Lucky Rabbit

As soon as the door closed behind Bryan, Pandy popped back to her rabbit shape and ran for the hole she’d made in the wall. She wiggled through it, moving along until no part of her was still exposed, then simply sat there within the cramped, dusty space. Now she was certain she must have imagined that single thump of her heart, because if she was even the slightest bit alive, her heart definitely would have been pounding in her chest.

She’d been able to handle learning about the villainous plans. That was what she was here for, after all. She could even handle knowing that her probably-boyfriend – though she had no idea what she would do if he actually came right out and said that was what he was, so it was best not to ask – was descended from the original royal family. Not that the current royal family wasn’t also related to the old royal family, but Augustus had the same last name, and that somehow made it more real.

But learning that Bryan Conroy, Thaniel’s father and the person who had originally stuck her in this body, considered her existence a hazard to Thaniel was…not okay. She was not okay. And what would happen to her if and when Bryan died for real? Why hadn’t they questioned whether Bryan might be alive based on the fact that she hadn’t started to decomp…deco…break down?

Well, Pandy knew why she hadn’t questioned it, and Augustus and Professor Beeswick knew she was weird, but what about Lian, back when he thought she was an elemental summoned by his father? Surely he knew that a normal elemental would be freed when its contractor died. So why hadn’t he ever suggested that his father might not be as dead as everyone claimed? Or maybe he had, but not to her or Thaniel or Augustus?

This was all very bewildering, and it just added one more layer to Pandy’s already precariously balanced confusion-sandwich. Which was a new metaphor for what she felt, but suddenly seemed very appropriate. There were probably other layered things she could compare it to, but-

Are you just going to sit there?

We need to check out the rest of the house.

she thought to Keros.

And if there’s a clue somewhere else?

Or if he was, just maybe, lying about some or all of it?

Oh. There was that. Pandy didn’t think Bryan had been lying, though. She hadn’t had much opportunity to see him before all of this started, not even from a distance, but she’d definitely sensed his genuine love for his sons. It was very clear in Thaniel’s dream-memory, but even later, in real life, Bryan had been awkward but caring. Well, creepy and awkward but caring.

Slowly, Pandy made her way back, at first desperately trying to remember every turn she’d made, and then realizing she’d left her own form of breadcrumbs. Her fur had snagged on every protruding splinter, and when she couldn’t find a tuft of fur it usually meant she’d gone the wrong way. Once, she was even fairly certain she smelled herself, which was mildly disconcerting because for humans, smelling oneself was usually a bad sign.

Eventually, she found herself back at the hole she’d made to get out of Bryan’s rooms, and faced a conundrum. Did she go back to bed, as Thaniel’s father had suggested, or did she take a risk and go the other direction? She knew what Keros would say, and what Augustus would do, but Pandy already longed for her adventure to be over.

Pandy wanted to go home, snuggle in next to the real Thaniel, and leave the Exciting Experiences to others. Except that Augustus was the ‘others’, and she knew him well enough to be certain he’d come back here as soon as he figured out where it was. What if there was something else she could warn him about? Something that he needed to know to keep Thaniel safe or stay safe himself? Slowly, with great reluctance, Pandy hopped on.

There were definitely more bedrooms this way, and Pandy heard steady breathing or snores coming from all around her. There was no way to know who any of these rooms belonged to, and which ones might hold valuable information, but she wasn’t entering an occupied space if she could help it. On and on she went, daring to take more turns now that she’d figured out how to follow her own fluff back.

At last, her mental map told her that she’d found another room she couldn’t go around. Things she thought were doorframes stood in her way, no matter which direction she went, which implied the space had at least two doors. That didn’t tell her much in and of itself, but it was also unusually large for an undivided space. It could be anything from a second lab to the dining room, but Pandy didn’t hear any sounds coming from inside, so she decided it was worth checking out.

This time she went around, carefully tapping a claw against the inside of the wall and listening to the sound it made. A few places sounded dull, like the vibrations were dampened by a large object pressed against the other side, while long stretches made hollower sounds, probably indicating an area with nothing to hide her exit hole. Finally, she decided to go for a section that was right next to one of the duller areas, hoping she could move whatever she was hearing over and no one would notice. Either that or they would think they had an infestation of unusually large rodents. Which was kind of true.

Rather than going straight to cutting out a bunny-sized rhombus, she also made a small hole to peer through. Unfortunately, as far as she could tell, the room on the other side was utterly black, so that was no good. All right, she’d just have to go for it. Do as Augustus would do!

Four Scratches later, she managed to avoid a repeat of her ignominious entry into the lab by sliding to the side immediately after the final cut. The chunk of wall didn’t even fall out, since she wasn’t pushing on it, and she was able to gingerly slide a claw through the hole she’d initially poked and pull the whole section inside the wall with her. She was getting good at this sneaking stuff. Her maybe-boyfriend would be so proud!

Slipping through the opening, Pandy found herself in a very dark room – no surprise there – with some large piece of furniture to her left, and what echoed like open space to her right. Cautiously, she hopped along the wall, twice having to circle big, wooden objects, and eventually found herself back at her lopsided-hole.

All right, no one here, and while she’d found the two doors she’d expected, they were both closed. That should mean she was safe to transform, but somehow Pandy found herself reluctant to do so. There was something…oppressive about the space, and she had a feeling she didn’t want to see what was in here.

With great reluctance – far from a first for the night – Pandy thought,

Shifting Faces successful.

01:29:11 remaining today.

Radiant Presence successful.

Thirty-two uses remain to level 13.

This is what Innate Magic is for, you know.

It was? Pandy used Innate Magic to feed a certain amount of Mana into fixing Avington House, because the building – or its resident elementals – seemed perfectly willing to drain her dry, given the opportunity. She knew the various elemental affinities helped her refine her spells, but she didn’t have one that seemed directly related to Radiant Presence, so she hadn’t automatically assumed Innate Magic would do anything in this case.

Pandy started to glow, but not much more than she had back when the spell was under the level ten threshold. Her skin luminesced like a white shirt under blacklight, illuminating one side of a solid wooden object next to her and a few feet of the floor, which was also wooden, though with a very pretty parquet pattern.

Staring down at the alternating shades of wood, Pandy thought,

Pandy, this isn’t the time.

PANDORA

Look up!

Pandy raised her eyes, only then realizing that she had been subconsciously avoiding doing so. Something in her very much did not want to look. But that was what she was here for, so-

Eyes were reflected back at her, her own soft glow illuminating the milky orbs. Dozens of them. Which admittedly meant there were only a dozen or so eye-holders, since each had two, but Pandy wasn’t exactly up to doing math at the moment.

She was surrounded by Bound. They stood, as unblinking as she would be if she hadn’t trained herself to open and close her eyes on a regular basis so she didn’t freak people out. Exactly like she was freaking out at this very moment. If a single one of them came for her, she would not be held accountable for her actions.

Nothing stirred. There was only the oppressive darkness surrounding her bubble of light, and the blank, staring eyes. Realizing that she’d raised her hands to do…something, Pandy waved them. “Um. Hello?” The word cracked in the middle, but that was completely understandable, so Pandy overlooked it. Who wouldn’t crack in this situation?

Greatly daring, she took a step forward, stopping just outside of arm’s reach of the nearest Bound. Again, she waved her hand, and those eyes didn’t move, didn’t track her hand, didn’t shift to stare at her as the two guarding Bryan’s door had done.

She stepped to the side, always keeping her face toward them and her back to her tiny exit. A quick Scorching Sonata would set this place on fire, and she could run while it burned. Though the idea of lighting up what at least looked like humans made her feel nauseated, so maybe Air of Superiority was the better option. They’d just be blown back, and then a few Light elementalists could come in here and bless the whole house, like some kind of Holy Fumigation.

Now that she wasn’t quite as panicked, she could see wounds on the bodies arrayed before her. None were bleeding, of course, but some definitely had in the past. Their clothes weren’t in great shape either, and she could see shallow divots in a few chests, indicating that something about an inch to two inches long and vaguely oval had been there at some point.

Slowly, feeling like she had stumbled into the prop room for a horror movie, Pandy took a few steps forward. Her light illuminated a second row of figures, no longer just reflecting back from their eyes, and she realized that they were lined up like mannequins waiting to be placed in a display.

Pandy asked Keros, her voice quiet even in her own mind.

…

I don’t think so.

I think these are just empty shells, held in stasis.

Fewer if they have elementals to help.

And it’s probably easier if you don’t have to keep the subject alive.

Pandy took another step forward, and had to clap her hands over her mouth when she saw her own face staring sightlessly back at her. Well, Ms. Wellington’s face. It was badly damaged – worse than most of the others, in fact, but there was no mistaking it after she’d spent so much time staring at it in the mirror. So that was why Augustus hadn’t been able to find the body. But if the Shadow Exchange had known Alexandra Wells was dead, then why had they ever approached Pandy in the first place?

It was all a trick. Traps within traps within schemes and machinations. Were they trying to figure out who or what Pandy actually was? Did they have any idea that she was Thaniel’s rabbit or Eurydice Haupe? Pandy felt sick in a whole new way. She would have to reexamine everything that had happened since Ms. Wellington died.

She wanted to reach out and close those staring eyes. Why were they open at all? If someone went to all the trouble of placing these empty shells in this room, why not close their eyes while they were at it? It just seemed disrespectful, and even though Pandy knew Alexandra hadn’t been a good person, it also seemed wrong to leave her here, staring into the darkness.

Pandy took a step back, out of eye-closing distance, and bumped into the large wooden object she’d been keeping at her back. It at least seemed unlikely to suddenly wake up and try to eat her. Or suck out her Corruption Points, which was kind of the same thing. Unless there were mimics in this world? This seemed like the precisely worst time to find that out, which in her experience meant it was actually fairly likely.

Eyeing the piece of furniture with sudden suspicion, Pandy backed up the way she’d come. That meant she had to stay close to the box, because there really wasn’t much space between it and the not-yet-Bound. The room was literally packed with bodies, at least as far as Pandy’s light reached, though not a single one stirred or breathed, which explained why Pandy had thought the room was empty.

You should open the box.

She knew that. She knew it. But she didn’t want to. There was something even worse than dead people in there, and she didn’t want to see. she told Keros, ignoring the pleading tone to her own voice.

We need to know.

He was right. Probably. The six-sided wooden rectangle might hold something perfectly innocuous, anyway. Maybe they needed industrial-sized air fresheners for this room. Maybe this was where they stored the spare linens. Who knew?

Pandy refused to turn her back on the silent rows of figures, so she had to twist around in order to slip her fingers into the carved handle on the front of the box. She tried to open it just a crack, but it didn’t move. Was it locked? That would be a shame. She couldn’t break the lock, because that would be way too obvious, so she’d just have to give up and-

It rolled up. Tiny crevices appeared in the wood, resolving into thin slats that moved easily through channels carved into the sides. It was like one of the old roll-top desks Pandy totally hadn’t broken at the eighteen-nineties historical site she’d worked at one summer. She could understand how the other people who worked there had gotten that idea, since she was in the shattered pieces when they found her, and no one ever believed her when she explained that the elephants were out to get her.

Just like that desk, the exposed inner surface revealed a flat area surrounded by numerous cubbyholes and little nooks where Things could be Stuffed. In this case, those things were little boxes, just like the one Bryan had shown her – the one that held a stone that could supposedly turn an Air mage into a Nature mage.

Reaching out, Pandy picked up the closest box and opened it, staring down at the innocuous-seeming black crystal resting inside. Her fingers curled, drawing away from it, before she prodded it with the very tip of one finger.

Black. DARK. Empty. Silent. Used to be together. Whole. Alone now. So alone. Waiting. Empty. DARK.

Pandy pulled away from the rush of…whatever that was. Not emotion, exactly. Not real thoughts, though her mind had translated what she felt into words. It was more like memories, but not even that coherent. Simply a…longing?

Her hand shook, the dark crystal falling from its pretty little box. She tried to tip it back, catch the thing before it tumbled, but she wasn’t quite willing to actually grab it with her bare hand, and it bounced off the side of its former container when she tried to snap it closed on the tumbling rock. It landed on the ground with an anticlimactic thump. It was, after all, a crystal, and the floor was wood, so of course the crystal won. She stared at it, then crouched so she could scoop it back into its box.

A dark miasma rose from a tiny crack in the side. Like thick smoke, it curled upwards, questing, a tendril reaching for Pandy’s fingers. She leaped backwards, bumping into Alexandra Wells’ body. The stiff figure toppled, crumpling to the ground, limbs askew in ways no living person’s body would have fallen. One hand fell into the dark vapor, which resisted even the glow of Pandy’s Radiant Presence. The eyes closed. The arm twitched.

Pandy changed back to a bunny and ran for her exit-hole, then away through the wall, not even pausing to shove her trapezoidal chunk of wall back into the gap. Whatever was about to happen, she wasn’t taking the fall for the elephant this time.