A soft light flicked on, throwing the shapes of the four faces under the blanket tent into sharp contrast.

"All right," Timmy said, clicking the end of a ballpoint pen and holding it over a blank page in a notebook. "Let's do this."

"Timmy, if your parents catch you up this late you are in so much trouble," Wanda fretted, clutching a sleepy-eyed Poof in her lap.

Timmy waved her off. "They're not gonna catch me. They know I don't stay up this late reading so it's not like they're going to come check on me. Now c'mon, we've gotta make a list of enemies!"

"First on the list—Anti-Fairies, namely this one," Wanda said with one hand on her hip, glancing over to Anti-Cosmo.

He shrugged. "Put me down if you wish."

"I'll put Foop down, too," Timmy said, scribbling in the notebook.

"I wouldn't bother with that." Anti-Cosmo looked down at the paper, which now bore two names. "Anti-Wanda and I have severely revoked his magic privileges. He certainly doesn't have enough power to pull something like this off."

"Oh, you should put down Norm," Wanda added as if the Anti-Fairy hadn't spoken. "All-powerful genie, evil, and with a vendetta against Timmy."

Timmy nodded, tongue poking between his teeth as he wrote. "Crocker's definitely in, too. I dunno how he would've done this, though. Does he even know about Anti-Fairies?"

"You mean your pop quiz-loving teacher? I doubt that crackpot is behind this," Anti-Cosmo said.

"How about Vicky? She's an enemy, but I guess she couldn't really have anything to do with this," Wanda put in.

Anti-Cosmo cleared his throat, possibly trying to avoid being cut off again. "Don't forget HP and his lackey Sanderson."

Timmy couldn't keep back a snort of laughter. Not too long ago the Anti-Fairies and pixies had made a truce, but that pretty much fell to pieces when the whole Fairy World Games thing happened. Which was just fine with Timmy, since that truce had been evil and almost spelled doom for Poof and the entire universe. Still, it was amusing to see that two of his worst enemies also despised each other.

He turned back to his work. "…Mama Cosma, maybe?" He furrowed his brow. "She's not really an enemy… man, I've got fewer enemies than I thought I had."

"Mama Cosma?" Wanda scoffed. "She would not send her baby boy to Anti-Fairy World. Maybe if I was the one who got switched, but no."

Timmy started counting on his fingers. "There's also Dark Laser, Remy Buxaplenty and Juandissimo, and Imaginary Gary. Anyone else?"

"I really think your best bet is on the pixies," Anti-Cosmo said.

"Yeah, yeah, I've got them down already." Timmy looked up suddenly. "Hey, are there any other Anti-Fairies out there that might've done this?"

Anti-Cosmo sighed. "How many times do I need to remind you that we don't have enough magic for that?"

Wanda crossed her arms. "You sure are working hard to deny having anything to do with this."

"Yes, because I didn't have anything to do with this."

"Poof!" the fairy baby said, waving his hands in an ambiguous gesture that could have been either agreement or disagreement.

"Poof's right!" Wanda said. "How do we know you're not lying?"

The Anti-Fairy frowned. "You don't. However, if we're going to work together to figure this out, we'll need to have some semblance of trust in each other, hard as that may be." He narrowed his eyes.

"…I'm leaving your name on this list until we get some more evidence," Timmy said.

"Good idea, Timmy." Wanda nodded. "So, who are our main suspects?"

Timmy held up the notebook and squinted at it. "Man, I can't read my own handwriting. Um, I'd say the top suspects are Anti-Cosmo, Foop, Norm, Crocker, HP, Dark Laser, and Remy. This doesn't really seem like Dark Laser or Crocker's style, though."

"This seems a bit too subtle for them," Wanda agreed.

Timmy nodded. "All right, so that leaves the Anti-Fairies, the pixies, Norm, and Remy." He let out a breath and leaned back on his heels. "Now what?"

"Now's the time for confrontations!" Wanda said, her teeth bared and eyes flashing. She blinked and gave a little shake of her head. "But not—not tonight. Two people I know should've been in bed ages ago!" She gave Timmy a hard stare.

"Well, technically I am in bed," Timmy pointed out, but with the look Wanda gave him he lost all resolve to stay up any longer. "…Yeah. Goodnight!"

The fairies all poof!ed out from under the covers and Timmy shut off the flashlight, burying under the covers and hoping they'd be able to figure out this mess in the morning.

Wanda hovered over the green racecar bed that belonged to her husband, gazing down at the tiny fairy baby curled up in it. She reached down and smoothed over the single curly hair that grew on his head, tilting her own head to the side. Poof had fallen asleep much faster in his daddy's unused bed than he did in his own crib. She took the covers and pulled them up to his chin, tucking them in around him with the utmost care.

She backed away from the crib, floating and listening. The castle was silent. No noise came from outside—Timmy's room—either. Wanda glanced at the clock on her bedside table. 2:16 blinked at her in dull red digits. She should be asleep, but it was Saturday tomorrow.

With a cursory check around the room and a final glance at Poof's sleeping form, she raised her wand and poof!ed into the hallway outside of the room she had lent to Anti-Cosmo. Wanda bobbed up and down outside the door, feeling the minutes tick away while she just stared at the wood. She was taking in heavy breaths. That was dumb. Excessive breathing did nothing but make fairies lightheaded. Irritably, she stopped doing that.

This was her own house. She could just open the door and march right in.

Wanda raised her hand and rapped her knuckles three times on the door, then withdrew it and waited.

She didn't have to wait long. Within seconds the door swung open to reveal a narrow-eyed Anti-Cosmo wearing a blue night shirt, as well as a nightcap of the same color in place of his normal bowler hat. He wasn't wearing his monocle, and he blinked in surprise at seeing her. "Anti-Wanda? How did you—no, no." He shook his head, rubbing his eyes. "Wanda. Yes? What is it?"

Wanda sighed, averting her eyes from the dark fairy. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"Is Timothy all right?" Anti-Cosmo asked. Wanda turned to look at him again, taken aback.

"…Yes," she said. If she didn't know better, she would have said he actually sounded concerned.

"Well, what is it?" Anti-Cosmo asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's the middle of the night, if you hadn't noticed."

Wanda cast around for the right words, still avoiding eye contact. "Look—Anti-Cosmo—" She swallowed. "I just need to say that this is all really hard for me. You're not exactly high up on my list of friends. Actually, you're not on it at all. And here I am sharing my house with you."

Anti-Cosmo opened the door a little wider. "Are you asking me to leave?"

"No," Wanda said, looking up again. "I'm a firm believer in 'innocent until proven guilty' no matter how much I distrust you or how well-founded that distrust is."

"All right, so what did you really come down here and wake me up at two A.M. to say?" the Anti-Fairy asked.

"I want the truth." Wanda lifted her chin. "Not some ambiguous, open-ended mind-game answer, but the truth. Did you do something to cause you and Cosmo to switch places? Or do you honestly blame the pixies?"

Anti-Cosmo was silent for a long time, floating in consideration. Finally he spoke. "The thing about you, Wanda, is that no matter what I say you won't believe me."

Wanda drew backwards with a gasp. "So you did do it!"

"You've just proven my point," the Anti-Fairy said. "Either way, I won't condemn myself. Sorry about the… how did you put it? 'Ambiguous, open-ended, mind-game' answer, but I suggest you talk it over with Timmy in the morning and come to a decision on whether or not you believe me. Then maybe we'll all stop going at each other's throats. In the meantime, I'm going back to bed." He caught her eye again. "Oh, and I would suggest not searching my room while I'm inside it. Last night you narrowly escaped being chased out by a vicious cloud of vampire bats. Goodnight, Wanda." With that, Anti-Cosmo snapped the door closed.

Wanda backed away from the door, face pulled in a frown. She wasn't any closer to finding the answer than she'd been five minutes ago. Anti-Cosmo sounded suspicious, but he always did. Was he actually guilty? Was her own paranoid mind just projecting her suspicions onto him? Was she seeing only what she wanted to see?

Her wand sparked and she poof!ed into Timmy's bedroom. He was tucked up in bed with his back to her, his stomach and chest rising and falling at a slow, even rate. All seemed well in here. Wanda gazed out the window.

The bright moonlight outside glinted off the layer of fresh snow covering everything. So far the snow looked undisturbed and a few flakes were still falling. It looked a lot calmer than she felt.

…Everything seemed a lot calmer than she felt.

"I can't be over-reacting to all this, can I?" she said aloud. Timmy stirred in his sleep and Wanda fell silent. The clock on his table read 2:30. She really ought to get back to bed.

She raised her wand and poof!ed straight back to her room, checking Cosmo's bed. Poof was still asleep in it. She gave him another affectionate pat, placing her wand on the table and climbing into bed before pulling her sleep mask down over her eyes. After a moment she slid it back off and dropped it back onto the nightstand, staring wide-eyed at the darkness.

She wondered if it was possible to teach yourself to sleep with one eye open.

As for her wand, maybe it would be more secure in the password-protected container at the bottom of the stairs. However, in their current predicament she felt safer with it by her side. Turning over, her eyes fluttered closed, and she let herself drift off into an uneasy sleep.

At the feeling of someone poking him, Cosmo woke with a start. He was curled up on the cell floor bundled tightly in his blanket. Inches away floated the grinning face of Anti-Wanda. Cosmo yelped, scrambling away.

"Mornin'!" the Anti-Fairy said, shoving a plate of stuff in his face. The smell hit his nose all at once and he retched, ducking his head away from it. "Ah made breakfast special, just for you!"

Cosmo, hands shaking and face nearly the same shade of green as his hair, took the plate. "Th-thank you…"

"That was cool how you an' my Foopie fooled them fairies like that last night!" Anti-Wanda perched next to him, beaming as she watched him take a few tentative bites of his meal. "Guess we don't have to worry about Jorgen anymore, huh?"

"Yeah, eheh—" Cosmo attempted a laugh that turned into a choke. He smacked himself in the chest, wincing and swallowing the mound of food he'd spooned into his mouth. "Food" might even be stretching it a little—Cosmo wasn't positive that the stuff he was eating was actually edible.

"Ya know, fairies're more fun than I always thought!" Anti-Wanda said. She swiped her finger through Cosmo's food, then licked it off. Cosmo swallowed and placed the half-eaten plate of food on the floor. "I never get t' talk to you guys! Mah Anti-Cozzie says we're enemies. I dunno 'bout that. I mean, we almost look the same and everythin', even. You think we're enemies, Cosmo?"

"Um. Yeah," Cosmo said. He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them.

"Oh." Anti-Wanda stared off into space for a moment, face blank as if she was thinking something over. Then she snapped out of it, turning back to Cosmo and smiling again. "Well anywho, I thought you'd want some comp'ny! Wanna look around the castle? I can show you the places that ain't off-limits!"

"What places are off-limits?" Cosmo asked.

"Oh, y'know." Anti-Wanda shrugged. "C'mon!" She took Cosmo's wrist, lifting into the air and forcing him to follow suit. In a puff of navy blue smoke the dungeon disappeared to be replaced by the dining hall where Cosmo had first appeared two nights ago. The fire in the grate was as large as always and the room was empty other than the Anti-Fairy and her prisoner. Despite the roaring fire, the room was cold and the air chilled Cosmo's skin, causing the little hairs on his arms to stand up.

"Welcome to the dining hall!" Anti-Wanda said. "You've already seen it, o' course, but it's one of mah favorite rooms in the castle. Anti-Cozzie spends a lot of time in here even when he doesn't have meetin's!" She pulled him along around the long table and through a door on the other side, emerging into the hall that Cosmo had escaped down when he had first arrived. "That there's the lib'ary," Anti-Wanda continued, pointing to an enormous pair of oak doors that reached nearly to the ceiling. "It's pretty dusty in there. Also there's not much in there but books."

"Picture books?" Cosmo asked, perking up. Anti-Wanda shook her head and Cosmo drooped.

"Over here is my real favorite room!" Anti-Wanda darted over to the room at the end of the hall and flung open the door, ushering Cosmo inside. The room was wide and featured the common aspects of the Anti-Fairy castle—flagstone floors, sconces adorning the walls, Doric columns with vines entwined around them in the corners, and small, arched windows high above the floor. Cosmo gazed up at them, considering trying to escape again by flying through one, when Anti-Wanda reached out and forcibly turned his head toward the back of the room. His eyes widened at the sight.

"A TV!" Cosmo cried, darting over to it. "Can we watch? What channels to you have?" He grinned, ecstatic at the prospect of interacting with modern technology again.

"We got one channel!" Anti-Wanda said. She flipped on the TV, which brightened to show the Fairy News Network.

"This is Fairy Hart still reporting live," the blond reporter said, smiling that bright, fake reporter's smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, "just like I say every five minutes in case someone happens to turn on the TV right at that moment. Still no word about what Anti-Cosmo was doing in Fairy World or how he got here in the first place. But since there's been no sign of him since Thursday night, we're all bored with that story, so now we move on and wonder with bated breath what baby Poof is up to!"

Anti-Wanda flew directly in front of the screen, her wide pink eyes reflecting the bored face of Fairy Hart. "Anti-Cozzie's in Fairy World?! How come he didn't take me?"

"Mother, what are you doing?" a voice said. Cosmo and Anti-Wanda looked up to see Foop flying toward them, gesturing to Cosmo with his little arms. "Why is he out of his cell again? And why are you letting him watch the telly? I mean, the television?"

"I'm showin' him around!" Anti-Wanda replied. "Foopie, the fairy on the TV says your daddy's in Fairy World!"

Foop sighed and rolled his eyes, flying over and switching off the TV. "I know that, Mother. We got a telephone call about it."

Anti-Wanda pulled away from the TV. "We did?"

"Oh, maybe I forgot to tell you," Foop mused, rubbing his chin with one of his pudgy fingers.

Anti-Wanda riveted her attention on the blank TV. "But what was mah Anti-Cozzie doing in Fairy World? And where'd he go?!"

"Honestly, Mother, I thought even you would have figured it out by now," Foop said. He glanced at Cosmo again. "Obviously Father and Uncle Idiot have switched places somehow. As for where Father actually is, I have no idea."

Wanda's dark blue counterpart fell to the ground, her wings dangling limply. She raised her head and howled. "My Anti-Cosmo! He's—he's in trouble!"

Foop said nothing, floating there with a pouty look. Cosmo edged backward away from them. He kept flying backward, watching Anti-Wanda sob into her palms while Foop rubbed his forehead into his, and when neither of them called him back he turned and zipped through the door, slamming it closed after him.

He was back in the hallway again. He hesitated for a second, then tore down the hall until he came to a random door, which he flung open. There wasn't an actual room behind it but a staircase instead. Even better! Cosmo flew into it, closing the door behind him and leaning his back against it while he listened to the sounds outside.

"Gah, Mother, you let him get away!" The voice of Foop said from the hall, muffled through the door.

"I let Anti-Cosmo go, too!" Anti-Wanda wailed.

"You know, you're really not being helpful at all, to anyone, right now. He couldn't have gotten far without his wand. Come on, I'll check the library and you can check the, uhh… bathroom."

The voices faded. Cosmo breathed a sigh of relief, sliding down to the ground and slumping over. "…Ooh, they're probably gonna come back," he said aloud, straightening up. "Maybe I should find a place to hide until Wanda finds me or I drop dead of dehydration! Whichever comes first!"

Cosmo pushed himself to his feet and ran for the stairs, taking them as quickly as he could. Soon he was panting despite not needing to breathe and his legs were like lead. "Why—so—many—stairs?" he gasped, slowing to a stop and leaning his full weight on the handrail. "I wish I had a—better way to—"

His wings twitched, tickling his clammy back. He glanced over his shoulder at them. "Oh, riiiight."

One quick jump and he was in the air, zipping up the remaining stairs until he reached the second floor, where he screeched to a stop and stared around in abject horror. "Oh no… this place!"

He had emerged in a hallway that was covered floor to ceiling in doors. On the bright side, he could hide in any one of them and it would be that much harder for his Anti-Fairy pursuers to find him. On the not-so-bright side, anything could be behind those doors.

He flew to the door across the hall and jiggled the handle but it was locked. When he tried the next one it swung open and he peered inside to see a dark bedroom, the curtains pulled tightly over the window. There was an enormous double bed with a small TV facing it. It was silent, the air was stagnant, and it had the feel of a room that hadn't been used for a few days.

"Hello?" Cosmo whispered. There was no answer, which was a good thing. He crept in, closing the door again with a soft click. The room was wide and spacious. Next to the bed was a locked bookcase with a glass front. The books inside looked thick enough that Cosmo gave the entire piece of furniture a wide berth.

Maybe this was Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda's bedroom. On a bedside table sat a small, framed photo of the two Anti-Fairies with Foop in the middle. Cosmo flew over to it and picked it up, trying to look at it in the dim light.

Foop wasn't smiling in the picture, though the other two Anti-Fairies were—even Anti-Cosmo. When and where had this been taken? It took years to get a family portrait appointment in Fairy World and as far as he knew you couldn't even do that in Anti-Fairy World.

Cosmo's heart lurched at the sight of it and he set it back down. What had happened to his own family picture? The one with Timmy, and Poof, and Wanda…

At the sound of the doorknob turning he froze for a second, heart leaping into his throat. He dove under the bed. Dust bunnies cluttered the floor and dangled from the framework, tickling his nose. He held his breath, squeezing his nose to keep from sneezing.

The door creaked open and Anti-Wanda looked in. "Hallo? Fairy?" She wasn't crying anymore, though her eyes were red and puffy. Cosmo held as still as he could despite having to sneeze and suddenly realizing that his left foot itched.

To his surprise, when he gave no response she backed out of the room and closed the door, calling, "He ain't over here!"

Seconds later Cosmo let out the loudest sneeze he'd ever heard and flung both hands over his mouth and nose. Still no one came barging in. With a sigh of relief, Cosmo allowed himself to relax, lying down with his head turned to the side.

There was a click that made him whip his head up again.

"I'm locking all the doors," Foop's muffled voice said from outside. "That way he'll be either trapped in one of the rooms or locked out of all of them."

"D'aww, lookit my little baby bein' all smart!" Anti-Wanda said. Foop made some retort but was moving away from the door, so Cosmo didn't catch it. As soon as their voices faded completely Cosmo jumped out from under the bed and darted to the door, yanking the handle back and forth. It barely moved.

"AAH! Oh—oh no," he said, backing away. "I'm trapped! Without hoagies! OH NOOOO!" He hugged himself, shivering.

Maybe there was food hidden in the room. He hid food all over his room, and Anti-Wanda seemed like the type to do the same thing. It was worth a look around—especially since he might be stuck here for a long while.

A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter is kind of boring :/ But the story needed an update.