Lucky Rabbit

Augustus wasn’t at lunch or dinner that day. Pandy fully expected that he would seek her out at some point so he could explain what was going on with the papers – they were technically hers, after all – but he didn’t. He also wasn’t around for breakfast or lunch on Sunday, at which point even the children noticed. But while wild speculation ran rampant, and entirely reasonable suggestions about going to visit relatives were roundly quashed in favor of wilder tales involving bandits and ditches, Pandy noticed that Isidor had nothing to say.

The boy was even quieter than usual, but rather than seeming vaguely entertained by the antics of the younger children, he watched their surroundings with the narrowed gaze of a real guard. Twice, Pandy saw him reach for Tempest – once when a door slammed open, and another time when a little girl shrieked after another child pulled her hair. When Geraldine suggested they go outside and play, Eleanor shot her young bodyguard a look, touched the Heartsplit Charm pinned to her shirt, and claimed she had a headache. Whatever was going on, Isidor was in on it, and he was worried.

That evening, after dinner came and went without any sign of the missing chancellor, Pandy waited until Thaniel and the others were playing cards before hopping out of the dining hall, through the foyer, and hiding beneath another of the little tables that were proving so useful to her rabbit form. She watched the door leading to the classroom wing, but of course no one was using it, since the rooms and the library were closed. It was also sprinkling outside, as it had been off and on all day, so nobody was even passing through on the way to the exit at the end of the hall. Pandy would have to get the door open by herself.

Or so she thought until, just as she was readying herself for a Hop up to grab the doorknob, the door swung open. At first she thought it must not have been latched, and had come open on its own, but then a furry gray shape dropped down onto soft paws, and a fluffy tail flicked at Pandy as Miss Cupcakes sashayed back into the dark hall. Pandy shook her head, but followed. Someday, she was going to catch the kitten doing something elemental, but it seemed today was not that day.

Down the hall they went, until Miss Cupcakes sat in front of the library door. She looked at Pandy, then very pointedly began to lick her paw. Pandy sighed. she thought hopefully, not even worried about how many Corruption Points it might take. She really just wanted her powers back. She’d just been starting to feel like a superhero, and now she was back to being the comic relief sidekick instead. Wait, did that make Miss Cupcakes the hero? Pandy had to admit it wasn’t entirely unbelievable. The System had even called her a Hero of the Realm.

By the time Pandy reached the caboose at the end of that particular train of thought, she knew she wasn’t going to get any help from the System. That wasn’t surprising, since ‘nothing’ was exactly the response she’d gotten every time she’d tried something other than Hop, Bite, or Scratch. Even Dance didn’t work, which really seemed unfair, since it was exactly the kind of pointless ability a sidekick should have.

Still, there was nothing for it but to, Her hindquarters bunched up, launching Pandy toward the door, and she’d tried this enough over the last day and a half that she’d relearned her limits. She was almost certain she’d essentially been reset back to level one in her three starter skills, but that was enough for her to grab the doorknob with her paws. Gripping tightly, she used her back feet to push off the doorframe, letting her round bunny hiney swing her like a pendulum until the latch clicked.

Pandy dropped to the floor, staring up in astonishment. It worked! Why had it worked? Surely Professor Beeswick locked the door. Unless he did, but he’d set it to allow Pandy to enter? Why would he do that, though? Unless something was wrong. Again.

Cautiously, Pandy pushed the door wider, half-expecting the see the blank hallway of the Emberwrought Labyrinth, or perhaps the dark, dusty room that actually lay on the other side of this wall. Instead, the library awaited her, its desk and tables now empty and unoccupied. Pandy hopped forward, and as soon as she was all the way in, the door clicked closed behind her. Whirling, she saw Miss Cupcakes, who stalked forward, placing one paw in front of the other with regal care, the tip of her tail twitching.

Once again, Pandy found herself in the position of follower, and wondered rather irritably why the kitten hadn’t just opened the door herself. She was certainly capable of it, and didn’t show any signs of caring that they probably weren’t supposed to be there. Wait, though, maybe she hadn’t opened the door because she couldn’t, and Professor Beeswick actually had made it so the door would open specifically for Pandy? But why?

Miss Cupcakes moved through the library with purpose, though with each step her belly sank closer and closer to the floor, until by the time she reached the front desk, she was practically crawling, her eyes narrow, tail like a bottle brush. Step by step, the cat moved more slowly, until her rear rose into the air, and she launched herself into the space beneath the desk with a vicious yowl. A scuffle sounded, with terrible growls and hissing, until the kitten rolled back out into the open, claws extended and back feet raking at…a stuffed dormouse.

Pandy stared. Wasn’t that the fuzzy toy she’d seen on the table by Professor Beeswick? What was it doing here? More importantly, what would the dragon think when he saw that it had been shredded, its squeaky soul sent on to another incarnation?

Miss Cupcakes batted at the toy, sending it skittering across the floor with the faint jingling of a very beleaguered bell. The feline leaped after it, and Pandy shook her head, hopping forward, staring beneath the circulation desk, as if the dragon might be crouched under there with catnip and a feathered puffball on a fishing line. 

Not surprisingly, Pandy saw no such thing, but it was only when she took in the bare wooden floor that she realized she’d also half-expected to see the professor lying there, dead, just his feet protruding like an old-time cop show. Heaving a sigh of relief, she turned as she heard a clatter, and Miss Cupcakes came running back as if her tail was on fire, which, somewhat to Pandy’s disappointment, it was not. Really, was the kitten a Fire elemental, or just a very strange cat?

Whatever she was, she ran straight for the library door, barely skidding to a halt in time to avoid taking a door to the face. The kitten was panting, whiskers sticking straight out, and her eyes seemed twice as large as usual in her fluffy face.

Oh, no. Was Professor Beeswick dead after all, just not by the circulation desk? Where was he, then? Cautiously, Pandy hopped in the direction from which the kitten had fled. If the librarian really was hurt, Pandy needed to do something to help him. What, exactly, that might be, she had no idea, since she had neither opposable thumbs nor a heal spell.

But no matter how far she advanced through the library, no taloned bare feet appeared, lying artistically sprawled so shadows cloaked the top half of his body, as in Gacha Love. In fact, she began to get the distinct feeling that the library was exactly as it appeared….empty.

When she finally did find something, it was the abandoned dormouse, its fluffy tail missing, one eye-bead dangling from a thread. Something that looked like sawdust had spilled from its belly, and as Pandy approached, she caught the powerful scent of something that might have been mint, or possibly lemon? Either way, she sneezed, and when she opened her eyes again, the dragon was there.

The professor’s bare toes almost touched the eviscerated little dormouse, and he crouched, one finger prodding the poor thing. “Hazel will be disgruntled,” he murmured, then waved a hand, making the remnants of the toy swirl up and fly away, off to parts unknown. Turning to look at Pandy, he asked, “And here you are at last. Hazel won’t be the only one who’s disappointed. Did it take you this long to notice Augustus was missing?”

Pandy backed up, her rear end meeting the floor with unexpected enthusiasm as her legs gave out. He really was missing? Where? Why?

The professor crouched again, holding out his arms invitingly. When Pandy hesitated, he lifted a brow, and she managed to hop forward, allowing him to pick her up and carry her back toward the front of the library.

“Here is what we found,” he said, settling her on the same table they’d used earlier. Reaching into his loose over-robe, he pulled out a thin sheaf of pages. Unfolding it, he spread out the pages. Pandy barely noticed the thump as Miss Cupcakes hopped up beside her, watching Professor Beeswick warily, but clearly unable to resist coming to see what they were doing.

“Ah, and there’s the culprit,” the dragon said, smiling just enough to show teeth. “You should be careful, little one, or I’ll give you to Hazel to play with when next she comes to visit.” Miss Cupcakes gave a half-hearted hiss in return, but watched the dragon with wary, slitted eyes until he focused on the pages again.

“I doubt I need to tell you what these are,” Professor Beeswick said, tapping four sheets of paper. It didn’t escape Pandy’s notice that there was a fifth, but he kept it face down, on the far end of the table. “One each for Eleanor, Thaniel, Geraldine, and Abbington.”

Pandy quickly scanned the closest one, which appeared to be for Geraldine. It gave a brief description of the girl, then went into great detail about her family, her history – including the story of how she’d rescued Miss Cupcakes from a burning barn – and finished with a list of things she did and didn’t like. Pandy hadn’t realized the girl had a terrible fear of any food that could look back at her, but once she thought about it, it seemed like a completely reasonable fear to her. She’d never understood how anyone could eat shrimp or fish with their heads on.

Professor Beeswick swept these pages away before Pandy could do more than read Thaniel’s name at the top of the next one, and placed another page in front of her. “This is what was sent in the box you got on Friday.”

This time he left it so Pandy could read the whole thing, which she proceeded to do. Twice.

Withdraw soonest. Bring primary if possible, secondary if not. An associate will assist with removal. Use final option if caught. Repeat. Final option. Meet 6 4 3 3 12

Pandy stared from the words to the librarian, completely baffled. What did that mean? She understood ‘withdraw’, and presumably the primary and secondary were Eleanor and Thaniel. But who was the associate, what was the very worrying ‘final option’, and what were the numbers for?

Professor Beeswick sighed. “I suspect you’re even more confused than we were. This confirms that there’s still at least one spy within the school, though no one other than Ms. Wellington, Augustus, and a few apprentices have worked here for less than three years. That means they bought or blackmailed someone we thought was loyal, and we have no idea who it is.”

He leaned back, rubbing his eyes. “The ‘final option’ is probably exactly what you suspect. It means the Shadow should assume they will not be bailed out or rescued, so they’re to make sure they can’t be questioned. But the numbers for the meeting? We can only guess.”

Tapping a claw on the page, the dragon said, “It could be sixth street, fourth house, sixth floor, room four, three o’clock, twelve o’clock… Almost anything, really. Presumably, Ms. Wellington would have known. Augustus spent quite some time yesterday staring at a map of the city, then said he was going to go investigate a couple of possibilities, and left. I haven’t seen him since.”