Lucky Rabbit

Thaniel was smart and resilient, and by the next morning, he’d recovered his equilibrium enough to talk to Pandy about their ‘team project’ for Small Group. Isidor actually lingered in the room while they talked it over, probably because in spite of everything he was struggling with, he was still almost as nosy as Pandy herself.

“I wanna make a fire,” Thaniel said, for what felt like the hundredth time. He had his jaw set just so, and his lower lip poked out, so she knew she was fighting an uphill battle. He’d already shot down Verdant Surge, which felt like the safest spell to use, even though it would probably make Lady Frances believe they had Nature magic. She was only going to be their teacher for one more day though, so it probably didn’t matter if she got the wrong idea. It would matter if Pandy and Thaniel set the trees on fire, though.

Fortunately, Pandy had one more trick up her sleeve. “We could be invisible. That’s definitely what Pirate Pete would want. He could sneak onto ships, and rescue… I mean, kidnap people from other pirates, and no one would ever know.”

Thaniel paused. “Like you did in-” He stopped glancing at Isidor, whose ears would have been as large as his head and tilted like satellite dishes if they could have. As it was, he was scowling down at the book in his lap, which was not upside down, but he hadn’t turned a page in at least five minutes.

Pandy nodded. “Exactly like that.” Not that that trick was going to work much longer if she kept telling people about it. Still, how much sneaking could she possibly need to do?

“Don’t you wanna keep that a secret?” Thaniel asked reasonably, and Isidor’s chin jerked in silent agreement.

Pandy and Thaniel were sitting on Thaniel’s bed, since this conversation was taking longer than she’d anticipated. The boys were pretty much ready to head to breakfast, but the bell hadn’t rung yet, and while stragglers would be Frowned Upon – mostly by Ms. Davenport – there weren’t actually any consequences for being late to this meal.

“I just don’t think there’s anything else that’ll work,” she said, flopping backward so her shoulders and head leaned against the wall behind the bed. “We can’t heal anyone when nobody’s hurt, and besides, it’s probably not a good idea to let people know either of us can do that.” Isidor’s chin jerked again, though he still didn’t look up from his book.

Again, she ran through her spells in her head. There was no way she was sprouting gory wings in the middle of the common area, and Vita Herbalis didn’t do anything visible, though she might be able to make Lady Frances’s cup of tea truly Restorative. Her Spark had grown far too hot and bright to use safely around flammable objects like dry leaves and people, even if it wouldn’t attract attention, and she absolutely wasn’t using either Air of Superiority or Scorching Sonata except in an emergency.

“You just have to use Fire for a second,” Thaniel wheedled. “We’ll find somewhere away from any trees.”

Except that Pandy still hadn’t figured out how to put out her Spark when she wanted to. She picked a spot, used the spell, and then the fire burned until it went out. The time it stayed lit wasn’t even predictable. It was almost always at least two minutes – she’d had a few go for what had to be five or six minutes – but it sometimes flashed out in thirty seconds or less. It just didn’t feel like a good idea to set a fire of indeterminate duration in the middle of the commons. Even Pandy knew that was just asking for trouble, and she’d pretty much given up on trying to avoid Inciting Incidents a long time ago.

From Isidor’s side of the room came a tiny, grumbly sound. Isidor twitched, his cheeks turning red, and Pandy realized the sound had come from his stomach. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t eaten much yesterday, and he must be starving.

When Pandy and Thaniel turned to stare at him, he slammed his book closed, swinging his legs off his bed. He glared back at them, practically twitching with something he wanted to say, and finally burst out, “Earth magic!” Immediately, he looked like he’d like to take those three syllables back, but it was too late.

None of the main characters in Gacha Love had Earth magic, so Pandy didn’t know much about it. Like Fog, Water, and Lightning, Clara and her companions came up against enemies who used it, but other than the occasional mention in some of the lore-books scattered throughout the game, it was a bit of an enigma.

Isidor sighed, pushing his book into his bag and settling the strap over his shoulder. “Some Earth mages work with actual earth – dirt, stone, and metal. But others can manipulate the body, which is why they’re the only ones who can repair broken bones and some of the ligaments. It’s not a rapid process, but it can be done, and I’ve seen you,” he pointed at Pandy, “move far more quickly than you should be able to, as well as showing excessive amounts of strength.”

Pandy sat up. “That’s Earth magic?” It was just stats to her, but was Earth magic what made it possible? That kind of made sense, within the framework of gamified ‘reality’ – where reality included magic – she’d been living in for the last several months.

He shrugged his bag awkwardly, then nodded. “Lady Frances will think you’re an Earth elemental, but that’s fine. You just have to do something that should be impossible without magic.”

Pandy had a feeling that wasn’t exactly what the lady had been asking for, but even if she knew how to give Thaniel some of her Strength or Agility, it wouldn’t be safe. They knew the heartstone Reacted Badly to Dark magic, and she wasn’t willing to find out the hard way that it didn’t like Earth or Fire or any of the others, either.

Though come to think of it, Thaniel had never had a bad reaction when she healed him, and it was supposed to be hard to use Light magic on Dark mages. Was that because it was purely external, or because what Pandy was using to heal wasn’t really Light magic? It didn’t have Light in the name, and anything that did inevitably glitched and changed to-

“Well, anyway,” Isidor said, heading for the door, holding onto the strap of his bag in a white-knuckled grip. “Just an idea.”

“Wait!” Pandy said, almost spilling onto the floor as she scrambled to stand. So much for high Agility. When he actually stopped, she was so startled she almost forgot what she was going to say, but then she managed, “I want you to be my brother.”

Thaniel sat up so fast he almost spilled off the bed as well, and Isidor froze with his mouth hanging open. “Wh- What? You can’t-”

But the nights were long, and Pandy had worked this through, at least as much as she could, so she said, “I have a house now. For the next two years, anyway. And some money. And I look like this.” She gestured to herself – to Eurydice’s warm brown skin and black curls – and then to Isidor, with his slightly more golden skin and equally black hair. “People will definitely believe you’re my brother.”

He stared at her in blatant confusion. “Why?”

She drew in a deep breath. “You deserve to go to school. You’re really smart, and you work so hard. August- Mr. Blackwood said somebody would find a job for you, and you can learn a lot working, so if you had something you really wanted to do, that’d be okay, but I think maybe you can’t do what you actually  want to do unless you go to school, and you also really love learning, so you should. Learn things.”

Thaniel looked more than a little conflicted as he stared between the two of them, but he asked, “Why does he need to be your brother?”

Oh. She’d skipped that part, hadn’t she? Backing up, she tried to spell it out. “If you’re my brother, nobody will wonder where you came from. I mean, I’m kind of mysterious, so maybe they still will, but people aren’t nearly so suspicious when there’s a family. Plus, you can live in my house with me. It’s big, so you can have your own room, and you never even have to see me if you don’t want to. You’ll go to Kestrel every day, and I’ll come here, but it’ll be cheaper than living at school, and even though I can probably- No, I’ll definitely find enough money to pay your tuition, it’d be good if we can keep the cost down as much as possible.”

About halfway through this speech, Isidor went noticeably paler, but there was a light in his eyes that Pandy had never seen there before. “Kestrel?” he asked, working the word around in his mouth like it was a new kind of candy, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it yet.

She nodded. “I mean, you can’t stay here, because you’re not learning anything, and anyway, you’re probably going to have to give back the-” she gestured to his throat, where the pendant that kept him young hung from a chain.

He nodded. “Next week.” His voice cracked, and he cleared it. “They didn’t want to make it obvious. When I left. I was just going to be gone on Monday.”

Thaniel looked horrified. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye?”

Isidor actually drooped, his gaze sliding away. “I thought it would be easier. You don’t really know me. We’re not really friends. So-”

Now Thaniel looked downright incensed. “What do you mean we’re not friends? We’re roommates. We promised to protect Ellie together!” His face fell as he realized how badly that had gone. Then he whirled on Pandy. “I wanna live with you, too. Ellie’s gone, and Geri wants to leave, and Bing… Bing could come with us! You’d let Brook live  inside, wouldn’t you?”

It was Pandy’s turn to be utterly gobsmacked. There was no way… Lian wouldn’t let Thaniel… But it was their guardian who decided, wasn’t it? That meant Augustus, and then Pandy wouldn’t have to leave Thaniel at school every night, or sneak back in and out again in the morning, and leave Isidor alone all the time. It wasn’t like Avington House wasn’t large enough for all of them. Sure, it needed some work, but she’d chosen Faithful Foundation, which should help with that. Probably. Somehow. As long as the house wasn’t trying to kill them, it should be fine. Right?

“Bing’s parents won’t-” she tried, but there was no strength in it. Suddenly, deeply, she wanted this more than she’d ever wanted anything before – except when she was a very small child, and desperately wished every night that her parents would just appear on the doorstep of her latest foster home and say, “Oops, our bad, we love Pandora and want her back.” But in the end, this was still that same wish, wasn’t it? Family.

Raising her eyes, she looked at Isidor. “Please,” she said, and he swallowed hard, then jerked his chin, just once. Yes.

Thaniel’s grin could have lit up New York. He threw his arms around Pandy, then – to Isidor’s apparent mingled bemusement and dismay – his new ‘brother’. Not that Pandy would be able to claim Thaniel was her sibling. Even if it wasn’t common knowledge who he was yet, it would be, and the new teacher, Eurydice Haupe, obviously had nothing to do with a reclusive country lord and his orphaned family. So how were they going to explain why Thaniel was living with her, much less Abbington? If the Valley boy’s family was willing to allow him to move, which really was extremely doubtful, wasn’t it? Here, he was safe, and his fifteenth-cousin-twice-removed, Mrs. Farrier, could watch over him.

But she couldn’t bring herself to start punching holes in the dream. Not so soon. Not when it felt so right. Besides, while she was confident Isidor could take care of himself in the house, Thaniel and Abbington were too young. She needed to fix it up first. She’d definitely smelled mold, and the wallpaper was peeling, and she should really make sure none of the traps were still active. That could take months. Plenty of time to deal with getting permission. Later. Right now, she could just bask in the knowledge that she had a home and a family at last.

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