This chapter was revised on 28/09/2022 to pad out some narration slightly for foreshadowing as well as tweaking the flow of certain sentences.
Also I should add that at this point, if there are any typos I've not spotted after I've gone through the whole story, either in revised or unrevised chapters I'm just going to leave them in for posterity. Unless they're particularly egregious.
Mist felt as if two different worlds were colliding. She'd spent so much of this time thinking of Night Patrol and the investigations as two different things, opposing sides. It had, at the time, been the only way to cope. It had, at the time, seemed like the only right way to think of things. But now she had made up with Julka and was trying to help her once again, and in the meantime two more students had gone missing, one of them was an active participant in the Night Patrol-and both had been able to slip away unseen and unnoticed until hours later thanks to everything that had happened the day before.
She sighed as she entered the old common room-not the one that she and Julka had started in, but a different one. Dustier, despite the efforts of Will and his friends (of course it was them, who were doing the cleaning), alongside one of Howl's friends.
"Um, hi."
Will turned around, a feather duster in his hand and gave an easy smile.
"Hi there, Mist. Take a seat. The whole Night Patrol isn't going to be here, since some of them have lessons and some of them…aren't able to. But all of Ariadne-kouhai's friends are coming, and so is Cookie."
"Yeah, I know."
She knew about the ones who weren't able to come. In her year group, there was half of Will's friendship group, Niwa, and a couple of boys that she didn't know and who weren't in Night Patrol either. Likewise Xyewii and Reo. She didn't know any of the five seniors who had fainted, and of the freshmen the only one she really knew in any way was Rael, though she was aware that one of the other girls was a newer member of the school's gardening club. Speaking of which…
"You two aren't helping?"
Blushing, Jun and Robyn looked up from the book they had been reading, sitting together in the oversized armchair in the corner of the room and looking very cosy. Suddenly, Mist had a memory of Negi, of the two of them squeezed together at her desk puzzling over an assignment.
"Aaaaa, geez, why can't this report write itself, Mist? I hate it!"
"I know you hate it," Mist said. "But it's fine, just follow the plan we made and it'll be over soon."
Mist tapped the notes they'd spent the last couple of hours meticulously putting together, along with the plan for the written report. Negi glared at it in a way that was so comical that Mist couldn't help but laugh.
"Once it's done, it's defeated and you can forget about it. Come on, you're not someone to give up that easily."
Negi continued glaring, but soon enough her mouth quirked up with a reluctant smile and she picked up her pen, pretending to wield it like a sword.
"Until the battle's lost and won, right?" she sing-songed jokingly.
"Exactly."
"Okay, okay, fine. Let's beat this stupid thing then."
Mist sighed and shook her head, heavy with the knowledge that for all this time she hadn't followed her own advice, but Robyn apparently interpreted that as further annoyance as her expression became a little concerned.
"We got here and arranged some of the chairs, but then Will-sempai and the others came in and insisted on taking over."
"They've been planting trees most of the day," Will told her. "And that was whenever Robyn-kouhai wasn't at the infirmary."
"I…" Mist blinked. "Planting trees?"
"The Angel Tree cuttings," Jun explained. "They're apparently ready to be planted, and Professor Yanovi and most of the Faculty are doing it, but they didn't have enough hands to get it all done so they asked the two of us to pitch in for the final couple. You must have seen some of them doing it."
Mist had not, but she did now notice that as well as the book that they were sharing between them, they also had a small twig that very clearly came from the Angel Tree. From the sketches she noticed on the open pages of the book, she assumed that they were making comparisons between those and the twig that they had.
"In any case, we told them to take a break," Lidia piped up from across the room. "They deserve it, and aren't they just adorable anyway? I mean, look at them. Though, they're not as adorable as these two. Right?"
At this, she pointed to Hiraga and the friend of Howl's-his name, his name…a month…oh, right, Quiet- before then affectionately squishing Hiraga's cheeks, which made him splutter and then jokingly threaten to eat her fingers.
"Who's adorable?"
Ruby swept in grandly, followed by Samu, Aerin and Ani. The four who had stood up at the table and practically left them all spellbound as they'd led the unsettling defence of the mirror sisters. Mist had always known there was steel running under the charisma that Ruby and Aerin exuded, and she'd always known Ani to have that very particular fiery type of coldness underneath her surface. Shy freshman Samu contrasted so strongly with the older girls but yesterday he had complemented them perfectly. Lent them and himself a new kind of fearsomeness that continued to swirl around them even after the cafeteria had been cleared. But none of that seemed apparent in this moment as the four came in and looked for seats, and Ruby looked to find out what was adorable, quickly spotting Hiraga and Quiet dusting in the corner and then Jun and Robyn in their shared armchair.
"Oh look at you guys. And that other couple…are they around?"
"Not yet, they will be soon." Quiet supplied. "Sasi-sempai's visiting Niwa-sempai first, I think."
"Yeah, them. What is it with you young ones all diving headfirst into your great romances? Meanwhile I'm a senior and I still haven't had my first kiss!" Ruby groaned dramatically.
"That's your priority right now?" Ani asked, rolling her eyes.
"No, but it should be," Ruby replied as she flopped into a chair. "Besides, lamenting my non-existent love life was a nice distraction for…like, five seconds."
As her three friends found seats next to her-or, more accurately, as Ani and Samu chose chairs and Aerin decided to sit on the arm of Ruby's chair (somehow looking disturbingly regal while doing so)-Ruby's expression clouded over. Until the battle's lost and won, Negi's voice echoed unexpectedly in Mist's head as she sat down on the nearest chair herself and watched the famous senior.
"That kid…Ariadne. If I had twigged that she was thinking of going to bloody Kouki-san then I wouldn't have made her that scarf. I mean, come on. Kouki-san! Not even I would decide to head there willingly."
"No, you dragged us to the Floating Gardens and look how well that turned out." Ani snarked.
"It did sound like you had fun despite it though." Samu piped up.
"Yeah, we did," Aerin said, giving a wistful smile. "We did indeed. But yeah. For those of you wondering what she's on about, a few weeks ago Ariadne asked Rubes for help making a scarf."
"What's special about that though?" Hiraga asked.
"She wanted runes stitched into it, and she had specific colours in mind. Gold, and black and white in a chessboard pattern."
"That's specific," Mist frowned. "Do you have any idea why?"
Ruby's brow furrowed further and she opened her mouth to say something, when Quiet unexpectedly spoke up:
"Actually, we think we might."
Everyone looked over at him, startled. He sighed and put his hand in his pocket for a brief moment before pulling out a pink memo cube.
"Let's wait for the others to get here-but Howl left this. And I believe Ariadne left a note."
"Right."
Will, his other friends and Quiet finished cleaning and found seats and those who were in groups (or, in Jun and Robyn's and Quiet and Hiraga's cases, couples) continued to talk while Mist sat alone. Her eyes went from couple to group to couple, her emotions cycling with them. Until the battle's lost and won, Negi echoed in her head, until the battle's lost and won. She had thought that that was what she'd been doing, but in truth she had given up. She had failed to follow the advice she'd tried to give, and if Negi still remembered those words wherever she was then she had doubly failed her.
Ah, what is it I'm supposed to feel? Whenever she wasn't sitting down or leaning or something, it was hard to not feel like the ground had turned to water beneath her feet. She didn't know what to think, what to do. She didn't even know what all of this was meant to achieve.
Her feelings showed no real sign of settling as gradually people drifted in, so she tried to distract herself by watching as others arrived, trying to remember their names .First there was Koda and Sado, and then Mars, Jenna and Yara. Those three immediately went to Jun and Robyn, surrounding the arm chair and asking questions about the Angel Tree. Sasi and Tricker came a few moments later, followed by Asuka, Michii, Yuu and Sainty. Then there were four freshmen whose names she didn't immediately get, but she knew that they were more or less a unit. She watched, fascinated as they arranged four chairs in a rough circle of sorts and sat in what seemed to be a specific arrangement and it was only when they had settled that their names clicked-Theodore, Ezrael, Haze and A. A few others followed, none of their names coming to her though not for lack of trying.
And then, finally, what seemed like two or three overlapping conversations being conducted at full volume heralded the arrival of the final few people they needed. Well, almost all of them. If she remembered correctly, Yoyo was technically a part of Night Patrol, but she hadn't actually taken any shifts. Or maybe she was remembering wrong, because it seemed as if she never left the infirmary.
Whatever, I'm here, that's all that matters, Mist thought to herself. She listened to the multiple conversations getting louder and louder, and not a single one made any sense:
"Oh, by the way, Tsukki's a moon bear not a polar bear."
"I don't care, the arms are still disturbing and NO I AM NOT CHOCOLATE CHIP!"
"Ah, but you know, I kinda feel bad now for calling her a table-top turnip last week."
"Kay, what you should feel bad for is the fact you thought table-top turnip was actually a decent insult."
"You could just punch them-that's what I did when those two took it into their heads to call me 'Chargrilled' a few years back…"
All two or three conversations halted almost as soon as the door was swung open and the chatter halted as all eight of Ariadne's friends spilled in, Cookie following behind them followed by one other unexpected person.
"Um…" Ririsa murmured. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure…"
"Come, come, sit down."
Will immediately jumped up to usher her to a seat, taking the opportunity to shepherd the others too. However, while Ariadne's friends followed silently, Cookie stood there, glowering at them all. Mist was immediately struck by the circles under her eyes, which looked so much worse than they had the last time she'd seen the girl. The purple so shocking, and no longer retaining that ironic prettiness to them.
"No Frost?"
"Isn't that 'sempai' to you?" Lucy asked.
"Just answer the question!"
The words lashed out like a whip, and even Cookie seemed surprised, stiffening slightly. She still didn't move from the doorway though, and Mist wondered if something else was going on. She was vaguely aware that Cookie had taken some kind of dislike to Frost, but this seemed in a different league to wanting to declare cucumbers illegal on the basis they 'fool people into thinking they were tasteless' . Alright, so that had apparently been when Cookie was ten but even now at fifteen she tended to operate under a similar sort of vibe.
This wasn't that, though. That much she could tell.
"No, I think she has lessons still." Lucy answered slowly. "She's not the only one not here, though. Yoyo's busy at the infirmary."
"Alright," Cookie said, letting out a breath without releasing any tension. "Alright."
She took careful, deliberate steps towards a chair near to Mist, drawing it up to the large table. She dumped her bag on it and the bag started to move-the reason why soon becoming apparent as Milo wriggled out. Cookie lifted the cat off the table and cradled it in her arms.
"Right then," Sado said. "I suppose we should properly start then, if nobody else is coming."
"You're gonna find her, right?" Angela piped up. "You're all going to…try and find her?"
"Well, I mean, theoretically we could because we know where she is, right?" Mars asked.
"Yes, but that place is Kouki-san." Ruby pointed out. "We're more likely to end up getting lost ourselves than actually finding her!"
"That much is true, but remind me, how is it that we know for sure that this girl's gone to Kouki-san in the first place?" a senior asked.
"Her name," Sera muttered, sounding like she was spitting nails. "Is Ariadne."
Wendy murmured something soothing and patted Sera's shoulder while looking over anxiously.
"Maybe it's best if we read the note to them, right, Cookie?"
Cookie nodded and, still holding the cat to her chest using one arm, she rootled around in her bag and pulled out a letter, immediately starting to read it:
Kura and Sera and Angela, Kay and Rena, Char and Wendy, Mikelz,
I'm sorry. I had to go, to find them. You know who I mean and I know that you think that maybe they're dark and perhaps that's why they've been stolen away. But I can't just leave them where they are. They're not anything to us, not really, and I know what we remember of what they're supposed to have done. But that's part of why, don't you see? We remember them, and that has to be for a reason, doesn't it?
And I really don't think that they're dark. I'll admit, maybe they did dark things. Maybe. But whatever those are, they don't deserve being forgotten like this, wasting away. That doesn't mean that they should get away with anything, just that whatever happens to them should happen out in the world, under the daylight. And then afterwards they deserve a chance to be happy. Don't we all?
In any case, I've been looking into it, where they possibly could be, and I think I know where it may be. So I'm going to find them and bring them back to the world. I know I'm not strong or powerful but I want to believe that perhaps the strength of my wanting will help me. And I've made sure to protect myself as much as I am able to, with the things that we have been able to learn here.
Don't come after me though, okay? I know that many will think it's reckless of me to do this and they'll be right. But I had to do this, and I don't want any of you guys to get hurt. I have to find them. I think I'm the only one who will be able to, despite everything that I cannot do.
I hope you'll still want to be my friend when I get back, even though I've been hiding from you.
Forgive me,
Ariadne.
Cookie sighed and put the letter down on the table, before gazing over at Quiet.
"Play the cube." She ordered.
Quiet nodded and squeezed the cube twice before setting it down. The message started with Howl clearing his throat before:
"Um, right, so, Ariadne needs my help, because she's going to find the black and gold people. Ask Kura and the others, they'll be able to tell you more. Anyway, I don't think she's going to be stopped so I've decided to go with her-it's dangerous but it's even more so for someone like her on her own. Anyway, she's waiting for me so. Yes. Hopefully we'll be back soon."
There was a click and then the recording ended.
"Okay, so how does that explain how you know that she's gone to Kouki-san?" the same senior asked.
"I think there's a more important question, actually." Mist spoke up.
"Oh, and what's that?" the senior asked, apparently a little peeved.
"Who are the black and gold people? And why does Ariadne-kouhai need to find them?"
Immediately, she noticed strange expressions come over all of Ariadne's friends' faces. Cookie glanced over at them, expression un-readable for a moment before she stood up, still holding the cat. The sight of it took Mist's breath away-the way they were together, it looked so much like Negi. She hadn't carried the cat around quite as frequently as Cookie was now doing, but all the same the two together had been a common sight around the school until she'd gone.
"Their names are Cain Karino, Delilah De Callaway, Judas Faroschild, Maria Reubenschilde, Eve Elinschild and Abel Nathanschild. They formed a club, the Elite Chess Club and they had a special sort of uniform, I suppose you'd call it. They may be dead, they may not be dead. And they're students of Kawaakari Academy, second years like Mist here."
"I don't know any students with those names."
"You wouldn't," Cookie responded quickly. "The school made sure of it, sometime after Abel Nathanschild threw himself off the school roof from the North Wing."
"I'm sorry, what?" Koda asked, bug-eyed.
"The North Wing!" Robyn exclaimed suddenly. "Jun, do you think that's why…"
"…why we have a bad feeling about it?"
Jun sighed briefly, then shrugged.
"Perhaps."
"Yeah, now I'm thinking about it I have a pretty bad feeling about that roof too." Jenna agreed.
"Yeah, me too." Mars said.
"I do, too." One of the seniors said. "It's creepy! But that doesn't mean anything."
"Well, Ruby Reiko designed their clothes," Cookie said. "You may not remember doing so, as such, but you know this."
"I didn't even think to bring the designs in, but yeah. I did. That was what brought on the clouds a while back."
Ruby looked faintly sick at the thought, prompting Aerin to squeeze her hand briefly.
"We had a card hanging on our pinboard from Delilah," Ririsa piped up. "Ariadne-kouhai spotted it and we didn't recognise the name, but we gave it to her, thinking she could use it to decorate something-she likes to do that, right?"
"Right." Rena confirmed quietly.
Ririsa nodded, taking the card out of her own pocket and placing it in the middle of the table. It looked like an ordinary greeting card, if somewhat high-end. Ruby took it, curious, and opened it. She briefly read it for a moment before putting it back on the table.
"She seemed pleased about it," Ririsa said. "We assumed it was just because it was pretty. But now we're thinking it's because it's proof that they existed. These people. Whoever they are."
"I mean, there could be other explanations."
"There could be."
Cookie paused and a grin stole over her face briefly. Mist internally rolled her eyes, knowing that Cookie was relishing the moment.
"But, I have more definitive proof. The main bit of which is…these guys remember them. They remember exactly what happened to them. Or, at least, the bits that they heard about."
"What about you?" Mist asked, curiously.
"Me?"
Cookie tilted her head, oddly bird like before answering:
"No. I don't remember them. But I do remember forgetting about them."
Mercifully, rather than leave any more dramatic pauses, Cookie launched into the whole tale. Not just how she had come to be aware of the existence of these six in the first place, but what had actually happened to them. The potential existence of a seventh called Oura, who apparently wasn't a student at all but more likely something else, a deity of some sort and why this had led Ariadne and Cookie in particular to think that perhaps the six's frankly quite horrific sounding deaths were not nearly as straightforward as they had seemed at the time. There seemed to be things missing from the story, though Mist supposed that this could easily be because there was plenty that Cookie hadn't known. And certainly, though the non-magical students clearly really did have memories of these people for whatever reason, they clearly hadn't known much. And though they'd shared their memories with certain people who also piped up-Jenna, Will and some of his friends-it seemed as if they hadn't wanted to know much.
Ariadne had apparently been the exception to that.
"I mean, we were also there, when we saw Abel-sempai die, me and Rena," Kay said. "But like, I guess it seemed to affect her more. I'm not sure if it's specifically him that's the reason she's going or anything but that definitely left an impression, you know?"
"I guess the entire situation's gotten under our skin," Angela added. "Especially the question of why we remember them. I mean, Cookie says it is powerful magic that would have made us forget it. But doesn't that mean we should have been the first to be affected?"
"We tried to not think of it, really. But I guess Ariadne couldn't." Kura shrugged.
"That," Wendy said softly. "And she did care about them, as much as you can care about someone you never actually really interacted with."
"Well, the question of how on earth you remember something we still have no memories of-none of that rings a bell, just so you know-is probably not all that important. The question is how you're sure that she's gone to Kouki-san?" Ruby asked.
"We're not sure," Cookie said. "But in her room, she has a lot of books and she's marked stuff about Kouki-san. We found things in her bin-attempts to draw maps, lists of things she'd need to take for a trip to the mountains-and we had a brief rootle around in the search history of her tablet. Plus, there's the scarf, which you know about."
"Yes," Ruby said. "For those of you who don't know, the kid approached me to make a scarf for her, with runes on them. They were all protective kinds, though one of them was for gold for some reason. I should have realised that something was weird about that but I didn't…"
"She had a book about runes, too." Angela added. "She'd been going to the library a lot. And we…missed… that something was weird."
"Howl didn't, though," Kura said. "He told me that he was worried about her and I said that'd it'd be fine because…we thought it was. Ariadne's not someone you can press too hard, like. You can gently squish but if she's not ready to say anything she won't so-"
"Hey, hey, Kura-kouhai, it's alright. It's not your fault." Will called over, soothingly.
"In any case," Cookie went on. "It's pretty damn conclusive that she's definitely gone to Kouki-san. I didn't find anything to suggest that Howl knew anything right from the beginning, but he clearly learnt of her intentions at some point and decided to go with her to help her. Though goodness knows why. He had no stake in this."
Cookie was still standing, and Mist noticed that she seemed to be faintly vibrating as if she was holding herself together and only barely managing it. Her eyes darted everywhere and she was clinging onto Negi's cat for dear life.
"You can sit down you know." Mist murmured.
This only earned her a glare which was far more vicious than what seemed appropriate for the situation.
"Ah, I mean, he was kind of soft for her." Mikelz said. "I'd call it a stretch to say he thought of us as friends, though. Oh, and it deffo wasn't romantic."
"No, it wouldn't have been." Sado said. "I don't think he sees people that way."
"He doesn't." Quiet confirmed. "He did like you lot though, deep down."
"Goddess knows why."
There was a strange lilt to the word Goddess, and Mist found herself giving Cookie a sideways look. Admittedly, she didn't know the girl that well-just a handful of times they'd interacted in the year before when she'd gone to visit Julka in the school holidays before their friendship had broken down. At that time, she'd known Cookie as the annoying middle schooler who lived across the street who often burst into Julka's house on the pretext of 'needing a change of scenery' or some other equally nonsensical excuse, whose eyes always brightened whenever they talked about the strange things that had been happening. She'd asked incisive questions as they'd attempted to figure things out, often unsolicited but always useful and soon talked about wanting to join Kawaakari to get a 'better handle' on what was going on herself.
Of course, by the time Cookie had arrived at Kawaakari, Mist and Julka's friendship had disintegrated over those very mysteries. Yet even then, it was impossible to not notice Cookie. She was bright in a spiky, blistering way. One couldn't help but look and even admire it. She was irritating, yes, but determined. And for all she was all rough edges and bluster, she could adapt to a situation and think of things on the fly so quickly it had taken Mist's breath away, even when she was all wrapped up in resentment. It was fascinating how graceless Cookie was and yet how smoothly she could weasel her way in and out of a fix with words and strategy. But Mist saw none of that there in the way Cookie held herself right now, the way she held the cat. The determination was still there, sure, but it was glittering, fractured. This was a girl on the brink of something, but what?
Watching her, Mist found herself thinking of Negi once again, hearing her room-mate's voice echoing in her head. But a different set of words this time, ones she couldn't quite recall but knew were from that one prayer than Negi liked to recite to help spur her on, the one about the widening circles. What are the words, Mist wondered, what are they? And then, unexpectedly, does Cookie have a favourite prayer of her own? She needs one, doesn't she?
Hearing something about the Floating Gardens jerked Mist out of her reverie, and she switched her attention to Ririsa, who was wringing her hands together anxiously as she said:
"I…could it have been Ariadne-kouhai in the forest, then?"
Mist had no idea what they were talking about, but didn't want to ask and bring attention to her own lack of attention.
"It's likely. I suppose one of us could go down to Aeternum and see if we can get him to tell us, right?" Will suggested.
"I honestly think he's probably sick of us charging in there doing stupid crap." Aerin said dryly. "Besides, you know how cryptic he can get."
"That is true." Lucy nodded. "But then what?"
"I mean, it may not even have been her there anyway-you said yourself that Stella didn't know for sure, that it was only now that she thought of it, right?" Hiraga asked.
"Right, right." Ririsa nodded anxiously.
"So, though it's yet another strange thing, especially when it comes to this lot-"Cookie broke off to sigh heavily and flap at Ariadne's friends. "Let's just say that the whole Floating Gardens thing is irrelevant. "
Oh yeah, the Floating Gardens. Mist blinked. Now she was thinking of it, she hadn't seen them when looking up in the sky. Not that she was given to sky-gazing that frequently, but it was a pretty big difference all the same. Still, as Cookie said, that surely couldn't have had anything to do with where Ariadne and Howl had gone.
"Mind you, if you put me on Kouki-san from tonight onwards, I could fly over the top-not too close, but enough and I could see if I can spot either of them. I mean, the two of them would stand out against the mountain, right?"
Ani's suggestion prompted laughter from both Aerin and Ruby and even Samu looked a little incredulous. The dragon girl glared daggers at them all.
"My flying isn't that bad!"
"Whatever you say, Ani." Ruby snickered.
"It isn't!"
"Sure, sure," Aerin chortled, before sobering slightly. "In all seriousness, that does sound like it's a good idea. What do you guys think?"
"Why can't the school call the police, the Imperial Law Force? They have rescue teams for things like this, right?" Mars asked.
Cookie inhaled, deeply. All eyes swivelled to her, and Mist thought that if anything, Cookie had become paler in the last few moments. Not in such a way that she was likely to faint at any time, but in a way that was hollowing her out. Slowly, Cookie patted Milo's head and placed him on the table before reaching in her bag again and taking out a tablet.
"You'll all need to gather around to watch this." She said, almost woodenly.
There was a flurry as people got up and chairs were carried around, and started to gather around Cookie and those who were already next to her. Some rearranging went on so that the shorter students were closer to the front. Through this, Cookie tapped and scrolled through the tablet until she found what she was looking for-a video of some sorts, it seemed. She bit her lip as she did this, almost hard enough to bleed but not quite.
When everyone finally stilled, Cookie pressed play.
The picture wobbled-someone's hand, holding a phone opened up on a chat app. The name of the person that was apparently being texted was Mitsuru Kaoruko, and Mist realised that this had to be one of Ariadne's parents. They all watched in silence as the holder of the phone attempted to tap out a message, asking them if they'd heard from Ariadne or not, only for it to glitch and disappear just as they were about to press send. A sigh of frustration, and then Cookie's voice off-screen telling them to try again in different words. So the person did, only for the same thing to happen again. And then a third time, at which point the video stopped.
"It's just like the way our school stuff glitched, when we ended up here instead of where we were meant to go. " Char explained.
"Do you think it's for the same reason?" Mist asked.
"It's a Silencer." Cookie said, apparently ignoring her question.
"What, like a gun?" a senior asked
"You're in third year, aren't you? And you're asking stupid questions like that?" Cookie snapped. "No, it's a Silencer. It's a kind of Ancient Magic…there seems to be a lot of that in the air, I'm starting to realise. More than there should be. But anyway, the point is it's essentially a gag on us. Preventing the truth from being going out, and I think it must be a part of whatever spells they used to make sure that the Elite Chess Club were forgotten. Though why it didn't 100% work I cannot say-it is Ancient Magic, after all. But the point is that it's probably working in this matter, so we won't be able to get outside help for this. We can't rely on the teachers-we're on our own. You do all understand that, right?"
Cookie met Mist's eyes with that question, gaze so searing that Mist flinched and looked away, only to immediately feel guilty for it. Nobody initially answered as they started to go back to their seats, but then Samu asked:
"So, what do we do then?"
"Well, as I said before, I can still fly over Kouki-san each night."
"Um, is there any point? Not in you flying, Ani…but in Night Patrol at all?"
It made her heart ache, saying those words. The Night Patrol, that had been her way of fighting, of doing something and she'd thought it the only proper thing to do. The only real way to be of any help, but this year it had just chopped and chopped away at everything she thought she knew was true about the way the world had worked. And now once again she was betraying Negi's memory, giving up on something. Not keeping on fighting until the battle was lost and won. She wanted to laugh at it, curl up and cry, hit something. There was a part of her who wanted to just give up and join Negi wherever she was between life and death, but the other part of her wanted to keep on living even more strongly, dragging the memories behind her as penance. The weight of it was too much for her, far too much.
What is it that any of us are supposed to do? Please, someone, something. Answer me.
"I…" Sado said slowly. "I suppose that is a valid question."
"We don't know that it didn't help, though." Lidia protested. "And it's the only thing we're still really able to do."
"But it didn't prevent any of this from happening, though." Ruby said. "So I understand the question."
"It's still something." Asuka protested.
"I mean, perhaps we could keep it going for now, but a bit reduced-scale?" Will suggested. "Monitor the situation and the meantime we can perhaps try and do some investigation of our own?"
Cookie pursed her lips at this, but then slowly nodded.
"I guess the more information we can gather the better chance we have of getting to the bottom of things. I just don't want you all stumbling over our investigation."
"Cookie, I'm sure that having more eyes is going to help. We're starting to draw to a halt again ourselves." Robyn pointed out.
"Yes, but too many cooks and all that." Cookie retorted.
"Right, what about if we take people off the dorms, and situate them more around Aeternum and Kouki-san? And then maybe the grounds in general?" Quiet suggested quickly.
"And we can do it in shifts, so we don't have to pull all-nighters." Sado added. "I like that, that's good thinking!"
"How long for, though?"
How long are we going to have to endure like this? But Mist quickly realised that she didn't want to say that. It wasn't what her question had been about either, technically, so she quickly added:
"Monitoring the situation, that is."
"That's…" Sado frowned thoughtfully.
"Until the Dance of the Water Nymphs, maybe?" a senior suggested.
"Why that in particular?" Ruby asked.
"I mean, it's an easy time to remember."
There were a few thoughtful murmurs, a few remarks about whether the end of the month wouldn't work just as well but eventually, for whatever reason, the general consensus was that they'd keep going until the festival. Then, they'd make special arrangements to keep an eye on people during the festival itself and then after that only would they decide whether it was worth continuing. With that, the meeting was then declared over and people started to leave. First the seniors whose names she still hadn't remembered, then Mars, Ririsa and Jenna. Ariadne's friends as well as Theodore, Haze, A and Ezra also made to leave, but Mist decided to stay behind and help those who were rearranging the furniture. As she did, she watched Cookie, biting her lip again and chucking things into her bag-somehow some of the other contents had ended up spilled out-her hands shaking badly. She seemed desperate to leave, but when Asuka and her friends walked past, Cookie stiffened and then dropped the….sandwich bag? Of ID cards? –and whipped around.
"Hey, I need to ask you something!"
Still wooden, her voice, but as if someone was rubbing flint over the wood, attempting to start a fire. Indeed, her eyes held an odd gleam to them as she stared at the five girls and they stared back.
"You're talking to us?" Asuka asked, guarded.
"Yes."
"Go on, then, what is it?"
"I…." Cookie took a huge breath, a gasping one. "I…at your orphanage, you weren't the only mirror sisters there, right? There would have been others?"
All five of the mirror sisters stiffened. Everyone who was still in the room paused what they were doing and stopped to stare. Cookie seemed utterly oblivious, her eyes practically glued to the people she was talking to.
"I…yes, there have been. Mostly babies, quickly adopted." Yuu said after a pause.
"No, I didn't mean that...I mean, like, like you. There all this time or maybe at least for a while?"
They exchanged looks, wary and confused before Asuka asked:
"…why?"
For a horrible moment Mist thought Cookie was going to yell at them the way she'd snapped at Lucy when asking about Frost. Indeed, for a moment, her fists clenched. But then she unfurled her fingers carefully, one at a time before taking another shuddery breath and asking:
"Were there any our age? Or well, my age, specifically?"
"I mean…a couple of times or so, yeah?" Sainty said slowly. "But again, why?"
"Did any….did any…." Cookie's fists clenched again. "Did any of them look like me?"
Cookie's breathing became heavy and ragged, as if she'd been running for a distance. Once again, she was shaking, vibrating, curling and uncurling her fingers while the rest of her seemed to stiffen. Her gaze seemed transparent, but blurrily so, able only to focus on Asuka and Sasi and Yuu and Sainty and Michii. Mist stared at her, the following silence heavy with the question until finally, something clicked.
Cookie. Oh, Cookie. How did you manage to find something like that out?
Sasi seemed to be first to realise it, for she was the first to answer after exchanging further looks with her friends. And she seemed aware of the struggle that Cookie was asking, because while her voice was not soft, precisely, it didn't have the same hardness it usually did:
"No, there never has been."
"Yes, but that doesn-"
"That is probably for the best though," Sasi said before the still-clearly-suspicious Asuka could continue. "All things considered. Don't you think?"
Again, that stretched out, blurry look. Cookie swallowed visibly and then all of a sudden seemed aware that they were not the only ones in the room. She turned and looked at everyone, the vacant look sharpening into a defiant glare that looked almost classically-Cookie, but a degree too sharp.
"Cookie…" Mist started to say.
Cookie's glare was directed on Mist, before she then spun back around to her things, shoving things in without any regard to whether or not they'd get damaged before then scooping up Milo and careening out of the room, pushing past Asuka and the others, and a few who had been standing by the door.
"COOKIE! COOKIE, WAIT!"
Mist sprang into action, running after her. But whatever feelings were spurring Cookie's actions made her unusually fast, because when Mist got to the end of the corridor, she was nowhere to be seen.
…
Cookie expected that when she didn't end up going down to the cafeteria for dinner that somebody would come looking for her, even if that someone was a staff member. But for whatever reason, that didn't happen. Instead, she was left to her own devices to knock about in her room, flitting from task to task without being able to settle on anything. She was unravelling and she knew it, and she wanted comfort but also knew that she just wanted to be left alone. It felt like anything could tug at that one loose thread and that'd be it, she'd be undone. Nothing more than a shambles of a person.
What had she been thinking to just ask them like that? And such a slim chance, such a stupid question? It was far more likely that her sister had been adopted and that somewhere she was doing homework or talking to friends and family completely oblivious to the fact that someone who looked like her was slowly unravelling. And there, there was another stupidity! Not all twins looked like each other, so who was to say that her own had any resemblance to her? And the pity she saw on all their faces when the meaning behind her question hit them-she wanted to claw at those expressions, gouge them out of her mind. But she wanted someone to reach out to her too, to fuss in the way that she'd find irritating anyway. It was a pitiful situation she found herself in, after all.
She tried not to think of it. She riffled through her drawers and found a packet of crisps, an entire slab of dark chocolate. She gulped it all down and washed it down with a bottle of water. When she was done, she fed Milo and crouched there for a while watching him eat, the sight bringing her a few moments of peace. She stretched those out for a few moments more by clearing up after him, and then returned to her desk trying to piece more bits of information together and she was back to thinking of this, of everything that was happening and still happening. She stared at the blood-crusted school IDs, wondering if at this point it was even worth keeping them as is, and then looked back at her notes, particularly the ones written months ago that she still didn't remember writing. She browsed forums that attempted to unearth aspects of Kawaakari Academy's past even though she knew most of those posts were just nonsense. And so on, and so on.
At some point during all this flitting and fluttering, she sensed A coming in, cleaning up and getting ready and that made something ping in her mind. Despite everything, she'd noticed that A and her friends had flinched when the topic of the black and gold people had come up, when she'd clearly stated that only Ariadne's friends remembered them. She'd been waiting for them to speak up, to finally explain what on earth was even happening with them but they hadn't. Not a single one of them. It was another secret swirling around, one that she didn't know about and she didn't know if that was any better or any worse than keeping her own secrets and it was…just…she wasn't giving up, she was never going to back down. She wasn't. She just needed something to make sense, something to go right. For things to stop happening so she could actually catch up to them and pin them down.
Milo meowed at her, poking her legs with his nose and she bent down to pick him up, and as she did she saw A go to the door. Swept up in frustration, she pushed back her chair and stood, whirling around:
"You!"
A paused and looked over her shoulder, forehead puckered.
"M-me?"
"Yes, you! And your three friends! You…you know things. I know you know things about the people Ariadne's gone off to search for. What are they? What do you know?"
"I…"
A had turned around fully now, eyes wide and fearful but this only made Cookie angrier.
"Are you really going to insist on keeping this secret, after all of this? Really, really?"
"I…okay, I….hold on. I'll tell them to come here!"
Despite this, though, A didn't appear to make a move to go to her phone or even to leave the room to fetch them. Instead she stood there, watching Cookie carefully. At first, her instinct was to yell again at A and make her get on with it but under the spinning and the churning something made her hold back and really look at the blue-haired bespectacled girl. And when she did, something clicked.
"You-you're talking to them! In your head!"
A nodded at this.
"That's…since when? And how?"
"We don't know that, unfortunately. But…since we went back to the beginning again, and we can only talk to each other like this…ah, they'll be here soon!"
Cookie nodded warily and grabbed her chair, sitting back down on it heavily. A couple more moments passed and then A suddenly opened the door and the three boys spilled in.
"A, are you sure about this?"
"It's relevant, after all, isn't it? And I think…maybe…it'll help in the end."
A gave Cookie another fearful glance and she just glowered back. Nonetheless, she waited as the four settled themselves down. Theodore sat down on A's bed, and then A settled herself next to him while Haze sat on the other side. Ezrael, for some weird reason, decided to sit on the floor, directly in front of Theodore, leaning back against his legs casually. Not that Theodore seemed to particularly mind this. Weird as it was though, it was of little importance to Cookie so she simply raised an eyebrow at them and then said:
"Go on then, spill it."
"Have you heard of doppelgangers?" Theodore asked.
"Yes…? What's that got to do with anything?"
"Well…it started with that, really. Except that for some reason, when we ended up fighting against the shadows mid-year, we were suddenly catapulted back to the beginning of the school year." Haze said.
"And everything happened-all of this stuff." Ezrael said. "Weird stuff, some of it the same as before-like Lunarveil-sempai and the other girls but some of it really, really different."
"Like the Elite Chess Club." Cookie said.
"Exactly like that." Haze said grimly.
"I saw some of it…the final three deaths." A added. "We…the four of us, we were gonna meet up on the roof after school but I got there early and…I saw him jump off the roof but then the final…the final moments…"
A had to pause and take a breath, and Theodore squeezed her hand briefly before she then continued talking about what had transpired on that roof, culminating in first Oura appearing before her and then Headmaster Cher arriving and ordering her to leave. Despite her state of mind around secrets, Cookie knew better than to let on that at the time she'd ended up reading A's notebook, as that'd cause more trouble than she could deal with. But such thoughts abruptly fell out of her mind when they started to tell her about the shadows wreaking more havoc in the form of the flute. She leaned forward, listening carefully until one detail caught her:
"Wait, wait, are you saying Oura appeared there as well?"
"Yes, that's exactly what we said." Haze huffed.
"And…they were doing something with the flute?"
"Something about a game," Theodore explained. "And they did refer to 'the six' and that our breaking the flute had saved them from the game except not really because they were still trapped…and that has to mean in the mountains, right?"
"Assuming that Ariadne came to the right conclusion," Haze pointed out. "That's the rub though, isn't it?"
"Mhm…"
"So whatever is happening with them it clearly involves a time loop of some sort…."
Cookie's mind was whirring again, but in a better way, with things clicking into place and clacking as she made connections. Did this mean that Oura was the spirit of the mountains? Did Ariadne think that and was that why the girl had taken some of the random objects Angela had thought may have gone-if the common factor between them was that they were all shiny then it was possible.
"Hold on," Cookie's head snapped up, realising something. "How come Oura didn't just kill you guys after that happened?"
"Something about how they couldn't do it because our thread hadn't run out yet." A answered.
"We still haven't figured it out." Haze said.
"There's a school of thought that fate is like a tapestry or something," Cookie said. "But that's of course a whole lot of nonsense. Anyway…it sounds like in the end what you lot all were was just collateral damage."
All four gawped at her, Ezra and Theo spluttering while A made a strangled worried sound. It was Haze who demanded:
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, let's face it, doppels are just meant to be chaotic and confusing, right?" Cookie said. "Making you do something dangerous, that's within the bounds of what could happen but time loops and the mind-reading, those aren't normal. So what I'm thinking happened to you is that due to sheer chance the manifestation of your doppels got caught in the crossfire of whatever the hell Oura's up to and that in turn their machinations have ended up getting swept up in whatever the hell the school is up to. Come to think of it, that could explain why Ariadne and her friends ended up here-they just got swept up. Kumiko-san is Ancient Magic after all, and there's a reason some call it the Untamed Magics. It's imprecise by its nature, but potent. Not that I'm an expert on that as such but it seems the most logical explanation."
Cookie stopped, and then frowned.
"You didn't tell Professor Void about Oura, did you?"
"No…." Theodore answered.
"It didn't seem like a good idea at the time." Haze added.
"Yes, well, you'd be right about that," Cookie said briskly. "In any case, far as I know if you've got the doppelgangers under control then you've nothing to worry about…well, in that regard anyway. I'd recommend worrying about everything else. Oh! Where exactly did you find the flute?"
"In some vault kinda place, in the North Wing sorta behind the offices?" Ezra said. "Weird little place-don't think I'd have ever noticed it if it wasn't, you know."
"Ohhhh!" Cookie realised. "Near the shrine?"
All four of them just gawped at her and she sighed.
"The school has a very small shrine in the building, though they don't really advertise it. Not that it's secret –you don't put things in the school prospectus if you want them to be secret after all. But the school all prefer that prayer occurs in a more 'active manner'."
Cookie rolled her eyes, noticing that the four didn't seem any less confused by this. Oh well, it doesn't really matter. Least I know where it is and I can maybe take a look later.
"Anyway, do you think you could tell me more about what you remember being the same in your previous time loop, and what's different?"
"Julka-sempai and Mist-sempai." A said, immediate and unexpected.
Now it was Cookie's turn to gawp gormlessly, and A shuffled awkwardly before saying:
"On our first day…our second first day, that is, we saw them…I dunno. Mist-sempai looked angry and Julka-sempai seemed upset. Perhaps they were arguing? But that didn't happen the first time-or at least we didn't see it?"
Cookie blinked, slowly. She remembered last winter break, sneaking out of her house from the back and bounding into Julka's, climbing in through the window because she'd been in a particularly spiky mood. She'd been looking forward to hearing more about the strange stuff happening at Julka's high school-especially since by this point she knew she'd be going there herself next year- only to see that Mist wasn't there once she had tumbled into Julka's bedroom.
"-you look like my mother when you make that face, I think I prefer your yelling-hey, what's happened? Where's your friend?"
"She…I…she doesn't want to do this anymore…said it's pointless to be looking for them when we're never going to find them and…you know, I might just have lost her too. What do you think, Cookie?"
"…"
"Yeah, I didn't think you'd get it. It's okay though…anyway, I found this in Amuri's things the other day. Do you think it might mean something?"
"Look," Theo said, jolting her out of the memory. "We've really gotta go now but maybe tomorrow we can sit down and make a list and we'll give it to you, or something like that. Is that okay?"
"Sure, sure," Cookie flapped a hand at them. "Whatever, just do it quickly. Thanks, by the way, for telling me."
"No problem," Theodore smiled. "Come on guys, let's go."
Cookie stayed where she was while she watched them go, different connections clicking, other questions rising from them. Suddenly feeling somewhat invigorated she turned to start writing up the conversation but as soon as she did all the energy left her and she stared at her desk, empty. Slowly, barely able to think, she got up and staggered to her bed and ended up staring at that. The thought of it, that somewhere there was a chance that Julka and Mist may never have fallen out despite the strain the disappearances was having. It meant that somewhere there was a chance that the girls in Otohime's pool could have ended up coming home safely instead despite the horrible thing they had witnessed. It meant that somewhere, there was a chance that this world would have become a place that she could have grown up with her sister.
It meant that somewhere, there was a chance that none of these horrible things would have ever happened. And sure, she'd have been bored with no real mysteries but she would have found something. Things like why the East Wing buildings were what they were, why the décor randomly changed every so often, finding missing objects and getting to the bottom of unusual pranks and trying to figure out the teachers' love lives or secret hobbies or just how old any of them actually were. Suddenly, she wanted that world so much.
But that wasn't how things worked. That wasn't how anything worked.
And she knew this. She knew it and knew that was why she had to keep going and find out the truth. To change things in the present and the future instead, pave the way for new good things instead, a safe aftermath. And above all for the truth to be opened up and laid out there and for justice to be served, because Goddess knew (if she existed to know) that so many people needed closure and justice now. The numbers just kept stacking up and Cookie knew that they'd probably stack up more before this ended. She knew all this, but right now…
She sighed and then slowly, deliberately she grabbed her pillow and quilt off of the bed. Then, she crouched down and pushed her pillow underneath the bed. She crawled in after it, laying her head on the pillow and arranging her quilt haphazardly over her body. Milo came padding over and then curled up next to her and she tugged the quilt up to tuck him in too.
Then, almost immediately after that, she fell into a deep but troubled sleep.
…
"You know I still think about it, the stuff that went down in the cafeteria last week."
After he'd pushed the leaves into the pile he was gathering, Jun turned to Jae.
"Yeah?"
"Just that…" Jae puffed out his cheeks, twirling his own rake around and around. "The beginning of it, you know? The way that those people who had the school records were trying to make everyone crazy and then they just turned on Michii-sempai and the others when they came in. It kind of made me think of middle school?"
"Oh? How so?"
In truth, Jun had a vague idea. After all, it was part of what had made their core group of six so close in the beginning-the realisation through their small talk that they'd all had horrid experiences at middle school. Even Robyn, who technically wasn't one of this core six, had some similar experiences in her life. But of the actual six, Kyouki had had to deal with a father who was made ill by severe, long-term over reliance on potent drinks while Seraph had had to navigate moving to a whole new region where she'd known nothing and nobody in the wake of her parents vicious divorce, but the rest of them had all faced bullying throughout the three years of middle school for various reasons. In Jun's own case, it had been for nothing more complex (as far as he'd been able to understand) than his interest in gardening and plants, but each of them had been targeted for different things.
"I mean, I never had anything so bad as that, but the number of times I got jeered at after one of the twerps decided to trip me over and make me wear my own lunch…it reminded me of that, and that was pretty embarrassing. Horrible. But it wasn't…wasn't so personal. I mean it felt like it at the time but it was just because I was there and they were twerps and…I mean, I thought that was hideous. But then seeing that last week…"
"Yeah, what happened there was a lot more deliberate, wasn't it?" Jun agreed.
"Yeah. I've never had anything as bad as that, now I'm thinking about it."
"No, I haven't either. It makes you think, doesn't it?" Jun continued. "Whether anyone really deserves anything like that, especially for something that really isn't their fault."
"Sure, sure…but at the same time I can't help but be a little on edge, you know?" Jae said.
"Well, I mean, if you think about it-and I hadn't, before," Kyouki interjected. "-then it doesn't really make sense, the whole mirror sisters thing? Maybe everything happened as it happened because the Goddesses were twin sisters, but humans and Goddesses aren't the same so who's really to say that it'd happen the same way for human twins?"
"That's…that's also a point. Huh."
Jae's face scrunched up as he considered this and Jun himself thought deeply. A few moments passed as they continued to rake the leaves up into piles, with Robyn and Yara bagging them up when suddenly, Jun heard a loud rustling as something hit him. Spinning around, he was immediately attacked by a faceful of leaves and batted them away to see Seraph and Jenna staring sheepishly, the former holding her own rake aloft and looking particularly embarrassed.
Very slowly, Jun put down his rake and gathered a pile of leaves with his hands before deliberately chucking them at Seraph-only for her to duck and cause Kyouki to get hit instead. Kyouki shrieked and immediately kicked flurries of leaves and from there the situation devolved, all seven of them kicking and throwing leaves at each other and chasing each other until they were all reduced to puddles of laughter. Most of them sat down amongst the leaves and began to try and pick them out of their hair and clothes, but for whatever reason Yara and Seraph had chosen to lie down in the leaves.
"We've just given ourselves more work," Robyn laughed, slightly out of breath. "Haven't we?"
"Worth it though, so worth it." Jenna grinned.
"Easy for you to say-there are leaves down my SHIRT!" Jae complained, trying to get them out.
"Aww, poor you. Want help?" Seraph asked.
"Your version of help would be putting more down here so no."
"Awwww."
"You look too comfortable there, no way you were going to help. Want me to?" Jenna asked.
"DON'T YOU DARE!" Jae yelled.
At this, they all started laughing again and it took more than a few moments for them to calm down again, but when they did:
"It happened to me."
It took Jun a few seconds to realise that this had come from Yara, and once he did, he looked over at her, lying there with her limbs stretched out as though she was attempting to make a snow angel (except, since it was leaves, it'd probably be a leaf angel).
"What happened to you, Yara?" Jun asked carefully.
"What you two were talking about."
"You mean what Kyouki and the boys were talking about? The canteen incident?" Robyn asked carefully. "Is that what you're talking about?"
"But Yara, you're not-"
"No," Yara said, cutting Jae off. "No."
"Then…?"
There was no immediate answer as Yara blinked a couple of times and simply looked up at the sky. Jae pulled a face and looked over at Jun, who just shrugged. He glanced at Robyn, who was giving Yara a concerned look. Carefully, she crawled over so she was sitting nearer to Yara.
"Are you alright?" Robyn asked gently.
"They didn't believe me." Yara murmured, voice unusually thin.
"They didn't believe you about what happened?"
"Who's they, anyway?" Seraph wanted to know.
Robyn simply shook her head before returning her attention to Yara. It wasn't clear whether she'd heard the question or not, as she blinked a couple of times.
"No, they didn't believe me. So that happened. Nobody would believe me."
"I…so something happened in…middle school?" Robyn checked. "That you weren't believed about, so then you experienced something like the scene from last week?"
Yara sat up slowly and looked around at all of them, blinking rapidly. There were lots of leaves in her hair, but she didn't seem to notice.
"If oranges weren't actually orange coloured, what would they be called instead?"
"What?"
As Jae, Kyouki and Jun stared, utterly confused, Seraph and Jenna both started to laugh, although disbelievingly. However, Robyn's eyes widened in surprise and she leaned forward to take Yara's hands in hers.
"Yara, you're alright. You'll be believed, whatever it is."
Yara stared at Robyn almost unseeingly, then slowly looked down at their hands. A few moments ticked by, almost excruciating as Jun watched and wondered what it was that was going on. Indeed, it was at least long enough that Seraph and Jenna went off to do something else nearby. But he found himself sitting there watching, wanting to know. Now he was thinking about it, Yara had never said all that much about what had happened to her in middle school, specifically. Just enough to confirm that it had been some sort of bullying.
A few more moments went by, and then Yara blinked and looked right at Robyn, thankfully apparently seeing her this time:
"Nobody believed me, Robyn."
"We will, here."
"I…"
"It's alright, you don't have to say anything now if you don't want to. But when you do, then we'll be here. But for now…"
"GUYS, COME QUICKLY!"
"Shhhhh, you'll scare it!"
"Come on, come on!"
Jun looked over his shoulder to see that Seraph and Jenna were near a tree, staring at something and looking upset. Immediately, he got up and went over.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Injured hedgehog!"
As Jae and Kyouki joined them, Jun knelt to see that there was indeed an injured hedgehog lying amongst the leaves-a baby one, one of its legs twisted and various cuts and scratches over its body.
"What should we do?" Seraph asked. "Do we…do we get someone?"
"Maybe…" Kyouki said. "I can go and-"
"Ohh, look at you. It's okay, here…"
Jun hadn't heard Yara come over, but there she was all of a sudden, crouching down, her hands glowing with a pale purple magic as she reached over their shoulders and picked the hedgehog up carefully, cupping it in her hands before standing up and cooing at it.
"Shh, there, there, you're alright. We'll fix you up. Robyn, will you help?"
Robyn, still standing, blinked and then gave a smile.
"Sure, not a problem. We'll see if there's anything in the first aid kit in the shed first, okay?"
"Mhm."
Yara smiled at this and then went off, her pace slow and measured so as to not unnecessarily jolt the baby hedgehog but still brighter than he would have expected from someone who had been in the state she'd just been in moments earlier. Questioningly, he looked over at Robyn.
"She's fine now, I think. I'll keep an eye on her while we're fixing up the hedgehog though."
"Sure, and I guess we'd better finally get back to doing these leaves. See you in a bit?"
"Sure, sure."
…
Howl didn't know how long they had been climbing for. Their watches had stopped as soon as it had started to get colder, and their phones had lost signal. In the end, they'd both turned the phones off to save the battery, just in case they did need them later and there was a signal somehow for them to use. And this high up, the sky was all clouds, impossible to discern the boundaries between day and night. However long it was, it felt long. The terrain was harsh, and he'd never been so exhausted in his life. Even after sleeping, or pausing to eat, his limbs still ached and he was still cold.
Yet, Ariadne had kept going.
Here in the mountains, she somehow managed to look even smaller than she actually was, frailer under all the layers. Yet she gritted her teeth and consulted the map and she had just kept going. And despite the fact that she often needed a leg up because of her size, and for a stretch of time he'd actually had to carry her on his back, she had just kept marching onwards. He was the stronger one, the more capable one for situations like this-not boasting, just facts-but in the end when it came right down to it, he'd had to fight to keep up with her. She hadn't even complained, not once, not even when she'd slipped and scraped her hand up awfully. No, then she'd just let him help her clean it and bandage it up and then, once they were both satisfied that she hadn't been hurt in any other way, they kept going.
He had no idea whether they were any closer to their destination after all this time, either. Sure, there were aspects of the map that matched some of the shapes of rocks and caves that they had gone past and all that, but he really couldn't say whether it was true. Whether they could trust what they were seeing around them and feeling beneath their feet, even with the oils that they rubbed on their eyelids and all the other charms hung on their packs. But Ariadne had no such hesitations about that, either.
He watched in fascination as she paused and looked around her, then knelt down and shrugged off her bag, taking out the map and laying it out on a flat rock. She studied it for a moment and then looked up and around her before she nodded to herself. Then, she looked over at Howl.
"There's two bits that it could be, here. It's hard to tell. Tell me what you think?"
"Sure, sure," he said. "But shall we stop a while and then work it out? Aren't you feeling hungry yet?"
Howl knew that he was and he just assumed that it meant that it had been a very long time since they'd last stopped to eat. That, and he'd spotted what looked like some rocks embedded with may have been dragon tears. Throughout the journey, here and there, if he'd spotted any of the materials that this mountain was famed for he'd stopped to collect them. The way he saw it, there was no guarantee that they'd even be able to save Ariadne's black and gold people, so he may as well come back with something useful. Ariadne hadn't complained about that, either, and now she followed his gaze to the rocks in question and clearly knew that once again he wanted to do the same.
"Okay, Howly."
Howl rolled his eyes at the nickname she'd randomly taken up for him, but didn't comment on it this time around. Sighing and stretching, he set down his pack so that he could get his tools out while Ariadne rolled up the map and then went to get some food out herself.
"Howly, there's some sticks just there-I'll get them, we can have a fire."
"Sure, sure."
Howl didn't look up as he stalked over to the piles of rocks and began to scrutinise them. He was vaguely aware of the sounds of Ariadne preparing a fire-yet another thing that he knew that she'd had no experience in and yet had taken to so quickly, but all his focus was on the materials.
When he did remember to look up, a mist obscured everything.
"Ariadne?" he called out. "Ariadne?"
The mist swirled, and he strained his eyes, but all he could see was that thick and cloying white. He stood up and took a few steps forward.
"Ariadne? Ariadne, wherever you are don't move, okay? It'll go in a minute, this mist. Just sit tight and then we can light the fire."
He waited a beat, and then another. But Ariadne didn't respond.
"Ariadne, come on, say something!"
He squinted again, hoping to see just the tiniest flash of blue, of black and gold. But all he saw was the whiteness, swirling and whirling and whipped around by a sudden rising wind. He adjusted his travelling cloak, pulling up the hood and holding it over his head with one hand as he took a few steps forward and yelled.
"Ariadne? ARIADNE! CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
Over and over he called out, his voice rising each time, but all that met him was the cacophony of the wind. He called, and kept straining his eyes, but there was no response at all and in the end his throat was becoming sore and he had to stop.
And when he did, just like that, the wind fell away and the mist dissipated, and there was no trace of Ariadne.
Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
Howl whirled around, running around the area and peering around jagged corners but there was no sign of her at all. The only evidence that she'd ever been around were a haphazard pile of sticks and some scuffed footprints.
"Ariadne, you idiot. Why not just wait?" he groaned to himself.
But of course, he knew the answer to that. Looking up at the sky, which was still nothing but clouds, he sighed. There was no sense in going further after all, not when they hadn't even worked out which direction they'd be going in next. He'd only get himself lost. No, for the time being, he'd just have to sit here and wait.
And hope that eventually, she'd come back.