"If there were only easy answers, no choice in this life would be worth making." -Penelope of Skyros

Hope sank further and further into her armchair with every passing minute. She hated waiting. She had always hated waiting. She had been raised with a complete comprehension of life's absolute finitude, and the last thing she needed was cordoning off some of that finitude for the sake of doing absolutely nothing. Her mind needed occupation, lest it wander so maladroitly as to careen into the open embrace of a bottomless migraine. She had to keep herself occupied in the acousmatic thrum of the world around her while Phoebe et. al. remained absent in their indeterminate tardiness, she decided, or else she was going to lose her mind.

"So the thing with quantum superposition is, at least I find, it gets easier to understand if you think of each possible state as like a mathematical function," one of her flatmates, Erica, explained to another, Jane, with wide-eyed enthusiasm.

"Oh, Kimmie, me 'n' Kel had the time of our lives. We had twenny-four hour room cervix, eggs derelict for breakfast..." the television blared feebly through its blown-out stereo system.

"You, and me, we have an opportunity / And we, can make it something really good..." Zoey hummed from somewhere in the kitchen.

"Ee, ch! Ee, ch!" a thornbill outside the window begged, which, unknown to Hope, meant, "Not to bother anyone or anything, but this is my partner and I's first time making a nest, and you know, we really want what's best for our kids..."

"Eggs derelict!" The television continued. "Oh, that's noice. It's noice, it's different, it's unusual..."

"Hey Audrey, do you think you could cover my shift for me tomorrow? I've got a doctor's appointment at eleven, see," Denise mumbled, her failure to make eye contact apparent even in her voice.

"But you, you think I'm not that kind of gi-i-irl!" Zoey crescendoed, and tacked on a few extra notes of her own for good measure.

"Screw me sideways," Hope sighed. This wasn't exactly her idea of relaxing. She leaned her head out of the second-floor window and scanned the street up and down, the intersection far out to the left, the turn down the hill to the right.

The haze of January humidity clawed at her senses, caressed her face, spat on her comfort. It was tender, and it was unbearable. Every bead of sweat effected onto her face played a part in a moving symphony of warm and cool upon her skin, the fresh air in her lungs like a tide flowing on each breath a memory of her first, of terror and panic and loneliness and love, pure, unyielding love, which consumed the insurmountable hurdle at the end of the beginning of life like an immortal inferno.

How unlikely that this thing she thought of as life should come to be, time and time and time again. How beautiful and spellbinding that everything should take its first breath, and one day its last. How unlikely that despite circumstance she was a moving, thinking thing, as imprisoned in the trillion-cut aquamarine firmly embedded on her navel as she was free in it.

Hanlon's razor would advise against attributing to malice that which can be adequately marked up to ignorance. While Hope's impatient demeanour could no doubt come across as offensive and/or self-centred in particular contexts, one should bear in mind that most, if not all mortals are under the impression that time is a real, objective phenomenon which adheres to some form of logic or other.

It is common knowledge that mortals very rarely tend toward a semblance of cleverness.

Voices from down the street. Unmistakably the forced cadence of Danika Woodward among them. Hope turned to the source. She walked between two companions - one clearly Phoebe, the other likely the "replacement" she had in mind. But the moment she saw them she noticed they weren't travelling alone.
Hope Fearnley conjured her weapon, took aim, and...

"Oh my goddesses, Marie, you're gonna love it." Phoebe punctuated her point with an enamoured twirl. "Tell her, Dani."

"You're probably going to love it. (Love what?)"

"The Citadel! Weren't you listening?"

"Nah. That's on me."

"Hey, why do you guys call it the Citadel?" Marie asked, trying to find her own footing in the conversation.

Phoebe beamed. "For magical girls, it's the single most secure residence in all of Sydney! Not only is it-"

Thunk.

A metal rail, roughly forty centimetres long, sailed neatly past Marie's head, drove itself clean through the skull of the Incubator perched on her shoulder, and dug itself into an oblique resting place in the pavement behind her.

"What the hell?!" Marie screamed.

"Case in point!"

"That could have been my head!"

"Citadel ground rule number one: no Incubators! Bet the smug bastard didn't even tell you that!" cheered a young woman two floors up sporting a long, sleek gun of some sort. "C'mon up, girls! You're late!"

Hope ushered in her three guests with a dry sort of haste before actually offering a word of greeting.

"Phoebe. Good to see you," she declared at last.

"Likewise."

"Dazzaaa!" Hope grinned and brought Danika into a firm half-hug.

"Fearno! How's it hanging?"

"Good, good... and who's this? I see you two've brought a friend along."

She broke off from the embrace and loomed over Marie, hands on her hips but no sign of hostility on her face.

"Marie Crawford. Pleased to be of service," she explained with a slight bow.

"A posho, huh? You must be Phoebe's friend."

"Of a sort."

"Hope Fearnley. The pleasure's mine."

"She's my replacement," Phoebe explained. "You know, in case something happened to me."

Marie gritted her teeth. "Well, we don't know that yet. I'm not exactly planning on it."

"What's that?" Hope chuckled.

"Phoebe seems certain that I'm going to make a contract at some point."

"Is that so? Phoebe, you smug bitch. You're telling me your 'big plan' was a bloody 'uman?"

"Well, for now she is," Phoebe explained. "She's not caught up in our politics yet. Weren't we after a neutral party?"

"Why does everyone keep saying 'yet'?!" Marie groaned.

"Okay!" Hope snapped. "One: Phoebs, I appreciate the kinda stuff you do, and everything, but we need to have heaps lengthier discussions about getting 'umans caught up in our lives before we just drop 'em into a super important job like yours all namby-pamby, yeah?"

"You sound kind of like-" Phoebe began.

"I know what I sound like, yeah! Maybe that is pretty deeplighty of me to say! It's offside for sure, but make no mistake. 'umans? Love 'em to bits. This just isn't any of their business. And how d'you think your 'superiors' on their side are gonna take it, anyway? Really well, I don't think."

"Fair enough. Crap."

"Two: Marie, we have a saying around here. You don't choose to make a contract, you only choose what it is."

"What do you mean?" Marie scoffed.

"I mean Kyub's gonna keep hounding ya for a deal, and one way or another he's gonna find a chink in yer reasoning that he can fit himself in. It's not like turning him down is impossible, but it is unheard of."

"That's so gay. He's been trying to force my hand for four years and I've said no the whole time."

"I... hang on, four years?"

"Yeah."

Hope's flatmates began to trickle their way into the living room one by one.

"Shit," Jane announced. "Guess it's true."

"I thought you were just an urban legend perpetuated to make younger girls feel like they have more free will," Audrey laughed.

"So this is the four year girl, eh?" Zoey scoffed. "Thought you'd be taller, darl."

"Gee, thanks."

"Oi, not to be a pain in the arse," Hope declared over the murmurs of the small crowd, "but we're trying to have a conversation here."

"Righto, righto. Let's leave 'em to it," Zoey concurred, and the threat of holding a different opinion to her was enough to dispel anyone who wasn't willing to spend the next few hours listening to her talk about respect. Hope once again had her three guests to herself.

"Come on, take a seat, girls," Hope loosened up and grinned. Her guests shuffled around the loungeroom for a place to sit. Marie sat in a worn red leather armchair across the room from her. The other two took to the couch. Phoebe shuffled around nervously in anticipation of what Hope was about to ask her, mulling over her most convincingly noncommittal "well, actually," and "the thing is," in her head.

"Introductions aside, have you run this past Lara yet?"

"The thing is I think I've got to... warm her up to the idea first?"

Danika smirked. "You can say she's too stubborn. It's not a crime, you know."

"She's not as bad as you guys say she is, you know!"

"Too right!" Hope leaned forward and coughed into a fist. "See, she's actually worse."

Phoebe groaned. "I get where you guys are coming from, but... is it so wrong of me to wish the lot of us could get along?"

"Nah! Nah, totally understandable. Fat chance, though."

Danika raised her hands. "Hey, do you reckon we could at least keep it cool for now? I think in having called this meeting in the first place it doesn't really need saying that you and her can't get along."

Phoebe and Hope shrugged their agreements. The latter set her sights on Marie and steepled her fingers as if mountainous plate tectonics coursed between her wrists.

"So, Marie. Can I call you Mazza?"

"Marie's fine, thank you."

"Right, gotcha. So Marie, if I may ask: What's your deal?"

"My deal?"

"Yeah. What's your biz? What, if you will, guides your arse up our neck of the woods?"

"Yeah, tell us a bit about yourself," Danika clarified.

"Yeah, I get it. I'm Marie, I'm seventeen, and I've resisted the temptation of making a contract and becoming a magical girl for four years. In high school I was a debate club team captain-"

Hope shot a "Wow." into Danika's brain. Danika struggled not to laugh.

"-and a member of my school's lacrosse team-"

Hope upped her previous statement to conclude with an exclamation mark before deciding to wrap up this line of conversation.

"Okay, that's bonza stuff, I'm sure, but that's not so much what I'm asking. It's weird, you ask someone what they do and they start talking about academia and work and all that. I don't wanna know what wiggle room you've eked out inside your own institutionalisation. I wanna know about you. What do you do for fun?"

"Oh, uh... for fun?" Hope could tell straight away how she'd ruffled Marie's feathers. She was so prepared to give some kind of job interview type speech that a question more personal had walloped the pride right out of her.

"Yeah, if you're comfortable sharing."

"Right, yeah, nah, right. Um... not that much, I suppose? I'd say watching witch hunts is my favourite pastime, but I imagine that's already old news. I don't know outside of that, I always hate talking about myself in situations like this, you know? If there's one thing you can take for granted, it's yourself."

"I don't believe for a second there's nothing else to you. Again, though, if you're uncomfortable..."

"No, it's cool. Just let me think... uh, looking after Kyub? I treat him like a cat, as it happens. Except I talk about moral philosophy with him sometimes. I'd say that's a hobby of mine too. What else? Old point-and-click adventures? Trying to teach myself piano? Reading?"

"Ah yeah? Reading anything good at the moment?"

"Oh! Yeah, actually. You ever read any Atwood?"

"Know the name, haven't checked her out. She any good?"

"Yeah, I really like her style."

"Cool, cool. Hey, would you mind if I just confer with my friends about some stuff? I'm pretty new to what I do, and if we brought you on board that'd be a pretty major undertaking for both of us."

"It's okay," Phoebe protested. "I can train her!"

Hope shrugged. "Yeah, that's fair. Now it'll be a major undertaking for three of us."

Marie quirked an eyebrow. "Go... right ahead."

Hope smiled and sat in silence for about two seconds. "Yeah, we don't think you're right for the job."

"Wait, what? Weren't you about to ask around about that?"

"Just did, son. Mind to mind. We don't think you're cut out to be a neutral party between us and the deeplighters, unless you show us something pretty specky you've been keeping up your sleeve until now."

"Please, Hope," Phoebe whined. "At least give her a chance."

"No, it's cool. I don't even want this job."

"Et tu, Marie? I can't think of a better fit to be my understudy. Come onnnnnn, there's so much riding on your shoulders."

"Hm! I don't think there is, actually."

"That's a tad tactless!" Hope cringed. "Not that I disagree with you, mind."

The existential panic Phoebe shook her head with as she gawked back and forth between Marie and Hope would put Jean Buridan's horribly mistreated and malnourished ass to shame. "But you told me upholding this peace is everyone's responsibility!"

"Okay, that's true..."

"Mmmmmmmmm," Marie winced, "not mine!"

Phoebe shot to her feet and clutched her skull (still contained within the flesh of her head, of course. Only one person with even the most tangential relationship to her life is intense enough to do otherwise). "I can't deal with you people! I can't... I'm... I need some air."

"Need me to come with?" Danika piped up.

A sigh. "No, it's fine, I'll... I think I might go home, actually. I'm sorry."

"No, don't be-" Hope began, but before she could enunciate the last syllable strung onto that thought, the only person who needed to hear it was out of earshot.

Hope sank in her chair. That was the first she'd seen Phoebe all week, and so quickly she'd just...

"Far out," she mumbled. "Guess this is a pretty crap first impression, eh, Marie? I swear I'm not usually this tense. I'm sure Phoebe is too, sometimes she has trouble balancing her souls and, well..."

Marie shrugged. "I'm used to magical girls being super sensitive about everything. Best I can tell it comes with the territory."

Hope refined her casual slump into a full-blown, masterful sulk. "I may be an overemotional majjo, but at least I'm not a bloody 'uman."

"What do you mean?"

"You lot think you're tough stuff 'til you lose an arm or something. Then you completely spit the dummy 'cause you can't grow it back."

Danika clapped her hands together, this time less forcefully than she'd meant to. "Right! Right, I think we are all under quite a lot of stress right now, what with a serial killer on the loose, and Lauren and Dante six feet under-"

Hope rolled her eyes. "D'you think you could at least call her by her name now that she's carked it?"

"...Lauren and Sonia six feet under. I think we're all just very worked up by this... this, uh... look, I'll just go talk to Phoebe. Yeah?"

"Righto. Chur, brah."

Marie furrowed her brow. "Chur, brah?"

"Yeah."

"What language is that?"

"Well, English. Only language I know."

"I don't think you'd find 'chur' or 'brah' in any dictionary, actually."

Danika slipped out before she could get caught up in the crossfire of whatever the hell this was.

"Oi, Erica! Could you get in here real quick?" Hope shouted.

Erica popped her head in through the kitchen door, mop of raven hair swinging back and forth with the urgency she'd arrived. "Hello! Yes?"

"Chur, brah."

"No worries, brah," she grinned, and slipped back out.

"That doesn't prove anything."

"Crikey. You know you sound a lot like Phoebe's mate right n-"

Hope's jeans pocket blared a harsh, percussive synth monotone. She noticeably flinched before practically ripping her phone out of her pocket and putting it to her ear.

"Hold on, lemme take this. Hello?"

"Lordy. What's she done now?"

"Yeah, nah. Next time though. Deffo."

"Right! Yeah! I'll send her down, then!" She held her phone aside and turned back to Marie. "It's Dazza. Phoebs wants to talk to you. In person."

"Oh, uh... now?"

"Yeah, bloody now!"

"Right! Well, then, um..." Marie eased herself back to her feet. "Nice to meet you, anyway."

"Nah, be real. It sucked."

"Haha, yeah, it kind of did."

Marie was about halfway through the door by this point. Hope saw the closing of the window of time in which either of either of them could swallow their pride, and she slipped her hand through. Worse things had crushed her wrist, after all.

"Oh! Um, one last thing before you go."

"Hm?"

"We got off to a shaky start, no doubt, but I want you to know there's no room in my life to hate anybody. Okay? I don't resent you just because we don't see eye to eye. And I want you to tell Phoebe I don't hate her either. I figure being three people at once would do that to someone."

"Alright."

"Hah. Chur, brah."

"Sure thing." Marie responded with a thumbs-up goodbye, like some kind of absolute mutant.

"So," Hope giggled to anyone who would listen, "How's about that Marie girl earlier? What a weird unit."

Zoey shook her head. "Yer drunk again, aren't ya, darl?"

"Nah. Course I'm not drunk. Watch this. Song's ending."

"What?"

"Song's ending."

Every weekend, Denise and Jane would insist on watching the first two hours of an all-night music video program run by the ABC, as part of a friendly but, to an outsider, alarmingly ritualistic competition based around naming as many songs as they could before their title faded in at the bottom of the screen. Only one other Citadel resident ever expressed the slightest interest in the game, and she was banned due to her level of skill.

A fast-paced rock beat started up. Before the first bar had ended, Hope bolted to her feet and pointed at the television.

"Faker - Are You Magnetic." She took on a quick sip of the beer she had been holding. Other people said it tasted like cat piss. Hope had, of course, never tasted cat piss, but she was very much concerned for the wellbeing of any animal capable of producing a fluid half as foul as the one in her hand. "It's track two off Be The Twilight. Too easy."

Her flatmates groaned and accused her of cheating somehow, or failing that, just being a real buzzkill on her own merits.

"That don't prove nuthin'," Zoey sighed, "save that I deferred my authority to a girl with an encyclopedic knowledge of contemp'ry Aussie music."

"I dunno, I thought my reaction time was pretty good. I promised you I wasn't gonna drink to get drunk this year. You've got faith in me, don't you Auntie?"

"Course I got faith, darl. I just worry I stuffed up leavin' as much on yer shoulders as I have."

"You don't think I'm capable?"

"Nah, wouldn'ta picked you if I didn't. Yer just quick to stress is all."

"I'll drink to that," Hope concurred, raised her longneck to her mouth, and put it back down when she realised what she was doing.

"Force a' habit?"

"Yeah, well-"

A quick, firm knock resonated through the front door, and into the air of the apartment like venom into a bloodstream.

"I'll get it," Hope announced. She opened the front door, saw who was behind it, and closed it again.

Lara jammed her foot in the door before it could close. "Evening, Fearnley," she cooed. "Would you mind if I popped in for a chat?"

"If I said no..."

"I'd find other, less courteous ways to open this door, don't you worry."

Hope weighed her options, sighed, and swung the door open.

Lara inferred the rest of the invitation in. "Evening, Ms. D!"

"Oh, piss off. What the hell's she doin' here?"

"Evening, all. Wowza! This place looks like a grandma in the outer suburbs decided to open a crack den." She threw her soul gem onto the ground. "Look. I'm unarmed, and if you think I'm going to misstep, just shoot me through the soul. You can trust-"

"Oi, shut up and say what it is you came here to say."

"What I came here to... ah, right! Deckard's understudy. How are you feeling about her, Fearnley? I mean, I haven't had the chance to meet her yet, but I think our current diplomatic scapegoat's shirking her duties, right?"

"What do you mean...?" Hope looked aside at Zoey. Had she missed a memo or something? Zoey just shrugged.

"I mean I think it's bad practice for her to devote all her teachings to some rando who doesn't give enough of a shit to so much as take a step outside her body instead of, I don't know, stopping someone from starting a bloodbath in one of the southern hemisphere's biggest metropolitan areas."

"Why, are you planning on being that someone?"

"Nobody plans on being that person. It's a nothing-to-gain, everything-to-lose situation. It's like when there's that girl from the fancy private school who doesn't even know you exist, but you treasure every moment you spend with her, and you so *badly* want to tell her that she's the most enchanting soul the big man slam-dunked down onto this bastard Earth, but deep down inside you know you're not ready to admit that you could be in love with-"

"Lara?"

"...Right. Of course. You were homeschooled, right?"

"Yes?"

"Well, it's basically a universal experience. Don't worry about it."

The room went silent for a moment.

"I'm not weird," Lara clarified.

"Can we cut to the chase?" Zoey offered. "I'm gettin' even sicker of ya than I already was."

"My point is! Miscommunication, misunderstanding... in a situation as tense as ours, they can be lethal. Someone who can see our arguments from both sides like her is a lifesaver. And this girl she's macking on or whatever doesn't want to see any of our world from any side! You see my hesitance to let this slide, right, Fearnley?"

"Fair suck of the sauce bottle! From what I can tell, that girl has a willingness to learn I never woulda saw coming."

"I see. What else has she got going for her?"

"Bugger all, really."

"Shame. What's say you and I underthrow Deckard and find a new girl ourselves instead?"

"Under... throw?"

"It's like overthrow, but she's our inferior. She's really, really inferior, actually. You know how she spends her time? Going on witch hunts with this new girl just for kicks. I hear Woodward - not the dead one, of course - is third-wheeling whatever it is those two have got going on now."

"Pull the other one. You're trying to undermine my judgement, or something. Trying to get me to disapprove of Phoebe's choice of student."

"Why, were you about to give her the go-ahead?"

"No, I-"

"Well then, why would I do that?" She smirked. "Face it, Fearnley. If I needed to psychologically outplay you, I wouldn't resort to spreading rumours. I've got a rapper wit."

"You mean a rapier."

"A what?"

"She said rapier," Zoey huffed. "That's the expression. Rapier wit."

"What, like a sword? That's stupid. The only thing a sword ever thinks to do is cut something, and that's only because somebody else tells it to. A rapper, on the other hand-"

"Right, right. You've made your case, I'll think it over. Now piss off."

"Alright! Goodness gracious, you're so impatient sometimes!" Lara shook her head and picked her soul off the floor. "I just swung by to try and help both of us in a time of need, and here you are, biting my head off. I feel like Christ on the cross, I swear."

"Explains why you think you're God's gift," Zoey mumbled.

"Don't worry, Ms. D. I've got plenty of reasons to think that already." She turned and flipped her hair dramatically, stepped through the doorway, and

paused.

"One more thing, actually. That friend of Phoebe's. Did you get her name? She must have forgotten to tell me."

Hope hesitated. Giving the name of a human, particularly one Lara saw as an obstacle, might as well be a death sentence. And yet, and yet...

Lara knew Lauren Woodward was dead. She wasn't the type to be easily deceived. So making something up was out of the question.

"No, sorry. The two of them only stopped by in passing, really."

"...Shame. Oh well! Night, Fearnley. Night, Ms. D."

"I'll give you thirty seconds to get your fat arse off the premises."

Lara slammed the door shut behind her. Hope returned to her seat and gulped back her longneck.

"Hope, darl..."

She put the beer down and rested her temples between thumb and forefinger. "I'm so sorry, Auntie. If you wanted me to stop drinking, you should've given someone else your job. What am I supposed to do when she's out there vying for more leverage in her community and the most I can do to stop her is go along with it?"

Zoey rested a hand on Hope's shoulder. "No, darl. I'm sorry. I'm asking a lot, I know. If there were easy answers, it wouldn't be a choice worth makin'."

Audrey marched into the room looking for all the world as if she hadn't slept in quite a while. "Hey, nobody's seen those blue socks I've got around anywhere, have they? I need them for tomorrow."

"Bad time," Zoey sighed. "Lara swung by just now, 'bout as exhaustin' as a stroll from here to Alice. Give us two ticks."

"Oh. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Is everything alright?"

"Eh. She'll be apples. For now, though, I reckon you and Hope both should get some shuteye. You both look pretty zonked."

Hope lowered her hand and forced a half-smile. "Yeah, sure. I s'pose I am. Thank you, Auntie."

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE OTHER SIDE

One of the most fundamental axioms in fathoming the influence of magic upon reality in full is the fact that magic itself is shaped by the emotions of its source. Thus it follows that the shaping of reality is an entirely subjective process, as the individual experiences and choices of distinct, unique beings serve to define the rules and structure of the very reality in which their experiences and choices occur. So what came first, then: reality, or the will to shape it?

A key component of Einsteinian relativity is the notion that there is no universal reference frame, no point in time and space whose perspective of other points in time and space are more "objective", if you will, than any other. This is, strictly speaking, true, but it does not necessarily disqualify the existence of a universal reference frame *outside* of time and space. Consider, if you will, the speaker god, unrestrained by boundaries of time, space, probability, and thought. And yet, as she speaks every instant, every singularity, every possibility, and every concept into being, they are all completely visible from her panopticon of nothings. The universe is both her speech and the amphitheatre from which she speaks it.

But a solipsistic orrery strung up with all of time and space and every notion both physical and metaphysical is a dense one indeed, and there are countless points where different notional syzygies radiate from her line of sight. Suddenly, seemingly unrelated pieces of information can intertwine themselves in facets difficult for mortals to notice, let alone understand. They become, for want of a better word, metaeclyptic.

The Citadel, like all things, is metaeclyptic with an infinity of other things, places, times. One of these things happens to be a lighthouse on the west coast of Ireland, operated by a young man named Douglas Murphy. Though neither of them knew it, at the exact moment Audrey Wong lost her blue socks, he found a pair of green socks he had lost four months ago. The strangest part of all this, he would remark if he understood his circumstances to any meaningful degree, is that his role as a textbook example of metaeclypticism is, in fact, the only meaningful reason for his existence at all. The speaker god has, as it happens, written a proverb pertaining to this feeling of existential ennui, which goes as follows.

From here until the end of the last chapter.

It also goes as precedes, until the beginning of the first.

Due to the impracticality with which one might quote it, it is considered a very unpopular proverb.