"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question." - Eugene Ionesco

Hope and Marie leaned prostrate on the railing outside Phoebe's flat, spending the moment together in silence. That wasn't true - the air was alive with birdsong and traffic and faint, pedestrian noise and a dog, about one or two hundred metres west, barking at nothing in particular - but it was easier to pretend it was silence. More comforting, perhaps.

"So," Hope began at last. "Phoebe bloody Deckard. How's about that?"

"I don't know," Marie shrugged. "I don't know how I should be feeling right about now."

"For what it's worth, you held it together really well in there."

"Haha, well... I guess I hadn't processed it. I still don't think I have."

"Fair dinkum. Let's head back to mine and talk everything over. Yeah?"

Hope started off without waiting for an answer. Marie ran to her side, although she barely processed what she was doing.

"If I'm honest," she thought aloud, "I'd really prefer to forget that any of this happened. But that's not an option, is it?"

Hope went quiet for a moment while she and her companion began to descend the stairwell, her focus on the manifestation of an appropriate answer. "Depends, really. What's 'any of this'? You wanna forget all about Phoebe and Dazza and me? You wanna forget about the Citadel and Lara's mob and so forth? Well, I won't stop you."

"I don't know if I ever could forget all that. I've seen some stuff in these last few days that's... going to stick with me, I suppose."

Had that shining giant really only approached her last night? It felt like a lifetime ago.

Down in the courtyard, Hope turned back and smiled sadly at Marie, whose concern had drawn deeply from her pace.

"Guess that means you're one of us now, 'uman though you may be!"

"I thought you didn't like having me around."

"Nah, I just don't like the idea of someone like you having any real responsibility in my life. Sounds like fate's got a bone to pick with you, though. So trying to leave my world ain't gonna be easy as all that."

"That's disheartening. I was expecting a pat on the back and a sagely Australianism or two farewell."

"What do you want me to say? She'll be apples? She'll be a great many things, cuz. But apples ain't one of them."

Marie mumbled a sarcastic acknowledgement under her breath, but it was quickly eaten by the ambient neighbourhood din as they stepped out onto the street.

"Any cars coming your way, Marie? We're clear this way."

"Nope, we're clear."

"Dardy. Anyway, since you're more or less mired in majjo business at this point, you'd best start brainstorming up a wish."

"I'm not going-"

"Yeah. I know, I know, but there may come a day where more lives are at stake than your own, and you're gonna be left with a choice. You understand that, yeah?"

"I thought I told you, this wasn't my problem."

"Kyubey seems to very much think it is."

"Yeah, well he can go get stuffed."

Hope shook her head. "He's beside the point, though. Thing is, if this wasn't your business before - 's not my place to say, of course - it sure is now. And it'll very much be the case if someone's in danger and you're the only person who can help them."

"Phoebe told me I'm already good with an enchanted weapon."

"Phoebe says a lot of... said a lot of things, darl. Sure, I'll admit I don't know you all that well. Maybe you're a bitch to be reckoned with when you've got a little cricket bat that shoots fireballs or some such in your hands, but are you good enough to save a life? Are you good enough to stop a witch putting you in a death roll or disintegrating you or throwing you off a building?"

"I guess I'm not. Actually, it's kind of funny. Phoebe told me last night she wanted to start training me in these kinds of things."

"Ha! Sounds like her, alright. You two must've been tighter than a nun's unmentionables."

"Yeah, you could say that. I wish you wouldn't, though."

Two blocks from Phoebe's apartment, they turned left onto a smaller street.

"I'll still get stronger anyway," Marie asserted. "With or without help. I'll figure out a way to kill witches all by myself, while I'm still human."

"Bold claim! I'm sure even K-dogg himself would have to concede his point if you could."

"That's the idea."

"Just don't put yourself in any kind of danger trying, though. Yeah? If self-preservation's your goal, the last thing you want is to cark it trying to show off."

"Haha, okay. That's true. I'll stay safe, I'll train myself, and in case I fall short at either of those things, I'll keep a wish in mind. But only as a last resort, obviously."

"Of course! Wouldn't wish this life on anyone unless they were ready for it. I mean yeah, I'm used to it, I can make the most of it, but a fair chunk of girls are what we call 'weeklies', for reasons you wouldn't need to stretch your imagination too far to figure out. All thanks to a certain someone being a bit of a bludger when it comes to giving out useful information."

"Oh, believe me. Four years ago, the number of times he almost got me like that..."

"No doubt. Glad you pulled through, though. No offence, but you'd be absolutely cactus by now. You'd have been in the ground for the better half of your teens."

A right turn this time.

"No, you're completely right. I wouldn't have stood a chance."

Hope chuckled, but not as hard as she did when she heard Marie's next question.

"So what did you wish for, anyway...? What's so funny?"

"I take it you've heard bugger all about me, then."

"Yes. Why?"

"Never made one. Technical mishap on Kyubey's part."

"No way."

"It was supposed to be a rare enough issue to make no real difference, but hey. I got the short end of the stick."

"No. Way."

"Nah, I kid. Life's good as a majjo, even if I never asked for it."

"How is that even possible?!"

"I'll explain when we get to mine. If you had enough trouble believing me as is, you'll have even more believing this next part without proof."

Marie tried to take in everything she was hearing, but she had only cast her first fathom into the depths of how little she knew. Even after years of studying the magical experience, she'd progressed almost no distance past square one. She had glanced nervously at the unknown, only to see the unknown look up from its own book, make eye contact with her, and laugh at her while making rude hand gestures.

Hope had brought up a term earlier that she hadn't understood. Could that have been important?

"Hey," Marie mumbled. "What does 'Silencing' mean?"

"Sorry, what? You're mumbling."

"What's Silencing?"

Hope inhaled through her teeth. "Wow, that's a grim bloody topic of conversation all of a sudden. You sure you wanna know?"

"Yeah. I can handle it."

"Well, since you're asking, Silencing is when someone gets-"

"Marie! Hope!" the Incubator interjected, prancing leporine across the street to meet them. "Any news on Phoebe's death?"

Marie snarled. "No. Any reason you didn't tell me you'd already struck a deal with Lara Macquarie?"

Up through a quiet alley. Marie began to recognise the path to the Citadel from last time.

"I presumed you had good enough intuition to deduce that fact yourself. I must have been wrong."

"How am I supposed to figure that out if it takes you so long to reveal any information whatsoever to me?"

"Why do you have to figure it out? You know now."

Hope picked him up by the scruff of the neck. "Mate, could you go bother someone else? You're coming up on my stomping ground, and you know what that means."

"Of course," he smiled, and frolicked off into the shadows the second she conceded her grip on him.

The quiet alley opened up onto Hope's home street.

"So you knew Lara from when she was a 'uman, did you?"

"She makes herself hard not to know."

"Ha! Bloody oath. What's this about you picking on her sister, then? Why's verbally abusing some poor sod you've never met your outlet for aggression? Is everything alright at home?"

"What? With all due respect, Hope, I don't need someone who isn't even a human trying to psychoanalyse me. I get enough of that from a certain mutant alien jackrabbit."

"Fair go, fair go. But if you ever need a place to stay, and you're willing to look after your sisters in the community..."

She finished that thought by putting her hands on her hips and grinning upward at what most would assume was a completely unremarkable apartment block.

"We're a little tight on numbers, all the flats we own are completely out of bedrooms - although I hear a fair share of sapphic Casanovas have taken one for the team and doubled up if you know what I mean - but if you're in some kind of emergency-"

"Look. I appreciate the offer, but how much of my future you're trying to organise really says more about you than me. So thanks, but no thanks."

"Fair go, that's my bad. Can't say I'm too used to times this uncertain, hey? C'mon in anyway, though. Now that you're caught up in our world I figure you might as well make yourself comfortable in it."

Hope pushed open the thick wooden door to the ground floor, mostly a corridor cutting straight through the building with a stairwell off to the left. With a sharp flick of the neck, she shepherded Marie into matching her pace.

"I know I'm talking heaps, by the way, but you seemed pretty reluctant to say all that much about yourself the other day. I thought I'd spare you the trouble."

Marie half-smiled. "Thanks," she shrugged. Her thoughts were still with Phoebe.

"Still caught up thinking about her?"

First floor.

"Well, let me promise you something, then. Dunno what's gonna happen without her appointing a successor, and Lara's just as clueless. But no matter what, we'll get to the bottom of what happened. Yeah?"

"When you say 'we', does that include me?" Marie became suddenly aware of her lagging, and made hurried compensation up to Hope's approach on the second floor.

"If you'd like."

"I mean, it's not like I can just walk away. You said as much."

Second floor.

"Would you wanna if you could?"

Marie tried to think of a suitable answer while Hope turned her attention to trying to fit her key in her door's lock.

"I don't know. Probably not..."

Hope stopped. "Is that it? Probably not?"

Marie tensed and struggled to clear her mind, and with tremendous effort, she succeeded. "No! Absolutely not! Someone who was holding this city together just died, and nobody knows what to do about it! And what kind of friend would I be if I never found out who killed her?"

A click. The door slid open, and Hope cast a sly grin over her shoulder at Marie. "I think I'm starting to get what she saw in you, then."

The Citadel looked much as it had when Marie was there last. She didn't know what she'd expected. She was taking time enough to adjust to Phoebe's absence, but reconciling that with the fact that the rest of the world hadn't really appeared to change all that much was profoundly upsetting.

"Morning, Auntie."

Zoey momentarily turned her neck away from the clear line between her armchair and the television. "Mornin' Fearno. Mornin', um... oh, you know who you are. What's the latest?"

"Looks like she died peacefully, no signs of a struggle or anything. Looked like a fairly clean break to her gem, too, so she wasn't in pain either." Hope put her hands in her jeans pockets and rocked back and forth on her heels. "Marie was a huge help with getting the ball rolling any further than that. She's pretty cluey, it turns out."

Zoey turned away from the television for a few seconds to raise a glass of... Marie had no idea, but it was placed in an ill-fitting Australian flag stubby... towards them. "Marie! That's right! G'day, Marie!"

"G'day, Zoey," she returned with a timid nod.

Satisfied, she returned her gaze to the screen. "Denise an' Audrey're out, by the way. Makin' an offerin' to the Keeper."

"Probably for the best," Hope sighed. "I would, but it's hard to face her after Sonia."

"No worries. Welp, I won't keep you two. Good to hear about Phoebe, though."

"It's all good."

"Oh! Actually, one more thing. I remembered hearin' 'bout this girl last year over in the States. Margaret McManus, 'er name is."

"Oh? What's her thing?"

"She's a professional thief, darl. Supposedly one of the best there is. She's yer girl if you wanna get in an' out of a room without a trace... or if you wanna catch someone who does."

"Right! I see. Thank you, Auntie."

"Any time, darl."

Hope invited Marie into her bedroom, which was... cramped, to say the very least. The walls were lined with posters belonging to dozens of musical acts from what seemed like every genre, very few of whom Marie had even the most passing familiarity with. The bookshelf in the corner doubled as a dresser, and was doing neither job with much elegance or clear logic. In fact, clothes, books, and even a fair few VHS tapes, of all things, were strewn about the floor with reckless abandon. A portrait of deputy prime minister Julia Gillard hung over the head of her bed, and Marie couldn't begin to imagine why. She didn't dare ask, though, because she found some slight enjoyment in the mystery.

"Sorry it's so cramped," Hope explained. "Considering I'm the longest-lasting girl in Sydney, the idea is I get a permanent room to myself. Given the smallest bedroom can only fit one bed, this one's mine. Plus I'm told I'm a bit of a hugger in my sleep."

"So why are we in here?"

"It's where I come to think, is the thing. I'm sorry it's a sty right now, but it's my sty. So let's think this over, right? You think Francis is behind all this? Because I agree completely. Ain't nobody in this city got anything to gain from offing Phoebe but her."

"Actually, it was really just an idea I was putting out there. It's not something I actually believe."

"How's that?"

Marie started pacing back and forth through the Somme of paraphernalic disarray. "Phoebe took every measure possible to specifically stop Francis from hurting her. If anything, she's the least likely person to be able to get in there and kill her, especially with no sign whatsoever of a struggle."

Hope took a seat on the edge of her bed. "Right. She's got the 'why', but not the 'how'. So then, who did kill her?"

"That's the question, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I thought that was pretty obvious."

"There are two other suspects in my eyes. The first is that girl we were hunting, the one who just blew into town."

"Wasn't she running from you every time you approached her? And you're saying she killed Phoebe in such a way that left no evidence and didn't involve a fight? Fat chance."

"Okay, I'll concede that's sort of what I was thinking too. The second... I have no idea what the likelihood is at all, but-"

It suddenly occurred to Marie to hold that thought. Hope was clearly more versed in the world of magic than she herself, and even with her own degree of experience with its rules, ill-defined though they were, if someone had told her what she had seen last night with the shimmering titan who took a soul gem apart and put it back together again but didn't exist (or something? I can't exactly blame her, even I don't understand what had happened), she would call them delusional outright.

"The night she died, Phoebe told me about a giant glowing, shifting dragon that spoke in riddles and revealed the future, and-"

She thought herself prepared for any kind of reaction from Hope... but then Hope began to laugh.

"What's so funny? She's dead, and..."

"Ha! Haha, lordy lordy lord Marie! You've fallen for the oldest trick in the book!"

"I'm serious! What...?"

Hope shook her head. "Nah, don't worry about it. That's the Brass Knight. Old magical girl fairytale from... phwoar, must've been a few thousand years ago? It's a kinda story we like to tell to spook the young 'uns."

"But, but...!"

"Seriously, don't fret it. There's straight-up been no recorded sighting of it, not even by the Kyubster himself. And bear in mind this is a story people have been telling for yonks. If it'd make you feel any better, I've been collecting a few old tomes on our cultures and customs and myths from throughout our history. I could lend you one if it'd calm your farm."

She gestured vaguely at her bookshelf. Only then did Marie realise that most of the books either had labels along their spines pertaining to magic or were otherwise, more straightforwardly, shimmering with the embellished auras that implied some form of enchantment. If that was the case, what she'd initially seen as a small, tacky dresser was actually a library potentially distinct from any other in the world.

"Pretty specky, hey?" Hope folded her arms and cocked a grin. "Been collecting these suckers my whole life. Worth a fortune if you know someone, but they're not for sale."

"Yeah, they... wait, your whole life? How long have you known about magic for?"

"Oh yeah, that's what I was gonna tell you! That technical mishap that landed me in this little mmbaby?" She snapped her fingers, manifested her soul gem, and held it up to the light. "Mix-up at birth. They say my mum was younger than I am now, made a big ol' mistake, ended up having a kid at sixteen or so. 'Course, I dunno the specifics. Don't even know her name, in fact! All I know is the Incubator told her she had a choice - her or me. He tells me she wished for my protection, and that's why he won't tell me anything about either of my parents. Or any other rellies I might have, for that matter."

"Shit. That must be a lot to deal with, right?"

"Nah, it's no worries! It's just how things are! But the thing is Mum hadn't cut the cord, so the vessels to our souls hadn't come apart, so to speak. See where I'm going with this? She was gone by that point, but someone still needed to pay for that contract, and there was still a living soul linked to her body. And ta-da! It worked!"

"Hope, I'm... I don't know what to say."

"What? Nahhh. When I say no worries I mean no bloody worries! This is just how my life's been. The girls of Sydney have been raising me the past 18 years, and that's made me who I am today. Wouldn't miss that for anything."

Her sympathetic confusion and confused sympathies assuaged, Marie began to actually process what she was hearing.

"What?!" Marie practically exploded. "So, you've just been a magical girl for 18 years?"

Hope nodded at nothing and puckered her lips. "Yup. Majjo through and through, from the womb to the tomb."

"I- I... that must be a, uh, a world record, right?"

"Nah. I can think of a few off the top of my head who did at least 20."

"Like who?"

Hope peered out into the living room and glared needles into Zoey's back.

"Zoey!" she shouted.

No response.

"Zoey!" she repeated, this time following it with a whistle.

Still no response.

"Oi, Auntie!" she shouted.

Zoey double took over her shoulder. "Yeah?" she chirped in response.

"I thought you didn't know your relatives. Is she not actually your aunt?"

Hope stared at Marie as if she'd grown a second head. "What? No. Of course not."

"Yeah?" Zoey repeated.

"Who was that girl back in Seoul in the eighties? The one who did forty-odd years?"

"Chin?"

"Yeah, Chin. Forty-two to eighty-three, right?"

"Yeah, thereabouts. Outlived 'er oldies, too."

"Fuck! Good innings!"

"Yeah, cheers to that," Zoey concurred, and took a swig from her glass. A soft "ah" escaped her lips when she put it back down. "Why'd'ja ask?"

"Oh, we're tryin' to figure out who's been doing it longer than me."

"Right, right. Uh... Nadia what's-her-name? Y'know, from uh... fifteen hundreds Libya?"

"Fourteen hundreds," Hope corrected. "Yeah, never been too clear on how to pronounce it. They say she did a good thirty, thirty-five, yeah?"

"Easy. What about Oswald, the Canadian engineer?"

"Hm. Only twenty, I think."

"Ha, 'only'? My girl, if I could do twenty I'd be-"

"I mean fair go, twenty's nothing to sneeze at, a' course!"

She turned back to Marie. "I mean I figure you get the point now. De Rore did 27, Holzknecht did 23, Fierro did 22, Boroughs managed... uh... Oi Auntie, how long was Boroughs a majjo?"

"What, the Pommie mathematician?"

"She was Scottish actually, I think."

"Ah, same thing," Zoey waved Hope off. "I think she did 35 by the time she kicked it."

"Christ."

"Yeah, pretty specky when you consider all the cocaine she was doin'."

"Heroin."

"Right, yeah. Guess there was fuck all else to do up in 1890's Scotland, hah!"

Hope turned back to Marie. "You get the point, though. Yeah? And that's not counting all the girls who did well enough for themselves to stand out in the 'uman world, like... oi, Auntie! What famous majjos would a 'uman know?"

"Oh, screw me... Joan of Arc, yeah?"

"Yeah, Joan of Arc, Cleo VII..."

"Queen 'imiko?"

"Yeah, she was. Duchess Anastasia was, Boudicca might've been... Earhart was, pretty sure."

Haha, yeah. "Was".

Zoey scratched her chin for a bit. "Y'know Shanta? As in Rama's older sister, from Hinduism an' such? I reckon she was."

"Really? Fair enough. Look, Marie, I'm sure you get-"

"An' Harold Holt? He was eaten by a witch! The media says what it will but that's a fact!"

"Yes, Auntie. Let's not put too much on her plate, alright?"

Marie's face scrunched up. "You mean the prime minist-"

"Look, Marie. It doesn't matter. You get the point, yeah?"

"Yeah, sure, I just... wow. It's kind of a shame I left my notebook at home. It would have been great to get all of this down."

Hope shrugged. "Tell you what, then. How about some time in the next week or two me and Kyubey give you a tour of historic Sydney? Everywhere you go has its own magical past. Could be good to learn whose legacies you're living in."

"Really?"

"Take 'er up on it," Zoey butted in. "It'd be good to get Fearno out of the house to do somethin' relaxin' for once!"

"Auntie..."

"No use talkin' back to me, girl. You know I'm right."

"Alright, alright," Hope raised her hands in surrender. "Ain't got time to train you like Phoebe was gonna, but this could be the next best thing. What do you say?"

Marie mulled it over. What choice did she have? This was the kind of thing she'd wanted to learn for years, and she had no idea it had been under her nose the whole time. That the opportunity should present itself at such a useful time to learn more about these people, more about their lives, more about what could have happened to Phoebe... it was almost too good to be true.

She scratched her chin theatrically. "Hm... I'd certainly do well to learn more about you all if I want to figure out what could have happened to her. I'm in."

Wow, this chapter introduced way too many important concepts. Give me a second to work out which one is most in need of the end-of-chapter writeup.

Okay, I've got it.

FORMER AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER HAROLD HOLT

Most Australians remember Harold Holt (1908 - 1967) as a Prime Minister of the people, a figure of real personality, public transparency, and progressive reform - a man who really let his true colours shine on national television, always side by side with his wife, talking into the camera as if an old friend. A few others remember him as the only Prime Minister to be eaten alive by witches.

Holt mainly upheld the centrist norms established by Menzies's time in office before him, particularly with regards to the similarity between his approach to relations with the United States during the Vietnam War and the manner in which a rom-com love interest is willing to disregard her solicitor's uncountable shortcomings and lack of personality out of sheer lust. And yet, it's impossible to deny that his government removed Section 127 from the constitution, cut down the naturalisation period for immigrants of colour to one-third of its previous length, and made many other similar strides towards a more progressive Australia.

It's also impossible to deny that he really should have stayed indoors in the comfort of his beach house on the morning of the 17th of December, 1967. Instead, he had risen early (as he often did), headed down to the shops to pick up the newspaper (as he often did), read an article which offered a strangely prescient interview with his doctor that he should swim less, and disregarded it entirely (as he did just this once).

On a noonday drive with some friends, Holt called for a quick swim at Cheviot Beach, a personal favourite swimming point of his. They raised objections on the grounds that he should really be sensible, hadn't he read that article in the paper? And that at the very least, couldn't they stop somewhere for lunch first, and that oh alright, they suppose he IS the Prime Minister after all, and if it's on the way there they might as well.

The witch Andromeda (1950 - 1967), meanwhile, had attempted to drown herself the night before to prevent the phase change of her Soul Gem and had spent the last nine hours struggling to worm her newfound form out from the clammy, soused clutches of her own corpse. It was at this point she encountered the federal government leader and decided that since she was a grotesque and technically invisible sea monster now, she really had no dignity to lose in feeding on the flesh of a human being, much less one who had supported the Vietnam War.

Holt's colleagues were quickly accosted by a young woman by the name of Maureen Lane (1953 - 1969), dressed in a deep purple suit and surrounded by a crackling black aura, who quickly assured them that "NONE OF WHAT YOU HAVE JUST SEEN ACTUALLY HAPPENED. THE INDIVIDUAL KNOWN AS HAROLD HOLT IS PERFECTLY FINE," she pointed out, "IS WHAT I WOULD SAY IF HE HAD EVER EXISTED. HAHA, HAROLD HOLT? MORE LIKE..." followed by a long silence to indicate nothingness, or void.

Holt's legacy lives on, with the City of Malvern proving sufficiently lacking in an understanding of irony to name their Olympic swimming pool in his honour. No witches in the local area have developed a good enough sense of humour to hunt there.