Love Potion

Liss flapped faer wings once, just to stir up some cooling wind. Just to feel them. Wings! Faer own translucent wings! The culmination of a lifelong quest! The fulfillment of a grand ambition! The product of a six month wait for an appointment with the nearest sage skillful enough to pull it off. Fae’d even moved to Starlight for this. But even though fae couldn’t really fly, and fae didn’t really have any particular magic, fae was just overjoyed to be a fairy at last. Or a close enough approximation, at least. Even a few weeks later, the high hadn’t worn off. There was still that new-body smell.

Of course, this was Starlight. A thin, waifish, androgynous creature didn’t really stand out much here. Almost everyone you met on the street was sporting some obvious adjustment of the soul; bearing their true selves to the world. Most of the rest were doing it, only less obvious. Fae loved them all, but it was the city itself that fae had become infatuated with. When fae’d first moved in, just the day after fae’d really unpacked, the city had second-guessed itself on the placement of the new apartments. Fae’d woken up on the curb, in faer bed, with all faer things laid neatly beside as if to say ‘go bring all of this to another spot!’ It hadn’t been too bad, seeing as how faer neighbours were in the same boat. They’d all helped each other out, getting everything into a new set just down and across the street. Plus, the rent was nonexistent. Couldn’t complain about that. In the longer term, it had given faer a project: to figure out the city’s mind. To understand the internal logic.

Everyone told faer this was normal. Fae’d give up on it in a month. Probably! But it would be a fun month.

Every morning, there was a bulletin fae could get on faer phone about what had changed. Anyone could send in a report if they noticed a new street, or a missing building, or a sign being a different colour, or whatever else the city might have messed with. Fae’d not yet had the opportunity to make faer own report, but fae always kept an eye out— to be the first to report would be like viewing a master artist’s latest painting before the galleries.

Today was the first time two things had happened at once: firstly, there was a change near enough for faer to go look right away. Secondly, fae had the day off from the flower shop where fae worked. The change was small— just an alley that cut a slightly faster path between two roads— but the report was made by someone who hadn’t actually traveled through it. That meant Liss could be the first. That was enough of an excuse for an adventure. A fairy should definitely get to know all the secret dark corners of faer home, after all. Fae even had a nice new bag for holding any treasure fae found, even if it was unlikely. It always helps to be prepared and all.

The alley had appeared exactly as detailed in the report, between a bar and a clothing store. The gap was just long enough to walk through with faer arms outstretched, but it twisted sideways a little ways down, meaning that it was impossible to see clear to the other side. Testing faer own observation, Liss strode down the path with both hands out, fingers lightly touching the bricks. Maybe the first person to ever touch them. At the very least, it was decently likely that fae was the first fairy to touch them.

It turned out that the alley turned back to being perpendicular to the road after only a couple meters, but it also became much narrower. Instead of reaching faer hands out, Liss had to fold faer wings back to avoid having them scraping painfully against the sides. It was darker, too. Probably supernatural, fae guessed. That would have been worrying in a normal city, but Starlight never hurt people and there hadn’t even been enough time for any muggers or any similar ne’er-do-well to situate themselves in here. Fae pressed on without hesitation, only looking up to confirm that the sky was still a slightly-cloudy blue.

And then, all at once, the path was no longer so narrow. While distracted, fae’d passed into an open space, big enough to move around comfortably and lit by a pair of electric lights on opposite sides. Underneath the one on the right, a lone man was reclining on a folding chair next to a wooden table. His skin looked hard and shiny, and big pincers stuck out of his head, aligned just over his eyes. What was that, a stag beetle? It was quite a body if he had a real exoskeleton. If he hadn’t been wearing a big overcoat— totally inappropriate for the summer— then it would be possible to tell if he had wings. His face retained a mostly-human quality, and he used it to make a very admiring expression at the dozens of glass bottles filled with a dubious dark-green liquid displayed on the table.

The table, Liss reasoned, must have come with the alley. It wasn’t a folding model— more of a kitchen table, and there was no way to get something that broad through the gap. Fae stood there, just looking at him, for a few seconds before he noticed her.

“Well!” said the beetle, “Looks like I have my first customer.” He seemed genuinely excited.

“Maybe! I hope you’re not doing anything weird back here.” Not to say that she was lying, but he was hiding out in a hidden magical alcove with unlabeled bottles of smoking liquid: this wasn’t going to be anything normal. Probably just some really wild and specific drugs, though. Liss had never tried magic drugs.

“Just giving out some ordinary magic. Nothing weird about that in a city like this, is there?”

That was a really super suspicious thing to say. This adventure had gotten a touch shadier than fae’d expected, which was a little annoying. This was a day-off adventure; intended for relaxing rather than character building. The only thing was, fae was curious. What kinds of illicit magic could he be selling? It would be a total waste of an adventure if fae backed out without discovering the answer, no matter how gory the details. If this guy was dangerous, then playing along with him was the best thing to do anyhow.

"Well, I’ll definitely hear you out. What’s the harm, right? Try anything once, and all.”

The beetle laughed in a very nails-on-a-chalkboard, guy-selling-you-contraband-in-a-backalley way. “One bottle of this stuff is all you need. See these? These are real, genuine, actual love potions.”

“Huh,” Liss said involuntarily. “Like, for real?”

“I don’t think I stuttered.”

“So they make someone fall in love with you?”

“If you drink it, you’ll fall in love.”

Creepy! Downright scary! Something like this really did belong in a secret nook after all.

“Did you brew them yourself?”

“Nope. But like I said, I only needed one. The rest, I’m giving away.”

“Giving!?”

“Well, this city can be pretty weird, even about bartering, right?”

“Sure, but you called me a customer.”

“Figure of speech.”

“And even though you say you only need one, you could definitely use more than one if you were the right kind of pervert.” Fae was pretty bad at just going along with this guy, fae was realizing. Asking questions was just too much fun.

The beetle bristled, his pincers clacking indignantly. “Well, I only need to love one person.”

“Hold on, you used it on yourself?”

“…Sure.” His voice hitched and it was as if he was trying to hide something. Probably he really had dosed some unsuspecting victim and was just saying he used it on himself to deflect.

Except that didn’t make any sense, he would have just lied without hesitation if that was the case.

“Alright, one more question: why are you back here? Are these… illegal or something? Do we even have potion laws?” There were plenty of laws about enchanting and sagery that were applied broadly by their governing bodies, but Starlight didn’t have a government or police force per se. There wasn’t anyone who could actually enforce something like a municipal law.

The beetle ground his pincers together hard enough that fae worried it would cause real damage. “Look, they don’t work if the subject knows it’s coming. It has to be a secret, right? So I can’t just bring them out in the open.”

“To give away.”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. I’ll take one.” Fae scooped up one of the bottles and slipped it into faer bag, having absolutely no intention of drinking it or inducing anyone else to do so. At the very least, disposing of it meant one less troublemaking potion in circulation. Assuming, of course, that it was genuine. It was probably a fake. Some food coloring in carbonated water. Yeah, it was more likely to be a prank that the beetle was playing on everyone. Imagine someone coming back the next day after trying to seduce some love they were pining for, yelling themselves hoarse. The beetle would laugh and laugh about it.

He gave only a cursory wave as fae continued on in the direction fae’d originally been heading, squeezing down the narrow passage on the far side of the room, or alcove, or whatever it made sense to call it. The path out was a perfect mirror of the path fae’d taken getting in, and it widened gradually until fae was out in the light of late morning once again.

Well, that part of the adventure was over, but did fae want to extend it? If that beetle was giving people a genuinely dangerous item, it was probably responsible to look into it, right? Maybe find someone who could put a stop to him? It really wasn’t very fairylike at all to snitch, though…

A trick! Fae could pull a little prank on him to teach him a lesson. That was fairylike. First, fae had to learn about the potion itself, and since looking it up with her phone was too easy to be an adventure, it was time for faer to get a library card.

Starlight was an easy place to walk around in, and Liss blended into the diffuse crowd of residents fairly easily. Still, fae pretended like fae was invisible sometimes: a true master trickster fairy. Fae never hurt anyone, of course, but it was no harm at all to imagine how surprised someone would be if they suddenly got splashed by a puddle, or heard a mysterious voice on the wind calling out their name. Fae amused faerself with such thoughts while heading in the direction of the library, but it was important to keep an eye on the shops, too. There were plenty of magically-oriented shops in this district, and some of them might sell potions. All good adventures involved surprises, and it would be evemn more satisfying to get an answer from a mysterious magician than a dusty old book. Maybe one in a dark room, filled with the scent of incense. Yes, that was definitely the kind of person who could help.

The shops on this side of the road were no help, though. In the windows fae noted enchanted objects, alchemical formulas, and a few miracle cured: not completely different from what she wanted, but much too scientific. Love potions were real magic, the kind that couldn’t be reasoned out. Liss kept one hand in faer bag the whole time, worried about the bottle fae’d stashed away. It was now clear that the liquid radiated a small amount of heat into the bottle itself, a pretty sure sign that it was genuinely magical. That didn’t prove it was a love potion, though— It could be anything. That was what fae needed: a way to confirm the effects of the spell.

With all this daydreaming and planning and looking out, Liss was simply distracted enough to bump shoulders with another person going the opposite way. Since fae was still holding the bottle, faer hand was jerked violently enough to drop it onto the concrete, where it rolled in little close circles the way only a bottom-heavy vessel could. No damage, and the stopper remained secure— possible, but a little anticlimactic.

The other party in the collision had not dropped anything, but they laid a big cloth shopping bag gently on the pavement, freeing up one soft and fluffy hand to grab the fallen bottle. In their other hand they held an anachronistic straw-bristle broomstick.

“This,” they remarked. “Is one potent potion! Is there some other witch living around here that I don’t know about?”

Liss could guess immediately who they were, even without that clue. Based on their classic pointy hat and charming domestic cat body, there was only one soul in all of Starlight who they could be.

“Hey, you’re the mountain witch, right?” This was perfect! A witch was exactly the kind of fellow weirdo fae needed, and they were giving the impression that they knew exactly what the potion was, just from a glance.

“That must be me,” they remained stooped but waved, as if they were royalty on parade. “But I’m worried. I shouldn’t give you my name, should I? It’s dangerous to give the fae folk your name.”

Just hearing that gave Liss a jolt of adrenalin. “It’s too late for that! You already posted it up around town.”

“So I did. I supposed as long as it’s not my True Name. Pewter Undermoon, Cosmic Witch For Hire,” they tipped their hat with the big pink bow on it. They didn’t really need to introduce themselves, of course, but they seemed to enjoy it.

“I’m Liss! Just Liss. You know, when your house appeared on the mountain someone reported it to the thing where you track all the changes in town. But then people complained because it’s not actually in town, so they took it off. But then people complained about that.”

“Is that so?” The witch was not paying attention. Actually, they hadn’t even stood up yet, and they showed no signs of handing the potion back.

"Can you tell what that potion does?” Fae decided to just ask.

“All I know is that this is a ritual of significant power and malevolence, and that none of these stores are going to be able to identify it for you. I doubt it’s in any book, either. Only someone ‘in the know’ could ‘know’ what’s ‘in’ this thing… you understand?”

Fae nodded.

Finally, they rose up and handed the bottle to faer. “Where did you get this?”

Thinking about it now, the story was going to sound a little odd. “There was a guy in the new alley. He was giving them away.”

“Mhm. So he brewed them?”

“Well, I dunno. He said he wasn’t the one who made them, but he was really shady, you know?”

The cat absent-mindedly tugged at their whiskers. “Didn’t he tell you what kind of potion it is? I’m sure you didn’t take a potion without asking what it did.”

“He said it was a love potion.”

Pewter’s tail puffed up. “Troubling! I don’t recommend making use of it.”

“I’ve got no use for love, myself. I just wanted to know if that’s what it really was.” Liss slipped the bottle back into faer bag.

“That would make you a customer of mine.” They straightened their hat, as if it made them seem more official. “I’ve never done consulting work before.”

Well, this adventure was really heating up! Fae’d never dreamed there would be a real party of adventurers involved. Unfortunately, it wasn’t entirely clear who the leader was, yet. A fairy getting the main character role was pretty rare, but witches were usually supporting cast, too. If fae wanted to be leader, then it was important to get out in front of things and make decisions.

“Alright!” Liss said, “We gotta stop that guy from giving out evil potions before he hurts somebody. …Right?”

“He’s much more likely to hurt himself than someone else.” The witch had held their broom up in the air and let go, leaving it floating there, bobbing lightly in midair. Given that it was an old-timey broom owned by a witch, it wasn’t unexpected enough to be truly impressive. They draped their bag over the middleish of the broom, keeping it relatively balanced, and then gave the bristles a tap. The broom rose up on its own until it cleared the buildings, and then started moving towards the mountain, accelerating very gradually to avoid spilling anything from its load. It had vanished over the nearest building within a minute.

“What was in there? Witch stuff?”

“Sugar and flour and eggs and such. Now I’m free to investigate this potion business. It’s our duty to the city! Plus, I want to know if there’s some other witch operating in these parts.”

They set off, Liss leading the way back to the alley, since only fae knew the way. The two made an odd pair, but only in that each of them was individually rather odd. Actually, they paired very well with each other, apart from the more relatively normal people of the city. There were a good few dragons in town, for example, which Liss had decided were more normal than fae by default.

“So,” Liss tried to get faer mind back on track by asking questions. “You said that the potions were dangerous for the guy giving them out?”

“They’re dangerous for each and every person involved. Have you ever heard of a story with a love potion that ended well?”

“No. They’re usually for villains. Or maybe a flawed hero type, you know. All those stories are fictional, though: not a real adventure like we’re having right now.”

The cat shook their head. “Rituals are just stories themselves. They work because we know they work, and selfish magic is associated with bad outcomes. Even an experienced witch would have difficulty counteracting that.”

“Are you saying that they only work because we believe in them? That’s kinda fairylike.” Liss hadn’t thought that much about witches before, but this all seemed very fun.

“It isn’t not fairylike. That’s just what rituals are, though. Any ritual. You’ve heard of the placebo affect, I hope?”

It was lucky that the street didn’t need to be crossed for this trip. There were very few cars in Starlight, but the bikes were out in force at this point in the day. “You can get better by taking fake medicine, right?”

“Exactly. Taking medicine is a very strong ritual, and that’s only using the latent magic of everyday life. This potion of yours is a witch’s brew, so it’s even more powerful. Those stories might be fictional, but that doesn’t make them any less real.” A very deep, concerned mewl escaped their throat.

“They don’t all end badly, though,” fae mused, “It depends on if we’re in a romance or a tragedy.”

“That’s exactly right! You have a good instinct for this, my fairy friend.”

Fae beamed at the praise, though fae didn’t quite understand it. “Well, I’m a Midsummer Night’s Dream and you’re a Macbeth, that’s all.

“Yes. Ah, I wish Shakespeare hadn’t invented so much witchery. It’s not his fault, but… I could have done without the eye of newt. You know?”

Fae didn’t. Not really. It seemed like the effect of a witch’s potion was not quite so clearcut as the tonics and tinctures in the ordinary magic shops, though, and that was exactly what fae wanted. If you could understand magic, then it ceased to be magic. Even faer own body was testament to that: fae was a fairy because fae knew fae was a fairy. The incredible rightness that fae felt was proof. And yet, fae wouldn’t have known what a fairy even was without the stories. The old folktales from the old world. Fae’d added only a few of faer own original ideas into the mix to keep it interesting. Cats were easier to see for one’s self, but it must be the same for the witch: a self born from the mind’s eye. They were so fluffy that fae kind of wanted to pet them, but held off to be polite.

“This one,” fae said. Fae’d almost miss the alley, as absorbed as fae was. Before, fae hadn’t even remembered to check which buildings were on either side, but now there was time to see that the alley was sandwiched, so to speak, between the burger plce and the gym. Thinking of a greasy meal and a strenuous workout at the same time was not at all appealing.

“This is it,” the cat said as they stared down the dark abyss of the passage. It didn’t sound like a question or implicit request for a confirmation. It was more resigned than that. They must feel the bad vibes radiating out from the center.

“He was just standing all creepy in the middle of this alley. You’ll know him because he’s a beetle.”

“Was there anyone else?”

Fae shrugged. “Not when I was here.”

The witch plunged in without another word, which seemed to Liss like a gambit to take the leader spot from faer while fae was distracted. By the time fae pulled it together and followed, Pewter was already in the narrow part of the alley, and Liss was forced to be the follower. This was made even more frustrating by the fact that this cat was bigger than faer, and moved more slowly once the path narrowed. Fae grumbled, but pressed on, watching Pewter’s tail dip back and forth in front of faer face.

When Pewter reached the open area where the beetle was, they stopped so suddenly that there was almost another collision between Liss and themself. They stopped far too early, and the fairy was left on the outside of the area.

“You must be the one I heard about,” said the witch, “You have potions?”

A response. It was inaudible for Liss, despite faer straining to listen. Fae was only going to get one side of this conversation as things were.

“Hey, can you scoot over?” But Pewter either didn’t hear, or chose not to react.

“I was wondering if those might be… I only dabble, myself. I can tell there’s… Okay, I wanted to ask what kind they are… Is that so?”

Liss tugged the cat’s rail roughly, evoking a yelp and a little leap forward. Fae used that opportunity to slip into the space lit by the two lamps. Underneath the one on the right, a lone man was reclining on a folding chair next to a wooden table.

Fae stopped. Fae thought hard. Wasn’t he on the other side before? For that matter, the chair looked different. It was a bit older. More scuffed up. The potion bottles didn’t look any different, and the table seemed to be the same one. Maybe there were two chairs back here and fae hadn’t noticed.

Hold on. This wasn’t even the same man. He was a beetle, sure, but not the same kind.

“This is a different guy,” fae said.

“What?” Both the cat and the beetle asked simultaneously.

“When I was here before, there was a beetle with like, the two pinchers. A stag beetle. This one’s more like a rhinoceros beetle.

“I’ve never been a stag,” said the beetle, “And I remember you from earlier.” It was the same voice, at least.

“No way! I might not remember the colour of your socks, or something small like that, but I’d never mix up a stag beetle and a rhinoceros beetle!”

“Could just be a little advanced shapeshifting,” Pewter offered. They demonstrated by wiping away most of their feline features, leaving a chubby and delicate catboy with messy, fur-colored hair. Cute, Liss thought to faerself, but it wasn’t a good time to get distracted.

“I’m not one of those,” the beetle bristled. “I told you, I’ve always looked like this. I haven’t gone human in years, and I’ve never been a stag beetle. You just didn’t pay attention.”

In the face of this detailed rejection, Liss had only one retort. “You’re lying, then!”

It was the witch who raised up a hand to silence them both. “I think that there’s something a little bit amiss. Mix licks— I mean, um, Mx. Liss, said that you were giving away love potions back here.”

“I’m not! I never said anything like that! I don’t know why, but this one’s making things up about me.” The man was fuming, and he had no right to it. He was the liar. If fae’d had any good fairy magic, fae’d have pranked him good. Since fae didn’t, fae instead resolved to go hit him in the face.

“Hang on!” The witch was trying to hold faer back, though their grip mostly only slowed faer down a bit. “There’s something else going on!”

Out of respect for the witch, and only for that reason, fae stopped faer advance. “Like what?”

Pulling their hat back into place, Pewter continued. “That’s what I’m going to determine. So, um, Mr. Beetle.”

“Carb.”

“Mr. Carb.”

“Well, that’s my first name.”

“Regardless! What was it that you said the potion does?”

“Forgetting. It can make you forget someone.”

The witch threw a hand over Liss’ mouth just as fae was about to get some good complaints in. “And have you ever tried it? Say, on yourself?”

“I…” he stopped, confused. “I have, I think. I drank a potion at some point, but I can’t remember why.” He straighted up and adopted a salesman voice again. “And that just proves that this is a genuine product.”

“Do you know why you’d have tested a potion like that on yourself?”

Carb didn’t miss a beat. “To test it.”

“And you remember this?”

“Not at all. That’s how you know it worked.”

“I have another explanation,” Pewter said. “If one wanted to erase a memory with a potion, you would often have to trick the recipient into drinking it. Do we all agree on that much?”

“Probably,” Liss said. “But what if you had some tragic event in your past and you wanted to forget?”

“And I wouldn’t remember that I’d drank a forgetting potion if I’d been tricked,” Carb added. “Can’t remember what you don’t know happened.”

Pewter frowned, ears flicking. “I suppose I didn’t think through my explanation. Just stay with me, here: if you did want to trick someone into drinking a potion, how would you go about doing it?”

That seemed obvious enough. Time-tested, even. “Slip it into their food.”

“Sensible. Any other ideas?”

Carb was thinking a little harder for a time, but now his facial features softened, an unpleasant thing to see on a beetle. He had figured something out. “Are you suggesting that it was a lie? That someone told me I was drinking a different kind of potion?”

“That’s the one!” The cat looked very pleased for the beetle, but Liss thought that really he was just giving a more specific version of faer idea. It wasn’t that impressive, really.

“Where are you going with this?” Fae asked in a huff.

“I’m going all the way to an important lesson: that strategy would always work if you were trying to administer a poison or a medicine, but a witch’s potion is different. One has to consider the whole ritual, which can include the expectations of the subject.”

The beetle shook his head, contorting his thick neck. “You lost me.”

“I think I get it,” Liss said, eager to show faer mastery of the material. “It’s like that placebo affect we were talking about before: the potion might not work if you don’t believe in it.”

“Exactly!” The witch gave faer the sort of look a teacher might when praising a young student. “Though, in some cases it may be the other way around. Maybe the love potion doesn’t work if its target knows about it, but maybe the forgetting potion only operates on a willing subject. I don’t know that those are true; I’m only giving a hypothetical.”

“Shouldn’t you know if it’s true? You’re a witch, right?” Carb, that small-minded man, couldn’t even follow something this elegant.

“I am, but I didn’t brew these potions. My rituals are entirely different, even if I was trying to achieve the very same ends.”

“Alright. So, what’s the point of this conversation, then? Why are you here?”

“The question is: why are you here?”

“To give away these potions.”

Liss didn’t entirely see where things were going, but fae was able to see the path immediately in front of them. Fae decided to cut in before Pewter to steal back a little of the fun. “Why do you want to give them away?”

“Because I don’t want them to go to waste!”

“Why not?”

Pewter put a hand over faer mouth again. “The more important question is: why did you come to this specific place?”

Carb was looking about ready to launch into an annoyed tirade, but he stopped. He closed his open mouth and frowned. It was clear: he didn’t actually know the answer to the question.

The witch seemed very sure, now. “This is what I think happened: you drank a potion with the capacity to be two different rituals. Someone had the idea that it should be one kind of potion, and they told you it was another. You unknowingly made both happen at once, and now reality is trying to figure out what to do about it. Love, or oblivion?”

Carb sighed heavily and sunk in his stupid folding chair. “What does that even mean,” he whined in a drawn-out way.

“It means you happen to be occupying two possible timelines at once.. What you remember and what Mx. Liss remember both occurred. The problem is that neither of you can access the other timeline to remember.”

Carb tipped his chair carefully back, looking up at the blue sky above. “Whatever you’re saying, it’s so much more likely that someone’s lying, and I know it’s not me.”

“I think it makes a lot of sense,” Liss said. “There was never any good reason to start lying about it after being totally straightforward an hour ago. Plus, you don’t know how you got here, right? This explains it! Right?” Fae assumed that it did, but didn’t really understand how, yet. It was the witch’s job to enlighten them.

Luckily, Pewter did so. “The city probably had to intervene and put you in here, like a blister. To keep your timelines from spreading uncontrollably.”

“Uh huh. So why are you two here now, then? And for that matter, why am I able to this this?” He stood up from his chair and marched, head held high, to the exit opposite where Liss and Pewter had entered. As he approached, the bricks stretched and squirmed impossibly to close themselves like a coin purse.

Carb stood there for a few seconds, staring at the wall. Then he turned around and jogged back towards the other exit, nearer to them. It closed itself off even as the other side relaxed and re-opened. When he turned to face them again, his face was looking a little pale.

“How do we fix it? What if I starve in here?”

“Well, that would take care of the problem, I imagine. The city could just absorb your body and the timelines would unify.”

Liss tugged their ear. “I’m just thinking out loud,” they mewled. “Examining the possibility space!”

Funny. Fae would have delighted in teasing Carb just a moment ago, but now fae felt bad for him. Fairies were like that, though. Capricious.

“Hey, don’t worry. There’s gotta be a way, right? And we can go get you food!”

“Thanks,” he muttered. “But if you leave and come back, will you even remember? Which version comes back?”

“That’s a good question, actually,” the witch remarked. “How is the city deciding which of us to keep? Clearly, we have the ability to access both timelines. Was there anything you noticed that was different from your first visit, Mx. Liss?”

“Different?” Xe thought about it a moment. “Not really. Once you get inside you can’t even tell which entrance you used.”

“So you entered from the other side last time?”

"Yeah… wait, did I pass into like, an alternate dimension? A parallel universe?”

“No. I think it’s likely that the city lets you keep the memory of the love potion side if you enter from the other end, and the forgetting potion side if you enter the way we did just now.”

Liss was a little disappointed.

“I think I need a drink of water or something,” Carb said. “This is too much.”

“How about our charming fairy stays with you, while I leave and head back in from the other side of the alley with some lunch for the three of us? I’d like to get the other timeline’s story, and all three-slash-four of us can put our heads together to find a solution.”

Liss had no reason to refuse this plan, which meant fae had to accept fae’d lost the contest to be leader. As unfortunate as that was, it didn’t consume many of faer thoughts now that the adventure had reached this stage. There was a goal to accomplish and a good deed to do, and that was more than enough to occupy faer. It was decided that lunch would come from the burger place just outside, and orders were hashed out efficiently between everyone, with Liss emphasizing faer stricly vegetarian diet three or four times. Cats were obligate carnivores, after all— it was important to make sure they understood. Pewter left by the south, ‘forgetting side’ exit, and Liss was left alone with Carb.

Fae stretched mightily and then sat cross-legged on the concrete floor. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable or scenic place for a picnic, but there was something compelling about this spot. Other than the city itself, only these three metahumans knew about it and its secret, which made it like a secret clubhouse for them. It just needed a little sprucing up. Maybe some beanbag chairs or something like that.

“One thing is bothering me,” Carb said, pulling his chair nearer to Liss and settling in. “If there are two of me, then which one wins? Is one of us going to die?”

Liss thought about it. “Well, maybe not. Maybe you can keep all the memories of both versions.”

“That’s kind of like both of them dying though.”

“I guess.” It seemed prudent to change the subject, since fae couldn’t offer any soothing words on this one. “So, uh… where did you live before… y’know, this little alley?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, but I can’t remember. It must have been somewhere in town, though.”

“Oh. Well, hopefully you’ll remember everything once we get you out.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I did drink a forgetting potion, after all.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I figure that you must have believed you were drinking the forgetting potion.”

“Based on what?”

“Because I can think of why you’d want to drink a forgetting potion, but not why you’d want to drink a love potion. There’s no way for one of those to be good.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. What if… I was in a failing marriage, and I wanted to bring the love back into it?” His gaze wandered again, no doubt pulled by all these possibilities he could imagine but not confirm. It was entirely possible that he never would.

“Spose so. I never really cared for love, myself.”

“Never been with anyone?”

“I love my friends and my family and my home and stuff, but I gave up a lot of things to be here. Everything before Starlight is like a dream, you know? The idea of something forcing me to feel things is just gross to me.”

Carb made a noncommittal sound of understanding. Long seconds dragged by in silence. Fae’d poured out just a little too much of faer heart, overflowing the cup and spilling some feelings on the ground.

“You’re Liss, right?”

“Hm?”

“You never introduced yourself, and neither did the cat, but they said you were called Liss.”

“Oh. Yeah. No last names. I’m just me.”

“That’s an impressive look you’ve got.”

“Thanks. Uh, I like your horns, too. Both kinds.”

They were fine, fae was just being polite, but Carb seemed pleased by the compliment. He probably needed a distraction from the existential dread he’d been thrust into. Fae kept going, talking about the weather and the city and things that weren’t directly related to the current predicament. It was only for five minutes or so, still not long enough to make a comment about how long the lineup at the burger place must have been for Pewter to be taking so long, but it felt a lot longer. Despite having a reasonably rare kind of body, Carb was just an ordinary person, and Liss had never been able to relate to ordinary people.

At that point, Carb’s face suddenly fell. It was one of those things where at first, fae wondered if fae’d said something weird accidentally. Fae did that sometimes. Then fae noticed that fae couldn’t see the exit beyond Carb’s head. It had been closed off like before, but Carb was nowhere near it. Actually, it was worse than before: there was no seam. No sign that a passage had ever existed in the first place. Fae turned to look at the other one, which was directly in Carb’s line of sight. Nothing. It was gone, too.

“Uh oh,” fae said— not the coolest or most fairylike thing fae could have done. It was important not to panic here. “It’s fine. Pewter— the witch— they know we’re here, and they even have a flying broomstick. We just need to sit tight and help will be on the way. And it might even open on its own in a moment, right?” If fae was a sidekick, then being rescued from danger was really one of faer duties.

"I hope they weren’t squished on the way out.”

“No. The city never hurts anyone… directly. Right?”

He shrugged. “This seems like a special case.”

The guy really wasn’t helping anything. “Okay, look: if it wasn’t possible to get out of here peacefully, then it would have gotten rid of you already, don’t you think?”

The beetle nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. At least I think you’re right.”

“So we just need to come up with the answer. That will get us out no matter what. Pewter said that witch magic is all about beliefs and expectations and everything, right? So, like, how does this kind of story end? Definitely not with a pair of skeletons stuck between buildings.”

“You don’t think that’s taking it a little far? I mean, a cute ending is nice and all, but the city doesn’t really need to care if one or two people die.”

“I’m taking it exactly as far as I need to. Somewhere in here, between the two of us, there’s an answer. That’s the only way a real magic spell could possibly work.” When in doubt, be stubborn. It had gotten faer this far in life.

That gave him at least a little motivation. He started pacing around the space, occasionally stopping to tap at one of the walls as if there was a secret passage. Liss stood still and gave all the energy to faer brain, instead.

This was a story, sure. An adventure. But it was also a matter of cause and effect. The universe didn’t know what to do with itself. So, how could that be fixed? Was there a way to construct a set of circumstances that eliminated one timeline altogether, maybe by making one of them impossible?

Carb was right, though: that was a lot like killing one of them. Not just him, either— as long as fae was inside the alley, there were two of faer as well. Fae’d already killed one by leaving the first time, as had the witch. The other Liss might have realized that already. Fae might be in the middle of a battle with faerself to see who would make it out alive. That was kind of scary, but also pretty cool, and fae resolved not to have any hard feelings with faerself, whoever won.

Of course, fae had to come up with a method, first, and Pewter wasn’t there to help with their knowledge of witchy magics. The only tools available were a bunch of forgetting-slash-love potions and… oh! Faer phone!

No signal or connection of any sort. That made sense. It did kind of wreck all the drama of an adventure anyhow.

“I think I got it,” Carb declared from over by the wall. “I figured out the story.”

Honestly, fae didn’t expect that he’d be able to figure it out before faer. Couldn’t hurt to listen, though. “Hit me.”

“We have two competing outcomes, right? Forgetting and falling in love.”

“Yeah.”

“But if they both happened at once, then it’s fine! It can just be ambiguous while keeping a single timeline.”

That was pretty clever actually. Fae hadn’t thought of it that way. “Right!”

“Then all I need to do is fall in love.”

“Uh.”

“Think about it: two people, isolated together in a dangerous situation, developing feelings for each other. That’s classic, right?”

Liss stared at him, trying to figure out a way to set faer face. What feelings fae should convey. Opening up to Carb, even just a little bit, even accidentally, had been a really bad idea. He couldn’t even really be blamed for going a little erratic given the circumstances and the isolation and all that. His idea was good, even! It just needed a little… refining.

“Look, I don’t really… do that kind of thing. Love. Romance. Not for me.”

“Well, that shouldn’t matter anyway! I’m the only one who needs to fall in love to get out of here. After that, we’ll figure out the rest.” He started heading for the potions, and Liss realized why. A chill flowed through faer from wings to faer ears.

Fae jogged over and placed faerself gently between him and the table, hoping to soothe feelings and resolve this without any major conflicts. “Listen. Mr. Carb. Carb. You seem nice enough, and I’ve been happy to get to know you,” this was becoming a lie again, but that was fine, “I just need to talk this over a bit first. There are some pretty serious side-effects to this plan, right? I’m not saying it’s a bad plan, I’d just like for us to just… go over it calmly.” Fae placed one lithe hand on his shoulder, which was maybe pushing things just a bit too far.

Carb blinked once, and then again. Nodded. Seemed to be calming down a little. “You have a point,” he said. “It probably makes more sense for it to happen naturally.”

That wasn’t quite what fae’d been trying to get across, but it was encouraging. “Right!”

“You’re very pretty, though. It’s not that I don’t think you’d be worth falling in love with.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I, uh, didn’t think you did.”

“But at the same time, it’s supposed to be magical love, right? So maybe if I take a look at one of them—“

“Wait!”

Carb started reaching, Liss panicked and started moving to intercept, and tripped over the beetle’s feet, causing both of them to fall onto the table. Everything was a visual and audio blur, motion and glass breaking and faerself falling over and hitting the pavement, but not too hard. Xe was lying at the bottom of a rising plume of dark purple smoke that smelled wonderful. Jasmin, for the love. Rosemary, for the remembrance.

Remembrance?

A very, very loud grinding noise was ringing in faer ears. Not a hallucination. This must be real. Stone rolling over stone. Why would there be a noise like that in this place?

“Shit! Shit! Why did you go and do that!?” Carb’s had no difficulty making himself heard over the cacophony. Liss had to sit up and see for faerself. Luckily the smoke was already lifting, and it was very easy to see what had changed: the walls were closing in. In fact, if fae’d stayed down, then one of them would have been pushing on faer head in no time. It was the walls with the lights, the ones which hadn’t originally been interrupted by exits, that were moving. Quickly, but not super quickly. Fae would have been very afraid if they were any faster, or if fae hadn’t just figured everything out.

“The potion has a third ritual,” fae said. “Maybe more, but that’s not important right now.”

Carb slid down on his knees in front of faer, full of wild fury. “There aren’t any potions! You broke every single one of them!”

Wrong of him to blame her alone, but whatever. Fae reached into faer pocket and felt it: The bottle, still slightly warm. Fae’d dropped it earlier, too, and it hadn’t broken. Funny, how the same kind of object could either break under the slightest duress, or endure almost anything. It wasn’t because this bottle was special, or because of any precautions fae’d taken. It was just luck, plain and simple. Fae held it out to him.

“This is a memory potion,” fae said. “It will undo the forgetting.”

“What?”

“The opposite of a forgetting potion. It’s that, too, if you believe. And I know I believe.”

“Based on what?”

“The smell of it.”

He let out a most exasperated noise. “That won’t resolve anything, anyway. It doesn’t matter if I undo the problem after the fact.”

“It will. Everything will work, and you won’t be mind controlled or anything. If you really don’t believe me, then go with your original plan. Believe it’s a love potion instead.”

“You can’t know this will work.”

“I’m a fairy. I know magic.”

It was the perfect argument— one which used no logic at all. Carb took the potion from faer hand. “I can’t. I have to go along with you, or else we just make another weird split timeline thing, right?”

“Yeah, probably. But if you trust me, then who knows? Maybe we’re compatible after all.”

Lies. All these lies. Liss was such a fairy right now. It seemed so obvious at this point that all potions were their own antidotes. Their own antonyms. Love and unlove, forgetting and remembering, and whatever else. Fae would believe in the potion that made love fade, and Carb would believe in remembering, and everything would resolve itself. The important thing was just that he never be quite smart enough to think it through. People expect stories involving love potions to end in tragedy. They expect forgetting to be sad, and they expect remembering to be painful. But that was the one route that led them out of this alley.

The walls were closing in. The two were almost forced to duck under the table as Carb tipped the bottle to his lips and drank the entire concoction in one brave gulp. Fae had to give him credit for this much: the stuff must have tasted awful.

The walls stopped moving. Silence reigned again. Faer solution had been correct, of course. Not that fae ever doubted it for a moment. Even though there was no way out yet, they both breathed a sigh of relief.

“You know,” Carb said, “That was amazing thinking under pressure. Do you think—“

Everything went dark. Liss felt faerself being pulled around by something and nothing. It felt just like when fae’d been thrown out of faer apartment the other day. Faer wings hurt, pressed as closely to faer body as they were, and there was an acceleration being applied to faer body that felt much too great, like it was going to spit faer out and fling faer into the street where one of the city’s rare cars would just happen to be passing at that moment.

But that didn’t happen. Liss landed on faer feet, none the worse for wear on the sidewalk right outside, next to the burger restaurant. Fae stretched faer wings and faer fingers, making sure everything was still there, and fae noticed the cat, Pewter, holding their broom and looking a little taken aback, standing right by the wall.

About a second later, Carb fell out of the wall too, and it sealed itself tight behind him, the buildings fitting snugly back together. The city wasn’t quite so gentle with the beetle, and he slipped onto the pavement, his horns banging against it with a rather distressing level of force.

Stag beetle horns.

Carb was spitting and cursing and rubbing his head, his head that was once again shaped as it had been the first time Liss saw him. Fae looked to the witch for guidance, but they had none. How could they, when they’d missed the show?

“I see you made it on your own, then,” they said. “I went back home to get my broom, and I was about to try flying in from the top.”

Home. The mountain? To get there should have taken an hour at least. Probably more. “How long were we in there?”

“Not very long. I didn’t walk back home, mind you. I have other means.”

“Right. Witch stuff.”

“Uh, hello there,” Carb was still rubbing his pincers tenderly, but he finally walked up and spoke to them, “This might sound weird, but do either of you know me? I feel like I’ve forgotten a few things.”

“You did,” Pewter said. “There was a potion of forgetting involved.

Carb nodded. “Right, I remember drinking a potion. Somebody told me it would help with… something. Guess I can’t remember anymore. Doesn’t explain why I fell on the ground, though.”

“You tripped,” offered Pewter.

“Makes sense. Well, thanks for your time!”

Liss watched wordlessly as he walked out of faer life. Pewter gave a cutesy little wave to his back.

Fairy and witch conducted themselves to the burger restaurant, where the witch got themself a big strawberry sundae and Liss ordered faer veggie burger and some bad tea. The two needed to debrief each other before either could make sense of things.

“It isn’t true, by the way,” Pewter said while wiping milk from their whiskers (they had returned to cat form on the way).

“What isn’t?”

“Potions definitely aren’t always their own antidote. In this case that it was true, but that’s just coincidence.”

“Oh.” Fae sipped the tea forlornly. At home, Liss used loose leaves and was generally something of a tea snob. It felt right to drink plant-based stuff. This stuff was bagged and also terrible. “Well, that’s disappointing. Do you think that’s why… it was the other version that got out?”

There was the distinct sound of a spoon hitting glass. “Do you feel guilty? About the other version?”

“I guess so.”

“No need! You saved him. The other timeline was simpler, so the city kept it. I’m sure you figured it out in the other timeline too and told him to drink another potion. He fell in love with whoever it was that gave him the first potion and also forgot them at the same time, or close enough to it. Enough to patch reality back together.”

Listening to all of this, Liss came to a resolution that was abrupt, but felt more right than just about anything fae’d ever considered before. “I’m going to stop thinking about this.”

“A grand idea.”

“It wasn’t very fairylike anyway, reversing the potions. Making people forget things and fall in love with things are very fairylike magic spells.”

“Well, I’m no authority, but if fairies are stewards of the natural world, then anything should be fine. Love and remembering and forgetting are all natural processes.” The witch tipped their dish back in a greedy show of getting out the last morsels of melted ice cream. They actually were rather fairylike themselves, Liss decided.

“Did you ever get any idea who brewed the potions?”

“None. If it was a witch I knew, then I’d have been able to tell by the unique signature of their magic. If I meet them in the future I’ll recognize it. As things stand, it’s a mystery.”

“A mystery, huh?” Liss pushed faer chair back and stood tall. The day was still pretty young, and there was no reason fae couldn’t visit the library. Fae would just have to think of something else to look up when fae got there. “Count me out. I have work tomorrow, so my adventures need to be confined to one day.”

“That’s fine. Did you at least learn something? This was a consulting job, you know.”

“Oh yeah, I learned never to mess with potions.”

“A good lesson! Cookies are a much better use of the kitchen, if you ask me.”

Liss left them and went back out into the sun.