At least there will be cake.

↓ Transcript
And I thought explaining twin nieces that had just happened to wander in from The Interior was tough. Still, I guess I can’t just cut you loose or dump you on someone else.

Do you have any idea who send you here, or why?

None. All I can call up are brief flashes.

I’m afraid that seems to be the rule, literally, rather than the exception. Now that you have living bodies, any memories from before tend to fade quickly. Like you, these two barely recall any of their own existence from before finding themselves here. Even if I try to remind them of what they said when we first met, it slips away.

The good news is that whoever did this really, for real, wants you alive and safe. It takes some high level magic to force a new adult manifestation. Or three. Changing you back would literally be murder, so no one’s going to be in a hurry to restore you to what you were before. But even if I did know anything about your past, my connections with the spirit world are tenuous and hazardous at best.

So, Happy Birthday.

Syrens (AKA mermaids or homo seira thálassa) don’t wear shoes, or panties, or anything they’d have to abandon on the shore. Iola will leave her jacket behind because someone finding it is nowhere near as creepy as someone getting their hands on one’s used undies.