The Magicians' Realm Chapter 92: Trouble at the Library, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Chapter 92, everyone! Yes, I LIIIIIVE! It's a Christmas miracle! :D

Okay, real talk: I reached the part where it needed some serious editing, lost a chunk of it to vagaries of the computer (or perhaps I dreamed the whole event up), and then dissertation slapped me real hard. Good news though: I am DOCTOR Kineil Wicks now. :D

So I'm going to try to update all my active fics before the end of the year and try to keep the updates regular from now on—we'll see how well I can hold that up when I have to find a job, but hopefully I can find a nice one like beta reader for a publishing company or something (the typos I see in published books, oi). Until then—enjoy an update FINALLY. ;v;/

Angiembabe, thanks for the review! I think you've answered your own question there. ;) That's true….

frLTe, thanks for the review! Um…thank you?

FluffyIdiotIsI, thanks for the review! Yes, me too, although without the additions you said—hope you're well! I know, right? YES! It's one of those "You know what, that's better than what I had let's do that" moments. Hmm…both? Both. Both is good. Plan C it is. :D Yes, me too…thank you, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too!

References:

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde © 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson (I swear the original book is so thin I had to get a librarian to help me find it and the only way she found it was because she had just read it)

The Shadow © Conde-Nast (exact date difficult to ascertain—first radio appearance was in 1930; first print appearance was in 1931)

Sabrina the Teenage Witch © 1996 Nell Scovell (there's this one line Aunt Hilda gives about how there's this tribe in New Guinea where a girl can have more than one husband—for some reason that line stuck with me *shrugs*)

Original characters, + setting © Kineil D. Wicks (myself, not the girl in the story)

Yami watched Anzu disappear down the street before closing the door; he leaned on the door, both hands splayed flat, glaring at the nicks near the base where he had hammered several nails into the wood when he was seven. It had been painted over once, and then repainted again when he was eleven and had decided to poke through all the paint.

Now, he was tempted to kick it so hard the paint flaked.

He swallowed that temptation—Mom refused to allow the door to be magically fixed; she wanted it kept that way for character, so she could point it out whenever she thought Yami needed reminding of his act before he thought moments.

He had definitely had an act before he thought moment—and it wasn't one that was getting fixed with a can of paint. And his punishment would be a lot worse than cleaning the gutters or weeding the yard.

He sighed, freed a hand to rub his neck, scrub through his hair—Anzu was right, she was absolutely right. But he couldn't tell his parents—to tell them would be to doom himself. This wasn't a simple slap on the wrist sort of error: bringing back Skellington could very well doom him to losing his magic.

And knowing what awaited him if that happened…death was the preferable option.

But she was also right on another point—he couldn't keep endangering everyone else like this. He had to do something, think smarter than Skellington, trap him and send him back. Burying him was out of the question now—the fact that he was still mobile and powerful meant that him quietly going to his final rest was no longer an option.

Yami was going to have to banish him again.

This realization prompted another sigh—Yami wasn't advanced enough to know that magic. As a matter of fact, he was pretty sure that no one except the Administrators had access to that particular brand of magic.

Maybe there was another way to do it.

Yami shook his head, turned to head back into the kitchen. If such another way existed, it was probably tucked away in the attic spellbooks—unlikely if it was, considering those were Yami's own spells—or in the Delvaire Public Library—equally unlikely, since the Administrators had picked it over.

But there was a chance that an unconventional approach would do it.

First though—fixing Horus up. And doing that without his mom figuring out anything was wrong.

He tried his best to keep a smile on his face as he went back in, focusing on Horus and not meeting anyone else's eyes.

"So, Horus! What seems to be the problem?"

*\*/*

Teana had managed to convince Yami to go to work again, which bothered her slightly. Not that he had to work, but that he seemed to really like bantering with her in the mornings, insisting on parrying her suggestions to get to work already for at least the entirety of breakfast. And then doing it in such a way that it came off as a conversation instead of get to work you lazy bum.

When he did finally leave, she had read Idgy's letter to find that she was scheduling Jack's algebra lesson and oh hey what plans do you have after that because we could go out and do a thing later—she wondered if the thing involved hopping trains again.

But she called the Pleasant's house, which didn't involve having to cross lines, fortunately—told Skulduggery, who answered, that she'd be over at the time suggested on the letter.

"What's she saying?" Idgy asked, sounding like she was in the kitchen.

"She says she'll be here at three!" Skulduggery answered, causing Teana to hold the phone away from her ear and wince. "I'll come pick you up," he said to Teana, at normal volume. "The criminal element is being unobliging again and behaving themselves, so my schedule is mostly free."

"I'll try to be there before three," Teana said, putting the phone back to her ear.

"Ah, don't—if you wander around town that gives me a chance to utilize my intuitive deductive reasoning, and I like flexing those mental muscles."

Teana had a mental image of Skulduggery tracking her all over Delvaire and the gossip that would inevitably follow. "I'll be there, okay? You don't need to hunt me down."

"If you insist."

She did.

And so after that rather straining phone conversation, she went off to the Delvaire Library in search of a book that was stimulating but not Let's All Kill Constance.

"Hello again," the lady at the counter said, even managing to sound beautiful—how did she even do that? "And what are you looking for today?"

"Something that's not quite Let's All Kill Constance," Teana said.

"You know, you never did tell me what you thought of that book."

"I reread the ending a dozen times, and I still don't get it. I'm not even certain if anyone was actually murdered."

"I probably shouldn't ask if you'd be interested in A Graveyard for Lunatics."

I'll be living it soon came unbidden to her mind, with no context as to where it came from but a chill along her spine. "I think I'll just browse today, thanks."

The lady smiled and went back to her lists, and Teana started wandering up and down the aisles, looking for something to interest her. Bradbury she decided against today, seeing as how he had boggled her mind last time and she hadn't quite recovered. The classic horrors like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—which stunned her to see how slim it was, she always expected thick tomes regarding it—she passed by, feeling a little leery about mad scientists after meeting Dr. Finkelstein. She did stop and page through the first book of a series about a boy wizard over across the pond, but at this point she'd rather have something not magic-oriented. Tarzan, maybe.

She found Tarzan over a couple of aisles and under a shelf full of the Shadow, next to Doc Savage and the Spider. Find the first in the series when she realized she had never actually read any of them, and wander off to find someplace to sit for a while and see if she could interest herself in the book.

She spotted a good sitting place that had a nice sunny window shining down on a red armchair and headed for it, passing by a cart for books that needed to be re-shelved. She glanced at it, saw a red book with a dark dragon on the cover, and decided to pick that one up too, in case Tarzan didn't do it for her today.

Tarzan ended up having to wait—the dragon book was surprisingly intriguing. Granted, it looked and read like it ought to be for a younger audience, but she was invested now and making a mental note to ask for the rest of the series. And the suggestion posed by it….

Teana was tempted to maybe bring up the notion of future sight to Yami, but had the feeling he'd react like Darkstalker—all gun-ho full-speed-ahead and no maybe we should consider the ramifications of this. Besides, here she was, nice and comfy, feeling somewhat motivated to try this and with no one to hunt for her at the moment. She snuggled into the chair, leaned back, and closed her eyes, telling herself she was just humoring a lark and not doing something incredibly stupid. Okay. So. Find the really bright future, the one you want. Right. And while you're at it, find some other books on the subject. And maybe stay awake….

But she surprised herself as she drifted off, seeing herself all dressed up in fine clothes with Yami coming along and sweeping her into a dip. Hephaestus came in with a blonde she didn't recognize, and a tow-headed boy charged in to give a tackle-hug to a young boy with Teana's eyes and Yami's hair—the poor kid.

She smiled as she turned this fantasy over, seeing who was with who and what nice lives they were all living. And Kineil telling them that no, she did not have to pick because she found out about a tribe in the southern part of the Vastness Ocean where women could have more than one husband—it was silly, but it made her smile.

Okay, so now I just follow the threads back to now—find the thread that makes that happen and make sure we follow it, she thought, pulling herself out of the torpid pleasantness to focus slightly.

So eyes still closed, she followed the thread back, seeing which decision led to what and feeling mighty good and warm and fuzzy about herself as she did. This could work—she could fix it. She could fix everything.

And then she reached the present, her half-dozing in the recliner, and decided to retrace her steps and make sure.

Things started falling apart quickly after that.

She told herself to take note so she could avoid these results, make sure this didn't happen, nor that, but it was getting awful to watch, but she had to keep track of that one shining thread, if they followed that they'd be okay, but she was losing it in the midst of these horrible images and—

"Miss Teana."

She jerked awake, realized that Skulduggery was standing there with a hand on her arm and that she was in the library, firmly in the present, nothing had happened yet.

Yet.

"That can't be comfortable," he observed, prompting her to realize that she was curled up kind of awkwardly on the chair, one knee against her chest and her other leg up on the chair, one arm cradling her books and the other pillowing her head. "But as you see, I've used my amazing powers of deductive reasoning to track down your exact location. I'm sure you're very impressed."

"What time is it?" she asked, checking her watch.

"About a quarter till three—but don't worry, we forgive you for being late," he said, offering his hand to help her up. "Shall we check out your books and go?"

She stared at the cover of the dragon book for a moment, considering.

"No," she said finally, putting them in a nearby cart. "Let's just go."

*/*\*

Jenna Montgau had her suspicions.

There was just something kind of…odd…about the way Yami and Yuki were acting—like they had done something, like break one of her vases, and swept it under the couch in the hope that she didn't notice.

The thing was, she did notice—the boys never met her eyes when they did something wrong.

They hadn't made eye contact with her once during lunch.

And then there was the little point of how Anzu was acting, like the sky was about to come crashing down on their heads—not to mention Horus getting injured. Yami had retreated with him up to his room, but in the time that Jenna had to examine the hat-bird she could honestly say that there wasn't a feather out of place. At best, it looked like he had just…stopped flying and fell to the ground. Which, from the sounds of it, was precisely what happened.

It wasn't his magic failing—Yami was too good for that. It was something—or more likely, someone—acting on him.

Well…the boys wouldn't talk to her, but there was at least a few more family members she could consult—she picked up the phone and dialed Greg.

From her brief conversation, she got the impression that he was currently busy and hassled what with everything going on with that Administrator dying—he predicted being home late. Drat that old man and inconveniencing everyone.

It occurred to her as she hit the redial switch that she probably ought to feel at least a little bad about Mesthil dying. She tried to muster some feeling for him as the phone rang, hadn't managed to find any by the time Abby picked up.

"Hey, Abby," she said, once the pleasantries were exchanged. "Yuki came in with Horus earlier—he and Yami are up in their room with him now, they think some other bird got into a fight with him."

"It's sad when Mother Nature's children don't get along," Abby sighed.

"Yeah, well…the thing is, he doesn't really look like he's been in a fight. There isn't a bird or something that can just make another bird stop flying, is there?"

"Not that I know of," Abby said. "But we have that Ga'Hoole tree further up the river, I can go and ask the owls."

Oh boy—asking the owls was involved, mostly because there was a lot of bird-language-translation that had to go on. Abby's method usually involved having the bird talk into a nautilus shell as the first step followed by a lot of other convoluted steps, one of which involved rice wine—imbibing it was an optional step, which probably explained a lot. It would honestly be faster if she sent Yuki instead.

"Well…if you get a chance," Jenna said, rubbing the back of her neck. "Don't go out of your way on it—I was just curious."

"Don't worry about it—I'm sure the universe will provide an answer."

As they wrapped up the conversation and she hung up, Jenna found herself wishing the universe would be a bit clearer on the matter of providing said answers.

Tarzan and Zorro had much easier times of it, she decided.