Chapter 81

1:25 AM September 15th 2026

Museum of Unnatural Science and History Employee Housing

“Hey there, Snow Cone.” Kyle felt like now was a good time to interrupt and grill his sister on her activities in the most casually big-brother way possible. You know, while she was distracted with her new abundance of pets. He felt an eyebrow twitch and wasn’t sure whether he was upset or concerned. “What are you up to?”

“Oohh.” Though she seemed unconcerned, was that syllable just a little longer than it should be? “Hi, big brother.” Anna smiled brightly and pushed some of her long loose white locks over one deeply tanned shoulder. The prisms who she had deprived of that sweet tasty ice elemental magic meeped and chimed piteously until her fingers returned down to them again and cooed encouragement at them. “Who’s my good little helpers. Yes, you are. You were such helpful little prisms. Yes. You were. Are you all feeling better now? Yeah.”

I see. Oh, yes. Kyle did see. It was out with the cool big brother and all about the adorable little prisms now. When he got his sister the best present ever – regardless of how spur of the moment or coincidental it was – he did not anticipate being entirely supplanted in her affections by the little things. Of course, it was supposed to be only ONE little thing.

“Your eyebrow’s doing that thing it does when you’re irritated.” Anna interrupted her cooing at her new minions long enough to tell him before she cut them off from the magic they were leaching off of her to crawl back up to the couch. “Okay guys, that’s enough. Now you’re just being gluttons.” The herd had followed Anna in a way that was a little more than low-key concerning Kyle. But then one of them trotted out in front and cut the others off. It tinkled importantly and then gestured with one of its crystalline appendages for the others to back off.

“Well, at least that one’s not so bad,” he managed a dry comment as he laughed at the sight of his sister surrounded by magical animals as if she were some kind of princess from a storybook.

“That’s the one you brought me. He’s a sweetheart.” From her place on the couch, his sister was stretching out her shoulders. “All right, everyone. Our attempt failed. It’s way past the little one’s bedtime so you need to find someplace to hunker down for the night.” She was yawning her words from between fingers covering her open mouth, clearly tired herself. Her entire strain of comments opened so many questions for Kyle. Deep burning questions like; what was the baby prisms’ normal bedtime and how did Anna know what it was? But he decided to leave it for now and instead go back to his first question for his sister.

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“Uh. So, what were you doing?” All this time, Kyle had been standing by the door he’d just entered and realized that he wanted to come in and sit down after a fairly long day. His mage's robes, codex holster, bag, and wand never made it to their proper storage places and instead ended up off the end of the couch where he sat over from Anna. He found himself yawning having caught them from his sister as yawned her response.

“I promised to record ‘Professor What’ for Sam. It’s the season premier tonight.” Kyle’s eyes popped open when his sister mentioned the popular fiction television series about a time traveling married chronomancer couple.

“Oh, shit. I totally forgot that we were finally getting new episodes.” He looked over to the bookshelf and almost got up in excitement before remembering that the whole point of the conversation was that they two, he and Anna, would not get to watch the show tonight. “Almost got up for my timeline journal.” He chuckled dejectedly. “Silly me.”

“At least you have yours.” His sister groused and crossed her arms petulantly over her chest. “Mine is at home which I haven’t been for the last two days.” She sighed, only half theatrically and half wistfully for the comforts of her own room things. “I was really looking forward to seeing if Professor What was going to successfully resync his timeline with Dr. When and that T.A. Where.”

Kyle was silent for a moment as he watched his sister. He knew more about the story and as he had many times before he decided to make an offer.

“You can can borrow my books any – ” Before he could get the words out of his mouth Anna cut him off.

“Don’t you dare tempt me into reading the books before the TV series ends,” she scolded him with mock furry. “You know that the books are always better, and I want to enjoy this show as much as possible.” She pretend-frowned at her big brother with a wrinkled nose and her hands on her hips until another yawn broke her concentration as he laughed at Anna’s antics.

“How were you planning on recording the show anyways?” The warlock was looking at the tangle of cords and converters which were attached to his spare laptop which had apparently been charged enough for Anna to make the attempt. “The powers out and there’s no internet.”

“Oh, I pulled an analog to digital cable TV converter out of your storage closet for the antennae and then used an RGB to pin converter, then a – ” Some of her words were lost on a yawn before she continued her explanation. “ – and then I just needed a USB-C gen one for you dinosaur of a laptop and we were golden. Would have easier if it was even older and could have just skipped the other steps after the pin input but whatever.”

“Yeeeeah.” Kyle paused for a few moments thinking over everything he’d heard. Because he was a pretty tech-savvy guy but… “Where did you get all of this?”

“Your storage closet.” She stood up and wiggled her toes in a pair of fuzzy socks Kyle had forgotten he kept in his sister’s spare room for her. “I’m heading to bed. Good night. I made you dinner. There’s leftovers in the fridge.” Then she was off, padding away in her pink cloud hopper rabbit pajamas and leaving Kyle with even more questions.

“Okay.” His stomach grumbled loudly and the warlock looked at it with annoyance. “First food. Then I’ll figure out where this mystery storage closet is that she’s talking about.”