Katalepsis: 2.6

Raine is off to grab some spell components from Evelyn's, leaving Evelyn and Heather in the Medieval Metaphysics office with Twil. Not the best idea, but it's starting to seem like Raine might not be "extra human" like I first thought so much as "hypercompetent slave-synth" or the like, in which case she might *have* to defer to someone else's judgement about these things. Anyway, Evelyn is out, exhausted from casting force lightning too hard and now on the brink of passing out. Heather is able-bodied, and thus entrusted with Raine's +1 silvered glove of werewolf punching, and to be fair Twil is nearly as wiped out from being zapped with force lightning as Evelyn is from zapping her with it, but still. It's not a great idea.

Well, let's see if Twil tries any funny business.

Thirty minutes.

That was Raine's estimate.

Thirty minutes stuck in a room with two very angry people, who hated each other for reasons I didn't understand, waiting for Raine to return before either of them felt well enough to attempt murder. Thankfully, neither seemed inclined to get up yet. Twil hunched tighter around her imaginary stomach wound, while Evelyn brooded, eyes barely open and fixed on Twil with dark intensity.

How do you know that stomach wound is imaginary, Heather? It appears to be electric current that Evelyn hit her with, and I'm going to keep calling it force lightning because it's funny, but it might have been something weirder that left a stomach wound Twil can't regenerate quickly.

I did as I'd promised, positioned myself behind one of the three armchairs as casually as I could, a nice safe distance from the firing line. Raine's werewolf-punching glove still felt warm from her hand, but even with that enticement I couldn't bring myself to put it on. I slipped it into my pocket instead.
Raine's instructions gave me focus, though I didn't believe they were necessary.

No, I was more concerned with Twil and Evelyn trying to pull each other's faces off again.

Seconds ticked by, each one worse than the last, and neither of them made a sound. I couldn't bear the tension. It made me want to rake at my scalp, scratch my back, crack my toes, anything. I chewed my lip and couldn't hold back any longer.

"Can you walk?" I asked.

Two blank faces turned my way.

I'd tried to muster a gentle, conversational tone, as if we were all friends here, but I sounded like a school mistress about to lose control of her class.

"It's not exactly an unexpected or untoward question." I spoke too quickly. "You were hocus-pocused into a tomato," I said to Twil. "And, well, you, Evelyn, I don't know. Can you walk or not?"

Sometimes Heather drops the best lines this side of Robert Frost.

Sometimes she says "hocus-pocused into a tomato."

Also, what's with the bizarre fruit metaphors? Batshit avocado insane. Tomato hocus pocus. It's becoming a pattern.

Twil rolled her shoulders and shot me a toothy smile. "I've walked off worse."

"Of course I can walk," Evelyn said. "That was nothing, hardly real magic at all."

"Well," I said. "Well, yes, that's good then, isn't it? Good." Had to stall. Must stall. Pleasantries, everyday things, small talk. "Why don't you— why not stretch your … um—" I stammered to a stop, about to make a gaffe.

"Leg, singular?" Twil finished for me. She showed Evelyn her teeth.

Evelyn stared at her, very blank and very cold. "Why, I don't understand the joke. Care to explain?"

Hahaha ableism fuck yeah I love that shit.

Once again though, after all the dog jokes I think Evelyn is sort of living in a glass house here.

I clapped my hands together and spoke very loud and very bright. "So, Twil. You're from this … this … group?"

Oh goodness, why didn't I just shove my entire foot down my throat? Good job, Heather, keep digging. Maybe Raine will bring you a spade.

"Cult," Evelyn corrected. Her voice was free of malice, just tired and certain.

"It's a church." Twil glared at Evelyn. "Look, sorry, Heather, I'm not going to talk about my religion with Saye here."

Evelyn cocked an eyebrow. "Religion? Don't try to legitimise yourself, it's sad."

"Go swivel. You talk about it like we're baby-eating monsters, sacrificing people on altars in the woods, having orgies with the devil. It's nothing like that, Saye, and you know it."

Well, at least she didn't try to pass them off as a legitimate multilevel marketing company. That would have been a real warning sign.

Also, no orgies with the devil? Really? Laaaaaaame.

"That describes your grandfather quite well."

"You shut your mouth," Twil said through clenched teeth. "My grandfather gave me the greatest gift a girl could ever want. This."

Twil yanked her sleeve up and held out one toned forearm.

In the blink of an eye, she wore a werewolf.

Air and light solidified around her flesh, like coalescing mist. Twil's pale forearm was encased in a ghostly image of thick grey-white fur with a rich reddish-brown underlayer, muscle and tendon flexing like steel cables beneath. Sharp claws of ghostly matter extended from her fingers, the palm of her hand shadowed by a padded canine paw. Human skin resumed just above her elbow.

She closed her fist and the ghostly layer vanished. "I won't hear a single word against my family. You get me?"

Evelyn huffed. "Your grandfather made you into a foot soldier. You're lucky he died before you could be put to use."

Twil growled and bared her teeth.

This might just be Evelyn projecting her own family's type of behavior onto Twil's, but I don't think so. Twil definitely has been acting like someone raised in the sort of environment Evelyn describes.

Anyway, Twil did the thing. The fact that she's even able to do the thing at all again this quickly is a bad sign. She's recovering from the force lightning pretty dang fast, considering. It's possible she's actually planning to keep her word here, but I wouldn't bet on it. Even if Evelyn doesn't keep pushing.

Heather wants to deescalate this before she has to use the silver glove that she really doesn't know how to use no matter what Raine said. Both as a practical matter, and also because Heather is a cinnamon bun who feels bad for the giant flea monsters when Raine has to kill them in self-defense.

I didn't have time for that.

I was fascinated.

"Do that again," I said.

"What?"

"Your arm. Show me. Do that again."

Twil frowned at me and moved to jerk her sleeve back down.

"I'm serious," I said. "You can't flash that around and not expect attention. Do it again, show me, I insist. You were so proud of it a moment ago, too."

"Bloody hell, I'm not a zoo animal."

"No, you're a werewolf." I resisted a mean-spirited urge to roll my eyes. "Perhaps this is normal for you, but try to appreciate that this is a matter of some interest for me, to put it lightly. Please, Twil, may I see your … gift, once more? Perhaps for a moment or two longer than it took you to threaten Evelyn?"

Evelyn snorted, but luckily Twil was too busy frowning at me—a very normal, human frown. I'd irritated her on a perfectly safe level, by accident.

"Ugh, fine." She stuck her arm out again.

I didn't realise until a moment later, but I broke my promise to Raine. I slid out from behind my covert chair barricade and leaned in close for a good look, a lot closer to Twil than the recommended six-foot minimum safe distance.

Hah! I thought Heather was just being tactical here for minute, until the text pointed out that she's breaking the safety protocols Raine left her. Yeah, that's genuine squeeing. We're finally seeing the Coyote Peterson side of her eldritch wildlife documentarian coming through.

It occurs to me, also, that Twil expected Heather and Evelyn to be able to see her werewolf-overlay thing. Even though she doesn't know that Heather has sensory powers and thinks she's just a normal girl. So, that werewolf suit is visible to most people. Making it very different from the kind of spirit-creatures Heather is used to looking at. Curious. Wonder what's up with that?

Twil's werewolf arm was one of the most fascinating sights I'd ever laid eyes on.

I'd spent my whole life seeing and hearing and—heaven forbid—sometimes feeling the unnatural, but Twil's ghostly arm seemed clean and normal, in a way that no spirit had ever quite managed. Or perhaps I'd never looked closely enough before. It was corporeal too, solid and material enough to touch. The fur sprang back up after the slightest pressure, thick and glossy and velvet soft, as if she'd come straight from a doggy shampoo and blow-dry. Maybe she had.

A sleazy smirk crept across Twil's face. "Didn't say you could touch, you know?"

I jerked back, hand to my chest in mortified embarrassment. "I-I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. I didn't realise I was touching you. I'm sorry."

"S'fine. Can't blame you." She turned her arm over a couple of times, smiling at the sight of herself

"I didn't— I—" I took a surreptitious step back behind the armchair, curiously lightheaded and blushing badly. Evelyn watched me with an unimpressed look. "Sorry, it just looked very soft. I'm not used to animals. Never had any pets."

"Is there some fetish we should know about here?" Evelyn drawled. "Are you a secret furry, Heather?"

Hey no fair I wanted to say that!

"A-a what, pardon?"

"Hey, back off," Twil snapped at her. Evelyn shrugged, radiating boredom.

Heh. I'm slightly amused by the fact that Twil does know what that means.

"So— so—" I stammered, trying to regain control of the situation. "No full moon? You don't need that, you can transform at will?"

Twil flicked her wolf arm as if shaking off water. It blurred back to human again. She pulled her sleeve down and shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Why not, huh? Wouldn't be very fun if I just wigged out at the moon, would it?"

A question caught in the back of my throat. Twil didn't exactly seem like the damsel in distress type. My imagination, gorged on poor self-esteem and affection-starved paranoia, fed itself an elaborate fiction about supernatural exoticism. I compared myself to Twil, and found myself wanting. Plain, boring, cowardly.

Pure projection.

Huh?

Projection? Who are you projecting stuff onto?

"Is that why Raine went out with you?" I asked. "The whole werewolf thing?"

Oof. Heather. Heather, that is not nice. Please think about the implications of asking if the only reason someone would date you is because of your powers.

I mean, NOW it seems like Heather might be projecting a little, since she's obviously super into the werewolf thing...although, wait, no, she was into Twil before she knew about that anyway. Yeah, still not sure what the "projection" thought was referring to.

In the dark recesses of my mind I'd expected Twil to grin and toss her head back, like a temptress from some bad '50s noir film.

Instead, she spluttered. "Eh? What? No. We never went out. What? What kinda bullshit has she been feeding you?"

"You had a remarkable interest in her," Evelyn said. "Following her around like a puppy."

Twil rolled her eyes and shrugged, but I could clearly see the kernel of old disappointment. She'd wanted. Not gotten. "Yeah, in your dreams, maybe. We never did anything, okay? I dunno where you even get the idea."

I felt the most selfish, satisfying flush of relief, laced through with guilt. I was acting ridiculous.

"Well, that's— yes, yes." I stammered and got all flustered. "I see. I'm sorry. I mean, I apologise for bringing it up."

Oh? Did they not, actually?

Is Raine not actually to be known as "dogfucker" henceforth?

Twil eyed me with an odd frown.

"W-what? What is it?" I asked.

"Missing piece of the puzzle is what." Another sleazy grin spread across her face. "I get it now, I get what you're doing here. You're Raine's little femmy girlfriend."

"I'm what? Excuse me?"

Heather, in every lesbian relationship there is a sword prince, and there is a rose bride. You are clearly not playing sword prince to Raine of all people. Easy inference for Twil to make.

"Apparently not," Evelyn added.

Twil turned to her. "Eh?"

"Mmhmm. Apparently."

"Nah, no way." Twil grinned and slapped her own thigh. "You're having me on. The way Raine was all over her? Yeeeeah. Obvious, now I think about it. How did I not notice that?"

"I know, right?" Evelyn purred.

I'd gone bright red in the face. "We're— she's— we're not! You're completely wrong. We're not together. I've already had this conversation once today, for goodness' sake."

Twil barked a laugh and Evelyn snorted. I fought down an urge to stamp my foot.

"Least you seem pretty straight up and down," Twil said.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Means you're better than the last few." She turned to Evelyn. "Am I right?"

"Mmhmm. An insult to Heather to even compare."

"Compare me to what?" I snapped. "Who?"

By slow, wary degrees at first, then blooming into a full-on gossip session, Twil and Evelyn talked about Raine behind her back.

With the record being established...hmm.

Is it going to turn out that Raine is actually a virgin herself, and Evelyn and Twil have both decided she's a serial heartbreaker because of their own baggage? Evelyn was sure she was banging Twil. Twil was sure she was banging Heather. Both seem to have been wrong.

I hung on to every word and learnt a lot more than I'd bargained for. As they spoke, Evelyn dug around in her bag and produced a little packet of wet-wipes. She set about cleaning Twil's blood off her fingers and the mirror in her lap.

That would have been too surreal for me, if I wasn't dying to hear more.

The "pity project" before me had been a girl in the history department by the name of May. She'd started out very promising, until Raine had discovered she'd believed in lizard people and mind-control satellites.

Lizard people might well be real in this world, but the description suggests that May's version of lizard people are just Jews.

Which, I mean. Jews also probably exist in this world. But you know what I mean.

The girl prior to May had been a classical goth called Christie, all dark makeup and heavy eyeshadow and emotionally needy. That snippet of history made me bristle with brief jealousy, until the conversation turned to how Christie had been utterly convinced she was a vampire. She'd made herself sick by drinking cow's blood she'd gotten from a Sharrowford butcher's shop. Apparently she'd locked herself in Raine's bathroom for most of a day and sobbed about "the dark pact," until Evelyn had driven her off by pretending to be Raine's obsessive, spurned admirer.

The tension dialled down as Twil and Evelyn laughed over that last one, as if we weren't a werewolf and a mage and whatever I was.

I was rolling my eyes and thinking of some very annoying people I've met in real life, until we got to the part about her actually drinking cow's blood to the point of illness. That sounds more like a legitimate mental health crisis than just an obnoxious poser.

Not thrilled about Evelyn and Twil laughing at this, needless to say. Not that it's surprising or out-of-character for either of them.

I couldn't take it. I loved every detail, but I couldn't take it.

"Will you stop talking about her like that?" I said. "We really shouldn't be bad-mouthing her."

"It's only the truth," Evelyn muttered.

I frowned, painfully aware she knew Raine a lot better than I did.

"Ahh, don't worry about it." Twil leaned back and cracked her knuckles. "You're sore 'cos you think she's gonna get bored of you, but Raine's a hopeless romantic."

"I already told you, we're not even together."

Twil shrugged. "Whatever you say."

Heather, it is seriously time for you to start fact checking these claims against your own lived experience.

...she spent half her life thinking she was mentally ill, and that her own lived experience was unreliable in the face of outside testimony. Conditioned not to trust her perceptions and judgement.

Right.

Unintentional gaslighting by all of society. Poor Heather.

I did my best not to sulk. Evelyn cultivated a smug little smile. Twil pulled an old, battered flip-phone out of her pocket and checked the screen.

"Fuck knows why I'm even here at this point," she said. "It's almost four, I'm supposed to be on the train home. I'm gonna miss Bake Off."

"You watch that tripe?" Evelyn asked.

"Go suck a fart. You don't even own a telly."

"I do, actually, for your information."

"I don't," I said, feeling peevish, still mounting a proxy defence in Raine's place. "I much prefer reading."
Twil rolled her eyes.

Lmao what college student bothers owning a TV nowadays?

Timeskip to Raine making it back. Not sure what took her so long, but in any case it seems like Twil really is on the up and up. She'd have had plenty of opportunities to strike by now, and didn't.

Raine returned with all the drama and impact of a commando raid. And on time, thankfully. I didn't know how much longer the truce would hold.

She all but burst in the door, carrying a big sports bag over one shoulder and waving a silver plate above her head. Twil scrambled to her feet and backed away. Raine froze and grinned.

"Yo, I interrupt something?"

"You could say that," I muttered, but internally I sighed with relief. "Welcome back, Raine."

"Yeah, my fucking personal space." Twil pointed at the silver plate. "The hell are you doing with that?"

"Uh, just, you know, if I was wrong. Like I said." Raine shoved the silver plate back in the sports bag and closed the door behind her.

"You got everything?" Evelyn asked.

"Sure did, plus a few party favours." Raine dumped the sports bag on the table and heaved out an armful of winter clothes. Evelyn raised an eyebrow. "For Heather. Figured you wouldn't mind. It's all there, when you're ready."

"All right," Evelyn grumbled. "Let's get this over with. Help me up."

Evelyn eased herself out of the chair with a hand from Raine, then set about extracting her ritual tools from the sports bag. She unfolded a big sheet of paper and spread it across the table, carefully centred the silver plate in the middle, then shuffled around the edge with a marker pen.

First she drew a triple layer of circles, followed by a flowing script of esoteric symbols and interlinked geometric designs. She referenced her notebook as she worked, turning it this way and that, double- and triple-checking. Toward the end, she pulled a big leather-bound book from the sports bag and carefully read several passages, before adding more symbols to her work.

It took an awful lot longer than the blood magic she'd used to hurt Twil.

As Evelyn worked, our werewolf visitor lounged against the wall, clearly enjoying a safe distance from the silver plate.

Dang, that silver allergy of hers is pretty extreme. To the point where I wonder if Twil has trouble just walking down the street because of jewelry, building treatments, medications, etc. There are actually a lot of everyday things that have a little bit of silver in them.

Going to university in person would be very difficult for her, regardless of academic ability.

Raine presented me with the armful of winter clothes.

"Glad I was wrong, Heather," she said. "Here, for you."

"Presents are lovely, but is this really the moment?"

"You'll wanna wear these, trust me."

Now what's this all about?

Maybe a lot of Evelyn's magic creates extreme cold as a side effect? The temperature did drop noticeably when she made Twil pay for her lack of vision earlier.

Raine didn't bring winter clothes for herself though. Maybe she just keeps a set here in the office?

I spied comfy-looking mittens in berry purple, a huge fluffy scarf, and a woollen hat with floppy rabbit ears. "Um, why?"

"Trust me."

Evelyn tutted. "She's not made of spun glass." She glanced up from her work. "That— Raine, that's my hat!"

"It was the closest one to hand, that's all. Seriously, Evee, it's Heather's first time. Cut me some slack."

"First time for what?" I asked, picking up the mittens.

"Magic."

"What about earlier? That wasn't magic?"

"That was just a little thermodynamics," Evelyn drawled, already concentrating on her sigil once more. "This may indeed be an experiment, but it's the real thing."

Raine held out the scarf. "It'll probably get real cold, real fast. Please, Heather?"

Huh. Now it seems like all spellcasting causes a drop in temperature, not just Evelyn's. Wonder what causes that?

...hmm. Heather's plane-shifting doesn't seem to chill the space around her. At least, if it does, no one has commented on it.

There was also no lingering coldness around the glyph that Evelyn accidentally'd herself into, but a bit of time had already passed before Raine and Heather reached the scene. So, there could have been cold, but there could have also not been.

After a moment's hesitation, I allowed her to wrap me up. I felt like a small child about to venture outside to play in the snow. She looped the scarf around my neck as I pulled the mittens on. At least they were nice and soft inside. If I hadn't felt so terribly guilty for all the gossip about Raine earlier, then I probably would have resisted more, would have listened to that little voice in my head whispering that I enjoyed the damsel in distress role, enjoyed being treated like this.

How could I not? It was such a sweet gesture, it almost hurt.

I tugged the woollen hat down over my hair. Raine reached up and tweaked the floppy rabbit ears.

"Suits you."

"Oh, shush," I said.

"What did you three get up to, then? Feels a lot less tense in here than when I left."

I glanced at Evelyn and Twil, but they weren't listening. I pitched my voice low. "They were talking about you, in fact."

Raine's eyebrows tried to leave the atmosphere. She grinned. "My reputation precedes me. All good, I hope?"

My eyes answered for me, whether I wanted them to or not. I don't know if she saw guilt or curiosity or jealousy or worse.

"Ah? Heather?"

"Stop flirting, you two," Evelyn called. She tapped the table with the end of her pen. "It's ready and it won't wait for anybody. Get over here."

Raine's attentions had distracted me from the worst phase of Evelyn's work.

My stomach tightened at the obscenity on the table.

Black ink crawled and writhed over every inch of paper, except for the area directly underneath the high-lipped silver plate. The three circles were clear and stark, untouched by any other lines, but between them and around them the symbols seemed to recur into each other over and over again, vanishing into an optical illusion of infinity on the flat surface.

The design looked a little like a funnel, with an opening on one side.

Describing a bunch of geometric symbols as an "obscenity" would have me chuckling and rolling my eyes in most works, including those by Howie P-Lizzle, but here it actually works. Heather has PTSD triggers woven into those types of glyphs, so for her it's an accurate description.

"You stand here." Evelyn jerked her walking stick at the opening.

"What? Ugh, sorry." I had to avert my eyes and take a deep breath. "Makes me feel sick."

Raine put a hand on my back. "You can sit down if you want."

"No she can't," Evelyn said. "She doesn't have to look at it. Just stand."

"It's okay, I'll be okay," I murmured, mostly for myself. "I can do this."

I did as Evelyn asked. I kept my eyes open and stared at the blankets pinned over the windows. The setting sun had dimmed the air to a murky orange. The pair of desk lamps at the back now provided most of the light in the room.

"Raine, you stand clear over here," Evelyn said. I felt Raine's hand squeeze my shoulder, then leave. "Twil, don't interrupt. Whatever happens, nobody is to touch the three circles. Anything else should be fair game in an emergency."

"How safe is this?" I asked.

Evelyn shrugged. She took up the bottle of aqua vitae, the last unused ritual ingredient, and wiggled the cork out. "Should be safe. You're only a reference point, carrying the scent for my bloodhound here. I'm not actually opening a gate, just a sort of window. I need a good look."

My blood ran cold.

I knew the answer to my next question before it left my lips.

No, she couldn't do this, this was insanity. She didn't know what it meant, she'd never seen it, never felt it sifting through her mind. Evelyn was already pouring the clear alcohol into the silver plate, creating a transparent layer above the mirror finish.

"Good look at what?" I hiccuped, voice caught with sudden terror. "Evelyn, good look at what?"

Twil levered herself off the wall. "Whoa, what—"

"Heather?" Raine piped up. "Yeah, Evee, wait a—"

Evelyn slapped the cork back into the bottle. "At your 'Eye,' what else?"

On one hand, Heather has seen the Eye many, many times, and there's nothing to suggest that her mind is hardier than theirs when it comes to sensory overload.

On the other hand, they don't know HOW the Eye is showing itself to her. The eyeball she sees in her dreams could just be, well, one of its eyes. Or its telepathic equivalent of an IM avatar. Maybe seeing its actual body, if distinctions between "body" and "mind" even make sense in whatever realm it inhabits, is much more hazardous.

Or it might not be. I guess we'll find out! Or not. Heather might stop them. She's been calling a lot of shots recently, and they do need her for this.

I took a step back and started to form a denial, shake my head, tell her no, stop, don't do this, not here, not to me.

Evelyn spoke a word that no human mouth was built to speak.

"Pktkndk."

The aqua vitae shimmered like mercury.

Too late.

I screwed my eyes shut and clamped my hands over my ears.

alright yep we're doing it yolo swag 420 let's goooooooooooo

Gasping in the dark.

Then I felt Raine's hands on my arms and heard her muffled voice beyond the mittens I'd clamped over my ears.

"Heather? Heather, it's okay. It's okay, we're safe. Heather, open your eyes, look at me."

Raine was alive and standing and talking, so I assumed we hadn't all been obliterated. I found myself blinking at her, shaking and struggling to breathe through a blast of adrenaline. She met my eyes and nodded slow and held me by the shoulders. I blinked away tears of panic.

"I-it's okay," I repeated after her. "It's okay, I'm okay. I'm okay."

She smiled, but tense and stiff.

"That was some fucking major-league bullshit right there, Saye," Twil almost shouted. "What the fuck?" For once, I agreed with her.

She looked like she wanted to strangle Evelyn, but dared not approach the table. Evelyn was bent over the silver mirror, staring into the surface of the aqua vitae. The liquid had blackened into a rich, rolling darkness.

I pulled the stupid rabbit hat off my head.

"Why didn't you tell me what you were going to do!?" I yelled at her.

"Because you wouldn't have agreed to it," Evelyn croaked.

Oh, dick move Evelyn.

Heck, what are you even trying to accomplish with this, if Heather wouldn't consider it worth it?

About to shoot back with words I'd probably regret later, I realised Evelyn was literally spitting blood. She held a tissue wadded up in one hand, already speckled with crimson saliva, then hawked up a gob of bloody mucus. She caught me staring and glanced up from the magical window.

"The activation word," she croaked. "Damages the throat."

Hah. I think Katalepsis might be the first story I've ever read that talks about "words not meant for human mouths to speak" and actually means it.

I cast about at a loss, then shoved the hat at Raine. "Were you in on this?"

"No," Raine said. "I wish I had been."

"You wouldn't have agreed either." Evelyn coughed and spat again.

"Bloody right I wouldn't have," said Raine. "Between terrifying Heather and hurting yourself, are you kidding?"

Either Evelyn has been unusually reckless these last few weeks, or Raine has the most frustrating job in the world and it's a miracle she's been able to keep her alive this long.

Twil shook her head and tapped her temple. I was inclined to agree, but too angry to think straight. Evelyn didn't even bother with a response. She was utterly intent on the dark window in the silver mirror. With the hat off, cold air quickly soaked through my hair and pinched at my nose. The temperature had indeed dropped sharply, colder than outdoors.

I exhaled a white plume and wrapped my arms around myself. "This cold can't be good for the books."

"What, those?" Raine nodded at the bookcases along the wall of the Medieval Metaphysics room. "They're just nonsense, remember? Here, put your hat back on."

"They're still books."

"They'll be fine," Evelyn muttered. "This won't take long."

She was touching the surface of the liquid window with two fingers, sliding and twitching them ever so gently. The viewpoint swung across a landscape that had haunted me half my life.

Wonderland.

My breath went still.

"Evee," Raine warned.

"It's perfectly safe," Evelyn said as she panned across the landscape. "It's one-way. Anything there can't see us, can't touch us. Don't watch if you don't want to. Step out if you must. Just don't interrupt me."

Lmao the things in there are totally going to see and touch them through the spell.

The liquid rippled as Evelyn moved her fingertips. Despite the barely eighteen inches' diameter of the silver plate, the image was strikingly clear. If it was any other place, I would have marvelled at the magic. My complaint died on my lips. I couldn't look away.

Wonderland, exactly as I recalled, except seen from half a mile up.

Rubble and ruin stretched away to a horizon of broken teeth, monoliths of masonry embedded in the ground, cracked by unthinkable forces. Dark mist scudded across the acres of wreckage, drifting with more than a hint of intention. Wherever a wall stood intact, every inch of brick and stone was scrawled with tiny devotional script. Even at such a distance, from outside reality, the words made my eyes water.

Bioluminescent jellyfish creatures bobbed and weaved through the air, each as big as a bus, their disgusting inner organs pulsing and throbbing to some unheard beat, meaty and wet.

Malformed life picked through the ruins, not even remotely humanoid. None of us could look at them for long. Twil made a gagging sound. Raine was silent. Evelyn quickly panned away.

In the distance, watchers stared up at the sky in mute worship. Some were vaguely simian, hunched over on their knuckles. Others squatted or crouched, toad-like, but most were unidentifiable combinations, or phyla with no earthly analogue. I knew from memory that each of them was the size of a mountain. One did not risk their attention lightly.

I thought "Wonderland' just referred to Outside in general, but I guess it's a more specific planet/plane/dimension.

Anyway, I think Heather once described the Eye hovering above the ground and filling the sky of Wonderland, so I'm guessing that Evelyn's spell worked a little too well and they're seeing directly FROM the Eye's vantage point. Hence the aerial view.

Hmm. If the spell works by tapping into the Eye's own sensory input, then they're lucky it's only showing them what's physically right in front of it and not all the other dimensions and brains and dreams and stuff it can see into. That would probably be incomprehensible at best and epilepsy-inducing at worst.

Anyway, the postapocalyptic appearance of this world definitely makes me more inclined to think the Eye is malevolent. The implication is pretty clearly that the Eye destroyed this civilization. Or at least, that it was brought here by whoever or whatever destroyed this civilization. The nauseating-looking creatures wiggling through the ruins and writing worshipful scrawl on all the exposed masonry might be what became of the natives, or they could be the invaders. The mountain-sized beasts lined up around the perimeter...no clue. Their role in the downfall of this world could have been anything, or nothing.

The glowing jellyfish sound pretty though, despite Heather's insistence to the contrary. Don't worry Heather, it might take some time and effort but you'll be David Attenborough yet!

The mists flowing through the ruins have "more than a suggestion" of intent. Either the mist is a gaseous life form, or something else (the Eye itself, or another entity) is controlling it.

Now, if they can just manage to spot Maisie...

Raine murmured my name. She tried to ease me away, hands on my back. I was shaking, shivering on the verge of tears, but not sad, not afraid.

"Heather, you don't have to look. Come on, let's go out into the corridor. Hell, we can go down the campus canteen. Heather?"

"No," I hissed. "I want to see."

"You don't have—"

"I need to see," I said, and almost pushed her away with a jerk of my elbow.

"Okay, okay. I'm right here."

Evelyn grunted. "Thought you might."

She panned the view until she'd circled the horizon. Frozen grey static filled the edge of the sky, as if the sun had exploded and forced iron filings across the firmament. Twil muttered about how messed up this was. Raine shushed her.

That description of the sky and horizon is hard for me to visualize, but I suppose that's the point.

This was futile, I knew. I had nothing to gain by subjecting myself to this.

But I felt such release.

"This is the place you went?" Evelyn asked.

" … yes."

"Hm." Evelyn flicked her fingers and swung the viewpoint up toward the sky.

I realised a second too late why the perspective was half a mile up from the ground. My heart leapt into my throat as the window filled with dark ridges and folds, cleft by a horizontal line across the middle, like a mountain range of puckered flesh. Bigger than any mountain, like a planet hanging in low orbit.

"No, turn it away!" I cried. "Turn it away!"

Evelyn frowned into the dish. "What is—"

The eyelid cracked open.

Heh, called it.

It was in the sky and it was the sky and it was everything and all and so large it filled all creation with itself and forced out all thought and reason and demanded you look back into it and acknowledge its gaze with your own and never think of anything else ever again.

Open by the slimmest crack. On a true abyss.

More than enough.

It saw us.

All of Evelyn's assurances of safety and one-way contact meant nothing. The Eye could reach across dimensions and rewrite physics with a thought. Of course it could see us. I'd hidden from it for two weeks and now it had found me.

I felt it in my head. All of our heads.

Heh, called that one too. Granted, absolutely anyone would have called that one.

Now, I wonder if everyone in the room is going to multiclass into spontcaster because of this, or if its only Heather with her connection to Maisie who will be getting it persistently.

Evelyn sat down on the floor with a loud thump, both hands to her chest. Raine gasped and straightened up, heaving in great gulps of air. Twil, not exactly human right now, shook herself all over and huffed through a snout of canine teeth.

"Fuck me sideways," Raine said.

Heather was starting to think you'd never ask.~

We all took a moment to enjoy the absence of alien thought-tentacles in our brains. My whole body felt numb. Raine swung her arms and bounced on the spot. Twil rose from a tight crouch and looked mostly human again as she rubbed her face, but even she was out of insults and complaints.

"Heather?" Raine said.

"Mm?"

"Good. Good call." She nodded at the dish. I was still touching it. I think she wanted to come over to me, hold me, but she looked as stunned and numb as I felt.

"I suppose so."

"What in bloody arse-fucking shit-biscuits was that?" Twil asked.

"The thing that haunts me," I said.

Evelyn shook her head slowly, looked between Raine and I, then looked away and sighed deep with defeat and shame.

"Fucking idiot," Twil grumbled.

"Now's not the time." Raine took a deep breath. "This is all safe now, right? Evee?"

"Yes, Heather broke the connection. I won't make it again." Evelyn glanced up from her spot on the floor. "I didn't expect a—"

She froze. Her eyes widened just a fraction. She stared at me.

"What? Evee, what now?" Raine said.

"Heather, did you touch the circles?" Evelyn asked. "Did you break the circles?"

I was too numb for blood chills or dramatic pit-of-the-stomach feelings. I think we all were. But when I looked down at my arm, where I'd slid across the table, I knew on an instinctive level that I'd made a mistake. Raine hurried to my side.

My impact on the table had scrunched and torn the paper, breaking all three of Evelyn's clean, precise magic circles. My arm lay right across them.

If it turns out she has a parasitic eyeball-creature growing out of her arm where it pressed into the magic circles...

"is katalepsis' eye actually attached to his arm?"

Evelyn heaved herself to her feet with her walking stick, suppressing a wince of pain.

"Don't move," she was saying—as I pulled my arm back.

The surface of the aqua vitae rippled and parted.

A hand made of solid night shot out from the liquid. Dark and shiny as if covered in a sheen of oil, each many-jointed finger six inches long, tapering points with no nails or claws.

It snapped shut around my wrist.

I screamed.

Oh, hi there Maisie! My, how you've grown.

Might not actually be Maisie, but it's humanlike enough in a landscape full of completely alien life forms that I suspect it's Maisie.


Talk about a dramatic cliffhanger. Arc two hasn't impressed me nearly as much as "Mind, Correlating" overall, but this ending still had me just barely resisting the impulse to keep reading.

Fortunately, I'm still only halfway through "Providence or Atoms," so there'll be plenty of time for resolution.