Lucky Rabbit

Augustus had been absent from meals far more often than usual over the last week, but he was there tonight. Pandy was glad to see that the shadows beneath his eyes were entirely gone, though he still looked like he’d lost a little weight he couldn’t really spare. Hopefully, he really had turned Mr. Benjamin over to the ‘proper authorities’ – probably the Knights of the Royal Eagle – and was focusing on his role as chancellor of Falconet.

Pandy wouldn’t know, since she hadn’t actually had a chance to speak to him since Monday night, when he’d... well, not exactly declared his undying love, but at least admitted that he really, really liked her. Or at least the idealized version of her he’d formed based on two-year-old images inspired by a whole cadre of what might be prophetic dreams, and might be the result of eating bad cheese. Since some of those images looked like they’d been drawn by a squirrel who had just discovered crayons, Pandy found herself questioning his sanity, but he seemed fairly rational otherwise, so she was willing to let it slide.

Pandy spent the meal in her usual spot, beneath the table, near – but not too near – Thaniel’s feet. Usually, she edged out once the meal started, so she could see and hear better, but tonight it was unnecessary. Only ten or fifteen students remained at school, and the dining hall was the emptiest Pandy had seen it since the few days they’d been there before the term started. Suzanne even came over and sat with them, even though she was a third-year, and usually sat with the older students during the week.

Predictably, the conversations Pandy overheard were almost all about what the speaker was going to do during the festival, and every loud, excited word seemed to suck more of the energy from the children at her table. There were a few other solemn faces scattered throughout the room, but for the most part, the atmosphere in the room was cheerful.

After dinner, the children headed off to their homeroom to put the finishing touches on their potatoes. Pandy was right behind them, hopping straight through for once, since there were so few feet left to accidentally boot her across the dining hall. Just before she reached the door, however, someone cut her off, and when she looked up, she saw that it was Isidor. He caught her eye, then tilted his head toward the front of the hall, where the teachers sat behind a single long table perched atop a low platform.

Most of the teachers had already departed, though a few would return to watch over the communal room during the children’s free time after chores. Students were supposed to come inside when it got dark, and now that evening was arriving earlier, that meant most of them never went out at all, preferring to stake out a table in the dining hall or library. Augustus still sat in his place, however, and when he saw he had Pandy’s attention, he nodded an invitation.

Task complete, Isidor followed after the other children, his watchful gaze scanning the area around the princess he was there to protect, even though they were currently indoors. As Pandy understood it, when Eleanor was inside, the school’s wards – as well as whatever or whoever watched over the student body in general – were supposed to keep her safe. Isidor’s job was really to watch over her when she was outside, and if anything dangerous should happen, he was to call for help while making sure Eleanor remained unharmed. So far, his track record wasn’t great, but Pandy was almost certain Eleanor’s mother didn’t know that, or Isidor probably wouldn’t be there any longer. Eleanor herself had stood up for him though, and both Augustus and the dragon librarian, Professor Beeswick, obviously trusted him.

As the children headed for their classrooms, Augustus stood and made his way out of the dining hall by the rear exit. Pandy trailed him, trying to be as unobtrusive as an unattended rabbit could be. Fortunately, most people had grown used to seeing her, as well as Geraldine’s kitten, wandering around the school, so no one tried to catch her or call Thaniel to retrieve her.

Augustus led Pandy up the stairs to the area where the teachers had their offices and living quarters. He opened his office and went inside, leaving the door open just enough for Pandy to enter. The chancellor was already sitting at his desk when she pushed the door closed behind her, and Pandy saw that a chair had been pulled up to the other side of the desk. It was invitingly empty, turned slightly toward the door.

Pandy hesitated, uncertain. The last time they’d spoken, she’d been stuck as a rabbit, but now she had all but a few seconds remaining of her time as a human for the day. Still, the Shadow Exchange was almost certainly able to track her Ms. Wellington shape through the use of blood and a Dark elemental, so Pandy was supposed to spend as little time in that form as possible. Besides, what was she supposed to say to this fascinating, albeit potentially insane, man who insisted he cared for her?

Augustus chuckled slightly and motioned to the chair. “We’ll need your other shape for this, I’m afraid. Beeswick has cast the obscuration spell, so it should be safe enough, especially for a short time.”

Pandy felt a great wash of relief. The professor had told her he was going to cast a spell to make it so the Exchange couldn’t track her within the boundaries of Knightmere, but she hadn’t heard anything to indicate if the spell had been successful. She supposed that it was reasonable to assume that an apparently almost-all-knowing and possibly ancient dragon had succeeded in something he said he was going to do, but things had a tendency to go awry when it came to Pandy, so it was good to have confirmation.

she thought, and between one hop and the next, her human body expanded upwards, dress falling into place as she settled into the chair. The dress was a pretty yellow color, and one of the few in Ms. Wellington’s wardrobe that wasn’t so structured that it looked like it could stand up on its own, but after a week of wearing nothing else, Pandy was thoroughly tired of it.

Shifting Faces successful. 03:29:55 remaining.

Tomorrow you get to change clothes, won’t that be nice?

Pandy ignored the color commentary, as she usually did, though she actually agreed this time. She was almost giddy with the idea of actually changing into something else. Almost anything else, actually. It seemed that Augustus, too, had been keeping track, because he said, “Your Shifting Faces spell will, ah, ‘level up’ tomorrow, correct?”

She nodded. She’d probably gone into a little too much detail about how her System worked, and Augustus had seemed particularly fascinated with Shifting Faces, but she hadn’t expected him to actually be tracking the number of times she’d used it. Was that creepy or sweet? Both?

“It’ll be level seven,” Pandy said, still not sure where he was going with this.

“And you can change,” he gestured at her, indicating her appearance in general with a sweep of the hand, “then?”

She nodded again, and his smile widened to a grin for the briefest of moments, before settling back to his serene ‘Chancellor Blackwood’ smile. Why did he look like Thaniel did when he was about to either give Pandy a pretty flower he’d plucked, or had just slipped a cricket into someone’s jacket?

Reaching inside his coat, Augustus withdrew a small box. It wasn’t embellished in any way, but the wood gleamed a deep, burnished red, somehow looking very expensive in spite of the fact that it was only two or three inches long on each side. An enormous lump formed in Pandy’s throat, because that looked exactly like the kind of box that might hold a ring. A very, very special ring. And she had no idea what she would say if he-

Augustus snapped the box open, revealing a golden locket. As he tilted the box, it spilled across the black velvet pillow on which it rested, trailing a chain that glittered like sunlight on water. He extended the box toward Pandy, and she accepted it reverently.

“I... Thank you,” she whispered, gently touching the little oval pendant. Like the box, it had no decoration other than a delicately scalloped edge. There was something about the luster of the gold, however, that told Pandy this was as different from the gold-plated jewelry she used to get at the More-Than-a-Dollar-Tree as donkey-milk cheese was from the bright orange cheese-like spread that came in a plastic tub. Reluctantly, she started to hand it back to him, saying, “I really can’t-”

Augustus took the box, removed the necklace, and placed it back in Pandy’s palm, curling her fingers over it. “You can, and you will,” he told her. “At least you will if you want to be able to continue watching over Thaniel.”

Pandy frowned at him, nonplussed, and his eyes twinkled. “Inside that locket is a piece of hair, which belongs to a woman living somewhere outside of West Altheric. Even I don’t know who she is, or where she’s from, but she was paid handsomely for that hair, and her assurance that she will never sell another to anyone else for the same purpose.”

He was still speaking in riddles, and Pandy was certain he was doing it intentionally. Taking pity on her, however, he stood and moved around behind her, plucking the necklace from her open hand once again. Carefully, he looped the chain around her throat, closed the clasp, then stepped back, the twinkle in his eye becoming a full-fledged grin.

“What?” Pandy asked, standing. She looked down at her chest, barely able to catch a glimpse of the glittering pendant against her light brown skin. Wait. Brown? Ms. Wellington had skin so pale a vampire would be envious, and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose that she had always covered with makeup, but which Pandy had had less success at hiding.

“Come on,” Augustus said, drawing Pandy after him as he went into his apartment. He opened the door to his bathroom and gently urged Pandy inside. Gesturing to the woman in the mirror, he said, “What do you think?”

Reaching up, Pandy touched the soft jawline. The woman was about the same age, size, and height as Ms. Wellington, but there the similarities ended. Her hair lay in short, tight black curls against her head, and her eyes were a slightly deeper shade of brown than her skin. Her lips were full, and there were smile lines just beginning to develop at the corners of her eyes. The makeup Pandy had clumsily applied on Ms. Wellington’s face lay very strangely on this one, the colors all wrong.

“How...?” Pandy trailed off, because obviously she knew how. Isidor had a pendant that made him look six years younger, while Eleanor had one that changed her from her natural blonde, doll-like appearance to a brunette who bore a strong resemblance to Geraldine. The necklace Augustus had just given Pandy must perform a similar function.

In the mirror, the chancellor’s reflected features had become more serious, and he said, “You should know, this spell has some pretty serious limitations. It’s surface-level only, so if you touch your hair,” Pandy did so, feeling the familiar loose bun beneath her fingers, “you’re actually still you, or rather Ms. Wellington.

“The most common way for someone to be discovered when wearing a charm like this is for someone to touch them and find that they’re taller, or thinner, or even a different gender. This one was the closest match I could find, so you should be safe enough from that, but you’ll need to work on altering your voice. Fortunately, you rarely spoke to anyone other than me and Beeswick, so that should be all right as well.”

Pandy caught his eyes in the mirror, her fingers now resting on her cheek as she explored the contours of her face, which didn’t quite match what her eyes told her should be there. “Are you saying…?”

Augustus looked suddenly unsure. “I’m saying that Falconet is now short two teachers. You said you could take on a new shape when you reach level ten,” he stumbled a bit over the gaming terminology, looking slightly embarrassed as he said it, “but you still have most of a month until then. Whatever you choose to do, you will probably appreciate being able to appear as a human sometimes, and if you’d like, I can hire you to fill in as a teacher here, temporarily at least.”

Pandy nodded, the stranger in the mirror smiling broadly. “I’d like that. I can’t... I can’t sing or dance or play an instrument, though.”

The chancellor grinned, once again looking like a boy with a secret. “Oh, Ms. Davenport can do all of those things. All I really need is someone to cover a certain Small Group, and I know you can handle that, if-”

“Yes!” Pandy’s voice cracked, turning the word into a squeak, but she hurried on. “If... if you could give me some idea what I should be teaching them. I don’t want them to fall behind because of me.”

Augustus shook his head, growing serious again. “You needn’t worry about that. In the first year, Small Group is mainly about becoming comfortable using small magics, and learning to work together with others. Normally, you’d also be teaching them about the different kinds of elementals they may be able to form a contract with – though you should never actually teach them exactly how to do that, since their first contract should be formed under close supervision when they’re nine or ten years old. But your students already have elementals, and while the odds are good that those elementals will eventually leave if they aren’t contracted, that’s not always true.”

He drew in a breath, cheeks reddening as he stepped back slightly, allowing Pandy to exit the bathroom. “I, ah, just learned about teaching myself over the last year, so I’m far from an expert, but I guess what I’m saying is that as long as they’re using magic and learning to depend on each other, even in small ways, then you’re teaching them exactly what they need to know.”

Pandy cast one more glance into the mirror, then followed him back out into the main room of his apartment. Unlike Ms. Wellington’s studio apartment, this one had a separate bedroom, which only made the complete lack of personal touches even more obvious. “Why don’t you have any pictures?” Pandy blurted out, and immediately felt her cheeks grow hot. “I mean... you don’t have anything at all. Blankets, or pillows, or maybe a vase with some flowers? Not that those are the only options! I mean, maybe you’re into plushies, or animal onesies, or, um, fuzzy slippers shaped like unicorns, and that’s all right, too. No judgement! Just something, so it’s not so…”

“Bare?” he asked, looking around as if seeing his own room for the first time. “I guess I didn’t really think about it. After you’ve had to leave everything you own behind a few times, you learn not to grow too attached. I think my parents still have some of my things from before I moved out, but I’m not sure. My mother turned my rooms into a guest suite almost before the door closed behind me.”

Pandy’s mouth made an ‘o’ of surprise. She’d never really considered the possibility that Augustus might have a family. Not just distant cousins like King Fergus, but real, immediate family. “Are you... not close?” She waved her hands. “I mean, my parents abandoned me the day I was born, so it’s not like I can-”

He laughed, gray eyes warm. “Actually, I have a pretty good relationship with my parents. I haven’t visited them often, because I didn’t want to take a chance of anyone connecting their son with, ah, my previous position, but I went back when my youngest sister got married, and again when she had my nephew. My mother likes to put me in my old rooms, and I think she takes a peculiar pleasure in reminding me that if I hadn’t moved out, they’d still be mine.”

Oh no. His whole family liked to tease people. If Augustus ever took Pandy to meet them – and her mind stuttered over that thought for a full five seconds – they would probably all join together in tormenting her. Somehow, the idea wasn’t as horrifying as it probably should have been, though, so she finally managed to say, “You have a sister? And a nephew?”

“Two sisters, a brother, and a variety of nieces and nephews,” he told her. “But my oldest brother and sister are eight and ten years older than Tasia and me, so they got married while I still lived at home. They’ve had a few children since then, but Anastasia is less than a year older than me, so we did everything together.”

He looked a bit wistful. “At least, we did until I left the summer after I graduated from Condor. I told them I’d taken a job working with the Knights, but Tasia has never quite forgiven me for not telling her exactly what that job was. If I hadn’t made it to her wedding, I’m fairly certain she would have sent her elementals to hunt me down and drag me back.”

There was something intimate about their conversation, and Pandy desperately wished she had something of her own to share. She didn’t, though, because she’d never had anyone to talk about – no parents, no siblings, not even a close friend or boyfriend. Clearing her throat, she looked around once more. “You could put up a picture of them now, though. Or a painting?”

He followed her gaze to the blank walls, but said, “I could probably find some more portraits of beautiful old ladies stuffed into a closet somewhere.”

Pandy thought of the portrait hanging beside his bed and turned red again. When she first saw that painting, she’d been convinced the woman in it must be his girlfriend, or even a wife. Discovering that it just happened to be the right size to cover the hole she’d punched through his bedroom wall had been a relief, though it was also deeply embarrassing, because he’d seen right through her attempts to conceal her jealousy.

“No,” she said, backing toward the door. “You can just leave it like this. It’s none of my business anyway. But I should, um, get back to Thaniel, and the, uh, potatoes.” Realizing she had no idea what would happen to the necklace if she left it on, since it wasn’t part of her ‘outfit’, she sent it to her Inventory, glancing at her hand to see that she was once again pale as a ghost.

That teasing twinkle was back in his eyes, but Pandy ignored it as she opened the door to the office, then dismissed Shifting Faces. At least if she was a rabbit, she couldn’t fit her foot into her mouth. Well, not a back foot, anyway.

Augustus crossed to the door leading out onto the second floor landing and started to open it, then paused, looking down at her. “Don’t let anyone here see your new self until after the Fall Festival, if possible. She could show up on Monday morning to ‘interview’ for the position. I’ll claim Professor Beeswick suggested you. And I’m afraid she – you – won’t be able to live on campus, so you’ll have to leave every day and sneak back as Bunny.”

Pandy thought about her plans for the coming week. If she did everything correctly, that wouldn’t be a problem at all. Bunnies couldn’t grin, but Pandy gave him a particularly saucy flick of her tail as she hopped down the steps, and his warm laughter followed her.