Page 26 of Langiappe & Lost Legends

I lunged forward. My fingers brushed the crystal just as Phi's power flickered. Reality snapped back like a rubber band and sent me sprawling. "Stand down, you stubborn genius!" I yelled and watched in horror as more blood streamed from her nose, her ears, everywhere. "They're not worth your life!"

Around us, my sisters were falling apart - literally. Dani existed in four places at once. Lia's charm bracelet was having an existential crisis. Dea looked one temporal shift away from complete collapse. My healing powers were about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

"The spirits..." Dea whispered, swaying like a drunk at dawn. Her words echoed from multiple moments as reality fractured around her. "They're trying to warn..."

Kota caught her before she could faceplant, then nearly dropped her as they both briefly existed at different times. "If they keep this up—" Her voice came from three different moments at once.

"Our powers are—aren't—are—" Dani's warning scattered across timelines like confetti.

"Phi, I swear to all that's holy," I growled as she tried to activate her powers again, "if you don't stop trying to freeze time, I will knock you out myself. We need another way."

She stopped, and the hum built up until it felt like my skull was hosting a heavy metal concert. My healing abilities were screaming, trying to mend tears in reality itself. Yeah, that was going about as well as you'd expect. We needed help. Before my sisters disappeared into the quantum soup. Before Phi burned herself out trying to catch fragments of time in her bare hands.

"Welcome to your worst nightmare," said a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere. It belonged to a woman who flickered between young, old, and holy-shit-what-is-that witheach word. Lost Legends emerged from shadows that shouldn't exist, their bodies blurred and split like bad special effects. They were all women and radiated evil. My magic acted on its own and a spell left my hand before I knew what was happening. Kota partially shifted into her dragon form and the rest cast spells of some kind.

"You're breaking everything," Dani managed as she threw a magical bomb that made a shelving unit explode.

"Everything was already broken," the woman replied. Her laugh echoed all around us. "We're just... redistributing the pieces."

Through what I could still see of the windows, the Mississippi River was continuing its existential crisis. It flowed in six different directions, including up and sideways. Reality was stretching thinner than my last excuse for missing family dinner. I tried to grab the artifact when it solidified, but my hand passed through empty air as it vanished again. The Larmes du Bayou did the same temporal dance until I wanted to puke from the visual whiplash.

"Stop!" I shouted. My voice bounced between moments like a deranged pinball.

"We can't grab them," I said, fighting the urge to hurl as another temporal wave hit us. "The artifacts are too unstable. They're not even fully in this timeline anymore."

Phi tried to argue, but her words came out in three different moments at once. Blood dripped upward from her nose. It was defying gravity just like the river outside. "Listen to me," I managed while trying not to figure out which day I existed in from one moment to the next. "We need to get back to the plantation. Right now. Before—" Reality twisted again, and I saw three different versions of our hidden room being ransacked by Lost Legends. Past, present, future? Who the fuck knewanymore. "They're going to hit our house next. The room isn't warded against temporal fuckery yet."

"But the artifacts—" Kota started.

"Will have to wait until we figure out how to exist in one moment at a time," I cut her off. I grabbed her arm - or tried to since she briefly existed three feet to the left.

"Home," Dani agreed as she snatched Dea and Lia’s hands. "We ward the room. Protect what we still have."

"And then?" Lia asked as her lucky charm bracelet spun.

"Then we figure out how to fight a bunch of time-bending assholes without losing our minds," I said as we moved toward the exit. "Right after I throw up everything I've eaten since kindergarten."

We stumbled out of that temporal nightmare like drunks leaving a physics-defying bar. The river was still having its existential crisis, but at least we were all existing in mostly the same moment again. Behind us, the warehouse pulsed with sickly green light. We couldn’t worry about that right now. Our home needed protection.

"Next time," I muttered as we piled into the SUV, "we're sending them a strongly worded letter instead of walking into their time-blender." No one laughed. Probably because the joke reached their ears five minutes after I said it.

CHAPTER 10

DAHLIA

Iwas seriously rethinking my life choices while staring at our magical mystery room that had decided to manifest like the world's most extra walk-in closet. My arms felt like overcooked noodles from drawing sigils. Worse was how my emergency Monster supply was crying Uncle.

“If you smudge that ward one more time because you're shaking from caffeine overdose, I will personally claw your favorite shoes,”Adele projected into our minds. Our feline familiar sat on a shelf like the queen she thought she was, her tail twitching as she supervised our work.

"Love you too, furball," I muttered but steadied my hand. My charm bracelet spun lazily. It finally settled into a normal rhythm instead of trying to exist in six dimensions at once.

“Channel that Smith stubbornness into the base layer,”Adele instructed, her mental voice dripped with that special brand of cat condescension. “And for the love of catnip, stop trying to calculate probability streams while you're anchoring temporal wards, Phi. I'm not explaining to Dre why your brain leaked out your ears.”Phi glared at her but followed directions. The room - still so new to us it practically had that fresh magic smell - hummed in response.

“Now,”Adele continued, stretching lazily before padding over to inspect our work, “layer these temporal anchors like you're building a fortress. Think of them as magical tent stakes holding down reality.”She batted at a symbol that apparently offended her delicate sensibilities. “And fix that one. It's crooked.”

"You mean like what they did at the warehouse?" I asked, trying not to think about how that particular clusterfuck had felt like being drunk in a quantum physics experiment.

“Exactly.”Adele's mental voice turned sharp as her claws. “Those idiots are treating time like a ball of yarn. These wards will make sure our newly manifested room of mysteries stays firmly in the present moment.”She paused, then added, “Well, mostly. There might be some slight temporal bleeding during a full moon, but you're going to stop them before the next one.”

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