Candy Chiu was bored. Her mother had insisted that she stay in the house today, but there was nothing to do here. For one, there was no internet or TV cable — it had been down for a while, even before all this craziness with the barrier around town and the sun jumping through the sky. There also weren't many books in the house that Candy could read; Mom had a fair amount of books in Mandarin, but Candy wasn't good with Mandarin, and they didn't have many books in English. So Candy reread her small collection of comic books, even though she was more focused on how she wanted to go outside than she was on the comics.

And Mom was acting weird, too. All jumpy and nervous. Every time Candy asked what was wrong, Mom would just smile and shake her head and go back to looking worried. Candy couldn't tell if she was jittery because she was happy or because she was anxious. Maybe both. It was strange behavior for Yingtai, and Candy didn't like it.

That afternoon, Candy was hanging upside-down on the couch, trying to read a comic book through the blood rushing to her head, when the doorbell rang. She paused, glancing around her comic book at the door. Who could that be? Nobody came out of their houses these days, not since the gravitational anomalies. Candy hadn't seen her best friend Greyson in days.

Usually, Candy would just call her mom to the door, but she wanted to see who was there. It would be something to break up the monotony of today, at least. So she flipped herself upright and went to the door.

"Candy, wait," Mom called from behind her.

Candy stopped just in front of the door. "You expecting anybody?"

Mom came up right beside Candy, took a deep breath, then nodded to the doorknob. "Open it." She looked more nervous than she had all day.

Candy shot her mom a strange look. Then she pulled open the door.

And came face to face with a monster.

Head like a bull, with big curved horns. Torso and arms like a human. Legs like a bull, with a knee-length skirt around the waist. This was a minotaur, the bull monsters Candy had read about in her comics. Most people would jump back when suddenly faced with a large bull man, but not Candy. Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. "Woah," she said.

"Jiā lēi," Mom said, her voice full of relief. "Did it work?"

"It worked," the minotaur said. His voice was a normal baritone, not like a monster at all. His eyes flickered to Mom, but they mostly stayed on Candy. She stayed still, trying to figure out what was going on. Who was this guy? Did Mom know him?

"You're here to stay, then?" Mom said. She sounded like she was about to cry.

"Yes," the minotaur said, and he seemed just as emotional.

Mom gestured for him to come in. Candy stepped back as the minotaur squeezed his large body through the door. Looking at him from farther away, Candy frowned. Wait. Something about this guy. . . Something about him was familiar. But she couldn't remember ever seeing him in her life. Maybe he just reminded her of a character from a comic book?

As soon as the minotaur was safely inside the house, he embraced Candy's mom. Yingtai wept in his arms, and he held her close.

Candy just stared at them. This seemed. . . really familiar. What was going on?

The embrace didn't last for long. They pulled away and turned to Candy. "Mei Xing," the minotaur said, using Candy's real name. He knelt down in front of her so he could be at about her height.

"Who are you?" Candy asked.

He stared back. There were no tears in his eyes — could bulls cry? — but he still seemed just as emotional as Mom, who now had tears streaming down her face. "My name is Caleb," he said slowly. "I'm. . ."

He hesitated, and in that moment a memory seemed to hit Candy in the side of the head. "Wait," she said suddenly, putting up a hand. "Wait a second."

There was a memory. She'd seen this minotaur before. But she still wasn't sure when. . . .

"Candy," Yingtai said, "this is—"

"Wait!" Candy said. She kept staring at the minotaur. At Caleb. "Wait, I'm trying to remember."

Mom and Caleb exchanged confused looks. "Remember?" Mom said carefully.

"Something about this. . . this is—" Then she stopped. The memory came fully and clearly to her mind.

She used to be so curious about where her mom disappeared to some nights. So, one night, she had followed Yingtai. Through the woods, to a clearing, where a minotaur — this minotaur — had been waiting. Candy had overheard them talk about her and how much the minotaur wanted to be with his daughter. With Candy.

Candy had gone back home, planning on confronting her mom about what she'd heard. But the next day, before Candy had said anything, Yingtai had taken her down to the Order for a memory wipe. Gideon Northwest had wiped the memory of Caleb along with Candy's other forbidden memories. Neither Yingtai nor Caleb ever knew that Candy had seen them. Candy herself had forgotten about it.

But seeing Caleb again had triggered the memory. Now she remembered.

"Dad?" she said to Caleb.

Mom gave a sob. Caleb's big black eyes widened. "You. . . you know me?"

"I. . ." This was so confusing. How did she forget? Was this new memory even real? Had she fallen asleep, and was now in a dream inspired by her comic books?

The more she looked at Caleb, the more she was sure. This wasn't a dream. Her memory was real, even if she didn't know how she'd forgotten it. "Dad," she said again. "You're. . . you're my dad."

"Yes," Mom choked out. Caleb didn't say anything, just leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Candy. Some instinct in her head told her to thrash, to get away from this strange nonhuman creature, but she was too shocked to listen to it. She let Caleb hug her, and soon enough she leaned into the hug.

This minotaur was her dad. How many times had Candy wished for a dad? How many times had she looked at Greyson, with his dad and mom, and wished for two parents? And now her dad was here. Mom had told Candy that she didn't know who Candy's dad was, but that had been a lie. She had known. And he was Caleb.

Suddenly Candy was crying, too. She wasn't even mad that Mom had lied to her — not yet, anyway. She just felt so happy, so safe, in the arms of her dad.

Mom knelt beside them and joined the hug. Mother, father, daughter all hugged each other, with the humans crying and the minotaur struggling to breathe normally. For the first time since she was a baby, Caleb held his daughter. And Candy let him hold her.

Until she suddenly pulled back.

"Wait," she said. Mom and Caleb blinked, flustered, as the hug suddenly broke apart. "Wait a second," Candy said.

"What is it?" said Caleb.

"Does this mean I'm a minotaur?" Candy asked.

Mom and Caleb shared looks. "Well," Caleb said, obviously stalling, "I'm not really a minotaur. That's just the human name for us, since we look so similar to the mythological monster."

"Okay, great, but am I a minotaur? Or, half minotaur? Why do I look human if you're my dad?"

Another shared look. Then Mom got to her feet and gestured to the couch, and the three sat together, with Candy in the middle.

"We had to use magic," Caleb said. "It could have killed your mom if she tried to deliver a nonhuman baby. So we found someone who used magic to make you basically human. But I'm still your dad; that didn't change." He put an arm around Candy's shoulder and squeezed. "And, from what Yingtai's told me, you have minotaur strength inside those human bones."

Candy took a moment to process this. "So you're telling me that I could've had awesome horns, but you used magic to get rid of them?"

As the words left her mouth, she couldn't help but laugh. Then Caleb laughed, too, and Mom. The family sat there on the couch, laughing together, full of joy and relief and love.

Across town, Mabel was struck by the dagger that Caleb had stolen. The earthquake started, shaking the Chiu house. Candy and Caleb and Yingtai stayed on the couch, holding each other through the quake.

The earthquake didn't scare Candy. She was with her mom and her dad. She felt totally safe.

~~~~~

The world around Andrew had become a nightmare, but he knew he wasn't asleep.

This past week had been stressful, yes. But it was relatively stable. The dagger was safe in its protected cave. Stanley was safe in his prison, leaving Bill Cipher without a vessel. Andrew had successfully helped the Symbols create a sanctuary for themselves and gotten supplies to all the humans in Gravity Rises. Even his hut repairs were close to completion, though he hadn't had much of a chance to personally help with that.

Then Pacifica Pleasure had shown up and capsized everything. In less than ten minutes, the dagger was gone, Xítway was dead, Stanley and Stanford had been taken by Cipher's servants, and Caleb had betrayed everyone. Andrew had only had a moment to stand there beside Enoch in shock, staring after Caleb as he drove away on a servant's snowmobile, before someone came over and frantically told him about Xítway's murder.

The news made an already-distressed Enoch almost hysterical. Andrew didn't have time to comfort him, though; he'd sent the calf home and had gone to the prison hut to see Xítway for himself. Ásham, Xítway's husband and Moira's nephew, was there, as was Moira; she sat with Ásham as he held his wife's body delicately in his arms.

Andrew left. Moira would do a better job comforting Ásham than he would, and every moment spent here put the Symbols in more danger. Andrew called together whatever minotaurs he could, then went to the hamadryads to ask them for passage to the Mystery Museum. The hamadryads got them to the Museum in an instant, and also brought other creatures to help them. The winter air was still and peaceful, but everyone knew that the dagger thieves would be there soon enough.

Andrew had gone into the Museum — he was the only nonhuman who could get past the barrier spell — and warned the Symbols of what was going on. The response was panicked but quick; the Symbols knew Pacifica would be after Mabel specifically, so they took measures to keep the girl safe. Once they were ready, Andrew went back outside to join the others in waiting for Pacifica.

Then she'd come. She'd jumped off the snowmobile and gone straight for the Museum, passing through people of different species as if they weren't even there. And she'd slipped through the barrier spell. She used dark magic and got through the barrier spell with no problem.

Andrew had gone after her. But he'd been stopped by the humans who were with her. Someone shot him in the shoulder; he kept fighting, but someone dragged him out of the fight when it was clear he needed treatment. Andrew had resisted, but some minotaurs had gotten him to the trees, where the hamadryads had taken him to be healed.

So it was that Andrew couldn't do anything more to stop Cipher's servants. Nothing at all. The nymphs' healing magic took a few hours to work fully on such a serious wound, and Andrew just had to sit in his hut with a chunk of metal in his shoulder, waiting for the magic to get rid of it, while the world ended around him.

The earthquakes started. They lasted a few solid minutes. Andrew's calves were frightened: Enoch, who seemed shell-shocked from earlier, huddled in the corner; Naomi and Drew clung to each other; Timmy wailed in Andrew's arms. A few minutes seems like a long time when the ground is shaking beneath you. Andrew hadn't seen Moira since he'd come back; he hoped she was okay.

"Is it over?" Naomi whispered when the ground had stopped moving.

"That's it, isn't it?" Enoch said. "Bill won. We're doomed."

Andrew wanted to say something comforting to his son, but his mouth refused to form the words. He held Timmy close to his chest as horrified sadness swept over him.

"I failed," Enoch whispered.

"No," Andrew said immediately. "You did everything right, Enoch. It's not your fault Caleb—"

His breath cut off. He couldn't talk about Caleb.

He got to his feet and handed Timmy to Enoch. "Stay in here," he instructed his calves. "I'm going to go find your mama."

He left his hut and headed for the prison hut, assuming Moira and Ásham would still be there. His shoulder throbbed as he went, but he hardly paid attention to it. His mind was racing with what to do next. Make sure Moira's safe. Get to the Mystery Museum and make sure the Symbols are okay. See what happened to the dagger. Make plans to rescue Mabel, or whichever Symbol was struck.

Moira and Ásham were standing outside the prison hut when Andrew got there. A few other minotaurs were there, carrying Xítway. They would take her to the spirit cave to await burial.

Ásham watched with pained eyes as they carried his wife away.

"Let's go," Moira murmured. She looked up and saw Andrew. "Ásham is going to stay with us for a while."

"You're welcome in our hut," Andrew told Ásham. "The two of you are safe after that earthquake?"

"Yes," said Moira. "The earthquake. . . was it a sign? Was one of the Symbols taken?"

Andrew felt a pang of fear and guilt. "I think so," he whispered. "I have to go see."

Moira nodded and led Ásham away. Andrew turned to go to the trees and call for June.

At that moment, the sun went out.

There were cries of alarm and fear. The forest was blanketed in a sudden darkness. Andrew froze. "Moira?" he called.

"Right here," Moira called from a few yards away. "What happened?"

"Another sign," Andrew said. "We're moving." They were no longer under Earth's sky.

The darkness was so complete that Andrew couldn't see at all, which was unusual given his species' night vision. There was no light whatsoever. Andrew stayed where he was, not trusting himself to go anywhere. He hoped his calves were okay.

Light soon appeared from glowfly lanterns outside people's huts. Glowflies usually only lit up at night, but this sudden darkness had tricked them into thinking it was time to glow. The light allowed Andrew to see a bit; he went back to his own hut with Moira and Ásham and took one of the glowfly lanterns there.

Then he went to the trees. "June," he called. "Juniper. Someone, please, I need to get to the Mystery Museum."

June appeared from a nearby tree. Her expression was scared. "Andrew, I can't. . . I can't go to the Museum."

"What?"

"The earthquake. It formed fissures in the ground and damaged some of our trees." She looked pale in the glowfly light. "I'm cut off from most of the forest."

Andrew stared at her. "How am I supposed to get to the Symbols?"

"I. . . I don't know."

A heavy weight formed in Andrew's chest. "I'll. . . I'll figure something out with the elders," he said. "Th-thank you, June."

She looked at him with sad, silent eyes. Then she disappeared into the trees.

Andrew's head was reeling. He went to the elders and tried to talk to them, but they were handling the crisis that came from the earthquake and the sun's disappearance, not to mention everything else that had happened today. They would have to talk to him later.

So he went home. The glowfly lanterns were lit, and in the soft light he could see the worried faces of his family. Ásham and Moira were setting up a place for Ásham to sleep; Andrew didn't think the bull would want to go home anytime soon. Not without Xítway.

"I was with her just last night," Ásham was saying to Moira. He spoke in a tone of disbelief, and Andrew could tell that he'd said this quite a few times already. "I woke up when Stanley started yelling. . . so I went to check on her. . . and she said they were okay. . . and after Stanley went back to sleep, she let me in, and we talked. . . . She was just fine last night. . . ."

At least he'd gotten to see her last night, Andrew thought. Ásham had been staying away from her since they'd taken Stanley captive; they didn't want Bill to know Xítway had a husband in case he found a way to hurt him. The only time Xítway and Ásham had gotten to see each other was while Stanley slept. Then Ásham would go home to an empty hut and sleep alone.

But he'd at least known that Xítway was safe. And now she was gone.

Andrew went over to his calves, who were sitting silently to the side. Naomi and Drew, usually loud and playful, were quiet and still. "Cousin Xítway is dead?" Naomi asked her papa.

"Yes," Andrew said, holding his daughter close. "She left her body, and now she'll become a spirit."

"And we'll be able to see her?"

Andrew hesitated. "She might appear to some of us," he said carefully. The spirits' behavior after death wasn't very predictable, but it was fairly standard for them to appear to their loved ones in dreams or visions. "But not for a few days at least."

"The humans killed her," Enoch whispered. He was still holding his baby brother. "Why would they kill her?"

"It was on Cipher's orders," Andrew said grimly.

Enoch was quiet. "Papa," he said after a moment, "Uncle Caleb said he left a note in his hut for us. I want to go find it."

"A note?" Drew said. "Why would Uncle Caleb write a note?"

Andrew didn't respond for a moment. "Okay," he finally said. "You and I will go, Enoch."

"I wanna go!" said Drew. "I wanna visit Uncle Caleb!"

"Me too," said Naomi.

"Uncle Caleb isn't here right now," Andrew said, trying not to let the pain show in his face. "He left something for Enoch and me. Will you stay here with Mama and Ásham? Ásham really needs company right now."

Naomi and Drew weren't happy about it, but they agreed. Enoch handed Timmy to Naomi. Andrew told Moira that he and Enoch were leaving; they took a glowfly lantern and went.

Andrew and Enoch were quiet as they walked. Enoch had told Andrew basically what had happened earlier, when Caleb had stolen the dagger. The betrayal was so raw, so painful, that Andrew didn't want to talk about it now. His mind screamed at him not to go read the note; it would only bring more pain.

But Enoch was determined. When they got to Caleb's hut, he almost went right in, but Andrew stopped him. "Wait," he said, "it might be dangerous in there."

Enoch looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Maybe he wanted to lure us to his hut, and he left something in there to hurt us."

Enoch stared at his papa in disbelief. "He wouldn't do that."

"Like he wouldn't steal the dagger?" Andrew snapped.

Enoch flinched, and Andrew took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he said to Enoch. "Before we go inside, I'm going to put protection spells around us, okay?"

Enoch looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn't. So Andrew cast the long, intensive spell that would create auras of protection around him and Enoch. As he worked, he cursed himself for not putting these spells around Xítway or the Symbols or the people who went to protect the Museum.

But he knew he wouldn't have been able to protect them even if he'd tried. This particular spell took a lot of energy; it would be exhausting even to protect himself and Enoch for a few minutes.

Once the spells were up, Andrew and Enoch went into Caleb's hut. It was silent and empty, like Caleb had expected to abandon it. The only thing out of place was the note on the table.

They went to the table and stared at the note. "I. . . I'm scared to read it," Enoch said.

So was Andrew. But he didn't say anything.

Enoch picked up the paper. Nothing happened. Nothing jumped out to hurt them. "I think you can stop the protection spells, Papa," Enoch said.

Andrew did so with a relieved breath. Between the protection spells and the pain of Caleb's betrayal, he didn't know if he had the energy to read this note.

"Let's sit down and read it together," Andrew said.

They sat at the table. Enoch wordlessly handed Andrew the note, and Andrew opened it so they could both see. They leaned against each other and started reading.

The note told a story of love and heartache. It spoke of Yingtai, of Mei Xing, of Cipher promising Caleb that he could be with his family if he helped the demon escape his prison. Caleb laid out his feelings in the note: his disbelief in Andrew's cause in guarding the prison, his anger and sadness at being kept away from his family, his secret loyalty to Cipher. It was shocking and painful and surreal. Caleb had been hiding all of this for thirteen years.

Andrew could hardly breathe. Neither could Enoch. They leaned on each other for strength, neither able to believe what they'd just learned.

"I'm going to be with my wife and my daughter," the note read at the end. "I hope I can come back to you someday, and bring them with me. I hope you can forgive me, and I hope you can accept them. They're your family, too."

When they'd both finished reading, Andrew folded up the note and put it back on the table. Father and son were quiet.

"Did you know?" Enoch finally asked.

"I had no idea," Andrew said.

That was all they could say. They sat there in silence for a long, long time.

Finally, Andrew got to his feet. He picked up the note. He wanted to tear it up, to crumple it in his hands, to burn it. But he could only hold it limply in his hand.

"Let's go home," he said to Enoch.

"What will we tell the others?"

Andrew didn't know. He didn't want to think about that. "Let's just go," he said.

They left Caleb's hut. Outside, stars had appeared in the dark sky: thousands of white speckles sprayed across the heavens. But they weren't the stars that were visible from Earth. They were the stars of another dimension. The township was under another sky now. And it would move through hundreds, maybe thousands of skies before it arrived at Cipher's dimension.

But they could still stop it. They could find a way to rescue Mabel from the township's magic. Right? They could rescue her, and they could figure out a way to form the Cipher Wheel, and they could get back home.

Yet it didn't seem very likely.

Andrew and Enoch went back home. Andrew wanted to sleep, although he knew it was still only the afternoon. But he was exhausted, and his shoulder still hurt, and he didn't want to think about anything for a while.

"Someone came by," Moira said. "The elders are ready to see you now."

Andrew wordlessly handed her the note. "What's this?" she asked.

"Caleb's betrayal," Andrew said quietly.

Moira looked confused. Andrew left her to read the note for herself. He took Enoch and went to the elders, where he hoped he would find some sort of solution to this mess. Some kind of peace in this chaos.

But he knew it was a vain hope. He had failed to protect the dagger, and Cipher had taken it. The demon was officially on his way to freedom. Someone was dead, and someone else was getting her life drained away slowly by the township's magic. And Andrew's own brother had been the one to make it possible.

Andrew didn't think he would ever feel peace again.

~~~~~

Above the forest, under the dome that cut the township off from the rest of the multiverse, there was magic at work. In a swirl of light, a large blue sphere appeared in the air. It gave off a quiet glow, like a small, dim sun to replace the one that had been left behind. It was dark blue, with cracks spidering along its surface.

The cracks formed the shape of a pine tree.

The sphere fueled the township. The township rolled through the dimensions.

Bill Cipher's escape was underway.

END OF EPISODE THREE