Lucky Rabbit

When Pandy arrived at Falconet, Thaniel was in bed but still awake, reading a book as he waited for her. The book fell to the side as he sat up, and to Pandy’s surprise, she realized that it wasn’t one of the Pirate Pete books, but one Thaniel had carefully placed in his wardrobe when they arrived and then never touched again. Pandy had honestly believed he’d forgotten about it, but obviously not.

Sitting down on the bed beside him, Pandy wrapped her arms around the boy, laying her cheek on his soft curls. He hugged her back, and neither of them moved until his arms relaxed, allowing her to shift away and smile at him. “Isidor says hello,” she told him. Thaniel still didn’t know Eleanor had moved in with Pandy as well, so she omitted the girl’s greeting, even though it made her chest twinge to do so.

Thaniel grinned. “I’ll tell Geri and Bing. Does he like it there? At your house?”

How did Pandy answer that? If she said yes, it would only make Thaniel want to join them even more, and now that she was almost certain his heartstone was the missing Avington heirloom-slash-demon summoning stone, she couldn’t even risk him visiting. If Nox could sense the stone and took it into his paper-thin head to try to retrieve it, she’d have to try to destroy the Apparition, and she really didn’t want to. On the other hand, if she said no, Thaniel would feel bad for his friend.

“It’s… different,” she hedged. “It needs a lot of work, and there’s no running water or fresh food, but he doesn’t have to pretend to be someone he’s not. I think it balances out, for the most part, and he’s excited to start school tomorrow.”

Thaniel looked shocked, then thoughtful. “No running water?” He touched his curls. “So he doesn’t have to take baths?”

Pandy let out a puff of laughter and poked his side, making him giggle. “He has to warm water over a fire,” lit by a small dragon, but she wasn’t going to mention that, either, “then wipe himself down with a washcloth.” Or an old sheet. At least, she assumed that was what was happening. ‘Fix the plumbing’ was already on her internal list right behind ‘find Keros and Ismara’, but she mentally shoved it upward, tying it with the search for the missing deities. Baths were important.

In an attempt to change the subject, Pandy pointed at the book, which was partially concealed by the blankets. It was Alex and the Dark Magician, the book Thaniel had carried with them when they tried to escape from Captain Reedsley and his troop of home invaders. Geraldine’s father had given it back to Thaniel, but the boy had hidden it away like a shameful secret ever since.

“Are you tired of Pirate Pete, or did you just decide you needed a change of pace?” she asked teasingly, completely unprepared for Thaniel’s reaction. The boy burst into tears. Completely baffled, Pandy hugged him again, watching the flood of Corruption Points as he sobbed into her shirt.

“I… thought…” he hiccuped, scrubbing at his eyes, “I was… a Dark mage.” He sniffled, and Pandy winced as he dragged a sleeve beneath his nose. “I thought I would-” He stopped, tried again, shook his head, then said, “I was trying to be okay with it… but Papa wrote this book, but he still did bad things. He knew it was wrong to try to contract a Dark elemental, or… or whatever he was doing, an’ he may even have hurt people.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “He may have hurt Mama.”

Pandy’s arms tightened convulsively, but Thaniel gave a little gasp, and she instantly released him. Her strength sometimes scared her, because it would be so terribly, terribly easy to hurt someone she cared about, like Thaniel. Which actually gave her an idea how to talk about Bryan Conroy.

“I don’t think your father did hurt your mother,” she told him, finding as she said it that she actually believed her own words. She remembered the sad, tormented man, as well as the worried and loving husband and father from Thaniel’s dream. To her, Bryan Conroy hadn’t seemed wracked by guilt so much as desperation. He might have ordered George to make sure the carriage didn’t work, but George told Lian he hadn’t done it, and Pandy found that she believed the gardener. She’d only seen him for the few minutes he’d been speaking to Lord Conroy, but he’d seemed a little timid and only became really animated when talking about plants. She would be willing to bet real money the accident had been the coachman’s fault, one way or the other.

“What do you remember? From that day?” she asked carefully.

Thaniel leaned into her, but he didn’t look up. “Not much. I didn’t ‘member anything before, but now there are little bits. Mama woke me up, and we went down to the carriage. I think I went back to sleep, and then everything was bumping, and I woke up, but something hit me, and-” He pressed his hand to his chest – to the heartstone. “Papa did something to make it stop hurting, but then it felt like there was… someone else in my mind with me. It was really scary.”

Now he did look up, and the blue eyes were haunted. “He put an elemental in me, to keep me from dying. Didn’t he?” His eyes slid over to the book. “Which is exactly what Alex isn’t s’pposed to do. He had to kill a whole lotta animals to get enough magic to fix his dog. So what did Papa do? How many people did he hurt so he could fix me?”

Oh. Thaniel really was too smart for his own good. And if he’d asked this yesterday, she wouldn’t have had an answer. Not a good one, anyway. Reaching out, she gently touched his chest. “A long time ago,” she told him, “a man stole a very powerful artifact.”

Thaniel looked very confused about where this was going, but Pandy smiled at him and kept going. “He stole it for a really good reason, but because it was so powerful, it was important that it didn’t go to anyone who would use it to do bad things, or even selfish ones. That stone was given to a member of his family he could trust, and it passed down through her family, finally coming to your father.”

Thaniel’s eyes widened, and Pandy nodded. “I don’t know what that stone is, exactly,” she said, “but it already had super strong magic in it without your father having to do anything bad. In fact, he could probably have used it to do things like the Dark Magician does in the book he wrote, but he didn’t. He lived alone in the country until he met your mom, and then they were really happy together for years. That doesn’t sound like a bad person to me.”

Thaniel was paying rapt attention now, and Pandy hugged him again as she said, “I think your father used the magic that was already in the stone to save you. He probably wasn’t supposed to, but he was really sad, and scared, and he loved you, so he did what he thought he had to do.” Having seen Thaniel’s wounds, Pandy knew Lord Conroy was right, too. There was no way Thaniel would have survived, even if he’d somehow still been alive when he was magicked back home.

They were both silent for a while, staring at the beautiful illustration on the open page. “So what was he doing the rest of the time?” Thaniel asked. “Ever since Mama died.”

Honestly, Pandy had been certain The Father was trying to resurrect his dead wife. Now, having seen that day, and thinking about everything she’d actually seen Lord Conroy do, she wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Definitely something he wasn’t supposed to do, but-”

But there was really very little most West Altherican Dark mages – much less Dark elementalists – were allowed to do. Augustus said Bryan Conroy had worked for the crown, helping to stop those who broke the rules, which meant he would know far more than most about exactly how Dark magic and powerful Dark elementals worked.

“I think maybe he was trying to figure out how to remove the stone without hurting you,” she told Thaniel, pressing a kiss to his head. “He healed Bunny because he didn’t want you to be sad. He told me to protect you, and I think because I’m not what he expected, that didn’t work, but after that first day, it was the only command he ever tried to give me. Keep you safe. It’s just that he was so caught up in trying to fix the big problem that he forgot to just be your dad.”

Laying her hand on the book, she said, “I think he and your mother wrote this story in case one of you did turn out to be a Dark mage. Not because being a Dark mage is bad, but to make sure you knew to be careful.”

Thaniel looked doubtful, but Pandy was frozen, staring at the image beneath her fingers. The little boy, Alex, was pictured kneeling beside his dead dog, crying, while a shadow loomed in the beautifully detailed forest behind him. Pandy wasn’t thinking about the beautiful artwork, though.

What would happen to a Light mage if she became pregnant with a baby with Dark magic? Most elements seemed to play nicely together, but Light and Dark definitely did not. What if that was why Lady Conroy seemed so ill? Why she wanted to go to Ismara’s church? Surely it had to be a fairly common problem, and Grace would have known the risks and the potential solutions. Why hadn’t Bryan wanted her to go?

Swallowing hard, Pandy put on a smile and checked the timer on Shifting Faces. As she’d suspected, it was counting down its last minute, and she gave Thaniel one last hug. “I just want you to remember that your parents loved you. Both of them. I’m absolutely certain of that. Being a Dark mage isn’t bad all by itself, just like being a Light mage doesn’t automatically make you a good person.” She was thinking of Clara-maybe-Ascyra, and something in her chest gave a sad thump. She needed to talk to Augustus again, and find out if he’d heard anything from Geraldine’s family.

Shifting Faces expired.

As her surroundings expanded, her perspective opening up to include the entire room, Pandy once again realized that every answer led to ten more questions. She was certain she was right: the baby Grace carried had Dark magic. Pandy was also sure Bryan Conroy adored his wife and all three of his children, including the one that hadn’t yet been born. He never would have done anything to risk them – and yet he had. None of it made sense, and she had a feeling it wouldn’t, at least not until she unlocked the rest of General Avington’s magical memories and solved the Avington family mystery.

Thaniel picked Pandy up, curling up around her so he could press his face into her fur. Her too-bland System informed her she was gathering still more Corruption Points, but at a slower pace than before. Finally, Thaniel spoke, his voice muffled and sad. “I loved Mama, but I loved Papa, too. I’m glad I’m not a Dark mage, though. Really, really glad.” He sniffled, lifting his face to look into Pandy’s eyes. “I’m awful confused, Bunny.”

She licked his nose. He squeaked, then laughed, even though it was a very damp sort of giggle, and she thought, She put as much mental oomph into it as she could, while trying very hard not to look like she had intestinal problems, and Thaniel’s brows drew together as he stared at her.

Shaking his head, Thaniel sat up so he could pick up the book, stroking his hand over the names embossed on the cover. Carefully, he set it on his bedside table and laid down again, pulling Pandy back into his embrace. She realized she’d forgotten to tell him she’d have to sneak out really early in the morning, but the tiles were on the desk, and she could put some out before she left. She’d spent her time exactly as she needed to. Snuggling beneath the covers, Thaniel held Pandy until his arms loosened, his breath evening into the sounds of sleep.