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[She believes him, at least about Caroline. She thinks the last one is a little bit of a stretch, given the dark object he kept in the basement and sending kids to prison worlds, but she has a feeling they're getting there.]

That was a lot of anger, Dad.

[He nods.]

That anger had some magical help. You remember learning about the Original Witch?

[Now is probably not the time for a pop quiz. And yet it's happening anyway. Habit.]

[She nods, because of course she remembers.]

Hope's grandmother, right?

[He nods, confirming.] There was a time when she thought she might undo the existence of vampires by creating a hunter singularly focused on their destruction. I ended up mixed up in that. But it was a long time ago, and it's over now.

[She nods. She's not sure she wants to dig into that more, because if that's what it turned her father into, she doesn't want to dig into it anymore. At the same time, there's a big question she has. Not one she's sure she wants answered, but she feels like she needs to know.]

Dad ... how did the sandclock break?

[That one's somehow harder to answer. He edges a bit closer on the bed, just barely biting back the urge to take her hands.]

You found a way to help people, but you needed extra power to do it. There wasn't time to make a better choice. You did what you thought you had to do. It was the wrong thing, but for the right reasons.

[As he dances around what she's done without actually telling her anything.]

[There's a half-laugh, almost a bitter sound, because isn't that the story of her life lately. Wrong choices for good reasons digging her into a bigger and bigger hole.]

Of course it was. That's all I can seem to do lately.

And it can be undone. Whatever happens, you'll always have us to lean on. We take care of you.

[And now he's reaching over to pull her into a hug whether she wants one or not.]

I would never let you stay unfixed. You know that.

Yeah. I know.

[No, she'll take it. Dad hugs are always good, no matter how upset she is with him. But at the same time, she also knows that there's a secret she probably shouldn't still keep.]

There's ... something you should probably know."

You can tell me anything.

[He doesn't imagine that she's got much in the way of secrets he doesn't know about anyway. He's far enough ahead of her, and she hasn't been here long enough to have anything tucked away since she's arrived. Right?]

[And well ... she doesn't exactly say anything. Instead, she gets up from the bed, moves over to her closet and pushes her clothes to the side. Then, it's fairly easy to see ...

... the sandclock sitting on her closet floor.

So now you're all caught up, Dad.]

[His face falls as she unveils the dark hourglass.]

How cracked is it?

[This is a problem they don't need. Josie could do a lot of damage here.]

Not more than when we sent it away.

[At least ... there's that.]

But I don't know how long it will last. Especially here. I mean, I'm guessing that it got brought here for a reason.

Enough people use magic here. We'll put together a council and see if there's anything that can be done about it. Maybe we can even give it away to someone else. There's enough dark magic here that it shouldn't shift the balance.

[She wrinkles her nose.]

I don't think it's that easy. If we break the clock doesn't it just rebound into me anyway?

Normally it would, but we've never had this many experienced users to ask. We know how magic from our world might act, but maybe there's a loophole in the magic from somewhere else. There could be options we haven't tried here.

Can we trust them?

[Because that's the other big important question. She doesn't want them to take her dark magic bomb and use it to do terrible things under the guise of trying to help her.]

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