The school bells tolled again at lunch.

"Hang on, lemme answer this one!" Akko said, flipping through The Elder Gods And You: My First Book of Cosmic Terror. "Here we go, Daoloth, the Render of the Veils! Ahh, so he's kind of like a bunch of bells with eyes between 'em, sort of, and the bells are a pleasing noise to him! Cool!"

"Congratulations, Akko," Sucy said. "You've caught up with the kindergarteners."

"Oh, and today's a day to challenge your brain 'cause he's all about learning and stuff!" Akko said. "I think that might be why Amanda invited me to play A Man Cons Jazz."

"What?"

"This magic board game they made or something. It sounds neat."

"No."

"Maybe we could invite them over to play with us instead!" Lotte said. "My papa sent me one of those puzzle-room-in-a-box games since I can't visit this year. We could get the whole gang together and try and solve it!"

"That sounds AWESOME!" Akko said. "I'm great at mysteries!"

"Continuing my combo chain of being mildly satisfied with you," Sucy said, "I'm startled you can get excited for a day without food or burning things or Diana's aunt getting pregnant."

They all fell into a brief silence in memory of the dignity of the Cavendishes. Well, Akko and Lotte did. Sucy chortled in a dead-on impression of Muttley.

"Better get Diana invited too," Lotte said.

"Do we have to invite her slaves?" Sucy said. "I kind of hate everything about them and their stupid bitch faces."

"Hey, I like them!" Lotte said.

"You would."

"Hey, hey, idea!" Akko said, snapping her fingers. "How about we do a little exchange? Me and Lotte and Diana solve some puzzles, you and Hannah and Barbara hang out and get to know each other!"

"... ... ... ... ...yes," Sucy said. "That sounds like a great idea."

"Hooray!" Lotte and Akko and Diana said.
"Room one, down and out!" Akko said, kissing the Level 1 card.
"Don't celebrate just yet, there's two to go," Diana said, reading the setup for the second room. "Ooh, this is a tricky one."
"I hope Sucy's learning to get along," Lotte said. "She seems like she could use a friendship lesson of some kind."

Freezing water splashed over Hannah's face, jolting her out of a deep, drug-induced sleep. "Sbuh...?"

She was in Finnelan's special purpose room. Finnelan commissioned it to host witch-made modern art, only for the first artist who was to be featured to be arrested, his blocky, abstract sculptures winding up being designed to smuggle heroin, Nazi gold, and coins from one show to the next. The room thus fell into disuse other than the occasional Halloween prank, though Amanda O'Neill's turn this year ended prematurely.

Speaking of, Barbara was here, chained to a pipe on the wall across from her. Water flushed onto her from a grate overhead, forcing her awake. "Oh God I'm drowning!" she sputtered, "Sweet Mother Hydra don't drag me under to... oh, it's you."

"Yeah, it's me, who else would it be?" Hannah said.

"You're right," Barbara said. "But why are we in Finnelan's scary hole?"

"Phrasing!" Hannah said. "Even if it probably is scary, too!"

A cathode-ray TV bolted to the wall flickered to life, an image of Sucy in strange face paint-a solid blue band across her eye(s) and mouth-staring at the captive witches. "Good evening, ladies," Sucy said. "I trust that you're seated comfortably?"

"We could be moreso!" Barbara said.

"Let us go, Manbavaran!" Hannah said, puffing out her chest to look more intimidating (so went her thought processes). "If you do now then we won't turn you in to the campus police when we're done!"

"We have campus police?" Barbara said.

Someone behind Sucy laughed and nudged her out of the way. "Oh, you poor children... this is a school-sponsored science experiment. For the honoring of Daoloth, the Render of the Veils, whose knowledge grants no solace and whose wisdom provides no comfort." Prof. Finnelan mugged for the camera. Sucy wriggled her way back in front.

"Now, speaking of," Sucy said, "let's start with the first scientific inquiry of the evening. 'Given two effectively interchangeable witches, which one can find the key hidden inside one of them before we release the rattlesnakes that stuck around after yesterday?'"

Cages full of irritated rattlesnakes lowered from the ceiling.

"But we're chained up!" Barbara said, panic creeping into her voice. "How are we gonna reach each other if we can't do that?"

"Wait. I didn't chain you up."

"Oh, I did," Finnelan said. "You had plenty of cutting instruments in there, I figured-"

"Yeah, some kitchen knives and hammers, professor, by the time they cut their arm off they're gonna have to slice all the way through and break the bones and all that nonsense, it's gonna eat up way too much time!"

"Oh, shoot, I got carried away. Hold on down there, give us just a sec..." Finnelan fiddled around with something just out of sight. "There, the emergency unlock."

The cages opened and the snakes slithered free.

"Wrong unlock, genius," Sucy said.

Hannah and Barbara screeched.

Back in the little cafe outside of the library, where there was hot chocolate and cookies, Finny and Sucy watched Barbara and Hannah struggle to escape from the jumpropes loosely tied around their waists and trying to fend off the plush snakes mildly animated by sorcery.

"Interesting," Sucy said. "They're really getting into it."

"What drug did you give them?" Finnelan said.

"Don't say 'drug,' it's a potion. The potion is datura extract diluted in water but that's basically a potion."

"Nice job on the makeup, by the way."

"It's traditional for sacrifices." She took a noisy sip from her hot chocolate.

"Shouldn't there be a control group?" Finnelan said.

"What are we, sciencitches?"