[IC] Dragon's Mask

[bloonewb]

If Riley could speak, she would have used one of those words mummy and daddy say are not allowed. In that moment of panic, she had done something drastic, something that led to the opposite effect of what she had planned. Now this smelly monster peered down at her, its six eyes widening in sickening delight. Riley felt like she was shrinking in its gigantic presence.

Anger at herself, coupled with an extreme fear of being hurt, drove her legs to leap just as the monster lashed a stretchy arm out at the two of them. Nina escaped the bounds of the bookshelf and bounded away, and Riley quickly followed suit in the other direction. The two animals tore through the library, diving through bookshelves and popping out the other end in a mess of paper and leather bindings. From somewhere she cannot see, Riley heard a deafening roar, followed by the sound of wood smashing. She kept up her breakneck pace, knowing on some animal level that the monster could not be far behind her at any time.

[drewccapp]

"Visitors don't usually come up this way, y'know," the fox called over the wind. Far below, the cruise ship was letting off its final passengers. "Too fat to try the climb, I'd wager. Ha! You'll be the first in a long while."

Arthur's heart sank as soon as he heard those words. That meant those scary monsters were going to be here, right? This dream was already bad enough. All he wanted to do was avoid making it into a nightmare. He did not want to upset the fox, so he kept his lips sealed, but his expression became worried.

As they reached the top and pulled away from the edge of the cliff a safe distance Arthur stiffly got off the fox and wobbled wearily. After everything he had gone through it was not that surprising he was tired. Climbing the cliff seriously took more effort than he could have imagined. Wait... why did he feel tired in a dream?

He flopped onto his back and stared up towards the sky. He did not want to accept that this was not a dream. He wanted to deny it above everything. He just wanted to be home. He sniffed unhappily.

"I want to go home."

He sat up after a short while wincing in pain and looked at the fox. "How do I get back home?" He did not care about this Dooa unless they could help him go home.

[Mokley]

From somewhere she cannot see, Riley heard a deafening roar, followed by the sound of wood smashing. She kept up her breakneck pace, knowing on some animal level that the monster could not be far behind her at any time.

mmmrrrrrRRRAAAAOOOOOOO

A horrific noise thundered in the walls; the tentacled monster crashed to the floor, slipping and smashing into a bookcase in its haste to bow low -- for the sound had not come from Riley's pursuer.

It had come from behind the bolted metal door.

Riley had no time to look around -- she now had no hands to climb to the trap door with, so the only way open to her was the gaping bedroom door. Inside seemed like a dead end -- a nice place to take a nap, perhaps, if there weren't enormous monsters lurking around every corner. There were more books here, and candles and barrels of an odd but sweet yellow fruit.

There was also a dumbwaiter in the far wall, left open with a covered plate of cold meatloaf inside. The dumbwaiter shaft extended far, far up -- and far, far down -- with openings at every floor.

Exactly one minute after Riley had recited the spell, she returned to her old self.

From here she could hear the metal door open at the other side of the library. The growling and snarling rippled through the room -- and underneath it, a woman spoke.

"Someone has touched a book of magic," she said gently. "You captured the culprit, didn't you?"

A lot of stuttering and sloppy muttering ensued -- followed by a terrible scream and the slurp and crack of bone and flesh.

"Find it."

---

He sat up after a short while wincing in pain and looked at the fox. "How do I get back home?" He did not care about this Dooa unless they could help him go home.

The fox's ear twitched, and she turned her head with round brown eyes searching him, confused. "Well, right, we'd all like to go home little friend."

After a moment she crawled back to him, using her wings as feet, and laid on her stomach on the grass while she watched him. "Where's home fer you? What's home like? We can't really help you get someplace we don't know what or where it is."

Her ears twitched again thoughtfully -- and finally with a small hop she skittered to the edge of the tower and peeked over it toward the water. "You arrived down there, right? In the lab. Did you see a cat?" She grinned a little and turned again to face him.

"Sshh, sshh. I can help you go home -- but there's only one way that I know. Will you listen? Will ya take what I say seriously now?" Her voice fell to a hush, secretive and trusting. "There's a lady in a gold dress, inside the tower. She can send you home."

[bloonewb]

Riley scampered into the only obvious escape she could find, as fast as her new, stubby legs would take her. It was a door, rather strangely arranged, opening into a bedroom of sorts. She ran inside, and ducked behind a corner. The moment she did, however, a familiar sensation overcame her. She felt herself growing, changing shape, like when she spoke the spell. She could now look down, and found her fingers where once was Nina's paws. Her hands instinctively reached back behind her head, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the familiar texture of a braid. Her braid, that magic cannot take away forever.

Strangely, everything was silent. Riley, remembering the sounds of roars and growls, now heard nothing excepting the mysterious voice of a woman. Her words commanded respect, and Riley felt like she was shrinking again just listening to it. Her hands went to her braid, and she began making those therapeutic knots she knew so well. This place would not protect her forever. She looked around for any kind of escape, and found one on the far wall. An elevator of sorts, tucked away in the far wall. Riley ran over to it and clambered in, hiding behind a platter so high it went near to the top. She pushed the lever upwards, hoping it would take her up, or down, or anywhere far away from here where monsters seek to catch her.

[drewccapp]

The fox's ear twitched, and she turned her head with round brown eyes searching him, confused. "Well, right, we'd all like to go home little friend."

If that was meant to comfort Arthur in some way it failed. He hugged himself wishing he had Tyrone. Tyrone always made him comfortable. The fact that he was not the only one lost made him even sadder. He wondered just how many others were lost.

"Where's home fer you? What's home like? We can't really help you get someplace we don't know what or where it is."

Arthur sniffed and wiped his face. He glanced back and forth between the fox and the ground at his feet. "Home is in New Hampshire at Mommy's place. We have a nice house on a hill at the end of my street. Mommy must miss me really bad. I'm always with her. The other Mommies don't like my Mommy. I don't know why. She loves me and takes care of me and keeps me safe. She gave me Tyrone for my birthday! He's a dinosaur. I like dinosaurs. They're cool. I want to be a dinosaur when I grow up, so I'm not scared of anything anymore."

He shut his mouth and blushed embarrassed at his excitement.

Her ears twitched again thoughtfully -- and finally with a small hop she skittered to the edge of the tower and peeked over it toward the water. "You arrived down there, right? In the lab. Did you see a cat?" She grinned a little and turned again to face him.

Arthur winced and nodded. He murmured. "I don't like cats."

"Sshh, sshh. I can help you go home -- but there's only one way that I know. Will you listen? Will ya take what I say seriously now?" Her voice fell to a hush, secretive and trusting. "There's a lady in a gold dress, inside the tower. She can send you home."

Hope erupted in Arthur's heart. There was a way out? Then worry instantly washed it away. "What if she doesn't want to help?"

[Mokley]

*clickCLACK*

Nina pressed close against Riley while the dumbwaiter shifted and whirred. It dropped a half-inch, rumbled, then -- with a squeak and a churning noise -- began to climb upward. The square entryway dropped below, and Riley and Nina ascended into darkness.

The walls of the dumbwaiter shaft were cool and metallic and smelled like copper and salt. The squeaking of the mechanical pulley filled the shaft, but as she moved up and up Riley could hear other sounds across the walls of the floors that she passed:

A shuffling, snorting, coughing noise of someone or something eating.
The soft chimey ring of a music box plucking a gentle tune.
A low mechanical hiss and groan, accompanied by commanding shouts.
The faint choke and sniffle of someone crying.
The murmur of a distant television, and a frothy voice chuckling.
Whispers. A thousand faint voices across the elevator shaft wall, all speaking quiet and at once.

When the whispering faded and fell below -- when Riley's dumbwaiter had ascended long past it -- silence fell. There was no longer anything to hear but the squeak and whirr of the dumbwaiter.

But then, finally, was another sound: wind.

As she ascended higher, the howling rush of wind grew louder.

The walls of the dumbwaiter shaft were no longer metal now, but wood. She rose past smooth slats of pine and knotted oak.

*clickCLACK*

Everything stopped.

Wind rushed outside, but distant. The stillness was almost deafening. Nina barely moved and barely breathed.

In front of Riley was a set of slatted folding doors that could be pushed open with little effort. On the other side was a perfectly human-sized kitchen. Sunlight streamed in through pear-patterned curtains, pooling gently on clean counters and scrubbed wooden floors. Dust motes drifted lazily in the light; it seemed no one was home.

"What if she doesn't want to help?" A young boy's voice could be heard just outside.

"She most probably doesn't care a lick about helping at the moment," said the fox. She grinned a little, though, and tilted her furry head at Arthur. "Because she don't know you just yet. How's she goin' ta know she wants ta help you if she don't know you? A stranger don't have any responsibility to see you home -- but a friend! Ah, a friend will go to the ends of the world to get you back to your own soft bed. How're you intendin' to go home without makin' a few friends on the way? It's a long way to go just by your lonesome." She poked her nose a little closer to the boy. "The gold lady is lonesome too, I've heard."

[bloonewb]

The kitchen. It was a spot of normalcy in an endless swirl of the unknowable. In that, it seems almost . . . weird. This room was made for a human, an adult human at least. A place Riley could easily imagine daddy whipping up batter for one of his famous burnt cupcakes, or mummy rearranging the pans to a more 'efficient' layout. Light came from the other side of blinds that covered the windows. Could it be sunlight? Riley took one hesitant step in. Then another. Nina clutched at her ankles, stiff as a board.

A voice rings out. The sound of a boy, a regular person boy, if any exist here. Just on the other side of the window, too. She couldn't see on the other side, and was a little afraid to try. It didn't seem above any of the fairies she met so far to play a trick on her. Seems downright standard, in fact, if they were just using the voice of a person to lure her out and eat her up. Nina moved then. She held her nose up and sniffed in the air. She jumped around, slowly approaching the window. Was she smelling a human or a fairy? Riley had to know, even if it put her at risk. She felt her legs moving her, one step in front of the other, towards the blind. She pulled one side back and looked out, her greatest hope being that a glowing eye was not on the other end.

[drewccapp]

"She most probably doesn't care a lick about helping at the moment," said the fox. She grinned a little, though, and tilted her furry head at Arthur. "Because she don't know you just yet. How's she goin' ta know she wants ta help you if she don't know you? A stranger don't have any responsibility to see you home -- but a friend! Ah, a friend will go to the ends of the world to get you back to your own soft bed. How're you intendin' to go home without makin' a few friends on the way? It's a long way to go just by your lonesome." She poked her nose a little closer to the boy. "The gold lady is lonesome too, I've heard."

Arthur fidgeted as he listened to the fox speak. What she said made sense, but how could he make friends with the gold lady? His only friend was Tyrone. However, if he was to get out of here, he would have to find out how.

He shuffled his feet and stared at the ground. "How can I be friends with the gold lady? How do I even meet her?"

Arthur paced around a bit and then stopped in front of the house. He looked at it truly for the first time. He stared at the turnkey on the robot's back curious about what might happen if he turned that key. He then noticed some movement at the window. A set of eyes peeked out cautiously through the blinds. They looked just as scared as Arthur felt. He was not sure what to do, and as a result he just stared at them with a slightly dumbfounded expression.

[Mokley]

The fox had only noticed that Arthur seemed distracted by the house, but she didn't look at the window nor ask what he saw. She was, after all, convinced that he was a bit traumatized from his experience and bewildered by the place in which he now found himself.

"Well, that's nothin' easy -- but nothin' you can't handle," she said, encouraging, and she patted his head with a clawed wing. "She stays locked up in her room nowadays, singing -- you can sometimes hear her when it's quiet. You'll know it if ya hear it."

The fox's voice could be heard clearly, if slightly muffled, within the cottage. Nina scurried around the floor of the kitchen, snuffling in the corners for the hope of a morsel of food. She scratched and whined at a cupboard door, behind which was a covered cake plate full of buttercream cupcakes.

The fox continued: "You take that elevator down to the library, and you follow the eyes. If anythin' tries to stop you, you just gotta tell them you're not afraid, and you gotta mean it. That'll stop 'em in their tracks. And when ya find the gold lady -- well, she's got nobody to talk to. You're a good listener -- she'll like you."

Within the cottage, a small voice squeaked that only Riley could hear: "Lies!" a little mouse poked its nose out of a breadbox on the counter, wriggling. "The gold lady is the terror that keeps us all prisoner! Only her death will free us! We all used to be like you. Children! Children! But now with teeth and tails, we forget who we were, but I remember! I remember! The caged nightingale song of the gold lady! Don't listen, don't listen!"

[bloonewb]

It was no monster. No giant, hungry horror that wanted nothing more than to gobble her up and leaver her bones for the crows to peck. It was just a boy. A human boy, by the looks of it. Amidst the swirl of outlandishness, he looks almost out of place in his normalcy. Perhaps this is how Riley herself looked to the monsters. Maybe that's why they want her out so much. Point is, she needed to speak to this boy, to hear his story. If it is the same has her own, maybe together they would have an idea on what exactly happened to steal them from their homes and into fairyland.

As the two talked outside, Nina scurried about the room, her nose alive. She must sense something. Riley picked her up and pulled her away from the cupboard she was scratching at. In a world like this, it was best not to mess with things not understood. Then, as she struggled to hold onto the wriggling Nina, a voice rang out, somewhere in the room.

The voice went back to the head of a mouse, poking shyly out of a breadbox. Riley turned to watch it. The little mouse raved in short bursts of words, sounding as mad as a hatter. Who should she trust? This little mouse, who she doesn't know in the slightest? The wind-up fox outside, who has never seen her? One thing she does know, she must speak to the little boy. She began opening drawers and cupboards, looking for anything to shorten the gap between the two of them. So close, and yet so far. One cupboard she opened yielded what she was looking for. A platter of delicious looking cakes, which Nina dove for with the ferociousness of a tiger. Riley snatched up the plate and scraped off the cupcakes with her hand, albeit with a little hesitation. She didn't realize how hungry she was. The cakes looked so good . . . but what if they were fairy poison? No, she had to concentrate. Focus on the task. She lifted up the empty cake plate and heaved it at the window separating her from the boy. That ought to make things easier.

[drewccapp]

Arthur half listened to the fox while he stared at the window as the pair of eyes had since moved. Was it a monster? Would he be eaten? He couldn't tell through the shades. He knew there had been nothing human so far. However, he also learned that not everything here was mean either. The fox had helped him. He was helped in the water. In spite of all of this, he was ready for the worst to happen. His only problem: he had no clue what he would do when it did happen.

He felt himself shaking with nerves. The idea of meeting with the golden lady still scared him. He didn't want to impose on someone so important sounding. What if he made her mad? In spite of the fox's statements towards the opposite, Arthur had to overcome his own conditioning.

*SMASH*

Arthur flinched as the sound of shattering glass turned his focus toward the window again. A plate splashed through the window and then flopped heavily onto the porch. He stepped up cautiously onto the porch wondering every step of the way why he was not running away.

He swallowed nervously. "H-hello?"

[bloonewb]

The boy finally decided to speak. Riley only heard one word, but that was enough. He spoke with an exaggerated lilt. He sounded like a Canadian or an American. "Hello?" Riley called back, not yet daring to pass through the broken glass.

The breadbox mouse skittered and tried to escape, screaming warnings and omens in a higher and higher voice. Nina stopped licking the icing on the cakes all splattered on the ground and jumped at him with a growl. She landed square on the mad mouse, pinning it in her paws. "You're coming with me," Riley said, picking the mouse up and holding it in her hands. He continued to squirm and curse. There was probably nothing more annoying in this entire world.

Slowly, Riley tread around the bits of broken glass, making her way to the window. With one hand, she pushed the curtain aside. Then, trembling, she put a foot through the hole. Nothing was scratched yet. When her foot touched ground, she brought the other over as well. Fortunately, she was untouched. Nina bounded through with a graceful leap, curling around her leg. She stood there, the seconds ticking away without a word. " . . . Hello," she said, breaking the silence between her, the fox, and the boy. "Who are you?"

[drewccapp]

Arthur was surprised at the sudden joy he felt at seeing another human in this strange and scary place. He had never enjoyed the company of his peers. They often were quite cruel to him. Except here he found himself crying. Crying tears of joy. He tried to hold it back, but he could not help it. So, he stood there tears pouring down his face trying his best to avoid making too much noise.

"I'b Arphurr," He sobbed. "I bought I was alobe."

He sniffed heavily trying to clear his nose so he could speak more clearly. He felt so overjoyed that he was not alone he could not even hear the mouse as it continued to rant and rave. Suddenly, a smile broke out on his face as his joy fully manifested itself outside of the tears. He wiped the snot from his face and cleared his throat.

"I'm Arthur," He repeated. "I thought I was alone. I'm so glad I'm not! Where are you from? I've never hear a voice sound like that before!"

He frowned in puzzlement as he realized the words he was saying felt empty somehow.

[bloonewb]

Riley is probably one of very few, if any, that can claim to be experienced with the fairies. She had technically, in a very loose sense, done battle with beasts far larger than herself, and she came out of it near unscathed. However, she was not prepared to face this weepy boy. Crying unnerved her. She never knew what to do.

". . . I'm Riley," she said, slowly, as Arthur's crying subsided. "From Scalby parish. You wouldn't happen to know it, would you?" Probably not, sadly. Saying the name of her home, however, gave her some sort of hope. Scalby parish, where she was born. Where she would hunt for the fairies, dawn till dusk, if not filling her head with books of the old stories. She wanted to return to her mummy and da so much, it pained her heart. This boy was no different from her in that regard. She looked back at the shattered window, with its glass spilling across the ground in near-invisible shards of razor painfulness. "We probably should not go back that way."

[drewccapp]

Arthur now grinned from ear to ear. The saltiness of his tear stains tingled on his skin slightly. He shook his head after Riley introduced herself and asked if he knew where Scalby parish was. He pointed his thumb at his chest. "I'm from Amherst, New Hampshire!"

"We probably should not go back that way."

Arthur pointed at the door at the other side of the porch not far from the wind-up robot. "You're right. There's a door over there! I hope the smashing didn't wake up any monsters!"

He could not hide the fact that he was scared of pretty much everything here. Normally, people scared him too. Especially people near his age, however for some reason he felt fine with Riley. Maybe because everything else here was at least ten times more scary than humans. He nearly pitched a fit when the fox spoke to him, but he did not want to fall.

He looked back at the fox finally remembering some of what the fox had said. "What happens if I don't tell them I'm not afraid, and I don't mean it if I do? I-I dunno if I can do that."

[Mokley]

The fox had remained quiet, wide-eyed in confusion, while Arthur and the window-smasher -- Riley, it seemed! -- exchanged their hellos. Her ears swiveled to catch their meanings, her chin pressed against the ground, until Arthur addressed her directly. The tears had already begun to dry on his face, which was heartening at least. The fox smiled with a glimmer of small teeth, in an attempt to be encouraging.

"Then yell good and loud," she suggested. "Show 'em your teeth, make as much noise as your little lungs can muster. The guests'll happily snatch up anythin' that runs away quiet -- but they'll think twice about swallowin' somethin' loud and sharp." The fox offered a wink. "There's more'n one way to be courageous."

She lifted her head a little and flicked her ears at Riley, her nose wriggling. "You smell like them. You've met 'em and lived, then!"

"Let me go!" the little mouse rioted, wriggling in Riley's grip.

The flying-fox jumped slightly; she hadn't noticed! "Dooa, there ya are! We were lookin' for ya, to help lil' Arthur here git home. He Fell just recently, he did."

Dooa the mouse stopped to glare beadily from Arthur to Riley and back. "It's true the Gold Lady can send ya home, if she wants. If she doesn't want, she'll put you to work or turn you into something terrible and you'll be stuck here forever like the rest of us. The better way is to kill her -- we'll all still be stuck here, but at least we'll all be human again and free."

The fox lowered her head again, ears back against her skull. "I don't approve of killing."

"I don't approve of being imprisoned!" Dooa squeaked defiantly. "Don't you want to be a little girl again? What about the kids in the restaurant, working themselves weary day and night?"

"I ..." The fox paused, looking away. She did want to be human again -- but she couldn't ask it of Arthur and Riley. It was too horrible. She brightened and looked to Riley and Arthur. "Don't worry about us! I know the Gold Lady will like ya and help ya, if you give her a chance!"

[drewccapp]

Arthur glanced back and forth between the mouse and the fox as they argued. Once again every fiber of his body tense with fear as he stared at the mouse as if it were a monster bound to eat him. Mommy was terrified of mice. She must have had a good reason. Somewhere in the back of his mind a thought came around: why is this tiny thing so scary? He closed his eyes and took a few breaths to try and calm down and then he heard:

"I don't approve of being imprisoned!" Dooa squeaked defiantly. "Don't you want to be a little girl again? What about the kids in the restaurant, working themselves weary day and night?"

He had to hear it a second time for the words to get through his panic-ridden mind. The mouse and the fox use to be human?! Why did the Gold Lady turn them into animals? Was she really someone that he wanted to meet? What if there was another way that avoided meeting or killing the Lady?

He looked at Riley with his eyebrows furled with concern. What would she say?

He turned his attention back to the talking animals. "I don't want to hurt anyone. I know what it feels like to be hurt. It's not fun. I'm sure killing someone hurts too. Like a lot. Plus it's mean." He took a deep breath. "Why not ask her to turn you back? She can do that right?"

[bloonewb]

The little mouse, Dooa, began squirming ever harder in Riley's grip. She gritted her teeth, determined not to let him hop into the grasses and disappear. She didn't know what to think of this whole conversation. One thing is for sure, though. She didn't trust this Gold Lady. If she was capable of turning people into animals and toys, capable of enslaving children like herself or Arthur, there can't be any sympathy in her heart left. "There must be other ways to return to the real world," she said, defiantly. "Some way that we don't need any help."

Mum always said that everything has a beginning and an end. When Riley had come home one day after hearing one of her classmates talk about someone he called "God" who lived in the "Church" parish, she became all huffy, saying that God didn't live in Church or something along those lines. Riley herself couldn't understand most of it, but she knew that this Gold Lady must have an end, and therefore a beginning. There has to be another way to get back to Scalby! Already, a plan was forming in her mind, a plan that can only end in blood. She would find the Gold Lady, and kill her. "There's only one way to find out," she said, a quiet whisper to herself. She raised her voice into the most commanding tone she can muster and spoke. "Show us the way to the Gold Lady."

[Mokley]

"Ask her ta turn us back?" The fox raised her head a little, curious at that novel thought. She looked up at the sky, her mouth closing slowly, imagining what it might be like to ask such a thing of the Gold Lady. She shook her head quickly. "No, no, no! I couldn't do that! She's the Gold Lady! The most important person in this whole world! What if I mess up? What'd everyone think of me? Oh, I don't think bein' human is worth that risk."

"I do," the mouse squeaked defiantly. Dooa wriggled his nose at Riley, and he pointed with a little paw over Riley's clasped hands at the open elevator that stood awkwardly at the edge of the top of the tower. Inside looked nearly identical to the little room that Riley had first arrived in, and had left behind at the horrors' restaurant. "That can take us to the library -- and the Gold Lady!"

The fox looked far less pleased. "You'd barge in unprepared, then? The horrors'll be guarding her, an' there's no reasoning with them. Best have a friend and a bit o' glimmerdust, and a bite to eat just in case." She turned a dark eye to Arthur, and very subtly motioned toward the silent robot on the porch of the little house with the broken window and the closed door -- and the windmill that rose beside it, with the great mountain-crystal shining beyond it.

The wind swirled on the grassy tower-top; the windmill's sails caught it and spun slowly with a soothing k-thump, k-thump, as it had turned for innumerable years. There was a little door in the old stone windmill, which would open with a shove and a push. Inside the windmill was shiny and dusty and warm. As the sails turned high above, a grindstone turned and rolled in the pulverized glimmer of pink crystals, fed into the machine by a perpetual clockwork pulley that ticked and spun through a hole high in the far wall.

The door to the house, similarly, could be opened with a turn and a shove. There was little here besides a few cozy chairs and an unmade bed in the corner, and the kitchen where several cupcakes had been tossed on the floor, but perhaps there was food to be found among the cupboards -- like a fresh carrot pie and a jar of chestnuts and a basket of ripe sweet plums. Beside the front door were two pair of soft boots, a flute and a hatchet.

And the robot -- well, he only needed a winding to be good as new.

The elevator, with a press of the correct coppery button, could easily open upon the very same library where Riley and Nina had very narrowly escaped capture not so long ago -- and had heard the quiet sadness of a woman singing.

[bloonewb]

Riley looked out to where the mouse Dooa's nose pointed. What she saw brought back the memories of her adventure. In so little time, less even than one day, she had seen so much. She remembered the devious Howl, who tricked her in that same elevator, or one close enough. She remembered the giant table, with the sickening monsters in an endless marathon of glut. She remembered meeting little Nina, as huddled and afraid as herself, and making that mad leap out of the clutches of the dining horrors.

Still, something had to be done about this Gold Lady dilemma. To kill her, first Riley must find her, and to find her, she needed to try her luck at one of those buttons again. The symbols meant nothing to her. She had never seen them in her life, even in the old books she devoured in her earlier days. They were fairy symbols that never escaped into her world. She had to decode them somehow, unlock their secrets, and bring them with her to Scalby.

"Come, Arthur. Let's go into that elevator," she said, pointing over to the focus of her thoughts. She hoped, on some level, that she would see Howl again. To talk to him or hit him, she had not decided yet.