Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 23, 17:19
Subject: tell me you're not dead

Where in Morgan's vale have you gone??? Have been scouting everywhere to no result. Am v. perturbed, as are all. Rumour holds that Pitch is missing, too; don't know if this is supposed to reassure me. Roommate's Anathema should be ingrained after eight years, but when it comes to Pitch, I don't trust anything.

(You should have heard him in the council meetings—insufferable prat. All smirks and privilege, barely listened when other people talked, but expected we'd hang on his every word. Remind me never to marry an arrogant white aristocrat, Simon. I'd gag on my own contempt.)

Anyway, point at hand: Tell me where you are. Seems your mobile's off. Do you need help? We're ready.

Love you.

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 24, 2:44
Subject: I'm ok

I'm sure you remember our old cipher. Baz reminded me how it worked, which was a bit embarrassing as I seem to recall we mostly used it to conceal things from him. I guess not very well.

I asked him to hide me. He did. Don't want to say much more about where, but I know you'll feel better knowing it's not at all the grotty hovel in the woods I'd imagined. A real bed, for one.

Sorry you've been worried. I think it's best for everyone I'm here. Council was going to send me to Australia, where I couldn't help against Humdrum. Here, at least, I have a shot. They're prob trying to find me, but as I've reached the age of majority, they can't legally order me remanded back to anyone's control. So long as they don't nab me, I'm free to help.

The H is getting stronger, can be many places at once. Taking Watford back won't be enough, not that we even know how to do that. That's where you come in. (But I know how you are with a puzzle. STOP if it gets dangerous. I mean it.)

Haven't talked to you much lately, for which I'm also sorry—guess I've been too caught up in my own drama. Anyway, please trust B, if you can. He's on the right side (or sides, maybe—nothing's ever simple with him, is it?).

Also, how's Wallis? (Will remind you re: white snob as needed, but seems like you're in the clear for now.)

Love you, P.

S

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 24, 21:36
Subject: recon

Simon,

How lovely to trot out the old code again. I'll stick with it. Hope you remember the switch triggers.

Am glad you're sorry, but stop harping on it already. Gladder you're okay.

Osiris is charming—excessively courteous, and so v. handsome, and just stocky enough that I don't feel like the anchor on his chain. Also an indispensable help in Practical Chemistry; Desai has been phoning it in since you flew the coop. I like him (O) quite a lot.

Agatha and I started to investigate today. (We've been closer since the Occupation started. It's kind of nice.)

It feels bloody awful when you get near Watford now; we were pretty okay till we crossed the Colne, but then right away the prickling and queasiness commenced. Still, we carried on past the boathouse and warehouses and stables and whatnot till the moat. The bridge is down, but we couldn't set foot on it. Agatha said it felt as though a wind of knives were gusting from the castle—it hurt like Aleister just to look.

Still, Ag has this thing about the merwolves, so we scooted sideways along the moat in a certain degree of wringing agony looking for them. She'd brought a bit of sausage to toss them—you know they leap out of the water for it—but it just hit the water and sank. She looked about to cry. But then underneath, we saw a frenzy of dark fur and snapping teeth. They're there. They just won't surface.

We turned back then, all twisted inside; we had to stop at the boathouse loo to retch. Horrid. What a relief to get back to the RAF base, where the discomfort's more like an annoying hum.

Hope this shows we're not trying to get hurt, but don't let yourself think it's your place to protect us. We'll journey all seven hells with you. I mean that.

Love to you in your non-hovel (which I can't help picturing as an oubliette, even with its “real bed”),

Penelope

PS: IS HE WITH YOU? Can't help but note you refer to “a” bed. I thought whatever was happening ended with that punch-up, but Agatha says that's my wishful thinking. And if together, is that my fault? The bitter irony.

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 25, 11:55
Subject: a thought

Yep, it's all your fault (except for the seven years of history before the dance). I should probably thank you sometime. I don't reckon I can explain, but this, at least, seems exactly as it should be.

Could it be that the water holds magic better than the other elements? Baz snorted when I suggested this, but you know Baz when it's someone else's idea.

Love to you in the slopping rain,

S

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 25, 17:21
Subject: he's given you windows?!

I hope that's what the rain comment meant. Unless you had to piece it together from his showing up cloaked and soaked when he delivered the day's gruel ration to your fetid dungeon. (Which at least appears to have reliable wi-fi.)

Am latching onto your water idea like a stoat onto a rabbit. First real test of the rel with Osiris, I realise: He's great with normal me, but can he handle me on a mission? So far, prognosis looks good, because when he a) noticed that I was DEVIATING REMARKABLY from standard behaviour (by which, as you can imagine, I mean I was muttering and pacing and being v. unsociable), b) he did not shove off for greener pastures, but c) instead, politely inquired whatever could be on my mind, and d) when told, immediately asked how he could give aid.

As a Chem whiz, he thinks your hypothesis plausible. Something about polarity of bonds, and water's properties as a solvent. He is darling and useful.

Plan to bring some more people in on it, as next steps need to take place underwater. GG and her bf Niall both took up scuba a few years back on a lark. (And, Laveau's legions, the Roommate's Anathema was all that saved her the twelfth time, or eightieth, that I tripped on those air tanks in the middle of the night.) Pretty sure I can talk her into a river foray. (If that works, then maybe the moat next? But most wetsuits lack merwolf armor. Well, you think on that.)

Perhaps you had better invent a new code so you can reveal if Pitch is starving or beating or ravishing you. Until then, I will attempt to avoid all such imaginings.

Yours,

Penelope

Chapter Text

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 26, 21:48
Subject: water!

Waited for a break in the rain and tested your water hypothesis in the river before supper this evening (no thanks to you) and glory be, when she was underwater, GG (who has finally surrendered fight to make me call her Georgiana) made magic. Real magic. We worried that the scuba gear would garble her voice, so went for a low-impact spell without dodgy homophones, just in case. She made a lovely little glowing light under the water, and we on the bank (me and Agatha and Osiris and Niall) cheered lustily. Stella Matutina!

Had GG test again on land as soon as she'd got out, and no effect. Water hypothesis looks better and better.

Want to try in the moat next, but will be trickier to do so without arousing suspicion—farther away, will take longer. And still the damned merwolves. If the magic works, Osiris points out, GG and Niall can just erect a shield spell around themselves, but a) what if it doesn't work? and b) shields are biggish magic. I'm worried about attracting the Humdrum's notice.

Ag's best thought is sausages.

No replies in 24 hours, Simon, makes me worry. You are supposed to be the one who solves beast problems. Reasonable excuses: Being racked; devising new cipher so I can free you from your roommate's clutches; entertaining Humdrum. Unreasonable excuses: All others—don't even bother.

Missing you a great deal,
I remain,
yr concerned and loyal friend,

Penelope

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 27, 4:34
Subject: I have a bad cold

I know, it's a shit excuse. But I have been feverish for the last day and a half, with hallucinations and delirium and the lot. You don't need to free me from B's clutches, but might need to free him from my bedside, where he's been stuck plying a raving madman with toast and tea and cold towels since I took ill.

Woke a bit ago in drenched sheets, sweat bursting from every bit of me, so I hope the worst has passed. Now I'm sitting in the other corner of the torture chamber while Baz requisitions fresh linens from the dungeonmaster and prepares to rough me up a bit.

(I suppose there's no way to make you believe this, but my sickness seems to have unlocked some trove of infinite patience in him. He didn't even complain when I sweated through his best pyjamas.)

I will cogitate on the merwolves, but first I think I need to go back to my clean bed for twenty or so hours.

Love from the borderlands of sanity,

S

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 27, 9:03
Subject: shit excuse

Please advise re: merwolves immediately.

And why are you wearing Pitch's pyjamas? (Wait. Maybe don't answer that.)

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 27, 12:17
Subject: pyjamas

I wasn't. He was. I was really sweaty.

(SORRY PEN. I know you too well to believe you'd ever not want to know something.)

Merwolves it is.

Do you have some kind of mental block about animals? I've never understood why you need me for facts you must have read in the same books as I did.

Here's what I recall:

• Underwater, they communicate with pheromones and howls; they're secretive and try not to alert others when there's food close to hand

• They attack movement, so your best defence is often no defence at all—just remain still, which is probably quite difficult once you've caught a peek at their teeth

• The teeth are sharp and plentiful, with jaws strong enough to crush bone

• They eat a ton, and if no one's been chumming the moat lately, they're probably ravenous

Sorry that this isn't exactly encouraging. The best bet might be to toss some fierce live prey into the moat a goodish distance from where you intend the divers to enter. If you can occupy the wolves with stalking and shredding a good meal fin from fin, you can probably buy yourself some time.

I wish I knew how many there were. Usually you just see a few at once, but they're quite quick.

Did GG and Niall do any spearfishing in their scuba phase? If they've got a speargun stowed in the boathouse, it might be of some service.

(While tightening the thumbscrews, my gaoler reminds me that silver deters the merwolves too. I've seen them strike at the punts on occasion, though, so it's no guarantee.)

I send you my love and exhort you to stay out of the wolf-infested moat at all costs. B sends a weather report: Storm returning, and it's a whopper.

I am regaining my robust colour, but still weak as Blake with Boucher. Tell me how it goes.

S

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 27, 21:03
Subject: the horror

Aleister almighty. What do you get when you cram two 18-year-old magicians in an oubliette? (Answer: It's too disgusting to remember.) (Ha. Oubliette joke.)

Thanks for the merwolf advice, but perhaps you could respond a bit more promptly next time round? You know we haven't many computers here, and our hours are limited. I've been just itching for my turn.

Anyway, shall lobby for a moat dive tomorrow, should this dry patch hold a bit longer than your pessimistic bedfellow predicts. Or perhaps can track GG and Niall down now—I suspect they'll be in the rafters of the old theater or some such dark hideaway. GG's usually game for a nighttime adventure, and Niall's usually game to do what GG tells him to.

Will keep you apprised.

Love,

Penelope

PS: So rapturously excited to see MAGIC again, Simon. Am like a child awaiting the first snow or, well, like me when I see Osiris strolling in distance and think that I will get to kiss him. Didn't realise how I yearned for it till that little underwater twinkle of GG's renewed my hope.

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 28, 20:40
Subject: how'd it go?

Did you brave the rain?

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 29, 10:18
Subject: anything to report?

Penny? No replies in 24 hours makes me worry.

* * *

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: April 29, 20:53
Subject: hold on

All right, Pen, I'm coming after you. This had better be good.