Lucky Rabbit

Pandy grinned, glad to be able to turn the tables on the secretive boy. “Come on, and I’ll show you.” Isidor’s eyes narrowed, but when Pandy led the way back toward the classroom wing, he followed.

Small Groups were everywhere today. Usually, teachers spent most of the time talking, or giving the students easy, practical lessons. On Friday, it appeared that those teachers brought out the metaphorical Big Guns. A few seemed to have teamed up, and fifteen children ran around the largest training ground, tossing small, harmless spells at each other.

As she passed them, Pandy realized again that she really needed to figure out a way to teach Thaniel and the others, not just keep them entertained for an hour a day. Most of the techniques used by the teachers in Gacha Love wouldn’t work for six-year-olds, and since she knew that all of them already had powerful elementals, she wasn’t too worried about their safety. Any of them except Thaniel himself, of course. Thaniel’s ‘elemental’ wasn’t one, and he was terrified of his own power.

Pandy’s playful mood was gone by the time she opened the door to the classroom wing, jumping out of the way as a little girl whooped and ran past her, another girl hot on her heels, wielding tiny gusts of wind that blew their hair and clothes around. Even Isidor smiled as he watched them run off toward the stables, though the panting older student who appeared shortly thereafter definitely didn’t look like he was enjoying himself.

After making sure the coast was clear of other young hooligans, Pandy made her way inside, seeing that while the area behind the school was practically overrun with children, the halls were all but empty. That was good for her, because she definitely didn’t want anyone to see what she was up to.

“There are five staircases in the school, right?” she asked as she made her way toward the library.

Isidor’s brows rose, but he said, “Two in the entry, one in the student wing, one in the classroom wing, and one leading up to the teacher’s offices. And the one leading up to the front door, which is part of the main building, even if it’s not inside.”

Pandy couldn’t help but admire his commitment to accuracy, and an equal determination to correct her whenever possible. She stopped just before the stairs leading up to the second floor of classrooms. It lay in between the library – which was, of course, also full of stairs, though she didn’t remind Isidor of that fact – and a classroom Thaniel hadn’t yet entered.

“So, if you were trying to find a magical staircase that only appeared on Friday at six o’clock, how would you go about doing it?” she asked, staring up the steps, which were well-lit, since it was before bedtime. She still hadn’t figured out exactly where the light came from, and she should probably ask, if only so she could turn off the lights in Ms. Wellington’s room, which were still on, as far as she knew.

Isidor shrugged. “I’d just pick a set of stairs and be there at six o’clock,” he said. “If I didn’t get it right the first time, I’d try another set the next week, and another the week after that, until I did get it right.”

That was exactly what Clara and Edgar did in Gacha Love. Only it was a trick, because it turned out the game only showed the stairs you’d already discovered. The hidden stairway between the girls’ and boys’ floor was only available after you solved the riddle to find it, for example. There was another set of hidden stairs leading up to the staff living quarters, which, if you were paying attention, probably meant there was one here, too. Of course, this set of stairs was completely useless, unless you were wooing Edgar and unlocked the Seven Mysteries event chain. Or if you were Pandy, right here, right now. Hopefully.

Glancing up and down the hallway, Pandy checked to make sure no one was within sight. All of the rooms were empty, with any groups that met there currently being outside, enjoying the beautiful weather. Beneath her hand, the knob turned, the latch clicking open, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t actually certain what she would do if it had turned out to be locked. Lock-picking wasn’t available as a skill in Gacha Love, and it wasn’t one Pandy had ever developed, either.

The room beyond the door was lined with maps. There were beautifully drawn maps for Knightmere, West Altheric, and several of the smaller towns in the area. A large map caught her eye, and it was far more complete than the one on the game wiki, so Pandy wished she had time to stop and examine it. That wasn’t what she was there for, however, so she walked quickly to the back left corner and began to run her hands over the wall.

Isidor stared at her. “What are you doing?”

Pandy felt along the baseboard, wondering if this was like the other hidden door she’d found in Falconet. Her questing fingers found a sunken spot in the paint, and she scratched at it, revealing a circle that had been painted over so many times that it was all but invisible. Pressing her thumb against it, Pandy leaned forward, but while it sank a little further beneath the pressure, nothing else happened.

She crouched, looking from the spot to her short, human fingernails. She could change back to a rabbit and use her claws, but- Looking up at Isidor, she asked, “Do you have a knife?”

He looked surprised, then nodded with obvious reluctance. Reaching down, he raised his pant leg to reveal a sheath strapped to his calf. The blade he removed was no longer than Pandy’s hand, but it was wickedly sharp, and of course she immediately cut herself.

With an annoyed sigh, Pandy lifted the finger to her lips and sucked on the wound. A quick Minor Heal took care of the injury, but not the blood, and she didn’t want to leave evidence behind. Once that was done, she wiggled the tip of the knife around the circle, breaking the paint seal. When she was done, she leaned back, eyeing it critically.

“Can you see that?” she asked, finding that she was whispering, in spite of the fact that there was no need.

“See what?” Isidor asked, holding out his hand for the knife. Pandy passed it back. It wasn’t like she was going to steal it. If she tried to stab someone, she was more likely to hurt herself than them. Which was why she needed Isidor in the first place. She certainly wasn’t going to take Thaniel to the third floor.

“This,” she said, pressing her thumb against the circle. This time, she didn’t have to worry about cracking the paint, thus revealing the ‘secret’ staircase to the next bored child to enter the room, and she applied full force. The button sank into the baseboard with a cranky sort of grinding noise, and part of the wall rolled up, almost like a window blind.

Isidor gaped, looking from the opening, back to Pandy, and then at the opening again. Of course, as with everything else in Falconet, it was far smaller than the one at Condor, which both Clara and Edgar were shown climbing without difficulty. Pandy crawled forward, poking her head in through the hole, and saw that she would either have to continue crawling or change back to Bunny. She honestly wasn’t sure which one she would prefer, given that Isidor was with her.

“What is that?” the boy asked, voice practically trembling.

“A door,” Pandy told him, then hesitated, reassessing the situation. “I mean, it’s not really a door, though, is it? More a sort of Hobbit hole, or maybe a particularly ambitious cupboard. But it does lead to,” she poked her head in again, feeling around until she located the first step, “stairs!”

Isidor shook his head, muttering, “Hob-it?” but crouched down so he, too, could peer into the hole. Removing Tempest from his pocket, he extended her into the darkness. Apparently the tortoise didn’t do whatever it was he expected her to, so he gave her a gentle shake, and the reptile reluctantly began to glow. It was a soft shimmer, like static electricity crackling across a freshly dried sheet, and didn’t illuminate much, but the boy edged forward, drawn, as all children are, by the unknown.

Pandy hadn’t been sure if the necklace he wore actually changed his body or just altered his appearance. Now, as he managed to wiggle his way upward, she determined that he must be physically changed, because the taller, broader, almost-fourteen-year-old version would have wedged himself in like a couch stuck in a stairwell.

She, too, was actually Ms. Wellington-sized, and while she might be able to make it, it would be much easier if she was smaller. Now that Isidor couldn’t see her, she banished her clothes into her inventory and murmured, “End Shifting Faces.”

It was almost a relief when her vision returned to what she now considered ‘normal’. Whenever she was in human form, she just couldn’t get over the idea that something might be sneaking up in one of her vast blind spots. Rabbit eyes were better for seeing in the dark, too, which was quite helpful since only the faintest trace of Tempest’s electrical emissions was visible past the plug of Isidor’s body.

They wound their way upwards, Isidor practically twisting himself into a particularly salty pretzel until they reached the top of the staircase. Which, just like in Gacha Love, ended abruptly, halfway up a twist and a step, with no sign of an exit.

Isidor muttered a curse that made Pandy’s ears grow hot. He twisted even further, revealing that he was quite flexible, and managed to thrust Tempest into Pandy’s face. The tortoise’s beak was open, ready to take a bite from Pandy’s tender proboscis, but Pandy jerked backwards just in time. Apparently, Isidor had only meant to see her better, because he, too, pulled away, bashing his elbow into the edge of a step and prompting more frustrated cursing.

“I never should have come up here,” he told Pandy, one dark eye visible in the triangular space between arm, ribs, and a contorted leg. He started to say more, but, seeing that she was in rabbit form, he just snapped his mouth shut and began to shimmy his way backwards, causing Pandy to jump in alarm. This jump resulted in her bopping her head on the truncated ceiling, and dust settled down around them, looking like smog in the dim flickers of electricity.

Then, sounding very far away, and muffled by much more than wherever the bell – or magical recording – was kept, the chime for six o’clock rang out. Isidor yelped as the wall against which he’d placed his hand abruptly vanished, and he fell forward into a space that hadn’t been there a moment before. In the process, he dropped Tempest, and Pandy heard the dull thump and scrape as the turtle went skating away across a wooden floor.

Pandy lunged forward. Unlike the Clock That Chimes Thirteen, this wouldn’t fade away the moment the bell stopped, but they still only had half an hour. Not that this event was meant to take very long, but that didn’t make it easy. It took place after the mid-winter ball, when both Clara and Edgar had all but their strongest spells, and Clara had more than tripled her available Stamina, but they could still fail and require a gacha spin to add extra time to finish.

The top of her head hit something that was both soft and hard at once, and Isidor grunted. A thudding sound indicated that he’d just fallen forward again, which probably meant that the thing she hit was him, and she didn’t want to think too hard about which part of the human anatomy felt like that. Instead, she thought,

Shifting Faces has already been used today. You have 01:04:11 remaining.

Pandy bumped into Isidor for a third time as she was ejected from the tiny crawlspace, and barely managed to gather herself enough to pull some clothing out of her inventory. Unfortunately, rather than a dress, which covered her thoroughly and was at least somewhat flattering, she had to use the other option. The one she’d prepared in case this worked, and she couldn’t afford to have yards of material wrapping around her legs.

Tight fabric wrapped her limbs, and she glanced down, seeing that she was firmly encased in the black bodysuit she’d found, neatly folded, on her desk. It was incredibly tight and stretchy, but with it on, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting tangled in anything but herself. She’d even scraped back her hair into a French braid for this ‘outfit’, though she’d had to make do with a ribbon to tie it off, since she didn’t have any rubber bands.

Isidor had made it to his feet – for the second or third time – and stared at her in the pale light cast by his extremely annoyed tortoise, who was trundling her way back toward them with a speed Pandy wouldn’t have believed she could achieve with her stumpy legs. Pandy wasn’t sure if the turtle was planning to return to Isidor or bite Pandy, so she decided to err on the side of caution and hurried across the room, toward the dark void that represented a door leading out of the room in which they found themselves.