Lucky Rabbit

Hobart yanked his tattered clothing closed, but it was too late, everyone had seen. Inside Pandy’s brain, hamsters whirled, and the final straw dropped. She stalked forward, pushing past Augustus without even noticing the way he staggered. It almost felt like she was floating, rising a little further from the floor as she approached the small man, until she seemed to be towering over him by the time she stood directly before him.

Poking a finger into the high priest’s chest – right above the stone – Pandy said, “You’ve been a toad in the hole all this time, haven’t you? Were you trying to lure Grace back to Knightmere? I bet no one could get to her at home, because Bryan was so paranoid, so… what? Were you writing to her? Sending her messages via elemental?”

Blanching, Hobart pulled away. “I… I just wanted to help her! She came to me, and just because the, ah, transaction would have been beneficial to both of us doesn’t mean that-”

“So whose magic did you steal, once you realized you wouldn’t get hers?” Pandy rolled right over him, driven by righteous indignation as she poked him so hard he yelped. “A random commoner plucked off the street by the Shadow Exchange? But no, even commoners are valuable if they have the Light element, so they would have been missed. How about one of those priests you sent off into dangerous areas? Did one of them so-generously donate their magic so you could become High Priest? And what were you going to do with Thaniel? Did you think you could just swap in his magic, like one of those sheep-sticks?”

She shook her head. That wasn’t quite right. Pandy wasn’t tech savvy, but she knew she’d heard… “RAM! Like you needed more RAM? Or were you going to trade him for some other favor? Were you going to be the first God-Emperor of the Western Altheric Theocracy? How many people have you traded away like objects? How many have you killed with your… your…”

Her voice was trembling almost as violently as she was, and to her embarrassment, she felt her eyes burning. Pandy almost never got mad, but when she did, she was a crier, and she hated it, because nobody ever seemed properly chastened by someone whose nose was dripping. This time, however, the high priest shrank away from her, his eyes so wide the white showed all the way around the irises, and when Pandy’s finger moved to stab forward, it was tipped with a red talon.

A hand caught her wrist, tendons straining as it tried to keep that talon from accidentally gouging High Priest Hobart’s heart out. Or at least perforating his peritoneum. Fortunately, Pandy had managed to surprise herself enough that she wasn’t trying very hard, so Keros wasn’t embarrassed by his complete failure.

Stepping back, Pandy stared down at her pale, pale hands, turning them this way and that as she examined the curvature of the crimson claw. Looking up at Keros, she very intelligently said, “Wha-?”

The maybe-former god stepped between her and Hobart, who was now gibbering about everything he’d ever done wrong in his entire life, starting when he was six years old and stole his sister’s sandwich. “Close your eyes,” Keros said quietly, releasing her hand. “Think about… Augustus and Thaniel and whatever else makes you happy.”

Over the past several months, Pandy had gotten used to listening to him, and she didn’t see any reason not to do so now, so she closed her eyes. It was surprisingly red in there, rather than the black that she was used to, but she could feel her trembling begin to slow. As it did, she could hear some kind of a distant sound. It was quiet, but deep, like the roaring of the ocean against the night-time shore. Or at least like the digital recordings of that sound that she used to listen to when she couldn’t sleep. But were those words mixed into it?

She frowned, leaning toward the sound in some non-physical way, only to feel a new hand grip her own. She recognized it instantly. The shape of it, the size, the warmth, the calluses on the fingers and palm – all of it was familiar from the way Augustus constantly seemed to find an excuse to touch her.

He spoke, and his voice was louder than the one she’d been listening to. For now. “Come back, Rabbit. Come on. I’m right here, and so is Thaniel. Stay with us.” Another, much smaller hand crept into hers, and Pandy’s fingers tightened around it automatically as she opened her eyes.

Augustus and Thaniel were indeed right there, with the chancellor so much in her space that he probably would have scandalized his aunts if they’d been there. Well, Lady Frances would have been scandalized, anyway. Pandy had a feeling there wasn’t much that would shock Lady Arabelle. Thaniel looked almost frightened, his blue eyes huge, but he clung to her with fierce determination.

Behind him stood Clara, her expression actually expressing things for once. In this case, what it was expressing was… jealousy? Relief? Some Very Uncomfortable combination of the two? Either way, she was focused on Pandy in a way that was extremely disconcerting.

Slipping her hand from Augustus’s grasp, Pandy reached up and patted her own cheeks. They felt familiar – or at least as familiar as they could feel, given that she’d only been wearing them for a few months. She stretched her mouth and lips, trying to figure out why everyone was looking at her so oddly, and Thaniel gave a choked giggle, while the corner of Augustus’s mouth turned up.

“Are you back?” he asked, not releasing her other hand – and Thaniel’s, by extension – as he took a short step back.

She blinked. “Was I gone?” Her voice sounded strange; too high and too… breathy? Though she was fairly certain it was the same voice she’d had since she sto- borrowed it from Ms. Wellington. When was the last time she’d even thought about the former teacher and Shadow Exchange operative? Not since she’d stumbled over the other woman’s corpse in the mansion where Bryan had been trapped. Pandy shuddered at the memory, and felt something else slip away as Thaniel’s hand tightened on her own.

“You looked really scary,” Thaniel said, looking up at her with great concern. “You were kinda glowing, and your eyes were black all the way across, and you had pointy claws.” He held up his free hand to demonstrate, curving the fingers forward in a threatening manner.

“You looked almost as you did in Bryan’s tower, when we faced Daedalus,” Augustus murmured, and Pandy’s eyes widened. That was when her rabbit body had died, leaving her as a pure Dark elemental. She hadn’t seen herself, but she had seen Ascyra once, in a vision, and if she’d looked like that, she had indeed been terrifying.

No wonder Hobart was still gabbling about pacts and Shadows and sneaking meals on fasting days. The surprising thing was that Thaniel and Augustus were still talking to her. And… She looked around, finding Keros standing silently near Clara, both of them ignoring the ravings of the high priest in order to watch Pandy. She gave a weak smile and waggled her fingers at them. Clara stared for a second longer, then turned away, returning to Lady Reedsley’s side, where the flamboyant, motherly figure stood with a hand each on Geraldine and Eleanor’s shoulders.

Keros, however, drew closer, his eyes searching the air near Pandy, as if searching for something he knew must be there, but couldn’t see. “Did you get any messages from the System? Any… changes?”

Startled, Pandy checked her Status, but nothing had- “Oh. My Corr- Um, CP.” She grimaced. She still wasn’t comfortable calling them Corruption Points in front of, well, anyone outside her head. There was just something dirty or ominous about the word ‘Corruption’. With a glance, she located Empress Glory, sitting in a chair near the children and looking like she’d enjoy a bucket of popcorn right about now. Pandy started in her direction.

“I only have two CP left. Again. It was back up to almost thirty before.” Not that Pandy was lurking near Glory or obsessively checking the stat or anything. It wasn’t like she was going to be sent to some probably-not-metaphorical-Hell if she ever ran out. Oh, wait, yes she was.

“Well,” Augustus said, eyeing Hobart over Pandy’s head, “it looks like we finally have a bird who’s willing to sing. I’m guessing he knows a great deal more than the low-level minions we’ve been able to interrogate before now. Not even the queen could remove him from Elarion’s Domain after violating the Contract.”

Pandy had a lot of things to think about, but this distracted her hamsters enough that a question slipped out. “What is The Contract?” She put as much emphasis on the phrase as possible, because she had a fairly good idea what a contract was at this point, but the capital letters in this one were clearly audible.

Augustus sighed. Not in a ‘that was a stupid question’ way, but in more of a ‘I wish you hadn’t asked that question right now’ kind of way. He flashed another glance over Pandy’s head, and she turned just in time to see him meet Professor Beeswick’s gaze. The Dragon’s chin dipped, ever so slightly, before he focused on the gibbering priest.

Neither Thaniel nor Augustus had released Pandy’s hand, though the boy was looking distinctly twitchy. He’d been handling being trapped in the library remarkably well, but Pandy was realizing that was probably because he’d felt terrible, not because he’d suddenly managed to curb his tendency toward constant activity.

Now, Augustus tugged both of them away, and Thaniel went willingly enough, but Pandy took two steps and balked. She had just entered Empress Glory’s Dark Aura, and she had no intention of leaving it again before she had at least a hundred Corruption Points. “Tell me here,” she said.

Augustus glanced at Glory, who had her chair leaned back and her arms crossed over her chest. As if feeling his gaze, she opened one eye and rather dryly said, “I attended one school or another for ten years. I’d have to be a fool not to have picked some of it up. But I know when to keep my mouth shut.” She rolled her eyes toward Beeswick, then closed them again.

The chancellor removed his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, replaced his glasses, and began. “I’m already skipping a great deal, but when Nora and her husband, Otto Blackwood, began laying out Knightmere, they, and some of their court, still knew how to contract an elemental to a place or bloodline, rather than an individual. No normal elemental could survive such a binding, however, so the elementals were, to a one… unique. Strength was most important, but some valued intelligence almost as much, though it meant they or their families would have to pay a higher price to keep the elemental alive and, ah, sane.”

Pandy nodded. This all lined up with what she’d learned, both in Gacha Love and since arriving in this world.

“Over time, many of those elementals have failed, though we don’t always understand why. But the palace and the schools each still have their own elementals, as do a few privately owned homes. All of those estates that still have contracted elementals belong to Air elementalists,” Augustus said, before pausing meaningfully and adding, “except one.”

Avington House. Nox and Nyssa both seemed to be bound to the house, though it was also possible that Nox was bound to the house, and Nyssa to the family, and then each of them to the other. They were very different, both in abilities and interests, but Pandy didn’t know if that was due to their personalities or if it had been forced upon them, and she wasn’t sure it made a difference after all these years. What she did know was that they were Dark elementals, though they were very different from the other Apparitions she’d encountered, both in-game and in real life.

Clearing his throat, Augustus looked down at Thaniel and smiled. “I’m certain young Thaniel could tell you the story of the powerful Light elementals who will rise to defend West Altheric in case of attack, but less well known is that the elementals of Knightmere are contracted to defend the city itself. That includes the Dragon of the Library, which is a reclusive elemental, seen even more rarely than the elementals of the palace and school.”

It was all Pandy could do not to shoot a glance at Professor Beeswick. He might be odd, but he certainly wasn’t reclusive. He seemed to genuinely enjoy the students at Falconet, and presumably the other schools as well, though he always looked more amused by than fond of adults.

“Each of these elementals have a person who serves as their master, at least temporarily. For the elemental of the palace, it’s the king or queen. For the schools, the chancellors fill that role, which is why every chancellor must be an Air elementalist.”

Augustus skimmed right over the fact that he was not, in fact, an elementalist of any kind, since he hadn’t formed a contract with any of his elementals. Which, as Pandy had noted once before, meant that he probably either wasn’t the real chancellor, or wasn’t actually the elemental of Falconet’s ‘master’.

“Finally, we have the Librarian,” Augustus said, nodding toward Professor Beeswick. “He is the sole contact with Elarion, the Library elemental. Elarion is one of the most powerful elementals to ever form a contract with humans, and even when he entered that contract, he was already one of the most intelligent. Rather than exchanging his freedom for shiny toys or tasty treats, he designed the most complex contract ever recorded.

“As part of that contract – often called The Contract, as you noted – he bound much of his power into various extensions of what he calls his Domain… and we call libraries. He can only assume his true form for short periods, and he cannot leave except when the schools are all closed for the summer. At that time, all but two entrances to his Domain are closed, allowing him to use much more of his power as he wills. In return, he retains absolute control over what occurs within his Domain, though he cannot harm the people within unless they violate the Contract first.”

Thaniel was actually looking a little nervous, and he tugged his now-sweaty little hand from Pandy’s so he could wrap his arms around her waist and bury his face in her hip. “How d’we know if we’re about t’ violate it? I like Professor Beeswick, but I don’t wanna make that Dragon angry.”

Augustus smiled at him, and if his gray eyes held a dark shadow, Thaniel probably couldn’t tell. “Don’t worry. There are very specific things you’d have to do to violate the Contract, and neither you nor your friends are even capable of more than a few of them. In fact, while Elarion was extremely intelligent, he hadn’t yet learned just how devious humans can be, and so it’s very rare indeed that the Dragon can act against a human, even here.”

Empress Glory cracked her eye open again. “Really? Now that I hadn’t heard. Care to tell me exactly what the rules are?”

“No,” Professor Beeswick said, suddenly standing right beside her chair. Glory yelped, arms flailing as she started to tip backward. Pandy was the only one who moved to help her, but she didn’t make it before the Empress managed to right herself. The woman’s Agility stat had to be almost as high as Pandy’s.

“Right then,” Glory said, standing up so quickly that her chair thumped against the floor. “Time to go. You fixed Thaniel, caught one of the villains, and have a plan to retrieve Thaniel’s brother. You don’t need me anymore, eh? I’ll just head back to Avington House to fetch my things, and-”

“I’ll go with you,” Pandy said, to Empress Glory’s obvious dismay. “I have things I need to do at Avington House, too.” And while she’d love to stay here and bask in the joy of knowing Thaniel was finally healed and could live his life normally, with or without her, she had two magic rocks burning figurative holes in her pocket, and she was almost certain they would lead her to Lian, one way or the other.