Lucky Rabbit

Pandy waited by the front door until the bell rang, and students began to pour out of the dining hall. She suspected the chancellor was a Very Prompt Person – which she also was, mainly because if she didn’t leave in plenty of time, something would happen to delay her, usually involving things like exploding plungers and plummeting cabbages. To be fair, those things still happened when she did leave extra time to get places, but she could usually duck into a public restroom long enough to change and get most of the jello out of her hair.

Indeed, Mr. Blackwood appeared almost immediately, though to her surprise, he came from upstairs, not the dining hall. Had he not eaten with the students this morning, or did he have some way of getting back to his office really, really quickly? He was an Air mage, and while Air spells and elementals were often used for communication, they were also very fast, so-

The sharp eyes behind the deceptively academic glasses picked Pandy out immediately, even though she was hiding behind a large vase. She’d only nibbled a few of the leaves, too, in spite of their constant dangling temptation and the fact that rabbits were apparently nervous snackers. No doubt his tattle-tale elemental had given him a hint.

The chancellor greeted a few of the older children, but most of them seemed too in awe of him to approach. Pandy caught a quick glimpse of Thaniel sitting with his friends, including both Suzanne and Matilda, and then a servant opened the front door, allowing a small group of children and their supervisor to exit, blocking her view. As the chancellor passed near Pandy, he bent, scooped her up without so much as a hello, and walked out, all with his usual imperturbable smile glued to his lips.

Another servant met him at the bottom of the wide steps. The young man’s eyes widened slightly when he saw the rabbit tucked beneath Mr. Blackwood’s arm, but he motioned to a carriage waiting nearby, and a pair of brown horses drew the vehicle over. A little man in an equally brown hat hopped out, and turned out to be a medium-sized girl in a brown hat instead. She held the door open as Pandy and the chancellor entered, then closed the door behind them again. A few thumps came from outside, before creaking and swaying announced that the carriage was on its way. The whole process took less than two minutes.

They sat in silence until the sounds being produced by the carriage wheels shifted from the clatter of cobblestones to the smoother sound of a flat surface. Leaning forward, Mr. Blackwood placed Pandy down on the seat across from him, saying, “I do realize that you have limited time, Ms…Boxx? But I would like to speak with you, if possible. We’re about fifteen minutes from Lanthorne Court by carriage.” His eyes twinkled. “Well, this carriage, anyway. Could you spare fifteen minutes?”

Pandy hesitated. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known this was coming, but still…fifteen minutes? Couldn’t they talk tomorrow, when it was less likely she’d abruptly turn into a rabbit while speaking to a stranger? But here she was, and there he was, and she had a few questions of her own.

Picking up a paw, she attempted to make a spinning motion, asking him to turn away. She wasn’t sure he would understand, but the amusement in his eyes only deepened as he deliberately looked out of the window while she made the change. She’d put away her outfit while she was standing, and now she wasn’t, so that took a bit of wiggling to straighten out, and then Pandy cleared her throat.

“Mr…um, Blackwood?”

He looked back at her, extending a hand, which she accepted automatically. “Augustus Blackwood,” he said solemnly. “You may call me Augustus, or August, but not Gus, if you please.”

Pandy felt her cheeks grow hot. She wasn’t actually used to people being polite to her. “Pandora S. Boxx,” she said, “but I already told you that, didn’t I? You just called me Ms. Boxx, so you knew. But I’m a Miss, or, actually, just Pandy, because I’ve never quite been a Pandora, and besides, people always make assumptions when they hear a name like that, and-”

Augustus gently shook her hand up and down before releasing it, a bemused expression on his face. “What does the ‘S’ stand for?”

Pandy finally managed to get her voice under control, and said, “Oh, it’s…no one knows. There was a note, you see, with my name on it, when they found me. Pandora S. Just the letter. Brother Henepola thought it must stand for Smith, but it was Brother Polycarp’s birthday, and I think he’d gotten into the holy wine, because he suggested Boxx as my last name, and everyone else thought that was an excellent idea, because monks don’t give each other birthday presents, but it made Brother Polycarp so happy to be able to name me, even though of course the police took me away to the hospital just half an hour after I arrived. So the ‘S’ became my middle initial, and it doesn’t stand for anything. They used to send me a birthday letter every year, and once I even got to visit, except that they don’t let girls inside, and all of the frogs didn’t help- ”

The chancellor blinked, then said, “What’s a ‘monk’?”

Oh. Hmm. “They’re like priests, I suppose,” she told him. “But they priest all the time, and only live with other priests, and take priest names, and they can’t get married, because,” she frowned, “that would conflict with truly dedicated priesting?”

Mr. Blackwood – Augustus? August? Not-Gus? – rubbed his temple briefly, then sat back with a sigh. The carriage itself hadn’t looked like anything particularly fancy, and the inside wasn’t much better, but now that Pandy was sitting on the cushioned seat, she found that it was very, very comfortable. So when he settled in and crossed his legs, she dared to hope for a moment that he was just enjoying the plush. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

“It was thanks to you that we were able to reach Ellie in time,” he said, rather abruptly. “Zephra followed you and Isidor through the maze, so when you sent her to get me, she was able to guide us though, as well.” He grimaced slightly. “We were still in the first hall when she found us, I’m afraid.”

Pandy felt a rush of pride. She hadn’t even been sure that the Air elemental was still following her, or that it – she? – had obeyed when she told it to go find the chancellor, but that did answer one of the questions she’d wanted to ask.

“And you risked your life to save both Ellie and Isidor,” Augustus went on before she could actually think of something to say. That wasn’t quite true, though she could well have ended up in bits for quite some time, and wouldn’t that have been difficult to explain? Still, she supposed it probably looked like that from the outside.

“But,” he said, drumming his fingers against his knee, “how did you know how to get through the maze? You also knew where the key was, and the exit. You can see why that’s all a bit…suspicious.”

Pandy nodded. Now this was what she’d been expecting. “I told you that I read about this world before I got here, didn’t I?” He nodded, and she said, “So, I know a bit about some of the places here, and, as it happens, one of those places is that dungeon. Maze, I mean.”

She paused for a moment, unsure, then leaned forward and said, “In that story, Ellie is somewhere other than school, and I don’t think she lives at home, either. She’s safe, or at least I think so, but sometime between now and three years from now, something happens so she has to go away.”

Before he could ask the question that was written across his face, she hurried on. “I don’t know what that thing was, but I think it probably had something to do with the Shadow Exchange. You…do know who they are, don’t you?”

It wasn’t inconceivable that he didn’t, since average people didn’t tend to be knowledgeable when it came to secret organizations who lurked in the, well, shadows, and did things that no one liked to talk about in the light. But she didn’t think Augustus Blackwood was at all average, and besides, it had definitely seemed like he knew something about them when she told him that Ms. Wellington had probably been a member. This was confirmed when he nodded, though rather to her disappointment, he didn’t elaborate.

“The place Ellie was taken – the Emberwrought Labyrinth – is one of their hideouts. At one point, they’re suspected of harboring the villain, and that’s where Cl- I mean, the characters in the story end up, after following a series of clues. It turns out to be a trap, but after they defeat the boss, they find some letters someone left behind. Of course, the letters are in code, but once-”

Augustus held up a hand. “You know that place so well because you read about it in a book?” His brows drew together. “Pardon me if that seems…unlikely.”

Pandy chomped her lip. “Well, there are a lot of pictures in the book,” she said, rather unconvincingly. “But the important thing is that I think the Shadow Exchange is behind Elea...ie’s abduction, which makes sense, given that Ms. Wellington was also a member of the Exchange, but doesn’t make sense from the perspective of…of my story, where they’d been hired by the villain three years in the future. I really think someone would have mentioned if Ellie had ever been kidnapped,” because once Kaden went all-in on his romance with Clara, he was an over-sharer through and through, “but no one did.”

The chancellor looked thoughtful. “We have made some…inquiries, into the Exchange. As you say, they don’t act often on their own account, but they’ll do almost anything if they’re paid enough. But how can you be certain that the ‘villain’, as you say, isn’t already active? If you tell us who it is, we can check into them-”

“No!” Pandy flinched at the sound of her own voice, and the chancellor’s eyes narrowed. “No,” she said again, more calmly. “That villain isn’t. A villain, I mean. And won’t become one.”

Augustus hummed thoughtfully. “So it wasn’t young Thaniel’s father, then.”

She could have slapped herself. Honestly, Pandy had forgotten that she’d implied that The Father was the villain, and of course he was dead, so all she would have had to do is tell this too-perceptive man that the original villain was too. Except that it wouldn’t have been true, and Pandy had always been a terrible liar. Obviously, she wasn’t any better at obfuscating the truth.

“I…he…it might have been,” Pandy said. “But whoever it was, there’s no reason for them to be a villain, not now, and they definitely aren’t already hiring spies or kidnappers to do whatever it was Ms. Wellington and that man in the library were supposed to do!”

The gray eyes behind the thin lenses looked disturbingly empathetic, like Augustus Blackwood had already figured everything out, and was just waiting for her to flounder her way to the truth. She half expected him to press her further, but instead he said, “There’s a good chance someone will attempt to approach you today.”

She stared at him. Yes, she hoped several people would approach her today. She needed new shoes, new clothes, and one of those fish-shaped pastries that Clara and the boys ate at festivals, if she could find one.

He sighed. “Someone from the Shadow Exchange. Or possibly a representative of…Ms. Wellington’s other employer.” His lips pinched. “And I wish I could tell you who they are, but I swore an oath, so I can’t. But you might have a guess?”

Pandy blinked. Was he suggesting what she thought he was suggesting? “I’m not certain,” she admitted. “You obviously know who Ellie is, since you were with her and her mother.” He twitched. A lightbulb went off. “The queen? Ms. Wellington was hired by the queen? But why?”

Augustus’ face was unreadable, lacking even the warmth and humor that lurked there when he was addressing the children. “While I, of course, cannot confirm anything, you may find it worthwhile to think about that question yourself,” he said. “Especially if someone approaches you today and asks you to, say, report to them. You may also remember that if the person you appear to be had two employers, there is no guarantee they didn’t have more. Be careful of what you say, and to whom.”

“But your elemental is still following me, isn’t it?” She looked around, as if she could actually see the Air elemental in question. Then her eyes widened. “You’re using me as bait!”

His lips twitched, just for a moment. “I will remind you that it was your idea to go out.”

“But you suggested when and where,” she reminded him, a little sharply. Then her shoulders slumped. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known that this was the plan, after all. “I just thought this was…time off. An hour to just,” she waved her hand aimlessly, “relax?”

He definitely looked sympathetic now, and his hand moved, as if he would reach out and touch her hand in reassurance. “Zephra will be watching. But the fact that someone got onto the grounds of Falconet long enough to use the library portal the way it was used yesterday is…unacceptable. We’d hoped to take our time, following up on leads, allowing them to come to us. Things have changed, however, and we’re counting on our enemies finding this opportunity irresistible. Your job is simple: give nothing away, and survive. We’ll follow anyone who speaks to you, so you don’t need to do so.”

The motion of the carriage changed, and Pandy almost fell from her cushy seat as it jumped up, then fell down again, causing her to land with a soft thump. She clutched at the seat, and as she did so, she realized something else. No, two somethings.

“You didn’t tell the queen about me?” she squeaked. If she was right, why wouldn’t they have told Eleanor’s mother? Surely they didn’t think the woman had anything to do with the bad parts of all this? Pandy could definitely see Queen Regent Louisa hiring someone to watch over her daughter at school, and in fact she assumed that was what Isidor, Augustus, Professor Beeswick, and any number of other people were supposed to do as well. Ms. Wellington had definitely been up to something else, something manipulative, but that was because of her other employer, wasn’t it?

Augustus simply raised his brows, offering neither explanation nor answer, when the girl in the brown hat threw open the door to the carriage and said, “Lanthorne Court, sir!”

At which point Pandy once again realized the other thing she’d realized a minute before and said, “But how do I get back to school?”

The chancellor grinned the grin of a mischievous schoolboy and stood, offering her his hand. He helped her down as the girl swung out the carriage step, leaning in to murmur, “You always seem to land on your feet. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”