Pandy, Augustus, various elementals, and Sir Bailey all worked together to keep a close watch on the young Miss Kimball for the next two days. Pandy even remained with Thaniel during homeroom, but Lamonia just sat next to her brother and did nothing more threatening than take excessive amounts of notes. Pandy did notice that Lamont, Lamonia’s twin brother, often ran out of breath when Mr. Rowe asked the students to do jumping jacks or run in place. That was the only time Lamonia showed anything other than calm affability. Whenever Lamont began to struggle, Lamonia watched him with barely-concealed concern.
Professor Beeswick was missing in action, not even showing up when classes went to the library to check out books. Two days seemed like a long time to spend translating a few pages of code when you literally had the key, but maybe that was normal. Pandy had never been good at puzzles. She hadn’t even finished a crossword since leaving school, and she’d had to use the wiki to get through the Emberwrought Labyrinth the first time.
As Tuesday passed by with nothing unusual happening, Pandy found herself becoming more and more nervous. It wasn’t fear, but it wasn’t anticipation, either. This was the night she, as Thaniel, was supposed to ‘run away’, and by tomorrow this might all be over. It really would be terribly convenient if whoever picked her up outside the school took her directly to the mastermind behind their Evil Plot, and she could just… perform a citizen’s arrest on them. Or something.
When evening came, Pandy found herself hiding beneath Thaniel’s bed, staring at the door, talking to herself. Well, technically she was talking to Keros, but he was only responding in monochromatic monosyllables, so she only counted him because it made her feel slightly less crazy.
<Why Tuesday?> she wondered silently. This was a question she had asked a dozen times – all right, probably more – and even Augustus hadn’t been able to offer her a satisfactory answer. It wasn’t a holiday or a particular phase of the moon or even a solstice or… whatever the opposite of a solstice was. Why had Cletus Winfielde told her-as-Thaniel to run away on a random Tuesday night?
I still don’t know since the last time you asked.
Oh yes, Keros was definitely starting to feel a bit snippy about this whole thing. <Maybe Tuesday was just the most convenient night for them to meet,> she thought, stretching out her paws so she could contemplate the soft white fluff between her toes. <I mean, being in a cult is more like a hobby than something that actually pays, right? Like, I once tried to join a book club, but it took forever to find a night when everyone could go, and then the sewer next to the library backed up and by the time animal control caught all of the crocodiles, everyone else had joined a dance class. Well, all except for Alice, but everyone chipped in to buy her a prosthetic foot, so->
It’s time to go!
Pandy looked back up at the clock, and it was indeed, finally two o’clock. On the desk sat a simple note, written by Pandy in the style of Thaniel, because it just didn’t seem like a good idea to tell the boy that ‘he’ was running away from school tonight. She’d made sure to misspell a few words so when someone found it, it would look authentic. Augustus would tell the real Thaniel in the morning, unless, of course, Pandy somehow managed to break the case wide open between now and then, in which case he would never need to know.
After a few minutes, Pandy hopped out from beneath the bed and shifted to her Thaniel shape. As usual, Eurydice’s clothes puddled around her smaller form, and Pandy quickly pulled that outfit into her Inventory, exchanging it for a pair of uniform pants and coat over a white shirt. Over the past week, she’d become pretty good at this fast change. Fortunately the current ‘outfit’ had its own Inventory, but it was a little bit worrying that there was always that moment of transition during which someone might catch her changing. In theory, Keros was working on assigning different outfits to each shape, but she didn’t feel like it was a particularly high priority for him.
After she thought she’d waited long enough for a brainwashed eight-year-old to scribble out a note and grab a change of clothes, she picked up the bag she’d also packed earlier that day. Now, how should she act as she went out? Would someone else in this situation act normal? Would they sneak out of the school? Waltz out as if it was high noon and they were going for a walk? Maybe shamble like a zombie? Should she drool?
In the end, she opted for simple furtiveness. After all, everyone else behaved normally after being pheromoned, and Thaniel would definitely at least attempt to be sneaky. Cracking the door open, Pandy peered out into the hall. Since she was on the corner, there were only a few rooms between her and the door to the entry hall, but one of those belonged to Mr. Musgrave. Admittedly, the boys’ supervisor didn’t seem to be nearly as vigilant as Ms. Davenport, but she still tip-toed down the hall, holding her shoes in one hand and not breathing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Noooothing…
A creak came from behind Mr. Musgrave’s door, and Pandy froze, her inner rabbit-ears pricking up. The supervisor’s voice reached her, muffled and broken, but intelligible. “-love. I’m so glad we can… together. I miss…”
Pandy leaned in, listening for a response that never came, at least as far as she could tell. A scraping sound reached her, followed by a quiet clatter, as of two cups clinking together. Was Mr. Musgrave in there with his mysterious lady – or lord – love right now? Were they toasting each other? Drinking champagne as they basked in candle-light that burnished their naughty bits with a coppery glow? Sudden nausea filled her at the mental picture this thought evoked, and Pandy swallowed hard as plus-size letters floated across her vision.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
LEAVE!
Oh, yes. She was in the middle of a stealthy getaway, wasn’t she? With a hard shake of her head, she hurried onward, opening the door to the entry hall, which stood dark and silent at this time of night. Even the portraits on the wall seemed disapproving as they watched her tug on her shoes, their usual smiles false and cold.
They’d half-expected someone might wait for her here, or even in the hall outside Thaniel’s room, but nothing moved. That was a bit disappointing actually, since they had yet to catch any adults involved in the activity at the school. It was looking more and more like all or most of those involved were students, which complicated things significantly. Augustus couldn’t just arrest and interrogate a child, and it was entirely possible – though increasingly unlikely – that at least some of those children didn’t even realize they’d done anything wrong.
Thaniel only had one proper coat and Pandy had no intention of taking it, so when she opened the front door and stepped out onto the stoop, the cold night air cut through her clothes, making her shiver. She blew out a cautious puff of air, which didn’t form a tiny cloud, even though all that should be necessary was that her insides were a higher temperature than the air outside. Apparently wherever the air went when she breathed it in was not, in fact, warmer than thirty-three degrees, so she cupped her hands over her mouth and nose as if trying to warm them, which should conceal the lack of visible condensation.
Nothing and no one moved as she went down the stairs. The soles of her shoes scraped against the stone steps, and she kicked a rock that clattered away into the frost-rimed grass, but otherwise she heard nothing except the occasional sound of the wind. Hitching her pillowcase full of clothes over her shoulder, she trudged off down the road, keeping her other hand over her mouth and occasionally not-quite-feigning a shiver.
The road was made of flat, tightly-fitted stones, but Pandy still had to resist the urge to watch her feet rather than looking ahead. In her past life, she already would have tripped a dozen times, and there would probably be a bat tangled in her hair, too. She perked up a bit at the realization that she had no hair to tangle bats in, and this thought carried her to the gate, which, as usual, stood open. She had yet to see it closed, though the hinges looked well-oiled and ready to swing shut at the slightest provocation.
There, at the end of the drive, just beyond the wall that marked the edge of the school grounds, stood a carriage. It wasn’t dark or creepy, and the horses hitched to it weren’t pitch-black and wild-eyed, striking sparks from the stones as they pawed at the ground. No gaunt and hooded figure sat in the driver’s seat, just a man with a plain face, bundled into a warm scarf, coat, and gloves that sent a distinct pang of envy through Pandy. The man turned to face her as she stepped beyond the stone columns that supported the gates, and his eyes were pale all over, milky and unseeing.
Pandy had no idea how an ensorcelled Thaniel would react, but she couldn’t keep herself from taking a single step backwards, as if to flee back to the safety of Falconet and its waiting chancellor. The carriage door swung open before she could take another, and the red-haired woman from Wulfric Winfielde’s party looked out. Her hair was pulled up and hidden beneath a fur-lined hood, but a few curls had escaped to paint bright patches of color against her otherwise pale face.
“Thaniel,” she said, holding out her hand, and Pandy took another involuntary step, this time forward. She knew that voice. Not just from the party, but from another time, another place. A memory. A fragment that had been lost. The face and coloring were wrong, but…
“Mother?” she gasped, taking another step closer to the carriage. Grace Conroy’s golden hair, so like Lian’s, overlaid the dark hood, and the murky hazel eyes deepened to emerald. Her cold hand pressed into Grace’s, and the woman drew her forward, smiling.
+2 Corruption Points for entering Dark Aura II
+2 Corruption Points for entering Dark Aura II
+1 Corruption Points for entering Dark Aura II
Pandy!
+2 Corruption Points for entering Dark Aura II
+2 Corruption Points for entering Dark Aura II
Pandora!
+3 Corruption Points for entering Dark Aura II
The carriage shifted, lurching forward as Pandy sank into a mother’s warm embrace for the first time in either of her lives. Arms wrapped around her, holding her tight… and a hard hand grasped her wrist, twisting her hand palm upward as a metallic glint flashed in the light. Sharp pain. Burning. Grace released her, and Pandy slumped back on the bench, suddenly woozy.
-5 LF
-1 LF
+2 Corruption Points for entering Dark Aura II
-1 LF
+1 Corruption Points for entering Dark Aura II
PANDORA!!!
Pandy shook her head, blinking as the words that had been floating in front of her suddenly became clear. <No need to shout. I can hear you,> she thought, though even her mental voice seemed to shake.
A man held Pandy’s wrist as blood dripped unnoticed onto the floor of the carriage. A shadowy thing slid toward her hand, which seemed very small next to the large male hand that gripped it. Looking toward the woman, Pandy saw that she no longer looked anything like Grace Conroy. Someone or something had been messing with Pandy’s head, and she definitely didn’t like that at all.
-7 CP
Why was it CP when it was going down, and Corruption Points when it went up, Pandy wondered woozily. Did Keros intentionally program it that way, or was one of them left over from the original System?
-3 CP
-1 LF
+1 Corruption Points for entering Dark Aura II
Which was it? Up or down? Blood went down, Corruption Points went up, would blood start to go up when the CP went down? Pandy wanted to giggle, but giggling seemed inappropriate for some reason.
Pandy, focus.
Resist it.
Come on, you can do it.
Put those hamsters you’re always talking about to work.
Oof, Keros sounded worried. But he was right. Pandy’s brain-hamsters had gotten into something Not Intended For Children. That was bad, because Pandy worked with children, and over the past few months children had definitely become… very… important…
-8 CP
“It matches the sample,” someone said. A man? Otherwise the lady had a very deep voice. Which was fine. Pandy didn’t judge. She probably had an amazing singing voice. She could hit aaaallllll the notes, all by herself.
-10 CP
“What’s it doing?” Now there was some concern in the voice, which was abruptly much higher-pitched. Unless that was the woman? “Get it off of him.”
There was a pause, and when the deep voice spoke again, it sounded strained. “It’s not listening.”
“What do you mean, not listening? Do you have a contract with it or not?”
The ground was moving, and the whole world was spinning. Pandy’s hamsters were upside down and giggling, the wheel slowly spinning to a halt. Someone shouted, pain tore at her arm… or was that her chest? It was all attached, all one thing, only different because she believed it was different, like a Dragon with a library, and what happened if she stopped believing or-
“It’s going to kill him! Even I would struggle to give that much. Get it off him, Leo, or so help me, I’ll return it to Zheraphon.”
-18 CP
-17 CP
-21 CP
Pain mounted. It felt like someone was removing the arm, or the kidney, or whatever it was that was producing the pain. Some part of her was tearing loose, and while she thought she was still getting Corruption Points from the Dark Aura, the words blurred into a pale mass that twisted around her. Too little, too late. This was going to be a ridiculous way to die, even for her.
System Call Initiated.
Buffering.
…
def invoke_reset(caster):
try:
drift = getattr(caster, "state_vector", 0)
anchor = getattr(caster, "last_observed_state", drift)
if drift < anchor:
CustodianChannel.deliver("ΣΤΑΘΕΡΟΣ: interference detected")
caster.echo_resonance = (anchor - drift) or 1
CustodianChannel.deliver("ΔΕΜΣΕQ: counterflow issued")
Light burst forth from Pandy, forcing the man and woman to cry out and cover their eyes. Pandy would have done the same, except she was pretty sure her eyes were already closed, and the light was so bright that she could see right through them. Either that or they, too, were lit up like an overloaded Christmas tree.
It lasted for less than a heartbeat, which Pandy knew because as she fell to her knees, something thudded in her chest, just once.
Ba-thump.
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