Chapter Nine: Heist

My encounter with the Bryces was behind me, thank God. I'd eventually be remanded into their custody when my stint at St. Circe's was over, but that was a matter for the hopefully-distant future. In the near-term, a number of crucial items had slotted themselves into my docket, in no particular order:

1) My 'little' friends all had serious family issues - I'd already vaguely known as much, but it had only been cemented by my observations at the dinner. Things weren't going to be happy for any of us when we got out of St. Circe's.

1b) Emi, especially. Her sister was providing the school with a potion that was draining her intellect. One or two more punishments with it, and her IQ would dip into room temperature territory.

2) My erstwhile-lover, erstwhile-accuser, Amanda Bryce, was going to the same school as me and had been turned into an eleven year-old child by her insane-o father.

On top of keeping on the straight and narrow whenever the watchful eyes of the faculty were upon me, that gave me plenty to worry about and plenty of side-gig trouble to get into.

Fortunately, my troubles with the non-Cassie Bigs in our group had simmered down to acceptable levels. They'd heard a bit about what happened at the Harvest Formal - likely a piecemeal, exaggerated version - and mostly decided that caution was the advisable course. They were impressionable teenagers, but most of them didn't condone rape and being a little anti-rape badass had earned me a modicum of respect. And now that Cassie was dating (well... was pen-pals with) the 34th in line for the British throne, she had social capital and was willing to help a sister out. There were snide comments and ribbing, but no whiff of the aggro bullying I experienced whenever Queen Cecilia was on the warpath.

This gave me time and mental space to focus on other matters. Most urgently: doing something about Emi's potion. Given her increasingly ditzy nature, it was only a matter of time before she made an absentminded mistake significant enough to warrant punishment, at which point, she'd be even more prone to mistakes in a self-perpetuating cycle of ditzdom. I don't think she even remembered having been a boy anymore - most of the time, she just happily hummed and sighed in her own little world, serving up inane or non sequitur comments whenever something triggered her flighty attention span. I felt awful for her - and incensed at her sister. The enormity of Emi's change was at least as great as my own.

"I don't see what we can do about it," Simone said during one of our evening powwows. It was just four of us - Simone, Michelle, Emi, and myself, as poor Helena was feeling unsociable. "What can we do? Other than try to keep her out of trouble, of course."

"Why am I in trouble?" Emi asked, playing with the hem of her nightie.

"You're not in trouble, Emi. We're trying to keep it that way."

"Oh, okay."

"But how?" Michelle asked.

"There's a potion that Emi's sister gave to Doctor Sauvage - when we were disciplined after the 'Operation: Magic Class' disaster, Ms. Rust gave some to her, and I'm pretty sure it's the reason for this." I gestured to Emi, who'd already lost attention. She stared off into space, humming to herself and toying with the silky locks of her golden hair. "So we get the potion and mess with it."

Simone shook her head, beaded braids jangling. "I don't know the first thing about potions and neither do you. What in the world would we do with it?"

"Well... if we can't figure something out, we just leave the bottle on its side and partly uncorked - who's to say it wasn't an accident? Emi can't drink the potion if it's all spilled out and evaporated."

"I don't like the potion," Emi added.

"I know, Emi. Neither do we. But, better yet, if we can add something neutralizing to it, maybe nobody has to be any the wiser?"

"And we'd figure that out... how?" Michelle asked.

"We'll have to break back into A010..."

Simone laughed. "Are you insane, girl? Do you even remember what happened last time? Or maybe you got a few gulps of Emi's potion..."

"Fine, fine..." I waved the idea off. "I'll think of something. But we have to do something before..." I mimed sipping a vial.

Over the next few days, Emi managed to stay out of trouble... with no small amount of help from us. She almost wandered into Best Behavior in her nightie one morning, and we were all very nearly late, rushing her back to the dormitory to get her changed posthaste. She kept smuggling bread out of the lunch table to feed birds outside (a big no-no), and we had to sew the little pockets of her uniform blazer shut to keep her from doing it. And, of course, we all volunteered for recitals and demonstrations during Best Behavior and Physical Conditioning, lest Emi slip up badly enough to warrant a punishment (unlikely, but she'd done it before). Fortunately, over the course of several on-edge days, the beginnings of a plan gradually slid into place.

+++++

The easiest and most optional part of my plan was figuring out how to inactivate the potion rather than spilling it - this way, it might still be 'administered' without having any negative effect. None of us littles knew the first thing about magic - as far as I could tell, only about a third of the student body had any rigorous tutelage in magic, and absolutely none of the littles did. It was against school policy. But Cassie had to know something, and so I brought it up.

I was sitting next to Cassie and helping her with her calculus homework - I'd been working my way through partial differential equations with Simone, and so second semester calc was a welcome respite. Cassie was plenty competent in math, but I knew enough tricks and shortcuts to help. And, feeling helpful after delivering some keen insight on integration by substitution, I snuggled up to her and asked about an anti-potion.

"You know I can't tell you anything about that," she said with a roll of the eyes. "I'm not even supposed to mention the word in front of you."

"What... magic?"

"Yes!" She closed her calculus book and frowned.

"That's ridiculous. You led me around with a collar through a magical ritual, so it's not like the school doesn't know I know about it. We all know about it."

"I didn't write the rules, Natalie."

I shrugged. "Fine... don't tell me about it. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble for anything. I'm sure you've got our reasons."

She sighed. "I can't believe I'm letting you guilt me into this. Give me a day or two and I'll figure something out."

"Thanks!" I leaned up to give her a peck on the cheek.

"But..." she added with a wry grin, "I'm going to need some more private tutoring. In the shower."

That, I could oblige. Cassie could be very handsy, especially after getting a letter from Liam. She'd get worked up over it and flop down on my bed to glean the insight of my two and a half decades as a man. I didn't mind - I got a thrill when she'd hop on top of me, large breasts straining her blouse, pressing up close to my chin, and she'd hold me against the bed and sink into a passionate kiss. She was getting a lot better - ostensibly, to impress Liam, but she evidently got almost as much out of our interludes as I did. I didn't mind it in our room or in the shower - in fact, I wholeheartedly welcomed the distraction. But I disallowed even the hint of it in public (though there was only so much I could do if she had her heart set on it). I didn't need any rumors about us wafting around to kindle additional scorn from the Bigs, and nor did I want to give the school cause to disband our little love nest. But above all, I wanted to preserve whatever remnant of independence and respect I held - I would not be seen to be Cassie's squeeze toy. I wasn't that, obviously, but there are only so many ways you could construe a Big groping 'her' little with wanton abandon.

So Cassie and I had to navigate an interesting relationship. We were more or less committed BFF fuck-buddies, and I was coming to terms with not having a big-R Relationship. She was good people, and she came through for me whenever she could. Case in point: the anti-potion.

I returned from my 'Voice for Speech and Music' class to grab a quick lunch and found a very strange recipe for 'mushroom soup' on my study desk:

'St. Circe's Special Creamy Mushroom Soup:

1) Find several of the blue-capped mushrooms in the nearby woods - three or four will suffice.

2) Cut them into small pieces and add to a bubbling solution with yellow dandelion, a pinch of crushed thyme, and three drops of lemon. Stir until blue-green.

3) Add a small lump of salt to the mixture and let boil until fully green.

4) Add a small pouch of cream to the mixture - the whole pouch - and let cool.

5) After twenty minutes, remove the pouch of cream - no leaks! Its contents will suffice.

6) Say thanks to Chef Starlight for the recipe.

..thybone

..bloodlem

..claysal

..chemistre'

It took me a moment to parse the directions - they were to a potion (or anti-potion), as I'd requested... only some of the ingredients were in code. The little key at the bottom told me which ingredients to switch around - crushed bone for crushed thyme, and so on - say a praise to Mistre... Mistress(?) Starlight (whoever that was), and I'd have the potion I wanted. The cream would take on some new property, induced from the (probably poisonous) mushroom solution. And Cassie, the angel, had already supplied me with the mushrooms. The little drawer of my desk was the slightest bit open, and inside was stashed a small plastic bag with a handful of little, blue-capped mushrooms.

I wondered when in the world she'd had time to pick the mushrooms when a bit of inspiration struck me - it had to have been when she was rowing crew. The little jetty they pushed out from was at the edge of the woods with one or two little nature trails looping around to the climbing rocks to the south and back out near the other side of the St. Circe's campus. I'd never been back there, but I'd seen it on campus maps. Natalie had plucked the mushrooms from somewhere near the jetty, put them in her bag, and brought them back here... the pieces of my plan clicked.

Natalie would have left her bag out near the jetty - she certainly wouldn't be permitted to take it on the shell because of the weight. The other girls probably did likewise. Also on crew was Tiffany Chalmers, one of the Advanced Bigs. Tiffany, who was student assistant to Doctor Sauvage... Tiffany who had a key to the doctor's office. Presumably, she kept it in her bag while she was rowing with crew. The plot was brewing!

+++++

"This is the craziest thing I've ever done," Michelle said. "We're getting in so much trouble."

"Only if we get caught," I said. "Last time, did you get caught?"

"No, but you did," Simone said.

I shrugged. "Well, I'll run interference this time, too, if need be. Do you want to help Emi or not?"

"Of course we do," Michelle said. "Let's go over the plan one more time."

We had a time window of exactly one day to get things done. If we couldn't manage it, we'd need to wait at least three weeks and start from square one. This was because we needed to find a time when Tiffany Chalmers 1) had crew practice two days in a row and 2) wasn't working for Doctor Sauvage the first day. That way, we could sneak off with her keys, get into the doctor's office on that night to ruin Emi's potion, and sneak her keys back the next morning, with Tiffany and the doctor being none the wiser.

We got to work, Michelle and I sneaking after the Bigs and out to the jetty and waiting for the girls to push off into the water. Dr. Clay, who served as coach, sat in her kayak out in the water with a timer, a clipboard, and her excellent command of projected voice, shouting out drills, times, corrections, and so on. Michelle kept a lookout and I crept forward, still dressed in my pajamas - they were the darkest and least revealing clothes I owned, and I hoped that in the dim dawn light I'd remain inconspicuous.

I crept up to the little row of bookbags - about a dozen of them in all - and started rifling through them. I looked up just in time to see one of the shells whiz by me, four girls rowing in unison and utter focus. If anybody spotted me, they kept quiet about it. I struck gold on the third bag - T. Chalmers scrawled inside one of the books and the jangle of keys. One of the keys was labeled A105 - Doctor Sauvage's office number. I worked it off the ring - it took a minute... my fingers weren't as strong as they once were.

"No, stop, stop!" Dr. Clay shouted.

Fuck. I froze. I glanced up... she wasn't looking at me. She was shouting to one of the boats... and directing them to shore. Here they came, sliding across the water. I had maybe five seconds. I tossed the remaining keys back into TIffany's bag and scrambled off until I was panting next to Michelle in the underbrush by the edge of the woods.

"I think this is poison ivy," she observed.

We jogged through the woods until we were a decent distance from the path and then made our way to the dormitory where Simone had been gathering the remaining ingredients for our potion - cream from the coffee stand in the dining hall, a dandelion flower, a lump of creamy brown clay, and a chicken bone.

We had to wait until after dinner for enough solitary time to make up the potion, heating the admixture on top of a purloined chemistry lab hot plate. We did it out in the lounge where there were spare outlets. It was pretty late when we got everything assembled - maybe 11 pm, and definitely after curfew. Unless Ms. Rust walked in on us, we were clear... or maybe not. I pricked my finger with a thumbtack and added three drops of blood to the mixture. I blotted my wound with a tissue while Simone stirred. So far so good. We'd just added the clay to the mixture when Eva and Jordan wandered past on the way to, I assume, the bathroom or shower. Jordan's face wrinkled and she glanced about the dark space of the lounge. There was a couch blocking her line of sight us, but I could see her looking right in our direction through the little gap between couch sections.

"What's that smell?" Jordan asked.

"What smell?" Eva said.

"It's... chemical-y?"

She sniffed. "Oh yeah. Cleaning supplies?"

"Yeah, probably."

They continued onward and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Fingers fumbling, I poured the cream into a plastic bag, dipped it into the bubbling solution, and waited. After a few minutes, right after Jordan and Eva had padded, whispering and giggling, back to their respective rooms, the cream quickly turned an orange-yellow color. I assumed this meant the potion was firm and good. Now for the final part:

"Oh Mistress Starlight, we thank thee for this bounty. May its power stay good and true," I said. I felt slightly foolish, but the thanks were in Cassie's directions. For all I knew that step was crucial.

Then I held the A105 key aloft. Simone nodded. Michelle nodded. It was time to break into Doctor Sauvage's office.

+++++

We crept across the main lawn in the cool night, the trees rustling in the autumnal air. The side entrance to the administration building was, as always, unlocked. Given how much sneaking around we got up to, they really ought to have locked it, but it was longstanding practice to leave the infirmary open around the clock. There were no Night Matrons about, and if the infirmary attendant was awake, she didn't have much of a light to go by.

The three of us - Michelle, Simone, and myself - crept down the hallway, past the headmistress's office and to Doctor Sauvage's. I'd transferred the anti-potion into a small coffee cup and had the key in my pajama pockets. The hallway was dim but not dark - every third light remained on even at night, but everything was cast in odd double-shadows from the uneven lighting. I handed Michelle the cup, fished around for the key, and slid it into the lock. Simone was huddled closer to the headmistress's office, keeping a lookout should anybody from the infirmary or outside start in our direction. Speaking of which...

"Hey! Hey, you!" someone shouted. It was Mrs. Glace, Ms. Rust's counterpart with the Junior Girls - it was, apparently, her night to check the building. Mrs. Glace, red-haired, short, and round, came storming down the hallway in our direction.

I thought we were cooked - only we weren't. She'd, improbably, spotted dark Simone in her dark pajamas in the dim the spot between the infirmary and Lily's office.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she said.

"I... I don't feel so well," Simone said.

"Do you expect me to..."

Then Simone vomited all over the floor, splashing ick all over the tile and tagging Mrs. Glace's fluffy-slippered feet. I would later learn that Simone can vomit on command - provided she's quite nervous. Which, back then, she pretty much always was, and for good cause.

"Oh, for criminy," the Night Matron said. "Come on, dear, into the infirmary."

That bought us some time, but not much. I slipped the key into the lock, clicked it open, and we were inside well before Mrs. Glace could waddle back out from the infirmary.

Doctor Sauvage's office, intimidating at the best of times if only by association, was downright terrifying at night. We didn't dare turn on the lights - there was a translucent window on the door and any significant illumination would give us away. We were even sparing with the little flashlight Michelle carried, using it for spot lighting only. In that grainy, intermittent lighting, the little masques and idols on display on the doctor's shelf became sneering imps. The cougar's skull became the grinning visage of a hunching beast. There was a strange energy about the place, the energy of magic everywhere... and a lot of it was coming from the cabinet at the back of the room, which Michelle was currently tugging.

"Shit... it's locked," Michelle whispered. She gave it another demonstrative tug to show me. The handle wouldn't turn.

I hunched behind the doctor's big teak desk and inspected the keyhole. I tried Tiffany's A105 key and, as I might have predicted, no dice. I retrieved a paper clip from the doctor's stationery drawer, straightened it, and started jiggering with the lock.

"That isn't going to work," Michelle said. "That never works."

In my experience, Michelle was exactly right - only the simplest of locks could be jimmied opened by a paper clip unless you really knew what you were doing - which I didn't. But I had an idea. I motioned for Michelle to take the lid off of the coffee cup and dipped the tip of the paper clip into the orange-yellow anti-potion cream. I slid it back into the cabinet lock, and the thing immediately clicked open.

Michelle clapped me on the shoulder. "Holy shit, Natalie! I can't believe that worked!"

"Me either," I grinned. An anti-magic potion foiled the magic lock far more easily than any normal lock might be picked.

We each took a handle and pulled the cabinet open with the eagerness of kids opening presents on Christmas morning. It wasn't hard to find Emi's potion, given that it was faintly-glowing. I carefully unstoppered it and gestured for Michelle to hand me the cup. When she didn't, I cleared my throat.

"Michelle!"

"Natalie, look!" She nudged me. "There have to be like fifty behavior plans in here."

I looked up - I couldn't even reach the very top shelf, but those top two shelves were crammed with the olive-green behavior plans assembled for each student. No wonder the cabinet was giving off so much magical mojo! Each of those hundred-ish-page booklets was an artifact in its own right codifying the rules we must follow and how our punishments would affect us.

"Look! Helena's!" Michelle said, sliding a book out. The spine was labeled in neat black print: 'Behavior Plan - Helena Sanchez'.

"And yours!" I said, tapping another volume: 'Behavior Plan - Michelle Wyman-Grace'. I scanned for my own, but the plans appeared to be alphabetized and all from the latter third of the alphabet. Alas, I was no longer a Warner, I was a Bryce. The other plans, including mine, were elsewhere. I started scanning for more cabinets to check...

"Natalie... the potion," Michelle said.

"Right." I unstoppered the potion again and prepared to pour.

Then the door flew open and Mrs. Glace stomped in. "What in Lucifer's name do you think you're doing?"

"Fuck!"

I made a run for it, trying to squeeze past the Night Matron in the doorway, but Mrs. Glace grabbed my collar with a meaty hand and held my little form in place. She pointed to Michelle with her other hand, mumbled some words, and Michelle collapsed to the floor, twitching and whimpering in pain. Then she dragged us both - me kicking and screaming, Michelle still whimpering and twitching - out of Doctor Sauvage's office and into - you guessed it - the hallway custodial closet.

+++++

"First time?"

"What?" Michelle said, fear wavering in her voice.

"First time? In the closet?"

"Um... yeah. You?"

"Third," I said. I held up three fingers, not that either of us could see them. "The first time was with Cassie when we tried to escape on my very first night. The second was after what happened at the formal."

"Oh..." Michelle said. "That was amazing, by the way. You're, like, some kind of hero."

"I have my moments," I grinned and stretched. It actually wasn't so bad in the closet - as small as Michelle and I were, it was pretty roomy. And somebody had finally replaced the stinking mop head. I pulled Michelle into a hug and we just sat there for a while. She palpably relaxed after a moment, leaning against me, our twin masses of absurdly perfect, way-too-long hair cushioning our heads as we held one another. The only sound was her gentle breathing.

"I still have my book," she said eventually.

"Hm?"

"I still have my behavior plan. And my flashlight."

"Let's take a look, then," I said.

We cracked it open. The first bit of the book was pretty straightforward - a brief set of twelve rules signed off by Headmistress Lily and Doctor Sauvage, undersigned by both of Michelle's parents. There were dark blots by their names... presumably, dried droplets of blood. Those twelve base rules were followed by a dozen pages of exegesis on the limits to satisfy or exhaust each rule - dense and complex, but ultimately comprehensible. The remaining three quarters of the book were filled with byzantine symbols, diagrams, and interactions. I saw one of the symbols shift slightly as I watched it and then revert to its original form.

"Did you see that?" I asked.

"See what? It's a bunch of gibberish," Michelle said.

Michelle was no math whiz, but neither was she a dummy. She knew about higher maths and how odd the notations could be. She could certainly understand if she was looking at an equation whose symbols she hadn't yet learned. But this was a familiar experience - certain people, perhaps most people, seemed locked out from perceiving whatever symbols St. Circe's used to encode its magic. Michelle was one of those people and I was not - no use denying it or belaboring the point.

"It's not gibberish... you're just not allowed to understand it. It's a psychological block, like with the door to A010. Remember that."

"Huh," Michelle said after a moment. "I guess that makes sense. So what do the symbols say?"

"I don't know. Not yet. When they come to punish us, we'd better hide the book here. We can pick it up later."

After we grew bored with Michelle's book, we crammed it under the little drainage grate by the sink. Then we huddled together, Michelle falling asleep first and snoring softly into my ear. And, despite being half-upright in a janitor's closet and expecting horrible punishment to befall me, I also drifted off and actually got a few hours of decent sleep.

+++++

"I think they're asleep."

"Whatever. Just open the door."

I snapped to wakefulness just in time to be blasted by daylight. I squinted, covered my eyes, and struggled to extricate myself from Michelle. Standing before us in the blinding light were two large (compared to me) figures: Headmistress Lily and Doctor Sauvage. Several other faculty and students milled about, curious as to what would befall us this time.

"I'll deal with them," the doctor said, stepping forward.

But Lily placed a firm hand upon her shoulder, squeezing at the gray fabric. "Doctor Sauvage, it was your office they broke into. You cannot be partial in this matter - I think I'd better discipline them."

I thought I saw the doctor sneer, the corners of her lip drawing taut. She took a deep breath. "As you wish... you'll discipline them sufficiently?"

"I'll discipline them sufficiently," the headmistress agreed.

"Natalie is a ringleader and a troublemaker," the doctor emphasized. "She must be put in her place and she must learn to respect her betters."

Lily turned to look at her, cultivating five or six seconds of awkward silence. "Prudence, I have been employed at this school for fifty-five years, sixteen years as its headmistress. I am familiar with our strictures and familiar with student discipline. Rest assured that no scintilla of justice will go underexamined. All right?"

"Of course, Bethany."

The headmistress was in no mood for nonsense - she reached into the closet, pulled us out, and marched us down the hallway with Sauvage and a half-dozen lookers-on following in our wake. The last thing I saw from the hallway as Lily closed the outer door to her office was the scowling face of Doctor Sauvage: gray hair, gray eyes, gray blouse, and an anger that could cut through leather. Then we were at the sole discretion of Headmistress Lily.

"Ladies," she said. "Ladies... what ever shall I do with you?"

"It was my idea, Headmistress Lily," I said. "I wanted to stop you - the school - from giving Emi more of that potion that makes her dumber."

"I see," Lily said. She glided behind her desk and produced a small coffee cup. Our remaining anti-potion. "And am I to take it, Natalie, that you, completely unschooled in the ways of magic, are responsible for mixing this potion?"

I'd made it with Simone's help, of course, but I wasn't about to rat her out. It had been mostly me. "I made it," I affirmed.

"With what directions? From whom? This potion is potent and reasonably advanced. So…who told you how to make it?"

"Nobody told me." Technically, that was true.

"I see," Lily said again. "Let's get our punishments out of the way, yes?"

Our punishments from Lily were shockingly mild - just enough to be noticeable if you were looking really closely - Michelle's hair lightened a shade and her overall appearance moved half a notch toward a look of permanently surprised innocence. She might have lost a little size, too, the few remaining months of puberty she had in her body sucked out, but it was hard to say - the change was subtle. As for me, I got two smacks on the bare butt - roughly two pounds of additional curve to my body, firm breasts and plush butt noticeably tighter in my pajamas. I'd traversed well into 'busty petite' territory now. Still... I'd been expecting something a lot worse.

"Michelle, you may go. New clothes will arrive by the end of the day - for today's classes, just use your old uniforms - they'll fit well enough. Natalie, I'd like to further discuss some things with you."

+++++

When Michelle left, Headmistress Lily gestured for me to sit. I did so, tugging at the seat of my now-tight pajama bottoms before hopping up into the chair. I bit my lip and tried to look as contrite as possible, flashing limpid emerald eyes up at the headmistress. She steepled her fingers and peered across the desk at me. She wore at least eight rings upon her fingers, mostly silvery with little blackened symbols and dark gems of onyx, agate, and jet glinting in the light.

"Natalie," she said, "you are impertinent, headstrong, and arrogant. Every model student who's grazed past your orbit, no matter how well-along in their behavior plan, has veered far off tangent. Despite many more corrective actions than most students ever get, you remain a disciplinary sty." She sighed. "In short, you remind me of myself."

"What?" I blinked.

"Even before Miss Petersen's parents gave me an earful - thank you for that - and at your repeated insistence, I'd taken a good look into your background. And, I must admit, Rowan Bryce's characterization of you was... uncharitable. I've been keeping my eye on you - deciding whether to come down hard, expel you from school, or something else."

My heart thudded in my chest - was I about to get expelled? And, if so, did that mean I was about to be remanded into the custody of the Bryces? Despite the headmistress's admission to their doing me injustice, it seemed possible... I took a deep breath. I calmed myself. If Lily intended to expel me, there would have been no need for further punishment. She'd done the bare minimum needed to satisfy Doctor Sauvage...

"You've chosen something else," I said.

"I have." She tapped the top of my anti-potion coffee cup. "Like I said, this is potent. No matter how good the directions were, whoever your mystery accomplice was, that's hard to accomplish. So you've got talent. And I think you've also got conscience. Ms. Law reports that you risked life and limb saving your friends from... from rape. I won't mince words - in the modern world, some of our ancient traditions come across as downright barbaric... would that I could snap my fingers and do away with them. I have no sympathy for rapists, and hence I had no qualms about taking you in from the Bryces. I had no reason to doubt Rowan's word, and his family have long been generous patrons of our academy. So I apologize to you, but I cannot undo what is done."

"The man from St. Lovelock's was going to turn me into a slug..."

Lily shrugged. "Maybe so. But for how long? Such transformations aren't stable. Even our strongest school-sanctioned compulsions will fade with time. To wit: what was your old name?"

"My old name? Martin Warner?" The name came out easily - not even a hint of compulsion holding me back. "Holy shit... my name is Martin Warner and I'm twenty-six years old..." I frowned. It somehow felt wrong to say - some significant part of my identity had shifted in the intervening weeks. "Hmm."

"These kinds of tricks look impressive, but they're weak. What we do here is more permanent than that. We shape the woman rather than playing these crude cantrips. Even your friend, Emilia Rose - as powerful as her sister's potion is, it cannot permanently change her. It can merely reinforce and ramify a powerful compulsion. Perhaps the physical brain will change from her new thinking patterns and the effects will, indirectly, become permanent in time - but I have my doubts. Instead, we have relegated her intellect to the back seat, and there it will stay for months, years, perhaps a lifetime. But we haven't turned her brain to mush. Our code will not allow it."

"Our code?" I asked carefully, wanting to make sure I grasped the implication.

Lily nodded. "Our code, Natalie - I would like to induct you into our order, for I believe you have the potential for great things. As long as we've had littles, none have ever been invited, but your case is exceptional for a host of reasons. In fact, your case only makes sense in light of your talents - you were accused of a horrible crime by poor Amanda Bryce... and, by all indications, she believed the accusation. I've reviewed all of the available documents… I wanted to believe Rowan Bryce, but in light of the evidence I cannot. Based on the available evidence, you did not rape his daughter. So why did she believe this?

"Consider your cousin, Vincent Warner, a lawyer of some repute. He's never lost a case - isn't that amazing? Defense lawyers are lucky to win a quarter of their cases. But if you've got a silver tongue, you can convince anybody of just about anything. You can even tease out their little qualms and quibbles and get them to sleep with you. The only problem is that, if that woman is also a special talent herself, she might wake up, relieved of your charms, and become convinced that what she did the night before was so utterly out of character that she must have been raped."

The implications of what Lily was saying slowly dawned on me - that I'd long had an innate talent, the same kind that Cousin Vince had, to lubricate social situations in my favor. That I could convince normal people of things with something approaching hypnotic control... and that Amanda Bryce had fallen sway to my talent, picked up on my subtle cues, and agreed to sleep with me, only to have the charm dispelled the following morning due to her own innate talents. That was why she'd freaked out so spectacularly. And now, because of that cosmically coincidental fuck up, we were both enrolled at St. Circe's in a capacity that neither of us would have found ideal.

"That makes a lot of sense," I said. "I'm... I'm glad it finally makes sense. It was really fucking with me. So - what now? I get the impression that, despite all that, you're not changing me back and I'm not free to go. Contracts and what have you."

"Correct," Lily stated. "Each student's enrollment is a blood pact that I cannot dissolve - in your case, not without the Bryce's consent. But I can amend the pact with a blood pact of greater power, so long as all parties will be satisfied at the contract's terminus. We need only get creative with our interpretation. And I will do so if you consent to join our order."

"As in... join your magic club?"

"The Sisterhood of the Starry Night," Lily nodded. "I would think that you of all people would know that magic is not a jest - and I hope you appreciate that this is a singular honor that I present. Even with your very extraordinary circumstances, I wouldn't have done it… but you insist on engaging in heroic theatrics that force my hand - I must either elevate you or destroy you. Kudos. So here's my deal: I have the authority to name initiates, but you must agree to be marked, here and now... otherwise, this offer will be forever rescinded and I can do nothing further for your behavior plan beyond exercising leniency… which I may or may not do."

"It doesn't sound like I have much choice," I sighed. "Where do I sign up?"

Lily reached into the streaky silver lock of her hair, bright against a sea of black coils, and removed a small needle. She pricked her own thumb with it, drawing up a bead of blood and smearing it across her top lip. Then she gestured for me to do likewise with my thumb. I did - the needle's poke didn't even hurt. One blobby bead welled out and the bleeding immediately stopped. The headmistress gently took my hand, lifted my thumb to her face, and smeared the bead along her bottom lip.

"Last chance to back out," she said.

I wasn't about to do that. "Do what you have to do."

Her lips glistening with our combined blood, Lily rose from her desk and walked around until she was standing behind me. She placed her hands upon my slim shoulders and shifted the coppery mass of my hair to the side. I felt the heat and the moisture of her breath against the back of my neck. I felt the soft, wet press of her lips. Something changed within me - it was as if a buzzing sound I'd always lived with had suddenly gone silent. Even as she moved my hair back, I felt the bloody mark absorb into me, warm and pleasant against the nape of my neck, settling in like a tattoo. Though, when I checked in the mirror later that afternoon, I found no trace of the mark, not even the brown remnants of blood. It had sunk into the very core of my being.

"We'll have to train you in secret, of course," Lily said. "Two hours, four mornings a week. You must tell no one..."

"Even Cassie?"

Lily dabbed her blood-streaked lips with a moist towelette. "You're going to tell her anyway, so I won't try to stop you. As your Sister in Night, it is permissible for her to know, even if I don't like it. But nobody outside the order can know - especially not the other littles. It is against our rules."

"Our rules? And those would be..."

"Our rules are the Creed of the Mistress. You will learn them and you will live them." Headmistress Lily pointed to something upon her desk - a slim green book entitled 'Initiate's Handbook'. It hadn't been there before... or, more probably, I hadn't been able to perceive it before. But I could certainly see it now. It was forest-green, canvas-bound, and only thirty or forty pages long, but the booklet had a ceremonial gravitas to it. Below the title was the duotone image of a red lip print - the bloody kiss. The headmistress's expression glowed with something verging on pride. "Welcome to the Sisterhood of the Starry Night, Sister Natalie. Go in peace."