Luckily for Sofia, possessees do not retain memory from their time being possessed when they wake up. For Lucia, it probably felt like she got instantly teleported from her school into the driveway of a random house.
And, even though Sofia was right in front of Lucia, it still took her five seconds of frantic, confused looking around to notice that there was another human being with her. Lucia's first reaction to seeing a complete stranger lying on the ground in an unfamiliar place with no clue how she'd gotten there?
"You, uh, you okay?" Lucia said.
"Yeah," Sofia said automatically. Hazmat chick's costume had disappeared during the possession, so now Sofia was wearing her civilian clothes– a striped, wooly sweater several sizes too small for her that made her entire body itch. Weirdly sentimental for something a wannabe robot. Sofia stood up from the ground and patted the dry dirt from it.
"Yeah. I'm fine." Sofia said.
"That's… good to hear?" Lucia said.
Sofia could not afford to be fooled by Lucia's apparent cluelessness. Lucia had been slated for termination, and Kyubey only slated terminations for the worst of the worst– the black redaction rectangles on Lucia's file yesterday probably covered cases of torture, homicide, and magicide in the hundreds.
But right now, Lucia wasn't doing very good. At all. Her face was disfigured from a half-healed burn wound, and half of her spine was missing.
She's weak, said Sofia's brain. Rush her. Fucking rush her.
But Sofia refused to move.
So, instead, an awkward silence hung in the air.
"Uh, so." Lucia cleared her throat."I'm going to take a wild guess here, but, from the fact that you're not freaked out by the fact that I have holes in my torso, that you're a magi?"
Then, to Sofia's complete shock, Lucia brushed the dust off her clothes, and pushed herself upright.
Shit, shit, shit. But the holes on her midsection hadn't healed yet, most of her spinal cord was still gone, how was she functioning right now? Was she using her soul gem to control them? Hell, Sofia couldn't even do that.
So. Lucia had crazy mastery of her gem. And Sofia knew that Lucia's gem was pristine– when Sofia possessed someone, she also sucked all the grief out of their gems. Lucia wasn't as defenseless and Sofia had thought, then. It was a huge relief that Sofia didn't just turn her brain off and rush her.
Instead. Sofia should make a plan.
Once again, Sofia had every single ingredient required to cook up a flawless Kyubey plan: Complete knowledge over Lucia's powers. Complete knowledge over the battlefield. And Lucia would be much more susceptible to a sneak attack than Hazmat chick.
But once again, nothing came up.
God damn it. If Kyubey was Sofia he probably would have beat Lucia already. Her possession gun does nothing except counter magical girls.
"Hello? Uh, you still with me?" Lucia continued.
"Lu, Lucia -" Sofia blurted out before she could stop herself. Saying the name felt so awkward for some reason. "We need to go, get inside the house."
"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I'm not going anywhere with you." Lucia took a step back. "I don't know who you are." Lucia transformed into her corset (minus the mushrooms). Sofia didn't notice this before, but she was wearing two pairs of goggles– one around her eyes, and one attached to her head. She wondered what particular aspect of Lucia's soul led to that aesthetic decision, then realize it was a terrible thing to wonder about when there was a fucking magi with her weapon pointed towards her–
Make up a story?
"Uh, there's no time to explain," Sofia said. "There's a Magi attacking us, she just shot you, and uh, I think she wipes out memories–" Sofia paused. For something that Sofia had to come with on the spot, that was half decent. "Just, come on, follow me!"
Sofia grabbed Lucia's hand and started dragging her towards the house. She had no hope on the validity of her story. No way Lucia bought anything, unless she had an IQ of a ten year old koala. But hopefully mentioning that they were being attacked sent off enough panic signals in Lucia's brain to prevent her from thinking critically.
"She's a nomad," Sofia continued. "Rail gun, military costume. Don't, don't know where the fuck she is, we just gotta get cover."
Instead of using the valuable time she'd bought herself to think of a clever battle plan, Sofia's brain decided to instead muse on the massive plot holes in her story. Like the fact that Lucia, a girl who was unstable enough to warrant a bounty from Kyubey, would ever be here helping anyone with anything.
"Memory wipe? That's some CK stuff," Lucia said.
"Yeah, that's what I said," Sofia said.
Cue silence for three glorious seconds. Broken by Lucia. "Kyubey," she realized. "He's not responding to me."
Kyubey was still offline? Since the girl who blocked telepathy didn't bother to help the fight at all, Sofia figured that she was some sort of mercenary that would leave as soon as Hazmat chick was defeated.
Sofia turned her head around and molded her facial features to a look of surprise that in hindsight probably looked more like she had a toothache. "Kyubey isn't responding?" she said, and realized it was a stupid thing to say. If it was the first thing Lucia thought to check after she woke up, then they definitely checked before, so pretending that they actually hadn'twas pretty much a dead giveaway. Sofia braced for the entire house of cards that she'd build to crumble–
"Yeah he's gone silent," Lucia said, apparently finding nothing suspicious. "That's weird. He never goes silent."
They reached the wooden frame that had once contained the door before Hazmat chick smashed it off its hinges. Sofia pulled Lucia in.
Sofia had come up with a plan. It was an incredibly simple plan, and if she thought about it for one second back on the driveway this would've been over with already. She needed to find Hazmat chick's gem, chuck it as far as possible, and then possess Lucia. Easy peasy.
Where's my gem? Sofia asked Hazmat chick's Magical Girl cortex.
No clue, it answered.
This was not Hazmat chick rejecting Sofia's body, or something. Hazmat chick's conscious mind was eliminated the moment Sofia entered her body. That means that Hazmat chick's brain genuinely did not know where her own gem was.
There was one scenario where the Magical Girl Cortex would not be able to find its body's soul gem and still be able to function, and that was if you had put your gem inside your magical weapon and dematerialized it. Sofia knew this because it was how she hid her own gem.
Sofia conjured u Hazmat chick's flamethrower– and then almost dropped it onto the ground. It was fucking heavy, a lot heavier than Sofia expected, she was using full-on magical girl strength and it still made her bicep sore. The fuck was this thing made of, solid gold? Did she have to be worthy to use it, or something?
Doesn't matter. Sofia's internal radar blipped. Her theory was correct. The gem was in there.
"So. You have a flamethrower?" Lucia said.
"Yeah, I do." Sofia brushed her off. Now, how was she supposed to crack open the flamethrower with Lucia watching? After all, people usually didn't just snap their magical weapon in half for no reason.
"That's interesting." Lucia said. Through Sofia's peripheral vision, she saw sparks of electricity materialize on Lucia's wrist and coagulate into a shield.
That was ominous.
Sofia forgot her plan and looked up at Lucia. Lucia, whose costume had several holes singed into them. Who was covered from head to toe in random patches of burn marks. Yeah, Sofia could see how Lucia would find the idea of her having a flamethrower interesting.
"So you're lying." Lucia said. "We can skip the charade where you pretend to not understand what I'm talking about."
Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit. Lucia knows. She knows. Sofia froze up. Imaginary ropes bound Sofia's tongue to the roof of her mouth. But luckily there was no more need to talk, right? Hazmat chick's gem was right in her hands. She could just crack it open and break her gem. Would Lucia really be fast enough to stop her?
Seeing that Sofia had nothing to say. Lucia continued. "Listen. I'm reasonable, okay? I'm from Pasadena. I can deal with witches in Pasadena, I can deal with you. Okay? You really want to mess with Pasadena magi?"
Pasadena? That was probably supposed to mean something. But Sofia didn't know shit about magical girl geopolitics, so it didn't.
But the implication that Lucia was "reasonable". That was a good one. Lucia wasn't fucking reasonable. Maybe she should have been reasonable to the people she'd murdered or tortured to get into the bounty board.
Suddenly, Sofia was angry. Lucia was a murderer. Why was Sofia listening to anything she had to say?
"I don't want to fight. There was no need to drag me to…" Lucia gestured vaguely around her. "Wherever this is. Tell me what you want, and I'll see–"
"I have better things to do than listening to psychopaths talk," Sofia interrupted her.
"Oh, oh, yeah." Lucia said. "I'm a psychopath now, I guess. From your house burning down, I'm guessing we've fought before. But whatever I did to make you mad, I'm willing to make it up to you. I–"
Sofia was done listening now.
She couldn't fire Hazmat chick's flamethrower yet. So instead, she pounced at Lucia with Hazmat chick's flamethrower bludgeoned like a baseball bat.
Lucia muttered something under her breath. And then she chucked her shield at Sofia like a frisbee.
Sofia jumped right on top of the shield, used it as a springboard to jump even higher, and lunged towards Lucia from above– who, of course, had been rendered defenseless by whatever epiphany that she just had that caused her to throw her only weapon away–
Except she wasn't defenseless. The shield flew backwards to Lucia like a boomerang and she caught it with ease.
Unseen mechanisms whirled inside of Lucia's shield, causing the cross's arms to grow longer and copper plating to extrude outwards from right angled valleys. A carving of a lion's face materialized in the middle of the shield, its eyes aglow with electric-blue energy and its maw moved in an inaudible roar.
From spending time in her body, Sofia knew this move. Lucia had just electrified her shield with tasers, which would paralyze anyone who touched it for half a minute.
That's not going to do anything.
As soon as Lucia was within bludgeon range of her flamethrower, Sofia mustered up all the strength into her arm and swung at Lucia as fast as she possibly could.
CLANG
Lucia's overactive imagination seemed to have given her shield the properties of a tuning fork, and so striking it with the force of a car crash created the biggest conglomeration of decibels since the latest supernova, resonating throughout the room like a ricocheting sledgehammer. Soundwaves collapsed around Sofia like someone had put the universe on mute. The world lost its luster, the vibrant wallpaper turned dull and gray and multicolored spots flickered in her vision. A whirlpool opened in her endocrine system, draining all the adrenaline and strength out of her muscles.
Wait. This doesn't seem like the symptoms of a ruptured eardrum. Oh yeah, right. Her soul gem. All this fighting was taking its toll.
Sofia looked to the left. The force of the hit had knocked back Lucia so hard that she was currently squirming in her personal crater. Otherwise, she didn't seem nearly as affected as Sofia was. She saw a Pearl gathering in her palm.
Hopefully that little maneuver bought her enough time to do the gem thing. Sofia had accidentally dematerialized the flamethrower, so she reconjured it–
And dropped it again immediately. The thing had been heavy before, but now it felt like someone had handed her a minivan. That made sense, her gem was currently way too corrupted to strengthen herself right now. Sofia looked at Lucia, again, and the Pearl in her hand was gone.
And the next instant, Lucia disappeared.
SHIT. Where the fuck was she? Sofia scanned across the room. No obnoxious blonde girl to be seen.
But then, Sofia felt air rushing towards her from above and looked up.
Lucia was above her.
She had probably made her pearl hit the ceiling. She was diving at Sofia from above, her shield fully electrified and in her hands again.
Sofia was screwed.
Instinctively, her possession gun materialized in her hand. But it's not like she could use it or anything. If she possessed Lucia, not only would she suck in all of Lucia's grief, she would also relinquish control of Hazmat chick.
But wait.
For the second time that day, a lightbulb went off in Sofia's head.
Lucia's paralysis ability had nothing to do with magical girl soul bullshit. It was a physical effect, and, just like any wounds that Sofia would have suffered beforehand, would not transfer to her new possessee when Sofia shot her. .
Therefore, if Sofia were to possess Lucia after she got hit with the shield, then Hazmat chick would be the one paralyzed. And Lucia would be Sofia, again. Two enemies down at once. Such a simple plan. Only one flaw, however. How the fuck was Sofia going to possess Lucia if she was completely paralyzed?
Then, another lightbulb went off in Sofia's head. All the loose pieces coagulated together into a concrete course of action that led towards victory; finally, a rock to cling to in the river of bullshit this entire day had been so far.
Magical girl bodies have some pretty neat abilities.
What would a normal human do when they wanted to make themselves throw up? Open their mouth wide enough that their uvula is in full display, shove a popsicle stick down their own throat, and then poke and prod at their epiglottis for agonizing amounts of time while their entire digestive tract cringes in discomfort.
What does Sofia have to do to throw up?
I need to throw up, Sofia said to her brain.
You got it, Her brain said, and Sofia bent down to soak her perfectly polished marble tiles with a stew of half-digested food, stomach acid, and gut bacteria.
But, what strategic advantage could Sofia possibly gain by making herself throw up on the floor?
Excellent question.
Sofia conjured her water gun, pressed the nozzle into the pool of vomit, and pushed the trigger, pushing a batch of possession spores onto the carpet and telling them to multiply. And they did - before her eyes, the yellowish gunk began to turn redder and redder until it looked like Sofia was sitting in a pool of blood– this was not feasible, however, as the spores immediately died off as they spread. The red pool was saturating with the spores' decaying carcasses and turning a strange shade of orange.
But they wouldn't die fast enough. There'd be plenty of spores left by the time Lucia hits the ground.
Lucia probably didn't know what Sofia was doing but was smart enough to realize that she ought to prevent it somehow. She flung her shield at Sofia's head, perhaps betting that Sofia wouldn't be able to possess people if she was out cold. Either way, she had just sealed her own fate.
Sofia caught the shield in midair.
Unfortunately, the shield catchage had happened slightly outside of Lucia's magical aura of bullshit, so the laws of physics activated and the sudden transference of momentum dislocated a joint in her arm, blasting Sofia's neurons the final burst of pain before the paralysis kicked in. It wasn't nearly as painful as Sofia's imagined, like someone was pumping ice water through her bloodstream, and then all of a sudden she lost control of every single appendage in her body except her eyelids and fell face-first into her own barf.
And– the shield dropped out of Sofia's hands and fell onto the spore-infested vomit below.
Lucia's eyes widened. Her shield disappeared. Her corset dissolved and to the dirty pajamas Sofia'd been wearing when she got out of bed in the morning.
And then Sofia was Lucia.
And she felt herself free falling.
She landed, rather hard, on Hazmat chick's stomach, splashing right into the mixture of vomit and dead spores. But this time, she wasn't wearing a hazmat suit anymore. She was wearing the fucking civilian clothes that she got out of bed today, and now they were soaked with the half-digested remains of whatever the fuck breakfast Hazmat chick had today.
Fuckkkk.
Sofia rolled onto the ground and checked her grief seed-o-meter. Bit more than three fourth black. Sofia wasn't surprised. Producing spores was incredibly taxing on her gem, and besides that she'd just sucked all the grief Lucia's accumulated too. Sofia pushed herself upright and tried her hardest to get as much of the sludge out of her hair as possible.
Which wasn't working very well.
Sofia stared at Hazmat chick. She should have been conscious by now. Her hazmat suit dematerialized, leaving an emaciated Latino girl that couldn't have graduated middle school yet. Despite the summer heat, she wore a striped wool shirt that was a bit too small for her. Hazmat chick did not look at Sofia, betrayed no emotions that she saw her at all, her mouth set in a line by her thin lips.
Sofia didn't know what the feeling in her gut was. It wasn't contempt, but it wasn't pity either, and it definitely wasn't apathy because she knew she was feeling something.
"If you don't do anything stupid, I'm not going to kill you." Sofia broke the silence and said. "I'll wait for Kyubey to decide what he wants to do with you. But, given that I have your soul gem, I suggest you do exactly as I say."
Despite the promise, she saw no sign of any change in composure from Hazmat chick. Maybe she already knew that Kyubey would condemn her. Alternatively, maybe she didn't believe that Sofia had her gem. It was a good hiding spot, after all.
Sofia, with considerable difficulty, cracked Hazmat chick's flamethrower open, and a pristine ruby dropped out. She grabbed it with one hand.
"See? I got it here."
No reaction, still.
"First of all, there's another girl in the house stopping telepathy, no?" Sofia said. "Could you, uh, tell her to fuck off–"
I don't know what you're saying. Hazmat chick telepathied. Her voice sounded scratchy and monotone, with a pause between each word that was just long enough to sound unnatural.
Okay. So they were doing the telepathic speech, now. God knows why. Lucia's paralysis doesn't even prevent you from talking.
And then another wave of disorientation rolled over her. Her vision flickered. But she wasn't using any magic. She checked her soul-gem-o-meter and found that it was steadily accumulating with grief again.
Hazmat chick. Her fucking curse again. But she wasn't touching her– oh, the dead spores in the pool of sludge that Hazmat chick sat in probably still counted as conjured material, doesn't it?.
Fuck.
Please, Sofia said. Please fucking stop it. Your magic, stop it please. I just said I didn't want to kill you. Come on.
I can't, Hazmat chick said.
Yes you fucking can, Sofia said. I know your power, it's a fucking switch. Turn it off and I don't have to kill you.
Hazmat chick shifted her head uncomfortably. Would've probably shifted the rest of her body, too, but, you know.
Please just, die, she telepathied.
Who was this fucking girl? Was she a subordinate of someone who Sofia had taken a bounty on?
They'll leave if I don't. Kill you. My friends, Hazmat chick telepathied.
Huh.
An'... An' they'll kill you anyway if. If you kill me. Hazmat chick said. There were fucking tears rolling down her face. She was crying. You, you die anyway. But if I kill you, my– my friends won't leave.
THEN JUST GET BETTER FRIENDS! Sofia shouted telepathically. Holy shit, did this girl just hit puberty or something? Not even thirteen year old girls cared about their friends to this degree.
What the fuck was Sofia supposed to do, then? Actually, there might be a way to save her. Yeah, Sofia could just crush Lucia's soul and possess Hazmat chick again. She'd be disposing of Lucia, just like Kyubey wanted.
But then, something ticked inside Sofia's brain. Something she had never felt before. Except, for some reason, it didn't feel like just a tick. More like something deep inside her subconscious was trying to send her a message. In fact, now that's she's thinking about it, it felt exactly like–
Like Hazmat chick's paralysis wearing off.
Hazmat chick's arms snaked out and grabbed a piece of the broken flamethrower, and the whole thing dissolved into dust. Then, with a flash of blazing cinders, it re-manifested right back in her hands, and the next second Sofia was staring right into a fireball–
In reflex, Sofia crushed the gem in her palm. The fireball disappeared. And Hazmat chick went limp.
Fuck.
FUCK.
Sofia just killed her. Sofia just killed someone.
This was fucking different from Lucia. What if Hazmat chick was innocent? She sounded like she had a pretty fucked up home life, maybe her "friends" was the people forcing her to do this– she wasn't fucked up enough to end up on the bounty board. This was straight-up magicide.
Sofia felt something cold and hard tug on her neck.
A chain.
What–
Suddenly, an invisible force tugged the chain downwards and slammed her, hard, into the marble floor. The metal links tightened around her windpipe. She tugged at the edges with her fingers, but it was wedged so deep into her flesh that she couldn't grasp it. What the fuck was happening now, Sofia couldn't fucking breath, what kind of fucking ability–
Either way, the chain had to be conjured material. Sofia manifested her gun (her brain throbbed with pain at the magic use), pointed it at somewhere that was hopefully her neck–
And before she could even squeeze the trigger, the invisible force disappeared and the chains went slack.
Sofia sucked in a big gulp of air and sighed in relief. She was sweating, and her pajamas were absolutely soaked, and liquid dripped from her face. She was probably sweating from exertion, though given the amount of vomit around her, that might be just wishful thinking.
Sofia did not get up. Felt no reason to get up, really. Where the fuck was the girl who used the chains on her? Was it the girl who was blocking telepathy? Probably. Well, Sofia didn't give a shit. Good for Telepathy girl. Sofia was right there. Finish her off already.
Sofia laid there for about a solid thirty seconds. No further attack came.
Except, wait a fucking minute. The chains were still tied around her neck. Sofia must've not noticed while basking in the relief of not being suffocated to death.
With another wave of migraines, Sofia re-conjured her gun, and shot the chains around her neck. No connection. Nothing happened.
An internal error message rang in Sofia's head: Target out of range.
That'd never happened before. It was true, Sofia did have a range, but it was a damn big one, about half a mile or so. Telepathy girl was more than half a mile away from her right now, then. Does that mean that her telepathy was still active–
Kyubey. Sofia telepathied. This is urgent. Where are you?
No response.
Alright. Apparently Telepathy girl's range was bigger than Sofia's. That was fine, though. Sofia had made it out alive. She still had plenty of grief seeds, she just needed to purify her gem and she would be all set.
Sofia pulled on the chain on her neck, trying to break it—
Suddenly, the chains whirred to life and started constricting around her neck again. She panicked, pulled harder, and the chain matched the force and tightened itself even more. Sofia let go, and on cue the chains went slack too.
Ah. The classic "harder you pull, the tighter it gets" trick.
Ah. Shit.
Sofia had already won, so why wasn't this over yet?
When a magical girl dies, all traces of their magic should disappear. But for some reason, the fire Hazmat chick made was still burning, so much so that the hallway that they had initially scuffled in was covered with flames that went up to Sofia's waist. There were even little flickers burning on the walls and the ceiling. Slowly, they converted the building blocks of Sofia's house into opaque gray smoke, diffusing through the air ominously.
But there were no fire brigades coming. Sofia smashed all the fire alarms in the house since Kyubey didn't want law enforcement fucking with magi business. And it'd probably be another hot minute or two until the fire got out of control. Plenty of time for Sofia to reconsolidate her grief seed stock and get the fuck out.
Now. What was the deal with Telepathy girl?
Before all of this shit went down, Sofia barely remembered hearing sounds from the attic, where Sofia kept her grief seeds. Given the rest of today's events, Sofia was having doubts about the validity of her initial theory about the squirrel. That was probably Telepathy girl, who had escaped after getting her hands on as much as Sofia's seeds she could carry.
Sofia didn't know what was up with the chains, though. They weren't choking her anymore, so it was probably an automatic ability, but god knows what else they could do. Would be wise to get them off as soon as she could.
Next course of action would be to check her grief seed stash. Sofia had a huge number of seeds from the years she spent doing Bounties, and they were all hidden very well, so it was unlikely that they all got stolen.
Sofia dragged herself upright and shuffled zombie-like to her destination.
The main, grand staircase you showed off to guests had been completely obstructed by the fire by now, but you couldn't have a mansion nowadays without eight different sets of stairs and six elevators. Sofia navigated through filthy, trash-covered rooms with precision (she had numerous practice on traversing contoured surfaces) and reached a relatively hidden staircase just behind the kitchen.
The second floor was also by no means sprinkling clean, either. Neglect also had an effect on decor. Right angles were smoothed by cobwebs, fancy vases of withered plants sat atop the dust-caked tops of empty drawers.
The previous owner had obviously not needed an attic, so to save money on renovations, he had kept the doors to the 2nd floor-attic stairwell permanently locked. When Sofia first got the house, she had needed to break in.
The stairwell resembled something that you might find in the fire escape of a residential high-rise. The floor and stairs were unadorned gray concrete. Paint flakes hung off the whitewashed walls. It was like she'd reached a part of the world that hasn't been colored in yet.
She walked up the stairs.
The staircase terminated in a small mezzanine. No furniture, just a six feet long section of a whitewashed wall, the only color being a dark brown door, still semi-covered in factory plastic wraps.
Sofia opened it.
The Attic was only marginally a better place to live than the first floor. The ceiling was triangular, placed so low above the floors that Sofia was barely able to stand upright at the tallest point. To Sofia's left and right, where the ceiling was way too low for anyone over the age of ten to walk, were piled with garbage that were so old that it probably didn't even belong to the mansion's previous owner- broken furnitures, suitcases, various vehicles ranging from a baby stroller to a motorboat, and so many cardboard boxes that Sofia could probably milk a whole series of unboxing videos out of it if she ever decides to become an influencer.
And there was it, the safe. Sofia had masked the whole thing inside a particularly big cardboard box, one of two placed under a see-through patio table.
There were no signs that someone had broken in.
…huh. That was unexpected.
Sofia's muscle memory had already started working on the lock of the safe. With a satisfying click, the safe was open.
And the grief seeds inside were gone.
What.
So Telepathy girl had been here, and she somehow managed to steal the grief seeds without breaking the lock. No way she could have figured out the lock combination, which meant that she probably had some kind of phasing ability. Come to think of it, that could also be why Sofia never heard the attic windows break. She'd probably just phased through it.
No. Chains, phasing, telepathy blocking? That was way too much. There probably had to have been a third girl then.
No, no, no, this was getting way too complicated. There was no way three specific magical girls with such specific abilities would ever be able to specifically form such a specific team, ever. Something else was happening.
Sofia shut the lid of the safe. Doesn't fucking matter if they took five seeds. Sofia has more hidden away. In fact, the point of the safe was to be in the distraction. A big, obvious spot that anyone who tried could find it, and a prize barely rewarding enough to satisfy and send them running. Sofia had read it in a book, back before she could still tolerate them.
Anyways. One of the other hiding spots was one of the many loose floorboards that shielded the gloom and doom of the attic from reaching the gloom and doom of the second floor. Sofia couldn't keep track of it for the life of her, so she had marked it with a marker. It wasn't an obvious mark, at all, just a tiny speck of cyan that people would barely have found even if they were told to look for it.
Sofia cracked the resulting floorboard open.
There was nothing there.
Something inside Sofia's throat sank all the way to her feet.
Was it the mark? Did the mark still give it away? That was probably what happened. It was a bit stupid to put any kind of marks on anything at all.
Yeah. Definitely the mark.
That was fine, too. None of her other stashes had any kind of obvious marks on them anyway. The one inside another cardboard box, hidden inside a fake bible, for example.
Gone.
Another stash, hidden inside a pillowcase inside another box.
Gone.
Another stash, hidden under a false bottom in a random drawer she found.
Gone.
Sofia looked in every single one of her stashes. All of them had magically disappeared, the hiding places meticulously put back together and replaced inside their respective cardboard boxes like nothing had ever happened.