There was a big argument. You didn’t like it, not one bit, but in the end you won so that’s all that matters.

The girls are all gathered in Daphne’s house sipping at tea that Edmund delivered while you get ready for your big adventure. An adventure that you’re going to do alone, because Abigail is fragile and so are your other friends.

You, of course, aren’t sitting at the table and having tea. No, instead you’re standing across from a very worried Abigail and are trying very hard to pretend that her big wet eyes aren’t doing things to your tummy. It’s not fair that she can look at you like that.

“You can’t come,” you tell her again. “You’re too squishy.”

“I know that, but you might get hurt,” she says.

This is not the first time she brings this up and it’s not the first time she’s wrong about it. “The big mean people can’t hurt me. I’m unhurtable. But they could hurt you and that would make me very...” you pause, then realize that you have found the perfect counter. “That would hurt me. Yes. I can be hurt if you’re hurt, but they can’t hurt me unless they’re hurting you.” Perfect!

“Abigail,” Daphne says as she places her teacup down without so much as a click. “I actually agree with Dreamer. Strange as she might be, she is still more than capable of taking care of herself. If she runs into any trouble or fails to return before nightfall, then we can act on our own. I think Edmund has some old friends who could help mount a rescue. Still, we ought to at least give her a chance.”

You nod. Daphne is being very smart.

Then Abigail turns her wet eyes on Daphne and her confidence crumbles. “U-unless, well, maybe we could go,” Daphne says.

You huff. This is taking too long. “Fine. I’ll stay here and go.”

“Oh?” Charlotte asks. She has been looking around ever since she entered Daphne’s house but now she’s focused on you. “You can split yourself?”

“Oh no,” Abigail whispers in horror. You can understand her fear. That would mean having to split her hugs between you and another you, which is only half as many hugs.

You shake your head. “No. I just need to leave some of me here and let this part of me go.” To demonstrate you tentacle a hole though the universe and have one of your wigglier tentacles poke out of it in the air behind you. “See, now you’ll know that my big body is safe.”

“Your big body?” Charlotte asks.

You don’t have a lot of time to explain, but it would be rude not to. “This body,” you say as you gesture to yourself. “Is my small body. My big body is where I am. This is like a puppet body for hugs and cuddles.” Which now that you mention it means Abigail never hugged your big body. It would take many, many hundreds of years for her to hug all of it. You need to hurry up and make her less mortal.

“So, as long as your main body is intact, you can just make a new puppet body?” Charlotte asks.

“Yes!” you say.

She shrugs and turns to Abigail. “I say let her try. Though she really ought to wear a disguise.”

There’s some more arguing after that, but it’s about what kind of clothes you should wear and then a long explanation about why your pretty dress, while very pretty (everyone agrees) isn’t the best for being sneaky and is recognizable on account of being your pretty dress.

In the end, the sun is well on its way towards the horizon when you step out of Daphne’s mansion wearing an all black outfit covered in holes for your tentacles and a lot of black cloth wrapped around your face. Charlotte declares that you look like an adorable ninja.

You don’t know what that means, but if it’s adorable then it probably does look like you. You are a thing that should be adored.

Walking all the way to the Inquisition’s headquarters would take too long, so when you’re finally outside you make a big tentacle come out of the ground, wrap your small body around its tip, then fling yourself across the city. Like throwing a rock only it’s you instead.

You cheer as you fly past a bunch of houses and, thanks to your super fast reflexes, snap a pigeon out of the air as an in-flight snack.

You crash into the roof of an apartment building two blocks away from the Inquisition, roll a lot to bleed off your speed, then fall off the edge and crash at the bottom of an alleyway. But you didn’t lose your snack and you can fix all the broken bones so it’s okay.

Getting up, you dust off your ninja outfit, rub some feathers off your face, then stick your head out of the alley.

There aren’t a lot of mortals around at this hours, so hardly anyone notices as you run across the streets towards the big castle and slip through some alleyways and up some walls with your tentacles.

In no time at all you’re standing before the Conclave of the Inquisition. The front of the building is large and flat and made of dark stones with little alcoves where statues of people with silly hats holding beakers and rulers and scales are all staring down towards the big doors at the front.

You find a shadowy place next to a newspaper stand across the street, then you grab some more shadows from a few other places and bring them closer so that you’re even harder to see.

This is where you’ll do all your work.

Reaching out, you send a billion little tentacles that are just on the other side of everything questing within the Conclave to map out every tunnel and passage and room. Some tentacles hit things that shouldn’t be and get zapped or eaten, but they’re small and don’t matter.

You find Pou-tine right where the important man’s memories said they would be. It’s deep, deep under the building, in a room built with hundreds of circles in the ground and a bunch of obelisks that might be made of bones around. Pou-tine is stuck in the centre with all sorts of equipment being aimed at them.

Nodding, you grab your body with another tentacle and move yourself over to where Pou-tine is.

The room smells like rubbing-alcohol and grease. It’s barely lit by a few yellow-ish magic circles on the walls next to rows of metal desks just like in school.

Pou-tine shifts a little, a fri-eye turning in your direction.

“Hello, Pou-tine,” you say. “I’m here to free you.”