"Losing her lady-like composer for once . . . Kagami jumps up and down in place." –KagamiPINKAgreste, "Not in Her Sight"

"Free!" Kagami exulted. "Free at last!" The artful layers of her severe hairdo tumbled madly askew as she bounced victoriously on the alley sidewalk. "Oh, I had no notion what I was letting myself in for, inviting Phanuelle to set my Chushingura libretto to music. I don't think she's given me a moment's peace all month: 'Oh, Kagami, are you sure about the key change at the end of Asano's aria? Tell me, Kagami, wouldn't it be more tonally significant if…'" She made a face. "Honestly, who would have thought that someone so demure and refined could be such an almighty pest? Thank Heaven I finally managed to lose her."

She took a deep breath, patted her hair back into shape, and strode serenely away, unaware of the blonde-plaited young woman who was hiding behind a nearby kiosk, clutching Fétis's Théorie et pratique de l'harmonie and fighting back tears – and unaware, also, that, on the other end of the city, a certain rose window was spiraling open.

"Nothing beats baking time with Mummy and being the only one that licks the bowel." –RicardianScholar Clark-Weasley, "I Saw Mummy Kiss Chat Noir"*

"All right, that's that," said Marinette Agreste. "The honey, molasses, and orange rind are all mixed in; there's just one more liquid ingredient we need. Ready, sweetie?"

"Ready!" said Louis eagerly, and climbed up onto his step-stool.

Marinette picked up a narrow strip of sliced hog bowel from the previous week's andouillette, and handed it to her son. Louis gave it several energetic licks, and worked his mouth until he had fully infused his saliva with the flavour of the lard; then he leaned over, and expectorated the whole mixture noisily into the pink mixing bowl.

"Bravo!" said Marinette. "Mummy's special helper comes through again. Adrien, do you have the dry ingredients ready?"

"I still can't believe that chitterling-flavoured spit was your father's secret gingerbread ingredient," Adrien remarked as he handed his wife the bowl of flour, ginger, and cinnamon.

"He was a remarkable man," said Marinette.

"Clearly."

Ladybug thoughtfully flipped the cat- and beetle-shaped pieces of notepaper, emblazoned with apparently meaningless sequences of letters and numbers, that her Lucky Charm had just produced, and the wheels in her head whirled like a nuclear turbine. "Okay," she said after a moment. "Here's how we're playing it. Do you Chat Blanc?"

Chat Noir blinked. "As in, that top-security chat site where all the text is white on black?" he said. "No, of course not. I'm not an important official in the French government."

"You are now," said Ladybug, thrusting the cat-head paper into his hand. "Here's your invitation code, courtesy of the Power of Creation. You and I are close friends and high-ranking members of the DGSI, and we've figured out that Hawk Moth is really Gabriel Agreste – which I know he probably isn't, but Lady Wifi doesn't, so do you mind if we use him?"

Chat Noir shook his head dumbly.

"Okay," said Ladybug. "So we both know his secret, and I've been madly in love with him ever since, but you've been taking advantage of your knowledge to embezzle huge sums from him while he's busy with akuma attacks. Hawk Moth found out or something and you, we'll Chat Blanc, didn't think I loved him anymore. [–LiquifiedStars, "Visions in the Night"] I don't know why not – we'll figure that out as we go – but you didn't. So, without my feelings to consider, there was nothing keeping you from protecting yourself by laying a death trap for Hawk Moth, which you did by planting a bug on his newest servant that will send a deadly pulse through the akuma connection to his brain at a random moment within the next 14 hours, killing both master and slave. Then I'll bawl you out, say that I do still love Hawk Moth, and demand that you deactivate the signal, but you'll say that that isn't possible – that, so long as the akuma connection exists, the bug is bound to kamikaze sooner or later, and there's no way of predicting when."

"A-ha," said Chat Noir. "So, if Lady Wifi herself sees that exchange…"

"When she sees it," Ladybug corrected him. "As paranoid as she's been lately about government conspiracies, and as many upgrades as Hawk Moth plugged into her this time out? She probably hacked into Chat Blanc hours ago, and has been logging and scanning every post left on it ever since."

"Fair enough," said Chat Noir. "So when she sees it, she'll think that her only hope of survival is to be de-akumatized instantly. So we won't even have to beat her; she'll come running up to you herself the next time she sees you, and actively beg you to break her phone open and take her powers away." He grinned. "I like that."

"So do I." Ladybug leapt to her feet, still clutching the other sheet of notepaper. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to find a snack for Tikki and a computer console – not necessarily in that order."

"Come, we have may mirrors to see this night." –joannavagts2018, "Adrien Agreste August Day 16"

The door to Master Fu's shop swung open, and the old man looked up and smiled as Adrien walked in, Plagg floating at his side. "Good evening, Chat Noir," he said. "You are here for the new merchandise, I suppose?"

"If it's ready," said Adrien.

"Oh, yes," said Master Fu, and brought forth a heavy oaken chest and lifted the lid. "Three broken mirrors, each one's frame woven from thirteen hawthorn blossoms. If the Kwami of Destruction sleeps each night on such a threefold talisman of bad luck, Chat Noir's powers will be increased incalculably. Which one will you have?"

Adrien looked down meditatively at the variously colored rings of may that encircled each cracked disc of polished glass. "I like the red one," he said.

Plagg rolled his eyes. "Like you had to ask…"

*Again, a Sorting-Head tip to thrawnca for finding this one - quite some time ago, actually, since it took me a goodish while to figure out an interpretation of that sentence that wasn't too disgusting even for the Minuets series. (Which, considering what Ron Weasleys's gotten up to in B Minor, is really saying something.)