Lucky Rabbit

When they arrived at Kestrel, it was to find the school almost eerily silent. Like Condor in Gacha Love after the murders started, some families had probably already come and taken their children home, and those students who remained were on lockdown inside. Two Knights of the Royal Eagle stood out front, with more at the corners of the building, and those were only the ones Pandy could see.

Augustus – blood-smeared, tangle-haired, and filthy, with an equally bloody rabbit strapped to his torso – swung down from his fire-breathing steed and strode up the steps. He flicked his fingers at the guards as he did so, and Pandy really wished she could see the looks the people inside the magic tin-cans were desperately trying to exchange.

“Our orders are to allow no one entry without Chancellor Lockhart’s permission,” one knight said, and Augustus nodded almost cheerfully.

“Quite right. And I expect she’ll be here as soon as-” he broke off as the doors flew open, revealing a woman who was in her late forties or early fifties, with silver artistically woven through her deep brown hair. She wore half-moon glasses perched on her nose, and an elegant, up-scaled version of the tan and rust-colored Kestrel uniform.

“Gus Blackwood. Of course it’s you,” she said, giving the guards a stiff nod while waving for Augustus to follow along when she turned and reentered the building as abruptly as she’d appeared. Augustus did so, though he almost bumped into the Kestrel chancellor when she stopped and spun back to them. This time she leaned forward, one finger tugging her glasses down to the tip of her nose as she gave whatever Pandy-parts were visible a shrewd look. After a few beats, she sniffed, pushed her glasses back into place, and resumed walking.

“The students are all in the library, per protocol. About a quarter have gone home, but most families are aware that the school library is the safest place in the city, short of the palace itself,” Chancellor Lockhart said, leading them up the curving steps that were so eerily similar to those at Falconet. All of the colors and the faces in the portraits were wrong, but otherwise the two schools were identical in layout and design.

Opening the door to the chancellor’s office, Lockhart entered, crossing to sit behind the desk before folding her hands primly in front of her. “Please remain standing,” she said, “you’re filthy. Now, why are you here, and what do you have to do with my missing students?” Here, her expression cracked, revealing deep concern behind the mask of efficiency.

Augustus’s amusement instantly drained away. “So Killian is missing?”

“Along with Dorian Griffin and Edgar Ashford,” Chancellor Lockhart agreed. “They disappeared shortly before the lockdown order was passed down, and no one seems to have any idea where they went or why. Marquis Ashford is quite displeased, though we’ve been unable to contact Dorian’s father.”

“He’ll be at work,” Augustus said, and Lockhart nodded, clearly aware that Dorian’s father was a knight. Which made sense. It was a great honor to be selected as a Knight of the Royal Eagle. The only reason they wore the anonymizing armor was to prevent any particular knight from being associated with any particular action, especially since the people they were called upon to arrest were sometimes their own relatives, and usually the type to hold a grudge.

“Where were they last seen?” Augustus asked, turning as if to leave the room again.

Lockhart didn’t even budge. “That’s the thing. They were all in the library. The library, Augustus. Professor Beeswick checked with Elarion himself, and the Dragon has no idea when they left.”

Whoa. Whoa. Why were Professor Beeswick and Elarion two different people now? It was probably a good thing Pandy couldn’t speak, because she definitely would have blurted out the question. As it was, Augustus gave her a ‘Later’ glance, so he probably caught a bit of it. She definitely needed to watch that. It was bad enough that Keros knew what she was thinking most of the time.

All of the time.

You’re very loud.

Rude. But Chancellor Lockhart was pulling open a drawer and removing what looked like a page torn from a book, then written on. She set it on the desk, then spun it so Augustus could read it. He moved closer, and Pandy poked her head out of her makeshift sling.

WE ARE LEEVING. DED MAN CAM FOR LIAN. FOLOWING.

The words, while horribly misspelled, were written in a careful hand, as if the writer had to think very hard about each letter. “I have no doubt this was written by Dorian,” Chancellor Lockhart said. “The boy’s handwriting has improved greatly since arriving at Kestrel, but he still cannot read or spell well. They won’t admit it, but I’m certain his friends usually help him. This time he was obviously in a hurry. Still, it makes it easy to know this was his work.” She traced a finger down the ragged edge of the page. “Besides, Edgar would never deface a book.”

Pandy suddenly felt like a jerk. She’d always dismissed Dorian as a rule-bound muscle-headed Paladin-wannabe. The fact that he could barely read and write never came up in Gacha Love. He wasn’t entirely stupid, but he disliked a Clara who read a lot of books, and never responded well to conversation prompts that mentioned reading, history, or just generally nerdy things. But if he actually had some kind of learning disability, that would explain it, at least in part. Especially if his friends had been covering for him for years. Ismara, why didn’t you write that into the game?

It probably wasn’t relevant, and it wouldn’t make sense in the context of a game.

I knew he was the best love interest from the beginning.

Well, best might be taking it a bit too far. Dorian was still a battle-maniac who refused to do anything that was even vaguely against the rules. The only time he broke his own strict code of conduct was when he broke into the chancellor’s office – with Clara’s assistance – to retrieve the knife he lost during a previous event. Even that was only because it linked him to one of the first murders, which would not only get him in trouble with his father but could possibly prevent him from becoming one of the Knights.

“-Lian’s father,” Augustus was saying, having given a brief rundown of the events of the past day.

Chancellor Lockhart’s face was completely expressionless as she stared at her fellow chancellor, and then she pulled out another drawer, removed a bottle of some amber liquid, popped open the lid, and took a long swig. When she spoke again, her voice was slightly hoarse. “As if you and Fergus didn’t already give me most of this gray hair when you were in my classes. What do you need from me?”

“I need to see Lian’s room, and wherever he was last seen. He probably went voluntarily, which means he may have done something that would give us a clue where he’s going. He’s not the kind of person to blindly follow anyone, and he and his father had a difficult relationship, so even if someone convinced him Bryan was alive, he wouldn’t just go,” Augustus said.

‘Difficult’ was doing a lot of work there, but Chancellor Lockhart didn’t question it. She set the bottle on her desk with a thunk, then said, “Tropos, allow these two access to any part of the school.” Wind swirled through the office in acknowledgement, somehow managing not to disturb a single hair on the chancellor’s head, which made this elemental far more polite than any of Augustus’s.

“Aiden and Dorian have the corner room,” Chancellor Lockhart said, a minute shrug acknowledging how ridiculous it was that she had to use the prince’s school-name rather than his real one, when everyone knew who he was. Those were the rules though, and Pandy had a feeling this chancellor wasn’t nearly as ready to bend those rules as Augustus. “Lian and Edgar share the room next door.”

Almost before she finished speaking, Augustus turned and exited the office, his haste belying the patience with which he’d responded to Chancellor Lockhart’s questions. He didn’t leap over the railing or anything ridiculous like that, but he did take three or four stairs at a time, then race flat out for the door to the students’ wing, which helpfully opened for him. They ran by the hall supervisor’s room, then past several doors before reaching the one before the corner. It, too, opened for them, and Pandy couldn’t help but feel that Augustus had gotten the short end of the elemental stick when it came to helpfulness. The Kestrel elementals were handy to have around.

The room was almost painfully tidy, though to Pandy’s eyes it was instantly clear which side belonged to which boy. A small collection of animal skulls was arrayed on a shelf to their left, while the full set of Pirate Pete books occupied the top shelf of the bookcase to their right. The books didn’t look worn, so they were probably copies, rather than the originals written for Lian and Thaniel, but it must comfort Lian to see them anyway.

Augustus clearly made the same deduction, because he turned toward the right-hand wardrobe and threw it open, quickly patting down the three identical uniforms hanging within. There was a fourth hanger, which was empty, but they had no way of knowing if that held another uniform or a set of street clothes, for those rare times when Lian left Kestrel.

The drawers yielded no results either, and when Augustus went to repeat the process on Edgar’s wardrobe, Pandy wiggled out of the sling and plopped to the ground. She hopped beneath both beds, looking around for the kinds of things teenagers preferred to hide. Of course, both Lian and Edgar were smart enough to be aware that any room at school was never truly private, so she found nothing, even when she used her nose and paws to poke at the mattresses above her.

When she emerged, shaking her head at Augustus’s inquiring look, he tapped his fingers against Lian’s desk impatiently, in that way he had when he was thinking about something. “If Daedalus has Bryan Conroy, and we must assume he does, then why does he need Lian? Thaniel would be much better. He’s the one with the-” He gestured to his own chest, unwilling to say it out loud, even when they seemed to be alone.

Pandy had no answer, and then she did. <Lian’s a hostage,> she thought, but Augustus’s expression didn’t even twitch. Hopping closer, she tried again, but it was only when she pressed a paw to his leg that he finally seemed to realize she was attempting to speak to him. Frowning, he leaned down and picked her up.

“A hostage? Hmm. You may be right at that,” he murmured, stroking her ears absently. “We know these people have used the safety of the boys as a way to force Bryan to work with them before. There’s no reason to believe they’d change a successful tactic. If Bryan was being stubborn, they might well have told Lian that his father is alive in order to trick him into leaving the safety of the school. That’s enough to explain the why, at least for now, but where? We’re constantly two steps behind, and I’m not enjoying the sensation.”

Yes, that might explain Lian’s disappearance, but Daedalus had also sent people to Avington House. More, they hadn’t been after the princess, but rather a long-defunct necklace, though that hadn’t stopped Miller from trying to kill Isidor while he was there. <Bryan told his captors that the stone in Thaniel’s chest was a prototype based on a description passed down in his family. What if he’s still pretending he doesn’t know where the original stone is? What if he sent them to Avington House, not realizing that he’d be putting anyone else at risk?>

Had anyone called Pandy Lady Avington in front of Bryan? She didn’t think so. Eurydice, yes. Maybe even Lady Eurydice, but it was rare for anyone to use her actual title. Even if he did know she was an Avington, that didn’t automatically mean she was living in or fixing up Avington House, much less that there was a mildly kleptomaniac woman, a teenager, a Dragon, and a princess living there with her. As far as Bryan knew, it should still be a haunted murder mansion, which would take time and people to search.

Once Miller returned with the empty necklace, what was the next step? Miller had gone to Kestrel first, so Lian and his friends were probably already gone before he retrieved the necklace. In fact, Lian probably left on his own. She very much doubted he’d stopped to tell Edgar and Dorian that he was going, so how did they know where to go? Surely they weren’t just wandering the city aimlessly? There had to be a clue here somewhere.

Pandy’s gaze swept the bookshelf again, this time lingering on the Pirate Pete books. There was something off about them. Something that didn’t belong. Wiggling free from Augustus’s petting – which took an act of will she wouldn’t have believed she was capable of less than a year ago – she stood with her back paws on his forearm and braced her front paws on his shoulder, stretching her nose toward the books. This placed the spines of the books at eye level, and she quickly realized what the problem was.

There was an extra book. It was a slim volume, tucked between the first and second books in the series. The covers of the Pirate Pete stories were all blue, green, brown, or some combination thereof, but this one was black, blending in with the shadow that fell between the thicker novels. She pointed at it with a claw. <What’s that?>

Augustus slid the book from the shelf, handling it carefully. The spine was unmarked, as was the cover, but Lian’s name was written neatly on the flyleaf. The pages inside were all lined and filled with small, precise handwriting, which Pandy guessed belonged to Lian, but when Augustus gave it a gentle shake, a folded piece of paper came loose from somewhere around the middle and fell to the floor.

“You’re brilliant, Pandora,” Augustus murmured, laying down the book so he could pick up the paper without dropping Pandy. Pandy’s ears grew hot at the praise, but rapidly cooled again as she read the single word written on the paper in Lian’s perfect script.

It said ‘Home’.

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