When Ford didn't come home, Lee became seriously worried. The sun was setting, and Ford was nowhere to be seen. Surely he wasn't out adventuring? The one thing Ford had instilled in Stanley since his arrival was that he should always be home by sunset. The forest could get very dangerous at night. So where was Ford?

Lee's suspicions easily landed on Fidds' shoulders.

"You must know where he is," he said. "You were here when I got back from the bunker. Where's Ford?"

"I don't know," Fidds said for the umpteenth time. "I was at my knitting club for most of the afternoon, I haven't—"

"Oh, cut the scrabdoodle, Fiddleford," Lee snapped, twisting the word cruelly with his tone. "We all know you're not going to a knitting club."

Fidds' eyes widened. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

"Not even going to try to deny it, huh?"

"What do you know?" Fidds finally asked.

"I know you've been lying to us. I know you care more about your life's work than you do about my brother. Where is he?"

"I don't know!" cried Fidds, exasperated. "I haven't seen him since earlier this afternoon! I'm not lying about that!"

"Then we've gotta go find him." Lee went to the kitchen and grabbed a large flashlight from a cupboard, slipping his brass knuckles onto his fingers from where they sat in his pocket. "You're coming with me, Fiddsy, don't try to get out of it."

"Shouldn't we wait until morning?"

"He could be dead by morning!" Lee shouted.

Fidds held up his hands. "It's dark. We have no idea where to start looking. The forest is going to be just as dangerous for us as it is for him. If he's out there, he would've taken supplies. He can get to the bunker for safety, or hide out with some of the friendlier creatures out there. He'll be fine."

"Or maybe you just want to get rid of him."

"What? No!" This was too much for Fidds. "Your brother is my best friend, Stanley! It's you I want to get rid of!"

The two men stood in the living room, glaring daggers at each other.

"Well," Lee finally said, "you can try to off me while we go look for Ford. Come on."

He took his supplies and walked out.

~~~~~

Fidds didn't follow Stanley.

Everything was crashing down around him. He couldn't be around Stanley or Stanford or anyone. He needed guidance.

He needed Bill Cipher.

So, instead of helping Stan look for his brother, Fidds went to bed. He took some herbal tea to help him sleep, but it was extremely hard to fall asleep when you knew you'd been found out. Fidds found himself desperately practicing the meditation techniques that he learned from Lilith Crypt, wishing he could fall asleep and dream and talk to Cipher.

Luckily, Stan didn't come back looking for him. Fidds finally fell asleep.

"He followed you," Bill said, appearing as soon as Fidds started dreaming. He made no pretense; he didn't even tell Fidds he was dreaming. "Ford followed you to the Order, and he saw Percy."

The words yanked Fidds into lucidity, and the dream world spun around him. "What? I — I searched the area!"

"He was on the roof," Bill said. "Nobody ever looks up. I shouldn't have expected anything better from you. Now, Percy. . . he'll receive his censure."

Fidds shivered, not wanting to know what Bill meant by that.

"Now Sixer's run away to the nymphs," Bill continued. "They've put a metal plate in his head to keep me out. So far, it seems it's worked. After their operation, he dropped completely off my radar."

Fidds' heart dropped. "So you can't tell me where he is?"

"I only know where he was before those meddling nymphs got their hands on him. I can't see through the minds of the nymphs. I can only see through humans."

Fidds had been previously unaware of this fact, but it didn't much matter. "What about Stanley?"

"Yes, I can still see him — he hasn't gone and stuck a disk of rust in his noggin. He's blundering through the forest. I'm not too worried about him. The nymphs have Sixer in an area that's generally hidden to humans."

At first Fidds thought this was a bad thing, but then he realized that the worst-case scenario here wasn't Stanley failing to find his brother. It was Stanley getting a metal plate in his own head. Whatever plans Bill had to further his desires through Stanley, a barrier to the man's mind would destroy them all.

"You need to go after them."

"Wh-what?"

"You have to find the nymph hideout and stop Stanley from getting a metal plate."

"But — they'd never listen to me! They knew I was lying about my activities! If I tell Stanley not to get a metal plate, that means he's more likely to get one."

Bill sighed. "True." He looked deep in thought.

A realization hit Fidds. "Wait. . . Lord Cipher? Wouldn't you have known that. . . that they suspected me?"

Bill watched him through a half-lidded eye. "Yes, I knew. Percy and I decided not to tell you, or you'd probably make it worse."

A deep sense of shame swept through Fidds, made all the more potent by the fact that Bill was right. "I'm. . . I'm sorry, my lord."

"I can't tell if we miscalculated yet," Bill replied, neither accepting nor rejecting the apology. "Either way, this is still a disaster. If your memory gun doesn't work through the metal plate, we're all in big trouble. Stanford knows all about the Order now."

Fidds' heart sank further. "Oh no."

"Oh no, indeed. I would've inducted him in on my own time, but now he's been forever tainted by those nymphs. We need to erase those memories. And rip out the pages in his Journal where he wrote down my secrets."

"I. . . I'll go after him. I'll take the memory gun. I'll fix this."

"There's no fixing it," Bill said. "There's only damage control. We're just fortunate you finished the gun this month."

At least there was that. At least Fidds hadn't failed there. But that success seemed like nothing compared to his other failures that now came to light.

"I've been prolonging your dream cycle," Bill said, "and I can't hold it for much longer. As soon as you wake up, you get out there and find my Symbols. Lead them away from the nymphs and then use your gun on them. Understood?"

"Y-yes, Lord Cipher."

"Good."

With that, Bill flashed a bright yellow and disappeared, taking Fidds' dream cycle with him.

Fidds was thrown into a senseless darkness.

~~~~~

Ford woke up blearily.

The early summer sun shone sideways through the trees. He was outside. What was he doing outside?

Then he remembered.

He shot upright. "June?"

A nearby tree shimmered, and Juniper stepped out of it. It wasn't her usual tree — they were far away from that — but hamadryads could apparently travel through a network of trees shared among their sisters. "Stanford? How are you feeling?"

Ford put a hand to his head. It was astonishing to think that, if the nymphs were successful, there was now metal coating his skull. "I'm. . . I'm okay. I think. Did it work?"

"You now have a metal plate inside your head," June confirmed. "Whether or not it keeps Cipher away is yet to be seen."

Ford's mind reeled with the rush that comes from major, life-altering decisions such as this. When June had told him about the operation, he'd been skeptical, thinking he could handle Bill by himself. After all, the triangle hadn't appeared to him in almost a year; was there really that much danger? But then she told him that Bill could see through every human, so that it was impossible to hide information from him. She told him that Bill played the long game, that he didn't mind waiting to complete his objectives. She told him that Bill often succeeded in tricking his most vehement rivals because, though it was impossible for him to lie, he had the art of flattery and deception down almost to perfection.

With that, Ford had agreed. He didn't want anyone using his mind besides himself.

He moved to get up, and June held out a hand to assist him. He grabbed it and used it to steady himself. Then he turned to address the dryads and hamadryads standing around him. "Thank you. I'd better get back. Stanley is going to be worried."

Last night, June had told him the operation would knock him unconscious. But it had still been afternoon — he'd assumed he would wake up in time to go home. It wasn't until he was halfway under the sleep spell that he thought to ask how long he'd be asleep. "Probably until morning," one of the nymphs had replied.

He hadn't had time to protest before he was out like a light.

"Hey, um — June," called a nearby hamadryad. She stumbled on the moniker; to Ford's chagrin, they all insisted on hiding their real names. "Someone's calling for you at your tree."

June glanced at Ford. "Probably your brother. We'd better go meet him." She held out her hand again.

Ford's stomach flipped. To get here yesterday, June had pulled Ford through the trees with her. It was a fascinating experience, to be sure, but he'd felt quite nauseous afterward. The thought of traveling through the trees again, with a light headache this time thanks to the metal plate, was not appealing. He stalled for time by turning to the other hamadryad and asking, "How did you know someone was by Juniper's tree?"

The hamadryad shrugged. "When we're in our trees, we can see and hear through the whole network. The man did look like you, Stanford."

The thought of seeing and hearing that much made Ford feel dizzy. "Let's go, then," he said, reluctance lacing his voice as he braced himself for the coming discomfort.

He took June's hand. She led him to the nearest tree, and the two of them melted into its branches.

Sure enough, the magical travel was even more disconcerting this time. Ford's body felt to be moving extremely fast, with airless wind rushing by him and glimpses of the forest streaking past. Then he slammed to a stop. The now-stationary forest spun around him as he stumbled against June.

"Sixer!"

Ford was thrown off kilter again as Lee gripped him in a tight hug. "Where were you? I've been looking for you all night!"

"What?" Ford pulled back and looked at his brother in disapproval. "Didn't I tell you not to be out in the forest at night?"

"I thought you were in danger, Stanford! I'm going to ignore your instructions to save your life!"

Ford put out a calming hand. "I'm fine. I was with June."

"Where were you?"

Ford shared a glance with June. "Safe," he told his brother. "I'll tell you later. Let's go, I'm starving. Didn't have dinner last night."

"Is he going to want one too?" asked June.

Lee frowned. "Want what?"

"He doesn't know Cipher exists," Ford said to June. "I doubt he'll want one. He'll probably be mad at me for getting one."

"Getting what?"

"Well, if he does, you know where to find me," June said, ignoring Stanley. "For all our sakes, Stanford, I hope it works."

"Me too," Ford said softly.

June waved to the brothers, then stepped back into her tree.

"What was that about? What were you two doing last night?"

A few leprecorns scampered up, and Ford grimaced down at them. "Let's go back to the lab," he said to Lee.

"Actually. . . can we go to the bunker?"

Ford shot him a questioning look. "Sure."

So the brothers left June's tree, headed for the bunker. On the way, Ford explained the situation as best he could: the Order of the Crescent Eye, Bill Cipher and his true nature, and the metal plate in Ford's head. As he suspected, Lee was not happy about that. "You let the nymphs do a surgery on you?"

"They didn't cut me open," Ford said, though he didn't actually know that. Perhaps they had done just that and healed the damage afterward. "It was with magic. I was perfectly safe."

Lee acknowledged this was a grunt. "And does it work? Is this Cipher guy out of your head?"

"I don't know," Ford confessed. "I suppose if he doesn't show up in my dreams again, then it worked. He'll still be able to see through you and Fidds and everyone else, though. That's why June offered to do the operation on you — to shut him out of your mind."

"No thank you," Lee responded vehemently. "I'll take my chances." He shook his head, then glanced sideways at his brother. "I can't believe you sometimes, Sixer," he said. "You just disappeared for a night to get a magical head surgery, and now you expect me to act like everything is normal."

"Of course everything isn't normal," Ford said. "We just found out that Fidds is in a cult, for crying out loud."

Lee clenched his jaw and muttered, "Huh. 'What do you know,' he asks. No wonder he looked so panicked."

"What?" Apprehension crept into Ford's voice.

Lee looked guilty all of a sudden. "I told Fidds that we knew he was lying last night," he admitted. "He claimed he was at his knitting club when you disappeared, and I was tired of pretending to believe him."

"Stanley! What if he goes to the Order, and they come after us?"

"The Cipher guy knows we know, apparently, so why should it matter if I tell Fidds we know?" Lee shot back.

He was right. There wasn't much they could do at this point.

Ford hadn't felt so helpless in a long time.

They made it to the bunker and descended the stairs in silence. It wasn't until they made it through the security room that Ford spoke. "So why did we come here?"

"Shifty," said Lee. He gestured for Ford to follow, and they went through the decontamination chamber together. "I had to refreeze him."

Sure enough, Shifty was back in one of the cryogenic tubes, frozen in his normal white form. Ford took in the broken cage nearby and marveled that Lee had been strong enough to subdue the creature all on his own. "What happened?"

"He had already broken out of the cage by the time I got down here. He attacked me and demanded I release him into the wild." Lee looked away. "Honestly, Sixer, I was tempted to do it. It must've been awful for him down here, stuck underground with nothing but artificial lights and occasional visits from us."

"I'm glad you didn't," Ford said. "Imagine what would've happened if he'd gotten loose. Bill could have used him for the Order. He could easily have thrown the world into chaos."

Lee nodded, but he still looked sad. Ford understood. Shifty had been like a pet to both of them, Lee especially. "I'm sorry, Stanley," he said, and he meant it.

There was a pause, then Lee shrugged. "It's fine. I'm just glad I could stop him. And I'm glad you're safe, Sixer."

Ford smiled wryly. "Me too."

Lee put his arm around him, and the brothers walked back through the bunker, discussing how they would approach Fidds about all this.

To their surprise, Fidds was at the base of the bunker stairs, waiting for them.

He looked just as startled to see them as they were to see him. He fumbled with something in his hands. "Fiddleford?" asked Ford in alarm as Fidds raised the gun.

He shot both the brothers in quick succession.