"Kali. Give the phone to one of your sisters." Christine rubbed her temples. Really, she loved Kali, but panicking wasn't doing anything and it was hard to deal with hysterics over the phone.

There was a short scuffle on the phone, and then Tamara picked up.

"Chris?" She sounded upset, too.

"I heard what happened," Christine said quietly. "How are you doing?"

"I don't know how you one-faces live like this," Tamara quipped weakly. "So... isolated."

"We're used to it," Christine said. "You'll adjust with a bit of time. I know you don't know what happened, so just give me some time to investigate."

"It's strange," Tamara said. "Not being able to hear my sisters all the time. And they're right here, it's just... It isn't right."

"I know," Christine said soothingly. "We'll figure this out. Now you must have noticed something, some feeling or some presence or something before you got split."

"Not... really," Tamara said. "I mean, Bahi was chatting with Harry and his brother, and then all of a sudden there was a flash of light and Kali and I were sprawled on the floor and everything went from there."

"Flash of light. It's a place to start. Did either of them notice anything? Maybe Bahi noticed something you missed?" Christine went back to rubbing her temples.

"Here, ask her." The phone was handed off again, and this time the third sister picked up.

"Chris?"

"Hey. So I've been told there was a flash of light before you all got separated. Anything else?"

"It felt like something grabbed me," Bahiti said, thinking back. "Maybe because I was the one in control. But something grabbed me, and pulled, and suddenly we were three."

"Do you have any way to describe the pull? Was it any kind of power you recognized or something weird?" Well, at least Bahi knew something new.

"It was..." Bahiti trailed off, trying to describe it. "It was as if someone was trying to pull both of my arms in both directions at once, only instead of two directions, it was three."

Christine nodded. "Okay. So someone knew exactly what you were and has the mojo to pull you apart." She sighed. "Bad news all 'round."

"No kidding," Bahiti muttered. "It took us a little while to call you. We had to dig out clothes for Tam and Kali, first. I was in control of the body, so the clothes stayed on me. And we were all kind of freaking out." Still were, in fact.

"Were?" Christine sounded amused. "How about still are? Poor Kali sounded like she was going to hyperventilate."

"Kali doesn't deal well with isolation," Bahiti said. "She doesn't like being physically alone, even when Tam and I are there. This is really hard for her."

"I know. But I'm going to figure out what's going on. Somehow." Christine was determined to do that much at least.

"I know." Bahiti sighed. "I'll look after Tam and Kali. Let us know as soon as you think you have something."

"Will do." Christine sighed and hung up. Well, someone was making things difficult for her.

Cal raised an eyebrow when she was off the phone.

"What was that about?" he asked.

"Apparently something managed to split the Tryad into three separate physical bodies," Christine said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Cal blinked.

"Since when can that happen?" he asked. "I thought they were permanently like how we saw them."

"That's what we all thought. No one has any idea what did it." Christine sighed. "So we don't know what exactly actually happened or how to put them back together."