Lucky Rabbit

Sliding an arm around Isidor, Augustus levered the boy to his feet. “Report,” he said briskly, and Pandy could practically see Isidor’s spine snap straight as he came to attention… or as close as he could get at the moment.

“Just after breakfast, we got word that an incident had taken place at Falconet. All classes were to take place indoors,” Isidor said, slurring only slightly and looking like he’d prefer to salute, but he might fall over if he tried. “At ten o’clock, that boy showed up, wearing a Kestrel uniform. He didn’t look familiar, but he knew the code.”

What code? But she guessed he was talking about the finger wiggling that had been going around lately. Augustus just nodded, so he clearly knew about the code.

“He said my Master had a mission for me, and I-” Isidor bit his lip. “I wanted it to be true. I haven’t heard from my Master since just after I formed a contract with Tempest. I know I can’t be Kingsman anymore, but I can be a knight, or maybe be one of the Kingsman’s team. I thought he was giving me a chance to prove myself.”

The boy looked miserable, but Augustus just said, “Go on,” in a tone that held no judgement.

Isidor nodded jerkily. “The boy had a message for Killian, but Lian spends the morning in the library, so he couldn’t get to him. I was told to deliver the letter, then go home. Just that. Go home. I went to the library, slipped the letter in Lian’s pocket, and left school. When I got here, he was already waiting for me. He said he wanted to talk, so I let him in.” Looking around at the charred rafters and broken wall, he said, “I just… let him in.”

“Inviiited hiiiimmmm,” Nox moaned from within the shadows in a way that wasn’t creepy at all. “Faaaaammmmiily.”

It was Pandy’s turn to wince. She’d called Isidor family, which apparently gave him the right to invite people and – more importantly – elementals into the house. Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Isidor might be a pain in the tail most of the time, but she liked him, and he needed a family. So did she.

Drawing in a long breath, Isidor went on, obviously trying for professional detachment and kind of achieving it, in that he wasn’t crying. “He said there had to be a secret room. I knew it had to be here. There was a whole area upstairs with no downstairs equivalent.” Another wince for Pandy. She’d thought she was being so sneaky.

“I was trying to find a hidden door, but Gloria just started panicking. She threw the door closed, but he just broke it down, then tore through this wall like it was paper. I don’t even… Are they all right?” Isidor stiffened, and his voice cracked. “Eleanor?”

“They’re fine,” Pandy hastened to reassure him. “Glory got a little banged up, but they hid in the office, and Soot and Nyssa held off the intruders.”

“Intruders?” Isidor squeaked. Clearing his throat, he looked from Pandy to Augustus. “Soot? What happened?”

“Your friend had friends,” Augustus said dryly, dropping his military attitude now that Isidor was standing on his own and seemed to be processing a little better. “Eurydice? Do you know what he was after?”

Pandy pointed toward the general’s body. Nox had drifted over to it, settling around it like a glum cloud. He didn’t appear to have enough energy to move the corpse, and he was Not Pleased about it. His tendrils plucked unhappily at the old man’s hair and clothes. It reminded Pandy of a loyal old hound at his master’s deathbed, and she felt her throat tighten.

“Miller took the necklace. The one the-” She stumbled over what else to say. Isidor didn’t know about the Avington family connection to Thaniel’s heartstone. As far as Pandy was aware, Augustus had kept that information secret from absolutely everyone, maybe even the queen. The information wouldn’t help the healers figure out how to remove the stone safely, and while Pandy had told Augustus and the boys about the way the stone seemed to be able to change the bearer’s magic from Light to Dark, she doubted any of them had been spreading the information around. Besides, even she hadn’t known its true origins until recently, so there was no way anyone knew what it really was.

Augustus muttered something under his breath, finally stepping entirely away from Isidor. Crossing to General Avington, he crouched, sharp eyes examining the body’s exposed neck. Nox stirred as Augustus approached, but when the chancellor didn’t attempt to touch anything, the elemental remained quiet.

After only a few seconds, Augustus straightened and looked toward Pandy and Isidor. “Isidor, go up the stairs and help Gloria and Eleanor.” Seeing the protest forming, he added, “The child is terrified. She needs support and friends, and she’s worried about you. That’s an order.”

Isidor hesitated only a beat longer, then nodded. “Yes, sir. I- I’m sorry.” This was said to Pandy, not Augustus, and impulsively she reached out and hugged him tightly, ignoring the sticky blood that saturated his back. He stiffened, of course, but didn’t pull away, and she actually thought she heard him let out a single short sob.

When she released him, he couldn’t meet her eyes, so she broke the moment by leaning down and picking up the book with a knife in it, tugging the weapon free and tossing it aside before handing the book to him. The cover was saturated in blood, but some of the inside pages might be salvageable. “It’s a good thing that’s not a library book. Professor Beeswick would be upset.”

To her surprise, he looked almost embarrassed when he took the book from her. Holding it so tightly his knuckles turned white, he said, “It kind of is. It wasn’t in good condition, so I showed it to the professor, and he helped me restore it.”

Opening the cover, he showed her a dented golden disk, now visible through the blood-soaked paper that had covered it. “It saved my life. By the time I realized something was wrong… I tried to dodge, and the knife hit my ribs. It sliced me open, but didn’t hit anything vital. When I turned around, he stabbed me again.”

Holding the book over his chest, just where it would be if it had been tucked inside his jacket, he finally met Pandy’s eyes. “The knife went all the way through and got stuck. I’m sure he thought it was caught in a rib. I wouldn’t have made that mistake.” Isidor almost managed a smirk. “Tempest attacked him then, and he was never able to check to make sure he’d gotten the job done.”

Pandy could feel her color draining away as she realized just how close it had been. If Isidor hadn’t been carrying the book, if she and Augustus had spent a little more time wandering around, if Miller had managed to strike a fatal blow on his first attempt, if if if… they would have been too late. There would have been two corpses in that room.

Isidor stepped back, almost steady on his feet. As he turned toward the stairs, which were still illuminated by Pandy’s Spark, he paused to pick up Tempest, who had shrunk to about the same size as Miss Cupcakes and looked reasonably tortoisey once again. He stroked her shell, just once, and Pandy felt compelled to ask one more question. “When an elementalist dies, their elementals can just leave, right?”

Isidor turned back, frowning, but Augustus said, “They can now. The old contracts that would tie an elemental to a place or a bloodline have been outlawed and erased.”

Pandy looked at Isidor. “So if Tempest wanted to be free, all she had to do was let Isidor die.”

Isidor twitched. “So what?” he asked, hoarse.

“So she loves you, and you love her,” Pandy said, deciding she might as well go all in and allowing her exasperation to creep into her voice. “I don’t know what happened between you, but I know that’s true. Maybe you should think about that.”

The boy swiveled on his heel, swaying just a bit, but she could see from the way his shoulders bent that he was now hugging his tortoise to his chest, rather than holding her gingerly in both hands. Pandy didn’t know if it would last, and if they would do the elemental mental equivalent of talking, because they were both incredibly stubborn, but at least she’d tried.

Shifting Faces expired.

That’s one way to get in the last word.

Pandy’s bunny shoulders heaved as she gave an unnecessary and unnecessarily dramatic sigh. Whatever else she needed to do today, she was going to have to do it as a rabbit.

Augustus picked her up, grimacing slightly as the blood on his hands and sleeves wiped off on her fur. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I need to make a sling or bag for you.” Lifting her up, he eyed her paws thoughtfully. “Can you hang onto my shoulder?”

Huh. Well, she could, but she wasn’t certain he’d enjoy the experience. She shook her head, and he set her down again, then removed his coat. He tied the sleeves together and slung it across his body, shaking his head as he realized the bottom was flapping in the breeze. A few quick slices with his knife sent scraps of the ruined coat to the ground, and he picked Pandy up again, tucking her into the makeshift sling. It felt a bit wobbly beneath her paws, but she could at least dig in her claws without worrying about ripping off his arm or shredding him to the bone, so it would do.

Looking up, she thought as hard as she could.

Augustus started slightly, but grinned. “I wondered when you’d figure that out. It’s a trick most third-tier elementals can do, at least a bit, so we assumed you’d be able to do it eventually.”

Pandy demanded, popping her head out, ears standing straight up in excitement.

“Ah, it’s not exactly ‘hearing’. More like finding the ideas in my mind that match up to what you want to say. I’m guessing you asked if I can hear you, but it was more of a concept than actual words,” he told her, heading for the break in the wall. That left poor General Avington crumpled on the floor behind them, but if Pandy got through this, she’d make sure the man had a proper burial. And stayed in his grave this time. Maybe with a nice big boulder on top.

Heading for the gaping hole left by the dangling front doors, Augustus began musing aloud. “The Exchange must have been figuring things out at the same time we have been, but each of us had the information the other needed. They knew, or at least suspected, that Preston Avington had the Dark stone, but not what happened to it after he died. Whatever the Avingtons may have done, it seems they didn’t fall in with our enemies, at least not before they lost access to the lab. Though it’s also quite possible that the first Pandora took the knowledge of what the stone was and where it came from to her grave, since even her descendants didn’t know.”

A huge, smoking figure loomed at them as they stepped outside. It took Pandy a few blinks to realize it was Soot. The horse was noticeably the worse for wear, but smoke streamed from his nostrils, and the ground beneath his hooves was dark and burned. He snorted, and Pandy would have sworn actual fire flickered from his nose.

Augustus reached up and patted the enormous creature on the nose. “Hello, old friend. Did you have fun?”

Soot whickered softly, and Augustus smiled, reaching into the torn and stained pocket on the front of his shirt so he could withdraw a lump of something black, which he fed to the steed. Seeing Pandy’s curious gaze, Augustus said, “Coal. Better for him than sugar. He was getting a bit soft, spending all his time in the pasture.”

Pandy thought, and Augustus frowned just a bit.

“I missed part of that one, but I can guess what you asked. Yes, he was my mount when I was the Kingsman. I wouldn’t say he belonged to me, though.” Soot snorted agreement at this, and Augustus reached up and grabbed hold of the huge animal’s mane, pulling himself up with a grunt. The chancellor patted the horse-elemental’s neck, asking, “Do you remember how to get to Kestrel?”

Soot tossed his head and nodded, leaving black streaks on the ground as he dragged a hoof across it impatiently. Augustus looked down at Pandy and grinned, looking barely older than Isidor with his wild hair and shining eyes. “Hold on, Rabbit. Come on, Slaughter, let’s ride once more.”

Oh yes, Slaughter. That was Soot’s original name. And when the not-actually-a-horse let out a bugling cry that had more than a little bit of fire crackling through it, then burst into motion, she pondered the accuracy of that name, as well as the condition of her backyard, rather morbidly wondering if human corpses made good fertilizer.