after their friend. “What was all of that? Is Shelby going to hurt us?!”

  Euro’s words trail off as they both retreat back to the bedroom. I scratch my neck hard enough to leave long irritated itchy scrapes on my skin, uncertainty and an insanely strong dissociative pressure crushing down on me from all directions. For reasons that I have… real trouble coming to a single consensus for.

  Either the party, save for Jumble, aren’t real people–or they’re all real, and Jumble inserted herself into the group after… dealing with Darb. I’m not sure which option is more terrifying, especially because that book is apparently meant to be here. Somewhere that supposedly hasn’t existed for a long, long time and only opened up again for this quest in particular. Unless the quest put it here specifically to mess with us, which Jumble’s reaction seems to go directly against, that book was here before we were.

  Meaning there was another way to get in–and out–of here before the quest started. My brain’s not working fast enough to understand the repercussions of this fact, but they have to be huge. I’d assumed that just the plastic got out. The option that other things could’ve come and gone the same way is terrifying.

  “Shelby, what should we do?” Pearl whispers. “They’re all impostors. All of them. Clutter… oh, no, Clutter could be in serious danger!”

  Slowly, I shake my head. “He isn’t in any danger until Jumble gets out of here. And… she… didn’t confirm any of our suspicions. There’s still a chance we’re jumping to conclusions, and… and…”

  Pearl stands suddenly, knocking something in the darkness of her shell to the ground. She paces vigorously back and forth, a thought obviously bothering her by the scowl on her face. Mid-stride she freezes, then looks away into the darkness.

  “Why are they lying to us?”

  I don’t have an answer for her. All I can think is that they’re trying to hide the fact that they’re… what? Fictional characters? Which’d actually explain why they’re doing the celebrity censorship; Clutter would’ve obviously recognized them if he… read the book. Shit, he read the book. Meaning the thing is sold outside of this place and common enough that it found its way into Clutter’s hands. Why the hell would anyone cosplay a bunch of people like that if they weren’t specifically looking to be recognized?

  “There’s no good reason.” I mutter with mounting confusion. “Shit, does that just mean they’re all crazy?”

  “It’s… a real possibility.” Pearl reluctantly admits. “Nobody would risk all this without getting some kind of thrill out of the deception. So what was Jumble going to tell us–um, you–that she couldn’t say in front of Euro?”

  ‘Tweedle-ee!’

  My Class Card emits a sound I’ve never heard before. I raise it up and swipe over to my messages, where a short new one from Jumble sits under the other one she sent.

  ‘Please don’t tell them anything. They’re my only friends. I’ll do anything you want.’

  …Shit, that doesn’t sound like the beginning of someone with a complicated master plan. Hell, it almost makes me feel like the bad guy for accidentally uncovering Jumble’s secret. How much of what they said was a lie? Did they actually find Dani’s book? Have they been traveling together for a while, or did Jumble put those memories in their heads?

  I steel my resolve and channel it into a message. ‘How many of you are real?’

  Moments pass. The construct creaks near the door, its presence almost completely forgotten with the revelation of Jumble. I absentmindedly flip through the books once more, my mind racing and numbing at the same time. They… still don’t feel like my enemies. Even if Dani is a dick, and Jumble can’t keep her hands to herself, they don’t feel like a stonestep solutions or a preservation.

  Tweedle–ee. ‘...I… only me. And even that’s… debatable. I’m… I’m… I don’t even know what I technically am. I look like a paindne–I look like me–and I have all my memories, but I shouldn’t be here.’

  Pearl and I share a look. The message is… more than a little ominous, that’s for sure, and it feels like there’s a lot of undertone that Jumble is going out of her way not to say. Normally I wouldn’t pry at someone’s secrets, but this is too damn important to just let be.

  ‘Are you a psychic?’

  I lower my Class Card, but it chimes before it leaves my line of sight.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then are you actually a bard?’

  Tweedle–ee. ‘...Also no.’

  I sigh in exasperation. ‘Then what the hell are you?’

  Tweedle–ee. ‘Promise you won’t… hate me? Not like the system does?’

  As if all my blood was drained and replaced with ice water, everything goes cold. My thumbs tremble above Jumble’s response, and as if controlled by puppet strings, I fumble through writing a single word.

  ‘Promise.’

  Tweedle–ee. ‘...Okay. I trust you.’

  Tweedle–ee. ‘I’m a… Storyteller.’

  Tweedle–ee. ‘You probably haven’t ever heard of it before, and that’s because I’m the only person who has it’.

  Blood rushes through my ears, screaming the world into a blur of white noise. My vision shrinks down to pinpricks as one more message slides onto my messenger like a flashbang with the pin pulled.

  ‘It’s a Worth Class.’