Lucky Rabbit

“Ha, here he is,” Professor Beeswick said, pointing to the page of a particularly large book entitled Obituaries of the Peerage, Volume 144. “Philip Avington, much loved and missed, yes, yes…” His eyes skimmed over the page. “He was Lord Avington for all of five days, some sixty years ago. He was actually the fourth child, with an older sister and two older brothers preceding him into death. No one would have expected him to become the head of the family, but they all succumbed to illness within a year of each other. Philip was only nineteen years old.”

Augustus closed the book Pandy had taken from the basement, grimacing as he did so. “Well, obviously he didn’t make it to the king. That would have been King Oliver, Fergus’s father. I can’t say I remember him as anything other than a stern, distant figure. He and Fergus were never particularly close.”

Beeswick chuffed softly. “Oliver was like that even as a child. Always took everything too seriously. Not a humorous bone in his body.” His lips twitched at his own joke, but Augustus ignored it with the determination of someone who knew it was best not to encourage puns.

“So what happened to Philip?” Pandy asked, watching as the obituary book floated back to wherever it came from.

The Dragon shook his head. “It didn’t say. Just that he ‘died of natural causes’ and was laid to rest in the Avington mausoleum.”

“Someone killed him,” Augustus said with grim certainty, and Beeswick nodded in agreement.

Pandy’s chest tightened with sympathy for a boy barely older than the characters in Gacha Love, who were, she was coming to realize, ridiculously young. Philip had come across as painfully earnest in his letter, and it made her terribly sad that his desire to do the right thing had almost certainly led to his death.

“I looked in the Family History, but it was mostly just a really complicated family tree,” Pandy said. She’d tried to use the one book she’d been avoiding to figure out when Philip had been around, but while there were birth and death years in there, she didn’t actually know what year it was right now, so that hadn’t told her anything other than his age. She was pretty sure the asterisks next to some of the names would have told her who inherited when, but she’d never found any kind of key that would actually help her interpret them. She’d stared at the thing for at least fifteen minutes before giving up and kicking it off the desk.

Augustus chuckled. “They all are. The nobles marry back into their allies’ houses as often as possible, especially if those families carry Air or Light magic.” Looking at Professor Beeswick, he asked, “Was Philip married?”

The Dragon shook his head. “Nor engaged, at least not that anyone put down in the obituary. He was the last of his direct line, so the title must have gone to an offshoot family after that.”

Augustus hummed thoughtfully. “Pandora, you said the Apparition told you one of the early Avington lords decided to test his heirs to find one who was worthy, but obviously they were able to enter the office and access the laboratory for some time after that. Are you certain you don’t remember the rest of what he told you?”

Pandy winced. “I’m sorry, I was distracted. I’ll… ask Nox next time I go home.” Home. As in a place that was hers. That was nice, even though it was a tumble-down manor packed to the metaphorical rafters with enough body parts to fill a morgue. She was still worrying about what had happened there since she left the night before though, which reminded her…

“What am I supposed to do with Glory?” she asked Augustus. “She’s not happy about being forced to stay, and I’m not really comfortable with it, either.”

He glanced at Professor Beeswick. “Do you have watchers in place?”

The Dragon grinned. “I do. My Skyrils are very entertained by your house, Pandora. They can’t enter, but it doesn’t hurt them to try, so they’ve been sliding off of it like a child down a freshly polished banister.”

“They can’t?” she asked, though she was only a little bit surprised. She’d suspected something was going on that made the house safe, or else Queen Louisa wouldn’t have left Eleanor there. “But Tempest and Winston came right in.”

Augustus shook his head. “You invited them in. Just be careful of your words, and only a Bound will be able to slip in without forcing their way through.” He saw the question coming, and his eyes laughed at her as he added, “You would most definitely be aware if anyone did attempt to break in.”

A bell sounded and the two males sighed, standing up from the third-floor table where Professor Beeswick liked to hold clandestine meetings. “Work calls,” he said. “I have lunch duty. Pandy, I switched your lunch days to Wednesday and Thursday, but as a teacher, you need to be there sometimes.”

She nodded, coming to her feet as well. “Thaniel will be missing me. I filled him in on your aunts’ visit,” she narrowed her eyes at Augustus, who had the audacity to twinkle at her in response, “but he’s definitely sad I’m spending so much time away.”

“Of course he is,” Augustus said, as if missing Pandy was the most natural thing in the world. “You can let Glory leave, but tell her she’s not to go home. If she does, she’s on her own, and she absolutely can’t return to Avington House. Ever. We have to assume the Shadow Exchange figured out her true identity, no matter how good an actress she is. They have ways. If she goes back to any of her old friends or familiar places, she’s compromised, and she won’t be allowed to reveal anything about you or the others living with you.”

Here, his eyes went flinty, and Pandy almost shivered. So the Skyrils were watching anyone who entered or left her house, and if it looked like Glory was going to betray them, Augustus would Take Measures. That was good, because Pandy didn’t want Dark elementals and zombies breaking down her door, but also bad, because that wasn’t supposed to be who Augustus was any more, and she didn’t like the idea of him going back to something that had been hurting him. Also, Glory didn’t deserve to be Handled, even if that just meant being stuck in a posh prison until all this was figured out, which was hopefully what Augustus had in mind. So Pandy would do her best to impress upon the Empress that it would be Very Bad to break her cover.

Turning to Professor Beeswick, Pandy set her fists on her hips and said, “And what about Hazel? What am I supposed to do with a miniature Dragon who wants to become a baker?”

His brows lifted. “Teach her to bake?”

“I don’t know how to bake!” Pandy protested. Then, compelled as always to be perfectly clear, she added, “Other than a few recipes from the Gacha Love cookbook – Bastian’s Cookies, Sweet Serenade Cake, and Honeycloud Scones. But that’s not baking, just following a recipe, and my cake fell anyway.”

“Then get Bastian to do it,” Professor Beeswick said, as if it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

“I can’t! The boys don’t even know him yet, and-” She broke off, chomping down on her lip. “I guess… Bastian is the only one left who could end up with Clara. Everyone else knows about her, and I got the definite feeling neither Edgar nor Kaden were interested.”

Augustus hadn’t been particularly pleased to hear Pandy had told the boys everything, but it was done now, and Pandy still believed she’d done the right thing. She just couldn’t lie to Lian’s face, and he really did deserve to know who and what she was – at least in as much as she understood that herself. After all, she knew exactly how protective he was of Thaniel, and she wasn’t going to risk being exorcised when Killian decided one of her lies had put his brother in danger.

It seemed that the chancellor had come to accept the idea, however, because the look he exchanged with Professor Beeswick was amused, rather than annoyed. “What about Dorian?” he asked, his voice telling her he already knew the answer.

“Clara can do better,” Pandy mumbled under her breath. She wasn’t entirely certain that was true anymore, given the increasingly long odds that Ascyra had taken over Clara’s body when Pandy bumped her from the bunny-body she was supposed to get. She wasn’t ready to admit that out loud, though.

Augustus’s lips twitched, but he said, “We will likely need to bring the boy in at some point. In fact, I’ve already suggested to Chancellor Farbridge at Kestrel that she add Bastian to Kaden’s Small Group. She was… not receptive to the idea, but did concede that she might have his existing group work together with Kaden’s on Friday excursions.”

And that reminded Pandy of something else. Something that she kept forgetting about, but which really needed to happen. “I need to go. On an excursion. On a Friday. Next Friday, preferably.” Well, maybe not on a Friday, but that was when Clara’s group went, and Pandy didn’t want to mess up the event by going on the wrong day. “And Thaniel and the others can go, too. I mean, it should be safe. There are hardly any monsters at all, and I can handle it. Her. Probably.”

She blinked at Augustus as the words stopped tumbling. He took off his glasses, rubbed the spot between his eyes, and replaced the glasses again. “Explain further, if you would, Pandora?”

Oh. Yes. She could do that. Taking a moment to get things in order in her head, Pandy said, “In Gacha Love, one of the first things Clara and the love interests – that is, her Small Group – do is go on an Excursion. It’s during the tutorial, but of course I couldn’t go then. It’s to a place called the Squawkward Spire, and it’s really, really easy. I mean, I can probably do it by myself, but there are few spots where you have to use Teamwork, and it’d be hard to Teamwork by myself, but as long as you know what’s coming, there’s no danger, so even the kids should be safe there, but it’ll give them a chance to use their magic together, which is what it’s for, of course, but the point is-”

She drew in a breath, having used all the air that had been in her lungs – or lung-substitutes – when she started. “There’s a little shrine to Ismara at the end of it, where Clara and the others pray, and Clara gets her second Inventory expansion. I, um, kind of skipped it, and I guess I don’t need it now, but that’s the next place I was thinking we could go look for Ismara, because Clara definitely connects to her there.”

Augustus looked like he wanted to repeat the forehead-rubbing, while Professor Beeswick seemed far more entertained than the situation called for. Slowly, Augustus said, “So, there’s an ‘extremely safe’ place we could have gone to attempt to reach Ismara, but instead we involved Kaden and Edgar, resulting in the crown prince taking a dive from Celestine Point?”

That seemed like a pretty grim way of looking at it, but technically she supposed he was correct. “You have to leave Knightmere in order to get there,” she explained. “And I didn’t have enough time on Shifting Faces to do it until level seven, anyway. There’re a lot of puzzles and nitpicky group bits, which would take even longer if I went alone.”

“And why would you need to go alone, Pandora?” Augustus asked quietly, his eyes having softened in a way that made her feel things she really didn’t want to think about right now. Or ever, honestly.

“Because… I… I can’t just take the kids, and you… you…” She swallowed as he raised his brows, inviting her to continue. She looked down, staring at her feet as she muttered, “I didn’t think anyone would want to go with me.”

A gentle finger lifted her chin. Augustus had taken off his glasses again, and those deep gray eyes met hers as he said, “I’ll go with you anywhere, Rabbit. Even if I think it’s a terrible idea. Maybe especially if I think it’s a terrible idea.” The corners of his eyes creased with amusement, and he dropped his hand, sliding his glasses back on. “And now, I need to go to lunch, or I’ll never hear the end of it. Ms. Davenport is more than willing to let me know when I’ve failed to fulfill my responsibilities as chancellor.”

Pandy grimaced. She was certain that was true. The woman was strict, but she was equal-opportunity strict, not the type to suck up or let someone off just because they were of a higher rank or position than she was.

“I need to go, too,” she said, crossing to peer down at the floor below. All of the students had gone to lunch, so the library was empty. Turning back to Professor Beeswick, she said, “You owe me a new stove.” Then she Hopped backwards into open air, dismissing Shifting Faces and casting Wings of Glory, followed by Minor Heal.

Wings of Glory successful.

Two more uses to reach level 5.

-15 LF

Minor Heal successful.

Three hundred forty uses to reach level 24.

Pandy glided downward, circling the open space at the center of the library, and absolutely did not intentionally waggle her bunny-butt at the two faces gaping down at her from the balustrade around the top floor. If there was room for a Dragon to fly, there was more than enough room for a rabbit.