“NO ONE SENDS MABEL TO HER DEATH AND GETS AWAY WITH IT!” Mabel roars. “We gotta go show this king what’s up.” She turns to the dragon. “Will you take us to him, Connerheart?”

“For you, anything!” says the dragon. “Climb upon me!”

The twins and Blendin scale his massive back.

“Hold on tightly!” With a flap of his enormous wings, he takes off. Soaring though the narrow cavern, he bursts forth into blinding daylight. The sunlight reflects off his red scales, making them gleam like wildfire. His yellow eyes flash, and his beating wings make a sound like a thunderstorm.

Passing villagers stop dead in their tracks (some from the plague) and stare.

Connerheart climbs higher and higher through the cloudless sky alongside a flock of birds. Dipper, Mabel, and Blendin watch the ground below shrink until it’s just a patchwork quilt of farmland.

Mabel can’t help squealing. “This is a delight!” she exclaims.

“I’m riding on a dragon!” says Dipper. “This adventure just got seriously legit!”

“I’m getting scale rash!” shrieks Blendin. “Does anyone wanna trade places?”

On the horizon, they spot the castle.

Connerheart dives toward it at full speed. He swoops in low over the buttressed walls and hovers outside the royal throne room.

Mabel addresses the king. “Mister King Man! Will you come out, please?” she yells.

Knights throw lances at the dragon, but they glance off his thick hide.

The king pokes his head through the window. “The, uh, king, is, uh, not here right now. Try back later,” he says, trembling.

“I can see you, dum-dum!” says Mabel. She taps Connerheart on the head.

He spits out a fireball at the king, who squeals and ducks.

“Why’d you send us on a mission you hoped we wouldn’t come back from?” asks Dipper. “You were never going to tell us about the Time Pirate and his Time Key, were you?”

“I was, I was!” cries the king.

“Don’t lie to us!” says Mabel as she taps Connerheart again.

He sprays flames against the castle wall.

“Aaaaah!” screams the king. “That pirate person cameth here and gave me this key,” he says, holding up the Time Key. It glints in the sunlight. “He swore he’d destroy me if I didn’t keep it safe!”

“How can we believe you?” says Mabel. “This isn’t another trick, is it?”

“Goodness, no!” says the king. “Look at how much I’m shaking! I’m a coward whose every action is motivated by fear! Do you think I’d surround myself with strong knights in a castle and be a jerk to people if I wasn’t deeply afraid of everything?”

“Hmmmm,” says Mabel. She turns to her friends. “All right, guys, new plan. Connerheart, you stay here and make sure that the king is less of a jerk to the kingdom. King, you give us that key. Blendin, you take us to the time island. We’ve got a time treasure to collect.”

The king tosses the Time Key to Mabel, who catches it.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” asks Dipper. “Let’s get that time treasure!”

They bid farewell to Connerheart.

“Good luck!” the dragon says. “And thank you for helping me resolve my various deep-seeded emotional issues!”

Mabel finds Blendin’s laser blasters stashed behind the king’s throne and tosses them to Blendin. The trio huddles.

“Oooh, I’m so excited!” says Blendin. “My knees only shake this much when I think I’m going to be very rich very soon!” He motions to his jittering knees.

Mabel pokes one. It stops. She lets go and it starts shaking again. She does this several more times before Blendin knocks her hand away.

Blendin and the twins wrestle off their armor and Blendin produces the time tape from his jumpsuit. He holds the Time Key in his other hand.

Dipper and Mabel grab hold of the time tape together.

“Where we’re going is very special,” says Blendin. “It’s not a time or a space but rather a place between time and space. Our lives flow on a river of time. And every choice we make is like traveling down a new unique branch of that river. If you could see the fourth dimension, you could see the entirety of human history sprawled out like a river delta. Infinite lives and parallel universes coexisting. And now we’re about to step out of the river—onto a secret hidden island wedged between the currents of time!”

“Oooh!” say Dipper and Mabel.

“I memorized that quote from a movie,” says Blendin, beaming. “It was called StellarCeption, was forty-eight hours long, and was utterly incomprehensible. Very popular in time prison.”

Blendin pulls out a measured length of time tape and lets go.

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