“Damn, it’s good to be on solid ground again,” Paddy said, stepping off the hover train in Shurwinn.

  Finally! We’d made it to our destination. No more starliners for a while.

  “Dinner in ten?” Nanna asked as we headed towards our lodgings to drop off our bags.

  “Pizza!” Filly jumped around, and I kinda wanted to join him. That sounded perfect to me!

  “Let’s do pizza,” HC nodded, and Cora and I towed our floating luggage towards our suite.

  It was a bit of a shock that the rentals Bitsy Joon’s family owned in Centre Oasis looked like a scene picked outta the Colorado high desert and plopped down into an arid, hot climate light years away from Earth.

  The Shurwinn colonizers had obviously taken architecture that worked on Earth and used it for their new home. Pueblo! The buildings looked like scenes I knew well, even though western America was a place I’d nearly forgotten until I saw those flat-topped roofs and stucco walls.

  The oasis was charming, surrounded by endless desert, but bursting with greenery within the developed town. And nestled in the hills was the headquarters of Produced by Peydran, Bitsy’s family business that housed our suites.

  The whole sphere of Shurwinn was vegetarian, and once we’d dropped off our luggage in the spacious apartments, our group headed to Pizza Pie for dinner, interested to see what it would be like.

  “Oh lordy, it smells good,” Nanna said, and I agreed, happy to be greeted by the mouth-watering aroma of bell peppers, onion, tomatoes, and fresh dough rising. I didn’t feel like I was a galaxy away from home; it seemed like I’d stepped into a pizza place as familiar as the back of my hand.

  Without pepperoni.

  Or sausage.

  Okay. Definitely not Earth.

  "I say we get a variety of toppings to share, how’s that sound?” HC asked, and everyone agreed.

  We ordered several pizzas and chowed down on cheesy goodness topped with mushrooms and veggie-sausage crumbles, and after dinner we finally got to the reason we’d come so far from home: our first taste of the Joon family, and that was worth the wait.

  “Bitsy!” I called to a familiar face outside of Pizza Pie.

  I recognized her from our video chats, and she smiled warmly and nodded as we filed out of the restaurant.

  “Sunshine! Everyone’s full of pizza and ready for a short walk to the top of the oasis?” Bitsy asked as we headed into the cool evening air.

  The stars overhead were a blanket in the dark of night, and the path ahead was lit by small lanterns close to the ground. We all filed in a line up the hill after Bitsy and a young man who lead the way.

  “Cabins are scattered in these trees here and there, but the acreage from your rental building up to the top of Centre is all privately owned by my family,” Bitsy explained.

  "There’s a small casita at the top, and if you’re interested, you can read the whole history of how this oasis was developed a hundred years ago. All things considered, this is a new settlement. The youngest on Shurwinn, and the smallest.”

  Bitsy paused, raising her voice a little. “And it’s hiding a secret that Pitch and I can’t wait to show you. Oh! I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce you to my son.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The striking man up front turned and waved to us as he walked backwards up the hill. He was tall, dark-skinned with kinky hair, and exotic-looking just like his mother.

  “Pitch lives here in this casita, at the gates of a building that we hold dear,” Bitsy went on as we passed through trees that smelled faintly of blooming citrus.

  To the right was a small Pueblo-style building with a flat-topped roof whose lush garden was spilling down the walls like an overrun pot on the stove.

  The cool night air was scented with blossoms, and as we got close to the casita, the moon rose, casting a soft silver light over the nightscape that surrounded us. Crickets added their refrain to the peaceful quiet, and an air of soothing comfort descended.

  A bit to the left, we found a clearing and a sight I wasn't expecting.

  A glowing, ornate, white, domed building decorated with vine reliefs stood amongst a gently curving path and a lush garden of night-blooming moonflowers. Moonlight kissed the structure like hallowed ground.

  Bitsy spoke softly, “Welcome to the Ayela Arcana Sanctuary.”

  My breath caught. “Excuse me?” I blurted, eyes bulging.

  “Yes, I thought that name might take you by surprise. My great-grandfathers had a hand in developing this sanctum a century ago, and the building itself is a story all on its own. There’s so much for you to learn here, Samantha—Ayela,” Bitsy said softly, then continued in commanding tone.

  “Come now, eventually, you’ll understand the name. But please know that the only people to ever set foot in this building were my direct ancestors. My family was entrusted with a task decades ago and we've handed it down through generations of our family.”

  A building with my pen name had been in Bitsy’s family for generations? The night grew more and more unreal.

  “Close friends have watched over the sanctuary grounds for decades, but now Pitch is its primary guardian because we’re getting close to the date you already know about,” Bitsy finished.

  “The 150th birthday of Dr. Ryst Nova,” HC said flatly.

  Bitsy and Pitch nodded. “What you'll find here isn’t your average tale, and I have no desire to force it on you. But should you choose it, Pitch and I will welcome you into the treasure our family has guarded for a century. On January 13, 2860, the Sanctuary will open to the public.”

  I looked at all of my friends, and saw the eagerness I felt reflected back at me from their smiling faces. Even Rhoda whose arms were full of sleeping toddler.

  Bitsy nodded at Pitch who placed his thumb on a bioscanner beside the arched doorway, and a clear panel slide aside. We stepped across the threshold into mystery.

  Soft lights snicked on, and a hallway curved ahead, its walls lined with shelves, only interrupted by an occasional archway.

  I continued to the right, following the curving hallway, whispering, “A library?”

  I took in rows and rows of books and graphic novels, all with colorful bindings. Then more media: folios for animations. I picked one up, recognizing it immediately. “Dream With Me Now,” the cartoon Cora and I just finished.

  “Is everything in here something published by Known Cosmos Earth Press?” I asked softly.

  Pitch nodded, pulling a small book off a nearby shelf and handing it to me.

  Harry Larry’s Happily Ever After. I gasped in surprise. “'From every tear drop, something new is born,'” I quoted the book in my hands with awe.

  “You know Grandpa Ren’s song?” Bitsy asked.

  “Song?” I asked, confused.

  “Ooooh, you know my book!” she laughed in response. “So, you’ve read about the little fairy called ‘Sometimes?’”

  “I read this story to the kids I used to babysit, and I loved that line so much I wrote my poem ‘Unwritten Dreams’ right after I read it! That’s—“

  “The contest-winning poem,” Bitsy finished emphatically. “Of course, you read my favorite song lyric from my great-grandfather Ren Crieve, a line I love so much I wrote a children’s book just so I could get it to the public in another form, and then when you read it—."

  Bitsy broke off, rubbing her temples with rigid fingertips, "Fucking hells. You read that line then wrote a poem that I judged in a contest. And now we're both here talking about secrets kept locked away for a century. Coincidence?”

  “Never,” I said with finality.

  I took a closer look at all the titles on the shelves, face lighting up at the colors ahead of me. “HC! It’s—“

  “The Red Phoenix. I see her!” he interrupted.

  His graphic novels lined the left-hand wall as we curved towards another arched doorway. “Is this a shrine to all of your materials? Everything the Press published?” HC asked Bitsy, eyes wide.

  “More like a repository. There's more materials the further we go,” she told him.

  Once we’d circled back to the archway where we’d first entered, Pitch led us to a door that took us inwards towards the center. The next curved hallway had spiral-bound notebooks. Odd choice.

  “Primary source materials,” Bitsy said, as though that would clear up my confusion.

  It didn’t, but she continued to another arched doorway that led to the innermost chamber, and I didn’t tarry.

  I followed Pitch into the heart of the Ayela Arcana Sanctuary, anxious to find out what had been hiding there for generations.