Book 7, Chapter Five – Hare-t to Hare-t

Fortunately, when Pandy rejoined the rest of the temporary residents of the library, she found that the children had convinced Glory to play a game of tiles with them. Pandy was able to settle into Thaniel’s lap, and still be close enough to the empress to get some tasty, tasty Corruption Points. She also paid more attention to the game than usual, and picked up on a few things she’d never bothered to notice before.

First, while each element had its own set of tiles, Fog and Nature were strongest in combination with others. If a Fog tile with some number of dots matched up with almost any other tile with the same number of dots, rather than being equal, the Fog tile lost. But if there was a Water or Air tile touching the Fog tile, then the Fog tile won. She wondered how that played out in real life. Gacha Love didn’t have any main characters with the Fog element, though it was mentioned in class that it was good for illusion or concealment.

Nature and Earth were another set of complementary tiles. In their case, Earth was the ‘stronger’ of the two, able to stand on its own against any of the other elements. Nature, on the other hand, was weak against Fire and Ice, unless it was touching an Earth tile, in which case it would win. Pandy still couldn’t see what made any specific combination special, but she did finally notice that several combinations had names, especially the more complex ones. If a player managed to lay a Nature tile so it touched an Earth tile and two Light tiles, that was called a Spring Hare, though she had no idea why.

They played two games of tiles – the second one was called Flowers, and combinations of tiles had flower names, which the players built up to a whole bouquet in order to win. Then they built a very wobbly house of cards, which fell on Brook and woke her up. The capybara was almost grumpy as she ate, but then she was ready for another round of divination. Lian was still all right, still trapped, and still attempting to read books, though an empty plate and cup lay on the table in front of him, implying he had eaten.

The day proceeded like this, though Empress Glory went off to do empress things, which meant Pandy had to leave Thaniel behind for a while. Glory touched up her makeup using a small, handheld mirror, straightened the small area she’d chosen to sleep in – non-fiction, behind the books about millinery, and in front of the books about shoes –  and then turned around and grabbed Pandy from the shelf where she’d been Lurking in a Very Stealty Manner.

Holding Pandy up so her back paws dangled, Empress Glory squinted at her. “Why are you following me around? You’ve been doing it ever since I got here, and I don’t think I care for it.”

Pandy blinked, not certain what to do. If she transformed into Thaniel or Eurydice right now, their position would lead to a potentially embarrassing situation. If she didn’t, she couldn’t answer. Not that she wanted to answer, but that was mainly because talking to Empress Glory always felt at least a little confrontational, and Pandy wasn’t a confrontational sort of person.

Squinting back, Pandy imagined an antenna popping out of the top of her head, emitting signals direct from her hamsters. <I need a Dark mage.>

Empress Glory jerked, almost dropping Pandy, then drew in a long breath and said, “Did you just say something?”

Pandy stared at her. <You said something first!>

Glory let out a single huff of startled laughter, then bent over and carefully set Pandy down. “I think I’d prefer it if you didn’t do that anymore.”

<Cast Shifting Faces, Eurydice,> Pandy thought, and an instant later found herself looking almost straight into Empress Glory’s wary eyes. “I need a Dark mage. Or a Dark elementalist. Whichever. But they have to have-”

Here she hesitated. They hadn’t explained about Dark Aura to any of the Dark mages involved. That was mainly down to the fact that Pandy had no idea how to explain it without explaining everything, but also she had a feeling Augustus didn’t really want to tell anyone. If Dark Aura really was caused by a constant leakage of the unused portion of a Dark mage’s Mana, then that had to be a key aspect of the enemy’s plan to summon and maintain an army of Demons. Keeping track of those with Dark Aura might give Pandy’s side a warning before Something Really Bad happened, but if the enemy knew they knew, they might change their plans so no one knew. Which was a lot of knowing happening in a very small space.

Glory didn’t seem to have noticed her slip though. Instead, her expression went through a series of contortions, ending up on what might have been… relief? “Is that why I’m here, then? You need a Dark mage for something? I mean, I am an elementalist, but only in the very broadest sense, since-” She, too, stopped herself, but after a moment a few more words spilled out. “I thought you wanted me here so you could keep an eye on me.”

Pandy blinked. “No? I mean Augustus and Professor Beeswick might have thought of that, but I… I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” She shrugged awkwardly. “You couldn’t go back to your apartment, and Avington House is kind of a wreck. I would have brought Nox and Nyssa too, but they can’t leave the house. I’m actually really worried about them. I mean, Nyssa was hurt in the fight, and if someone goes back to the house, it could be really bad, even though now they know there’s nothing else there for them to find, but-”

She stopped, and they stared at each other for a long moment, before Glory’s lips twitched, which made Pandy give a choked giggle, and then they were both grinning, in the slightly addled way of people who hadn’t gotten much sleep lately and had just gotten some good news.

“I thought you didn’t trust me, but didn’t want to upset Ellie by locking me up,” Glory said.

“I thought you were mad at us,” Pandy said.

The other woman stopped grinning, her smile turning wry as she said, “Your Augustus is not my favorite person. And Professor Beeswick… looks almost exactly the way he did when I went to school here fifteen years ago. Maybe a little more gray in his hair, but otherwise, no change. It’s disturbing.”

Pandy really wondered what other people saw when they looked at the Dragon. She also wondered what Professor Beeswick thought of this conversation, since she knew he could ‘hear’ them from anywhere in the library. Would he soon acquire more gray hair, or possibly less hair in general? Perhaps a new wreath of wrinkles?

Pandy cleared her throat and pretended she hadn’t heard that last part. “I do like you. And not just because of the cheese. But I also need to spend time with you because-” Well, did she trust the Empress or not? After only a brief moment of soul-searching, Pandy said, “Dark mages who’ve been affected by a certain illness all… leak. Not a lot, but enough that certain elementals can, um, detect it.”

“Elementals like you,” Empress Glory said.

With a small sigh, Pandy nodded. “Possibly others as well, but I’m not certain.” She thought about Suzanne, who couldn’t get near most normal animals without having them run away from her. “And at least some animals. Have you noticed that animals avoid you now?”

Glory hesitated, then shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not really an animal person, so I don’t spend much time around them. Well, other than Soot, and after what he did when the house was attacked, I’m not certain he counts.”

That was fair, and she was right. Augustus’s former mount most definitely wasn’t a normal horse. Quickly moving the conversation along, Pandy said, “In any case, I need your,” a number of words passed through her mind, none of which was appropriate for the conversation, “leak-age? The stuff you leak.” No, that wasn’t better. She waved her hands a bit frantically. “Not in a weird way, just-”

But Glory wasn’t listening to her any more. Instead, she looked thoughtful and said, “I don’t often use my magic. As a Dark elementalist, there’s not much I’m allowed to do. But when I do… I feel tired. I don’t remember feeling like that when I was younger. I thought it was just because everything changed and I’m older, but maybe not.”

She focused on Pandy again. “Do I need to do anything to give you this,” she grimaced, “leakage?”

Pandy shook her head, but hesitantly offered, “I can pick it up whenever I’m close to you. But if you were willing-” She thought about the Duskin that had intentionally given her Corruption Points. Could a Dark mage do that, too? If so, did they have to have Dark Aura, or could they do it even without having been caught up in the Shadow Exchange’s machinations? “You could… try sending me magic?”

Glory shifted, looking uncomfortable. Pandy had become so used to the steady cascade of notifications about Corruption Points that she didn’t even notice them any more. Now that her brain had been reminded about them, however, they snapped back into focus.

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

Every fifteen or twenty seconds, just as the previous notification vanished, another appeared, creating a slowly flickering flow. It continued exactly as it had been for the last few hours, bringing Pandy’s total Corruption Points up to four hundred and twenty. Four hundred and twenty-one. Which should be enough for almost anything. Anything except what Pandy actually needed to do.

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

Empress Glory reached out and touched her. Pandy tensed. Nothing changed. Then Glory… flickered. One instant, Pandy knew exactly where Glory was, and the next her eyes slid off of her, like she was the visual equivalent of melted butter. Yet at the same time, Pandy actually became intensely aware of the other woman, the spot on her arm where the Empress’s fingers touched her becoming abruptly frosty, rather than a warm, tentative pressure.

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

+5 Corruption Points from an Offering

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

+7 Corruption Points from an Offering

+11 Corruption Points from an Offering

+27 Corruption Points from an Offering

+1 Corruption Point for entering Dark Aura I

Glory let out a soft gasp and jerked away, shaking her hand, then folded the fingers into the palm of the other hand, as if they were cold. She was pale beneath her makeup, her brown eyes dark as she stared at Pandy. “I couldn’t stop it,” she whispered, tucking her hand beneath the opposite arm. “I just tried to use magic, the same way I would if I was working with my elemental, but instead it was like you were pulling something out of me. What was that?”

She had backed up until she was pressed against the surprisingly large collection of books about hats, and Pandy backed up, too, putting enough distance between them that she was no longer getting Corruption Points from Dark Aura. Pandy looked down at the spot on her arm, which had warmed up again, and said, “I’m… sorry.” She looked up, feeling heat and moisture gather at the corners of her eyes, as if to repel the chill that had briefly consumed her arm. “I wouldn’t… I didn’t… Did I hurt you?”

The Empress’s cheeks were starting to get their color back, and she relaxed a bit when Pandy didn’t lunge at her like some kind of rabid energy vampire. “It didn’t hurt. Not exactly. It surprised me. Maybe scared me. A little.” She swallowed, and her expression hardened as she put back on the tough persona she usually maintained. Holding out a hand, she said, “Do it again. If it will help stop these people, do it again.”

Pandy shook her head a little desperately. “It’s all right. If I can just stay near you, that’s enough. By tomorrow I’ll have-” around one hundred and eighty Corruption Points an hour for twelve hours, plus what she already had, would be almost twenty-five hundred Corruption Points. Far more than Pandy had ever had before. “Enough,” she said. It would have to be.

Glory hesitated. Then, taking a long step forward, she said fiercely, “I sat in a rotting warehouse while people died around me. People I’d never met before, but who became my lifeline in that stinking pen. I remember their names. Alan. Rhea. Noel. We talked. Just to fill the silence. We told each other stories. Secrets. Things we’d never told another living soul. Every one of them was alone. Nobody to anybody. Just like me. But for some reason I’m here, and they’re not, and I remember them. Because somebody should. And they deserved better than what happened to them.”

Her voice caught, and Pandy saw a terrible grief and guilt in her. Something that she usually hid so well no one would ever guess it existed, but which had probably driven her actions ever since she’d been trapped there, chained to a wall in the darkness with strangers dying all around her.

“I’m sorry,” Pandy said again. Not for taking her Corruption Points, but for not seeing the depth of her pain. For not always seeing her as a person, full of her own complex feelings and desires, in the midst of everything else that was going on.

The other woman glanced away, and when she looked back, her mask was in place again. She shrugged, as if it wasn’t a big deal, but it was too late. Pandy knew now. “I’m just saying… If there’s something I can do, tell me.”

Pandy nodded, absolutely refusing to give in to an impulsive hug that would probably be deeply offensive in some way. Instead, she simply released Shifting Faces and hopped over to sit on Glory’s foot. The woman said nothing, just reached down and picked Pandy up, and if her hands were trembling, well, neither of them was going to mention it.