Lucky Rabbit

Pandy got a rather rude shock when Thaniel squealed and clutched her to him. The plush rabbit dropped to the floor, forgotten, and Thaniel buried his face in Pandy’s fur. “Bunny, you’re back!” he cried, and Pandy twitched her whiskers against his cheek, making him laugh.

Isidor rolled over in the other bed, his black eyes seeming even darker against the faint shadows beneath his eyes. He’d probably only gotten a few hours of sleep, and he obviously wasn’t happy about it. Still, he heaved a sigh and swung his legs out of bed as the weekend bell rang softly, letting everyone know that if they wanted breakfast, they needed to rise, even if they chose not to shine.

Thaniel made up for Isidor’s lack of morning cheer, chattering nonstop until they reached the dining room, at which point he settled Pandy onto his lap, rather than putting her down by his feet. The girls – including Suzanne and Matilda – trickled in after that, with each one greeting Thaniel and showing no surprise at Pandy’s presence. Pandy herself found that a bit surprising, until she realized that Thaniel must have made some excuse for her absence at dinner last night, and they didn’t know she hadn’t made it back to the room until after midnight.

When Pandy’s breakfast arrived, Thaniel finally allowed her to get down, but she caught him peering beneath the table several times. She’d thought he was getting better about being separated for short periods, but apparently the unexpected nature of this particular incident had shaken his confidence that she would return.

When the meal ended, the group headed outside, and though Thaniel continued to check on Pandy, he eventually relaxed enough to put her down so he could play properly. Now that the students had been assigned mounts, they could take their mighty steeds for sedate walks around the pen next to the stable. Eleanor and Geraldine were very much in favor of doing exactly this, while Thaniel and Abbington were willing enough to go along.

Unfortunately, it turned out that while Suzanne could walk through the stable while all of the animals were safely in their stalls, having her approach one while someone was riding it was Not a Good Idea. Being Suzanne, of course she insisted that she could just read a book and watch from a safe distance, but no one else was satisfied with this. Instead, they agreed to trade off, with two of them going to ride, while the rest played near Brook’s pond.

It was while Geraldine and Eleanor were taking their turns riding that the children were interrupted by someone entirely unexpected. Abbington was showing Thaniel how to use a blade of grass to produce the high whistle that he so envied. The children were laughing at the sometimes-hilarious sounds that were produced by their attempts when a whistle even louder than Abbington’s pierced the air.

Everyone turned, staring as the chancellor forged his way through the tall grass. His hair and clothes had been returned to their usual impeccable tidiness, and he held up a slender blade of grass with a slightly nostalgic smile on his lips. “I’d almost forgotten how to do that,” he said as he approached. “Thank you for the reminder.”

The children stared at him, clearly awestruck, until Suzanne and Matilda stood from the blanket on which they’d been sitting and curtsied. This inspired the boys to attempt bows, which Thaniel was better at than Abbington, though not by much. That made Pandy realize someone was missing, however, and she looked around for Isidor, who had vanished at some point, probably so he could keep an eye on Eleanor.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to make you leave,” Augustus said, easily reading the looks on their faces, and relieved sighs were heard all around. He raised an eyebrow and added, “At least so long as no one complains. Since this area is, technically, off limits to unaccompanied students.” His gaze dropped to Pandy, and for a moment, she wondered if he was counting them as ‘accompanied’ because she was there. That idea quickly vanished as Augustus crossed to Thaniel and crouched down to speak to the boy in a quiet tone.

“I wonder if I could borrow your rabbit for a little while, Thaniel. I promise to have her back by lunchtime,” he said. His eyes were compassionate as he watched Thaniel struggle to respond. It was obvious that the boy wanted to refuse, but even as he opened his mouth, he looked down at Pandy, who had hopped over to settle near his feet.

“Do you want to go with him?” the boy asked, expression shadowed.

Pandy looked back and forth between them. Thaniel definitely wanted her to say no, and Pandy herself wasn’t sure what she could do to help Augustus in her current state. But if she could help, and that help led to finding out who was trying to kidnap Thaniel or Eleanor, then that was what she needed to do.

Taking a final hop toward Thaniel, she stood up on her hind feet, pressing her forepaws against his leg. He reached down to stroke her, and she nuzzled his hand, then looked toward Augustus and nodded her head.

Thaniel didn’t even try to suppress his sigh, but he picked Pandy up, snuggling her close before passing her to Augustus. “Lunch,” he said, with all the authority he could muster from his very small body. Augustus accepted Pandy with equal solemnity, then straightened.

“Thank you,” he told Thaniel seriously, before turning and beginning to make his way back toward the fence, leaving the children to demand Thaniel explain. Pandy would very much like to know what he came up with, but no matter how she strained her bunny ears, she couldn’t hear anything over the rustle of grass and the pounding of Augustus’s heart.

Wait, why could she hear his heart? She hadn’t spent a lot of time this close to him, but she definitely didn’t remember hearing his heart thud so loudly before. Pushing herself away from his chest slightly, she stared up, seeing that he was still a bit pale, and faint beads of sweat lined his upper lip.

Seeing her concern, he grimaced, murmuring, “I’m afraid some damage was done before you got the antidote into me. It will take some time, and possibly a trip to a healer, before I’m entirely recovered.” He smiled down at her with a look she’d never before seen on his face and added, “Not that I’m not grateful you saved me, and I’m afraid I completely forgot to say so last night. Thank you, Pandora.”

Pandy felt something very odd happen inside her. It was a kind of melting, fluttery feeling, mixed with something she might have identified as nausea if she’d had any reason to feel nauseated. For a moment, she wondered if her System might have restarted, but a quick check told her that wasn’t it.

Fortunately, Augustus looked back up after speaking, striding forward until he reached the simple wooden fence that encircled the pasture. Stopping, he leaned on the top bar for a moment, allowing his breathing to even out before he looked down at her again. With a small, self-deprecating smile, he said, “Normally, I would jump over such a small obstacle, but today, I believe I’ll just climb.”

He put her down, putting words into action as he climbed up and over the fence, landing on the other side with a small hop. For the briefest of moments, Pandy considered using her own Hop to jump over the fence, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, Hop wasn’t working as well as it usually did, and with her luck, she’d end up splatting into the top of the fence, rather than leaping over it gracefully. Instead, she wiggled between the slats, and was promptly scooped back into the chancellor’s arms.

He carried her past students, teachers, and staff alike, each time acknowledging their greetings with a tilt of his head and a complete lack of slowing down. One woman actually followed him for a few steps, calling his name, but he continued on as if he hadn’t heard her, his long strides rapidly leaving her behind, and she soon gave up.

They entered the door at the rear of the classroom wing, which was thankfully empty. The rooms were closed for the weekend unless a student or group of students arranged to use them, and the library – which was where many students spent a good part of Saturday and Sunday – hadn’t yet reopened.

Now, however, Augustus stopped in front of the library door and knocked firmly. “Beeswick?” he called, and the door swung open, allowing them inside. Pandy was greatly relieved to see that the familiar library lay ahead, with Professor Beeswick sitting at one of the tables, papers and books scattered in front of him.

The dragon librarian didn’t bother looking up as they approached, nor did he move any of the objects strewn across the table. Tapping a claw against the wooden surface, he said, “I’ve narrowed it down to a few possibilities, but I really need more information.”

Augustus pulled out a chair, sitting down before carefully picking up two books, three papers covered in scribbled nonsense, and what looked like a stuffed dormouse. A toy one, not taxidermied, for which Pandy was grateful.

Before the chancellor could speak, Beeswick’s pale gaze fell on Pandy, and he said, “You brought the rabbit. Good. Here.” Reaching out, he shoved a few books off the table. To Pandy’s astonishment, rather than falling to the floor, they flew off into the shelves surrounding them, presumably returning themselves to their rightful places.

The dragon saw her look and grinned, exposing those too-sharp teeth. “You didn’t think I really needed children to shelve my books, did you? Now look,” he nudged an open book closer to her. “These symbols are an old language, Astrugian. Astrug was one of several small principalities that were absorbed into Altheric. Specifically, it was here.” He pointed to a map taking up a large part of one page. “You can see that area is now entirely contained within East Altheric.”

Pandy resisted rolling her eyes. He might be able to see that, but she certainly couldn’t. While she could definitely identify the borders of West Altheric as it existed three years from now, Gacha Love simply hadn’t cared about anything outside those borders. For that matter, it only cared about things inside those borders if they related to Clara et al in some way.

Obviously, her comprehension wasn’t actually required, however, because he continued without waiting for acknowledgement. Laying seven sheets of paper on top of the book, he said, “Other than the fact that it uses a dead language, this seems to be a simple substitution cipher. Each set of Astrugian characters represent a page, line, and word. Unfortunately, without knowing the work to which it refers, we can’t actually substitute any of those words. But, Ms. Wellington had several books in her possession, and I have taken the liberty of, ah, liberating them to my library.”

He laid a possessive hand on the stack of green-covered books at his elbow. “However, even after I translated the symbols, and Augustus and I applied them to each of the books in her room, we have only…gibberish.”

He lifted several more pieces of paper from a stack to his left and splayed them out, showing more scribbles, this time in English, or whatever people in West Altheric actually used, if Keros’s magic translated it to English for her. Their mouths certainly seemed to be shaping the sounds she heard, so she was assuming they actually spoke and wrote English, but-

“So, the question is,” Augustus said, already sounding exhausted, “were there any other books in her quarters when you, ah, moved in? Or can you think of any other text she might have used?”

Pandy concentrated, trying to remember exactly what books had been in the room when she first saw it. She certainly hadn’t removed any, since all of the books there had horribly boring titles like A Historical Perspective on Sheep Taxation, and An Exhaustive Catalogue of Minor Key Gavottes. Pandy couldn’t imagine anyone voluntarily reading them, so she’d assumed the woman had them up for display only. Except…

Pandy’s back leg thumped, and she stared up at Professor Beeswick. Her ears felt hot as she remembered crouching beneath the chair, completely naked, desperately hoping no one could see her. But she distinctly remembered the dragon strolling right over to that single shelf of books and taking one down.

Beeswick’s brows drew down, and he stared at her, then stuck a clawed finger into one ear and wiggled it around. “I would swear-” he muttered, before his eyes widened. Standing, he darted off into the shelves, his taloned feet producing a rapid thudclick thudclick as he ran to a staircase and headed up.

Augustus stared after the dragon, looking astonished, then down at Pandy. “What just happened?” he asked, and Pandy shook her head. How could she explain when she wasn’t sure, either? Frowning, Augustus laid a finger on Pandy’s nose and asked, “Have you already used up your spell for the day? The one that allows you to change forms?”

Oh. That was a good excuse, and Pandy didn’t hesitate to use it. Nodding her head, she tried one of Thaniel’s favorite looks, widening her eyes and batting her lashes innocently. In spite of extensive practice, however, she wasn’t as good at it as a six-year-old, and Augustus narrowed his own eyes at her, but before he could open his mouth, a book was dropped into the center of the table, startling them both.

“I can’t believe I forgot,” Professor Beeswick said, laying his hand on the bright green cover. The golden lettering on the spine read, A Comprehensive Treatise on the Enduring Socio-Political Legacies of Pre-Modern Principalities. There were so many words crammed into such a small space that Pandy had to squint to read it. Beeswick opened the cover, and on the inside, Pandy saw the raised circular mark Lian had used to reshelve the library books.

“I’d never seen this book before, so I, ah…acquired it,” the dragon said, completely ignoring the fact that he’d claimed it was overdue when he took it. Had they already known she wasn’t Ms. Wellington and wouldn’t know better, or was he just counting on her discombobulation to keep her from saying anything? Either way, Pandy wasn’t trusting him when it came to books anymore.

Tracing a finger over one of the scribbled sheets, the professor turned to a certain page in the book before counting down to the tenth line. “The,” he muttered. “Yes, starting off very well.” There was a definite note of sarcasm in his tone, but by the time he was five words in, it had faded. After ten, he looked up, eyes blazing.

“This is it. And these are definitely instructions for the putative Ms. Wellington. It’ll take a while to decode, but I’ll have it by this evening.” He smiled at Pandy, clearly unconcerned with the fact that he was a predator, baring his teeth at a prey animal. During their shared lunch, he’d tried to cover his mouth with his napkin at least some of the time, but obviously, he was no longer worried about how terrifying he looked. Was that a good sign or a bad one when it came to the possibility that he planned to eat her someday? Was a rabbit large enough to make decent emergency rations for a dragon?

“Now, the question is,” the dragon shuffled through the pages, pulling out much more neatly written sheets that looked slightly familiar. “What are these? I have my suspicions, but if I’m correct, then the leak within,” his eyes flicked to Augustus, “your organization is much worse than we believed.”

Organization? This was the first Pandy was hearing of an organization. She knew someone had hired Ms. Wellington – probably several someones – and that Augustus was working for the queen, but there was an organization? And a leaky one, at that. Was Isidor working for them, as well, rather than just being there because Queen Louisa had convinced his Master to send him?

Augustus made a small sound of agreement, but when Pandy looked up at him, he wasn’t watching Professor Beeswick. With a sigh, he spoke softly, obviously talking to her, not the dragon. “I can’t explain yet. I believe my superior will soon approve my suggestion to give you more information, but for now, you already know more than you should. I’m sorry, Pandora.”

Pandy looked up at him, and her insides did that fluttery, trembly, nauseating thing again, so she just swallowed hard and gave a tiny nod of understanding. It really was a good thing that she couldn’t speak, because whatever words might have spilled from her mouth at that moment would absolutely have been both unintelligible and humiliating.

Placing his hands on the table, Augustus pushed back his chair and stood. “I’m afraid lunchtime is creeping up upon us, and a small boy will be wondering where you are. May I return you to him?” Pandy nodded again, more firmly this time, and the chancellor carried her back out of the library, leaving the dragon muttering to himself, hunched over his books.