"I believe you." Answered plainly the girl in the feathered mask.

"You do?" Evelyn asked incredulously. "That was easier than I expected."

"Which is why I'm gonna need you to stop talking." She continued, carefully choosing her words.

"Wait, you mean she really comes from the future? How is that even possible?" Asked the man in the ivory mask before addressing Evelyn directly. "How long into the future do you come from?"

"Not entirely sure, but for what I was told and some deduction on my part, I'd say about a thousand years? If I'm at the time I was supposed to be, that is."

Both of them got shocked by that information, and although their faces were covered and she couldn't read their expressions, their body language, even with the long tunics, told Evelyn plenty. The man was confused at first, but then went full into pure excitement. The girl was not amused, to say the least.

"That means we do it! We stop the cycle! The world will be saved!" He celebrated, raising his arms in joy. As his long sleeves slid off, she saw that he was wearing leather gloves and an additional layer of clothing underneath the tunic that covered every inch of his skin. Given their similar outfits, she imagined it would be the same for the girl druid, Sister Cloud.

"She also just said that this word is gonna end." The girl cut him with a sharp retort. "Which doesn't exactly sound like humanity succeeded in finding the Hunted Goddess to me."

The man turned to look at his fellow druid, then back at Evelyn expectantly. She took it as a chance to keep explaining herself.

"Things were good for a long time, but there was a disaster when I was a kid. Then everything started to crumble, and now the world only has about half a year or so, apparently. I'm not too keen on the details about that, to be honest, but it's why I was sent here. To find a way to avoid that and maybe change some other things in the meantime. And for that, I need to find someone who may be here. She is the only clue I have."

"Please, stop talking..." The girl started saying again, but Marrow interrupted her.

"Who are you looking for? I'll assist you in any way I can. It doesn't matter if it's the distant future; it's still the world in our care!"

Evelyn smiled, seeing the man's earnest sincerity exude from every word and gesture of his body. Finding herself in a strange land, a time far away from anything she had ever known in this world, it was profoundly reassuring to know that the first person she had met was willing to help her.

"The person I'm looking for is the same one who sent me here. Do you know by chance a Jaqueline Dupont?"

"Stop talking!" Screamed the masked girl, trying to interrupt Evelyn, but it came out too late. "Rot me..." She groaned under her mask.

The man got very quiet for a moment. Evelyn noticed a sudden change in the atmosphere of the conversation. The girl had quietly positioned herself behind him, a faint but growing aura of mana around her as she started to concentrate power for some reason. Evelyn's Awareness didn't register her as a threat, so she got confused and caught off guard when the shorter man took Evelyn by the shoulders and squeezed them hard.

"How do you know that name?" He asked with a trembling voice. There was no aggression, just raw emotion. "Does that mean... she lives all that time? What happens to her that you need to find her? What about...?"

A translucent, misty fist pierced his head from behind, going through him like a ghost. Evelyn escaped his grapple swiftly just before that fist pierced her, too.

The woman in the bird mask had taken her arm out of the tunic, completely transformed into a ghostly limb of moving vapor. Brother Marrow stood there, frozen in place in the same posture he had moments before.

"I warned you to stop talking. Now look what you made me do." Sister Cloud complained, groaning in effort.

Her hand went back into his skull, but she didn't pull out the arm entirely. Evelyn's Awareness allowed her to see that she was doing something to him, as a piece of her aura separated from her and went into his head through her arm.

"What are you doing to him?" Evelyn asked, metalwood staff at the ready with the cable vines she had just made, aimed at the druid in the lavender tunic.

A deep, tired groan later, Sister Cloud finally took her arm out of Marrow's head, but the piece of her aura she got into it stayed behind. Evelyn focused her Awareness to see what she had done. Her mana mixed with his, blurring his aura for a moment before it turned back to normal. At least, on the surface. Whatever she had done, hr Awareness wasn't at the level to see anything different.

Marrow shook his head, reeling under his mask like he was about to puke. Cloud took a step back and waited for him to recover before speaking.

"My apologies, I had to obfuscate your recent memories with my mind fog technique. Just a minute, so you should feel fine if you give it a few moments. You can blame her if you want." She said, pointing at Evelyn with the feathered beak of her bird mask.

"What is going on here?" Evelyn demanded to know, but Marrow raised a gloved hand from under his beige tunic.

"It's fine. If Sister Cloud felt the necessity to mind fog me, then it must have been for a good reason, I hope."

"Miss Blacklight told you dangerous information that you shouldn't know. It should be taken care of now."

"Yeah, I can't remember it clearly at all. Last thing I recall was her saying something about where she comes from?" He said, slurring his words a little.

Evelyn took a step back, immediately suspicious of Sister Cloud. Her mind had been played with enough already; she would not let her anywhere near her head if she could help it.

"Oh, relax. There's no point in me doing it to you, Blacklight." She gave Marrow a few pats on his back in apology as he was still dazed from the experience. "Brother, I'm going to need some privacy to talk with my Returned here. Can you spare us a few minutes alone?"

Brother Marrow agreed with a grunt as he left the house, still staggering and dizzy. Before leaving through the moss-covered doorway, he stopped.

"Don't take too long. I have to go rescue my partner. I would appreciate your help, but I will go alone if I have to."

"You are still my friend, Marrow. Even if you killed me. Abandoning you now would be the peak of folly, especially when they targeted you mainly because of your closeness to me. This is my mess, and I'm going to take care of it."

He nodded and left in silence. Whatever he may be feeling at the moment, Evelyn wasn't sure, but he at least seemed glad to have the promise of support on his rescue mission.

Once she was sure that Marrow was out of range, Sister Cloud turned to Evelyn, her arms crossed. Just as she had suspected, she was also wearing gloves and clothes that covered her arms. The time traveller wondered about the reason for them doing that, but her thoughts were interrupted by the druid.

"I'm gonna need you to listen to me very carefully. You are not to speak to anyone besides me about the future. If the subject of your point of origin comes up, you will say that you come from Earth's future, not from this world. Do you understand?"

Evelyn paid attention to what she wasn't saying in her demand.

"What did you do to Brother Marrow? Why is it okay for you but not for him?" Asked Evelyn, maintaining her distance from Cloud. She wasn't about to get her brain scrambled by anyone.

"You revealed to him information about the future. Playing with fate is dangerous and should not be done by amateurs without proper training." She put her gloved hand in her chest as she raised it in pride. "I am a seer. Among druids, that refers to those of us who can peer into the veil of fate to discern possible futures and act on them. It's a rare ability that very few can pursue, as it requires a very particular kind of talent. One that I possess but Brother Marrow doesn't."

So she is the prideful type. Very high opinion of herself, I see. That's useful to know.

"Very well, Miss Seer. Are you gonna try that mist fist thing on me, too? I assure you that's not gonna end as you think." Threatened Evelyn, still distrustful of the druid's intention.

Sister Cloud sighed, a hand going to her mask as she looked up in frustration.

"No, I'm not going to use it on you. You already come from the future. I can't just use mind fog in all your memories, I'm not that powerful."

"So what now? Am I a threat to fate and it's your sacred duty to eliminate me or something?" She asked, poking a little more into her pride to get answers.

"I said that I believe you are from the future because I saw the future you come from. There was a city of metal, extending over the horizon in all directions. I didn't particularly like it. Not a lot of nature in that vision."

"I know. My mother, she... tried to change it. She failed." Talking about Mama Anima brought up many complicated feelings she didn't want to think about, so she pushed everything about her away and deep down into the vault of her mind. "That future is in danger, but it can be saved if I find a woman named Jaqueline Dupont. I think. By Marrow's reaction, he knows her personally."

"He does. But I have to ask you first: what are your intentions with this woman? Are you here to help her or do you mean her harm?" Cloud asked, a dangerous edge in her voice. This was a girl very capable of cold-blooded murder, as Evelyn had just witnessed.

Druids were quite different from the stories her mother had told her, if this was normal for them. She had been told that they were guardians of nature, the stewards of the world, and champions of life. Evelyn glanced at the corpse of the green tunic druid, headless and with a big hole in its stomach. The emerald moss was already engulfing it, voracious and swift. She shuddered to think what could have happened if she had been sleeping for a little longer in that moss-covered bed.

Evelyn pondered the question, unsure herself about what she really wanted to do. She had no other clue but Jaqueline's involvement in whatever happened in this era. If she was really going to become one of the Returned Four, then she had to be very powerful. She would go on a journey across the world and defeat the Wraith King, bringing peace to all lands, allowing for the expansion of humanity and technological progress.

This was at least the version of the myth that she knew of, the one the Tetracrown so fervently indoctrinated into the populace of all the Districts. All those temple museums to the figures of heroes, all the festivities, the plays, the movies... All of Neo Vorath's culture was based on the adoration of their cult of personality around the Returned Four and their exploits. Evelyn had them all memorized, much to her disgust with her younger self.

Was all of that a lie? If she decided to believe Jaqueline's words, even after she so shamelessly admitted to ruining her life with Mama Anima and experimenting on her as a child, then she had to take her words seriously. Why else would she have sent her to the past then? What was the point of all those lives destroyed, all that pain and destruction? She had called Evelyn her masterpiece, that she had been created for this sole purpose.

If all of that were true, then Evelyn had to believe that the incoming destruction of the world was also true. And that the Returned Four weren't the demigod tyrants that gave the Tetracrown their free rein to do whatever they wanted, but actually slaves of the great noble houses, as Jaqueline had revealed. Weapons at their service to maintain their power structure and status quo.

But there was also the most personal connection.

Alice.

Was she really originally part of Jaqueline Dupont, one of the Returned Four? All her humanity and goodness were made into a separate soul to grow as her own person, just to be an unknowing pawn in an evil conspiracy. But why? There were too many holes in her explanation. Evelyn needed more information; she couldn't just take everything she had been told at face value, but it was all she had for now.

And if Alice was originally what was good in Jaqueline before she literally tore her own soul apart in despair and madness, then whatever fate awaited Jaqueline Dupont in this past, she didn't deserve. She wasn't the psychotic monster that had turned people into living puppets or destroyed Overbloom's dreams from the inside. She was the woman that Alice had come from. Her original whole self.

Evelyn didn't know many things for certain, but she would never doubt Alice's heart. If it was Jaqueline's before she decided to get rid of it to make Alice, then she would meet the Jaqueline that once was and make sure nothing bad happened to her.

That way, if she was never pushed into tearing her Core into two, then there would be no evil version of Alice.

I can't keep referring to that psycho as Jaqueline or evil Alice. If Alice was all the good in Jaqueline, and the other was all the evil... Then there's only one name to give her.

From now on, Evelyn would refer to that one with the title she deserved.

Malice.

To avoid the birth of Malice, Evelyn would save Jaqueline Dupont and the other members of the Returned Four from becoming slaves. Whether what she knew of their legend was true or not, she would use every bit of information she had to help them in their journey to defeat the Wraith King.

The world would be saved, and the future would change.

"Well?" Asked Sister Cloud, expecting her answer.

"I want to help Jaqueline Dupont. The future is doomed if she loses."

To this, the druid reacted as if she had just punched her in the gut.

"What... what did you just say?" She asked timidly, almost pleading with Evelyn to correct herself.

"That's what I was told: she lost, and the world will be destroyed because of it."

"What were the exact words. Repeat them to me. Now."

Evelyn tried to recall them with as much precision as she could.

"This world is not as it is because we won. It's as it is because we lost" Repeated Evelyn, as faithfully as she remembered them. She decided to keep the part about getting turned into slaves to herself for now. It was enough sharing of information on her part.

There was a pregnant pause as Sister Cloud processed those words. Then she stepped forward to Evelyn.

Evelyn got into a fighting stance with her staff, unsure if she was about to get into a fight or not. The druid stopped in her tracks, noticing Evelyn's tension and readiness to defend herself.

"You seem very used to fighting for your life. There are no openings in that stance, and your eyes tell me you are more than ready to kill me if you need to. You would try, at least." She boasted playfully, trying and failing to reduce the tension. "I had hoped that a future after my era would be a peaceful one. Where children could grow without fear of monsters or disasters. One in which humanity could thrive, and civilization bloom once more as the old stories before the Cycles tell. Seeing a daughter of the future with so much violence inside... it makes me profoundly sad."

"It's a bad time for many. You will forgive my distrust of someone who can mess with my head if I say or hear something she doesn't like."

Sister Cloud sighed and took a step back. She put a hand on her chest and raised the other in an open palm.

"I solemnly swear on my Core this binding oath: I will never use my mind fog technique on Blacklight."

Sister Cloud's aura shimmered and trembled as golden chains of mana light appeared and pierced her chest before disappearing. She had just made a Core oath, a magical promise that would destroy her Core and her soul with it if she broke it.

Evelyn's posture relaxed immediately. She wasn't paranoid or foolish enough to doubt the value of what Sister Cloud had just done to gain her trust. A Core oath was no laughing matter. It was dangerous magic, the type that anyone with a Core could invoke to uphold contracts and promises of great importance, but it was also how the noble houses bound others into their service in the future.

"That should take care of your doubts on that matter. Now, I believe I can help you, but only if you make a Core oath of your own. I want you to promise that you will only speak of what you know of the future with me and me alone. Or if the need truly comes, with another seer. You must reveal to no one else in this era that you come from the future of this world, or give them information about events yet to come, without my direct approval or that of another seer. If you don't agree to this..." Cloud put her gloved hands forward, closed them into fists, and got into a fighting stance of her own, "... I will have to fulfill my duty as a druid seer to safeguard the currents of fate. Even if it means I won't get a Returned of my own."

The time traveller smirked in amusement. She could work with someone whose pride was backed up by resolve and integrity. Evelyn had a soft spot for those kinds of people; they reminded her of her mom. At least the version of her that she had believed to be true, not the kind that would willingly work with someone like Malice and let innocent children be experimented on.

Evelyn shook her head and sighed. She needed friends if she was to get anywhere. A druid who could blow up people's heads with a touch or make them forget things sounded like a pretty good ally to have.

"I solemnly swear on my Core this binding oath: I won't willingly reveal I'm from the future of this world or tell anyone about said future except Sister Cloud or another seer." Similar golden chains of mana light manifested and pierced into Evelyn's chest. She felt a heavy constraint around her Core as the chains of golden light coiled around it, taking her breath away. It was like having someone take hold of your soul in their hands and squeeze it hard between their fingers. A reminder that she was now responsible for upholding her own words.

"Now tell me. What do you know of Jaqueline Dupont? Where is she?" Asked Evelyn, ready to start her quest.

Sister Cloud looked at her for a moment before making a decision of her own.

"She has been kidnapped by a radical faction in the Hunter's Circle, the order of druids tasked with the care of this land."

"I was afraid that's where things were going..." Evelyn groaned in dismay.

"Jaqueline Dupont is Brother Marrow's summoned Returned..." Sister Cloud continued.

Just as I imagined, he knows her personally. Explains his reaction to her name.

"... and also his wife." Cloud finished, somewhat bashfully.

Oh. Oh no. He had said he needed to go rescue his beloved, hadn't he?

"Where is Brother Marrow?" Asked Evelyn, suddenly realizing Sister Cloud's mistake.

"He's waiting outside. Why?"

"No. No, he's not. I can bet you anything that he has run off to rescue his wife from the clutches of the zealots who just forced him to kill a friend of his. And if we don't hurry to go help him, he's gonna die."

And if her husband dies to save her from the druids, that could explain the secret that Mama Anima had told her when she finished her stories about the era where they had taken care of the world.

That the Returned Four, to ensure the Tetracrown had no other great power to defy their control, had killed them all.