Villainess 4: Janet’s Haunted Escapade

Red Pill 23: Promises, Transformations

DeeDee had a lot on her mind as she looked for Astor Bartleby’s profile book in the ducal section of her private library. On finding said volume on the shelf above her head, DeeDee took it out and was about to go when she thought of something else. After inspecting the contents of her private library for any tampered volumes and finding five such volumes, DeeDee found it strange that she had noticed Rosalie’s missing book but not Lady Dorian’s. How could she have missed something like that, especially after she had inspected the contents of her private library?

Normally, she would have noticed a missing volume right away without the aid of other people (namely, Janet’s clones and Celeste Graves). As the Guardian of the Aether and a watcher of the spirits of the dead, she kept the records of everyone and anyone within the borders of the Kaden Kingdom, from residents to visitors. Whoever was causing these changes was doing a good job slipping past DeeDee’s detection, which irked her to no end. Was Lady Dorian behind all of this? Or was this so-called saintess from the Schrader Kingdom the culprit? Were Lady Dorian and this saintess one and the same? If not, then who the hell is this saintess person? And if so, then how did Lady Dorian slip past DeeDee’s notice?

“DeeDee, what’s keeping you?” Rowena said.

“I’m checking something out,” DeeDee said and looked back at the row of spines showing the names of Astor’s family members, four of which interested her in light of the connections blooming in her mind.

“Want us to help you?” Celeste asked.

“No, it’s fine,” DeeDee said. “I’ll be out in a second.”

So DeeDee took out the four volumes and was about to go again when she had another thought: barring Rosalie and Lady Dorian’s books, she might glean something useful from those of Lady Jenna Childeron and Lady Vesper Felton, both from prominent count families allied with the Dorian family before their last downfall as a disgraced viscount house. With this in mind, she searched deeper into her private library through the surnames of the count families in the lower shelves, spotting the Childerons and the Feltons and picking out the books she needed. Now carrying seven profile books, she passed the threshold back into Celeste’s office—

When Rowena said, “What are those books for?”

“I’ve got a lot of ground to cover,” DeeDee said, placing the books on the desktop, “but since there are four of us here now, we should work together,” and she gave Astor’s book to Rowena, then kept Old Duke and Duchess Bartleby’s books for herself, then pushed Lord Jericho Bartleby and Sir Aaron Bartleby’s books to Maxine, and then pushed Lady Childeron and Lady Felton’s books towards Celeste before DeeDee sat back in her designated seat between Rowena and Maxine. “After reading through the entries, we’ll share our findings.”

So all four women took up their books and started reading, which jogged Celeste’s memory, for she looked up from her volume and said, “DeeDee, you wanted me to review Janet and Rowena’s books, right?”

“That’s right, yes,” she said, recalling what she had tasked Lady Graves with before leaving Elba House to fetch Sir Sydney and Lord Woodberry. “Find anything?”

Maxine and Rowena paused in their reading and waited as Celeste pulled open a drawer. On taking out two books from it, Celeste said, “In both books, I felt an aura from them. It was faint in Rowena’s entries but stronger in Janet’s entries, tinged with the darkness affinity. Did you find them right next to each other on the shelf?”

“Yeah, I did,” DeeDee said, “but the entries were redacted, till I had Janet’s clones read their final entries in her book. That’s when I thought someone impersonating Rosalie might have infiltrated my private library and stolen Rosalie’s book. Anyway, continue.”

“After looking through Janet’s entries,” Celeste said, “both the redacted ones and the legible ones, I noticed all but one entry tinged with the darkness affinity.”

“Which entry was that?”

“The one in which Janet jumped to her death,” Celeste said, which made Rowena grimace and cuss out the Prince under her breath. “Out of all the entries I was able to read, that was the only one where Janet had any control over her death. From that point onward for 30 more entries, I felt the darkness affinity building up from entry to entry to Janet’s current incarnation. No wonder her affinity pool was so big.”

“What about the redacted ones before that?”

“Not as much darkness affinity,” Celeste said, “but the accumulation was still noticeable. Something about her suicide changed the schemes against Janet, specifically with Prince Blaise’s involvement.”

“I’ve talked with her clones,” DeeDee said, thinking about their observations on the Prince’s actions. “Besides the one that killed herself, I’ve asked the others if the Prince had provoked them to that extent, but they said he always stopped when Lady Dorian intervened.”

“I see.”

“Anything else?” DeeDee said.

Celeste nodded and said, “When I read through the entries of Rowena’s book, I felt the same aura in the entries involving Rowena’s interactions with Astor Bartleby.” Then she turned to Rowena and said, “Is that why you wanted to look through Astor Bartleby’s profile book?”

“Yeah,” Rowena said. “I have my suspicions.”

“I have mine, too,” DeeDee added. “That’s why I brought out all these books.”

“I see,” Celeste said.

“Is that all?” DeeDee said.

“That’s all I have, DeeDee,” Celeste said.

“Good! Now let’s get back to reading,” DeeDee said, and all four women spent the next hour reading.

During that time, as she read through the entries of Old Duke and Duchess Bartleby’s profile books, DeeDee found out they had three children: Lord Jericho Bartleby, Sir Aaron Bartley, and Lady Rowena Bartleby. Along with these children, Old Duke and Duchess Bartleby experienced three major tragedies: the first was the death of their first born son (Lord Jericho Bartleby) at the tender age of four, due to his weak constitution; the second was a falling out with their second born son (Sir Aaron Bartleby) when he eloped with a maid, resulting in his banishment and no news of him for years afterwards except for a letter from Sir Bartleby’s wife asking them to find their missing grandson, Astor Bartleby; the third was the false imprisonment and death of Marchioness Rowena Fleming, resulting in an ugly court battle between the Bartleby house and the Blaise house that was settled with a duel between their appointed representatives (Marquess Arnold Fleming and Margrave Rory Sydney, respectively). With Old Duke and Duchess Bartleby and Old King and Queen Blaise watching, Judge Kendrick Matthews officiated the match in the Dueling Circle of the Royal Palace, which resulted in an upset victory for Marquess Fleming and just compensation for the injured party, the Bartlebys.

In the entries concerning Astor Bartleby, DeeDee found out that upon receiving the letter about Astor, Duke Bartleby had Marquess and Marchioness Fleming search for the boy. Eventually, their search dug up rumors of Sir Bartleby’s murder in the Schrader Kingdom and his wife’s disappearance somewhere on the Kaden Kingdom’s side of the border before they found their grandson’s whereabouts at St. Avalon’s Orphanage in a border town. Moreover, DeeDee learned that Duke and Duchess Bartleby raised Astor after Marquess Fleming sent him to the duchy for his protection a month before Rowena’s imprisonment. After Rowena’s death in prison and the ensuing court case and resultant duel, Old Duke Bartleby launched a manhunt to find those responsible for Rowena’s false imprisonment but eventually called it off when the culprits couldn’t be found. Due to his efforts resulting in failure, Old Duke Bartleby was bedridden for the rest of his life, believing that the Blaise royal family had a hand in covering it up. After Old Duke Bartleby’s passing, Duchess Bartleby appointed Marquess Fleming as Astor’s godfather, asking him to look after her grandson after her death, till Astor attains his majority and inherits the ducal title. The last entry in Duchess Bartleby’s book detailed her last moments surrounded by her servants, with Marquess Fleming and a fourteen-year-old Astor Bartleby and a nine-year-old Janet Fleming at her bedside.

After that, DeeDee waited till the others were finished reading their books, then shared her findings and answered their questions. When she finished, DeeDee then listened to their findings with great interest.

At DeeDee’s prompting, Rowena said that after Duchess Bartleby’s death, in addition to raising Lady Janet Fleming, Marquess Fleming had financed Lord Astor Bartleby’s education and upbringing, till his 21st birthday earlier this year when he received his ducal title. In addition, she explained from Astor’s earlier entries that he had lived incognito with his parents in the Schrader Kingdom. But when Astor’s presence began to attract the notice of an underground cult, his father Sir Aaron Bartleby told his mother to take him across the border, asking her to seek help from the Bartleby family. Then Rowena went off on a tangent and added that after she and Marquess Fleming took Astor in, the boy became violent towards their servants and maids, and they had observed odd things occurring around Astor in the house. As such, they contacted Father Robinson and had him conduct a séance with Astor in their presence and found a spirit attached to him. Long story short, Rowena said, whatever was haunting Astor had ceased after she became pregnant with Janet.

Everyone was silent for a moment after that.

Then Maxine added her own observations from the entries in Lord Jericho Bartleby and Sir Aaron Bartleby’s books, saying Jericho Bartley’s weak condition and eventual death was due to the amount of darkness affinity overwhelming the capacity of his astral body. As for Sir Aaron Bartleby, she said that he had no such symptoms, for he had not inherited the darkness affinity, but his son Astor had inherited it when he was born, which soon attracted the cult’s notice shortly after his fourth birthday, the same age when Jericho Bartley died.

For Celeste’s part, she noted that the Childeron and Felton count families had once shared political connections with the Dorian viscount family. Because of these prior associations, both count families had almost become pariahs in high society, meaning that Count Childeron and Count Felton had a hard time finding good husbands for their daughters, Lady Jenna Childeron and Lady Vesper Felton, respectively. As such, Count Childeron settled on a count’s son for Lady Childeron, but Count Felton managed to get a reluctant Duke Justin Woodberry, the current prime minister of the Kaden Kingdom, to agree to an engagement between Lord Ridley Woodberry and Lady Felton when they were still kids. From reading the entries in their profile books, Celeste said that Lady Felton’s feelings for Lord Woodberry were one-sided, so she had grown jealous of Janet’s friendly relationship with Lord Woodberry even after Janet’s engagement to Prince Donavan Blaise. As such, Lady Childeron acted as Vesper and Janet’s mutual friend, often intervening before Vesper accused Janet of an illicit relationship with Lord Woodberry behind the Prince’s back. Despite these headaches, Lady Childeron had maintained this awkward friendship between the two love rivals into their teenage years, up to the fifth week of the current school year in Lassen Academy.

“Then everything changed amongst Lady Childeron and Lady Felton and Lady Fleming,” Celeste said. “Judging from everything we’ve discussed so far, just who do you think brought about that change?”

DeeDee traded knowing glances with Rowena and Maxine and said, “It’s got to be Lady Dorian, right?”

“Right,” Celeste said. “Lady Dorian turned them to her side, telling them that Janet had been dating Lord Woodberry behind Lady Felton’s back. When they asked for proof, Lady Dorian led them into the Student Commons Town and had them spy on Janet and Lord Woodberry eating at a dessert shop, where he was comforting Janet. Right then, Lady Felton accosted Janet for stealing her fiancé, yet when Lord Woodberry stood up for Janet, Lady Felton and Lord Woodberry started arguing, and Lord Woodberry said he was never interested in her to begin with, and that sent Lady Felton away, crying. After that, Lady Felton’s engagement to Lord Woodberry got called off, and Count Felton was furious and almost disowned his daughter.”

“Geez, that’s harsh!” Rowena said.

“I know,” Celeste said. “The relationship between Lady Felton and Janet was bad to begin with, and all Lady Dorian had to do was sow a seed of discord, and the rest took care of itself. For the next two weeks up to this week, Lady Childeron and Lady Felton helped Lady Dorian set up Janet and get her in trouble with Prince Blaise. But what I found odd,” she added, “was that they also started bullying Lady Kessler and the Lady Drevis sisters at Lady Dorian’s behest.”

“But why?” DeeDee said.

“I don’t have a clue,” Celeste said.

“Did you read their profile books?” Rowena added.

“I did this afternoon, but their actions have puzzled me,” DeeDee said. “Lady Kessler only got acquainted with Janet before she was transferred out of Baron Palmer’s homeroom class at the end of the first week of school. Only today did Lady Kessler and the Ladies Drevis become friends with Janet, but here’s the thing. Between that time and today, Lady Kessler and the Drevis sisters kept trying to contact Janet, but Lady Dorian kept preventing them in the hallways—”

“—and Lady Childeron and Lady Felton added pressure on them,” Celeste added. “All of that culminated in them getting falsely evicted from their dorms and Lady Kessler getting beaten up. But I still don’t know how they’re connected with everything else. DeeDee, any ideas?”

DeeDee shook her head, and everyone breathed out a sigh. With everything still up in the air, DeeDee said, “Celeste, is that all you have for us?”

Celeste opened both profile books to their last pages and slid them across the table towards DeeDee, saying, “They’ve already crossed the border into the Schrader Kingdom. There’s nothing else after that,” and she pointed at the pages.

DeeDee leaned over and read Lady Children’s page:

“‘Lady Jenna Childeron,’” (she read to herself.) “‘Status: Alive. Most recent event: After ganging up on Lady Kessler in the hallway of Lassen Academy, as per Rosalie’s directions, Lady Childeron and Lady Felton ran from the school grounds and got into an unmarked carriage waiting for them in a side street in the Student Commons Town. That carriage took them towards the border of the Kaden Kingdom, dropping them off at the Little Rock border town. While there, they got into another unmarked carriage waiting for them and crossed the mountain pass of the Charon Mountains into the outskirts of the Schrader Kingdom.’”

Then she read Lady Felton’s page:

“‘Lady Vesper Felton,’” (she read to herself.) “‘Status: Alive. Most recent event: After ganging up on Lady Kessler in the hallway of Lassen Academy, as per Rosalie’s directions, Lady Felton and Lady Childeron and ran from the school grounds and got into an unmarked carriage waiting for them in a side street in the Student Commons Town. That carriage took them towards the border of the Kaden Kingdom, dropping them off at the Little Rock border town. While there, they got into another unmarked carriage waiting for them and crossed the mountain pass of the Charon Mountains into the outskirts of the Schrader Kingdom.’”

After reading both pages, DeeDee noticed that Lady Dorian was designated as ‘Rosalie’ and said, “They don’t know Lady Dorian’s identity, so I doubt that she would let them in on her actual plans. When they followed her escape plan, did they know anything about who they were to meet?”

“No,” Celeste said.

“Only Lady Dorian knows?” DeeDee said.

“Yeah,” Celeste said. “She must be using them as pawns.”

DeeDee paused a moment, then said, “Were there any indications that they’ve been followed? Or have they woken up feeling they weren’t alone?”

“No, nothing like that,” Celeste said. “What are you thinking? Do you have something in mind?”

“I’m just grasping at straws,” DeeDee said, leaning back in her chair. “Whatever Lady Dorian’s up to, she knows how to cover her tracks.”

So DeeDee rolled their findings through her head, trying to link these disparate coincidences into a sensible chain of events, and came up with three good connections that seemed to fit the facts. The first connection concerned four members of the Bartleby family and the passing of the darkness affinity to different heirs: first to Jericho Bartleby, then to Rowena Fleming (née Bartleby), then to Astor Bartleby, and then to Janet Fleming. The second connection concerned incognitos: Astor Bartleby and his parents living incognito in the Schrader Kingdom after Sir Aaron Bartleby’s banishment, Abbess Maxine Diddley living incognito at the border of the Kaden Kingdom, and Lady Dorian attending Lassen Academy incognito as Rosalie Edgeworth. The third connection concerned deaths and murders: the various deaths of Janet’s clones, the murders of Sir Aaron Bartleby and Celeste Graves and Maxine Diddley, and the deaths of Jericho Bartleby and Rowena Fleming.

But the next set of connections were iffy at best. The first hiccup concerned Lady Dorian’s involvement: she caused the deaths of Janet’s clones and fomented Celeste’s murder and Janet’s current troubles, for sure, but her involvement in the deaths of Aaron Bartleby and Rowena Fleming and Maxine Diddley was questionable. The second hiccup concerned the involvement of the underground cult from the Schrader Kingdom: their presence could be argued with the deaths of Celeste Graves and Sir Aaron Bartleby and Maxine Diddley and even Rowena Fleming, but their connection to the deaths of Jericho Bartleby and Janet’s clones was negligible. The third hiccup concerned Lady Dorian’s connection to the underground cult: whether or not Lady Dorian was the cult’s saintess, the fact that she directed Lady Childeron and Lady Felton to cross the border into the Schrader Kingdom suggested a connection, but without the profile books of Lady Dorian or the real Rosalie Edgeworth, DeeDee’s theory was on shaky ground.

These three hiccups had their own problems, yet the fourth one was the most problematic. Going off of what Celeste and Rowena had observed from Janet’s reasoning, Lady Dorian had a motive for killing off Janet’s clones, but why involve Lady Childeron and Lady Felton to torment the current Janet Fleming? Even if Lady Childeron and Lady Felton hated Janet enough to help Lady Dorian bully her, would they really be complicit in her death? She wasn’t sure. But even if they were willing to go that far, why bully Lady Kessler and the Ladies Drevis along with Janet? Was it just a matter of guilt by association, or was there something else DeeDee wasn’t seeing?

After rolling the possibilities through her mind, DeeDee could only think of one way forward and said, “There’s too much we don’t know, so let’s leave it aside for now. Hand over the books, please.”

So they handed them over, and DeeDee gathered the nine volumes (including those of Janet and Rowena) and took them back into her private library, placing them on the floor beside the closest bookshelf for easy access. Then she came out and pushed Celeste’s bookshelf closed before doubling back, but Celeste intercepted her with an outstretched arm and whispered something into her ear.

DeeDee looked at her, then sat back down in between Rowena and Maxine and stared at a pensive Rowena. “Rowena, dear,” she said, “LaLa and Rosalie are missing, their profile books are missing, Janet and four other students’ profile books have been tampered with, and I can’t even open Prince Blaise’s book. For all I know, for all we know, Lady Dorian’s actions could involve the movements of a foreign cult, and the presence of Janet’s clones point to your daughter as their target. As such, I don’t know if LaLa’s disappearance has anything to do with Janet’s current circumstances, but having her help me find my sister will also help me protect your daughter.”

Rowena neither nodded nor shook her head.

“Since she’s your daughter, I’ll follow whatever you decide,” DeeDee said. “What do you say?”

Rowena bit down on her lower lip, grimacing and averting her eyes, then faced DeeDee but couldn’t seem to find her words as tears welled up, and she wiped them away. After a few more moments, she finally said, “Can you do what I couldn’t do? Can you protect her for me?”

DeeDee gulped at her words, knowing what was demanded of her, for the deaths of Janet’s clones weighed her down like a cross, a weight she could only imagine was on Rowena’s shoulders when she bore her daughter silent and cold into an unforgiving world. So DeeDee said, “I’ll protect her.”

“You promise?”

“I promise I will,” DeeDee said.

More tears trailed Rowena’s eyes, so she wiped them away and said, “I could barely protect Astor, let alone Janet. Answer me, DeeDee.”

“What is it, dear?”

“Was I a good mother?” Rowena said.

So DeeDee reached over in her chair and hugged Rowena like a sister, rubbing circles around her shoulders and saying, “Oh, please, don’t be cruel to yourself.”

“Was I a good mother?”

“Yes!”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” DeeDee said. “You deserve her.”

But Rowena said, “How can I deserve her when I couldn’t even protect her?”

At her words, Celeste and Maxine got from their chairs and gathered around her, wrapping their arms around Rowena in a group hug. All the while, DeeDee allowed the grieving mother to mourn for her lost daughters, letting her cleanse the pain of failing to be there in their last agonizing moments, letting her catharsis of tears clear out the guilt. Only then, as the tears ran out and Rowena regained her composure, did DeeDee let go and say, “Are you all right, dear?”

Rowena wiped away her tears once more, her eyes now red, and nodded that she was.

Only then did Celeste and Maxine let go and return to their designated seats, yet DeeDee wanted Rowena to recover some more before they continued. So she took up the contract she had been reading before Maxine’s interruption and speed-read its contents again. When DeeDee finished, she looked at Celeste and said, “This contract needs an extra Grantor.”

“Who do you have in mind?”

“RuRu Marionette,” DeeDee said.

Celeste and Rowena both stared at her as if DeeDee had yet to realize her brain was still in a jar somewhere.

“Are you serious?” Celeste said.

“Yes, I am,” DeeDee said.

“But her record is abysmal,” Celeste said.

“And she’s got a huge drinking problem,” Rowena added.

“Look, I understand your doubts,” DeeDee said, “but I can’t be everywhere at once. Also, since Janet has the darkness affinity, RuRu can look after her.”

“Over my dead body!” Rowena said.

“You’re not thinking of backing out, are you?”

“I’m not, okay?” Rowena said. “But if RuRu’s gonna be helping my daughter, then I’m helping, too!”

“Me, too,” Celeste added.

“Are you doubting her?” DeeDee said.

“We’re not doubting her abilities,” Celeste said.

“I just don’t want Janet picking up on her bad habits,” Rowena added. “Now take it or leave it.”

DeeDee leaned back in her chair, saying, “All right, have it your way, geez! But since you two want to help out,” she added, looking at Celeste, “you both need to be included as Witnesses in the contract.”

“Okay, I’ll make the changes,” Celeste said, fishing for a pen and another sheet of paper from her desk drawer.

“I’m not finished yet,” DeeDee said.

“What else then?”

“Add two more clauses,” DeeDee said, sliding the contract over and pointing at its second-to-last clause. “One in which Janet will help me find LaLa, and another in which I will help Janet find the real Rosalie.”

“Are those all the changes?” Celeste said.

“That’s all,” DeeDee said. “Just make sure to reword everything, so the spell works, got it?”

“Got it,” Celeste said.

As Celeste went to work writing up a revised contract using the old draft as a guide, DeeDee faced Rowena again and said, “Now tell me what Janet told you.”

Celeste glanced at Rowena and said, “I’m busy, so it’s your cue, dear,” and she went on with her work, marking up the old draft with corrections and additions and writing the changes into the new contract.

While Celeste wrote and DeeDee waited, Rowena took a deep breath and said, “It’s a lot to take in.”

“Try me,” DeeDee said.

“Then here’s the short version,” she said. “Janet wants to adopt a different persona with her new powers. By using this new persona, she wants to play the part of a masked vigilante to throw attention off of her own infamy. But in order to do this, Janet suggested that she fake an assassination attempt on her life using this persona as her savior.”

DeeDee gaped at her words, wondering how far Janet was willing to take this dangerous ruse, and said, “But won’t that complicate our plans?”

“I asked her as much,” Rowena said.

“And?” DeeDee said.

“I asked Janet for her reasons,” Rowena said. “And she said (and I quote), ‘They’re fourfold: the first is to gain sympathy, because there hasn’t been an assassination attempt on a student of this Academy since Celeste’s murder in Elba House; the second is to raise rumors that Prince Blaise had a hand in it, turning public opinion against him; the third is to spook Lady Dorian with the same murder she had devised against Celeste, letting her know someone’s on to her tactics; and the fourth is to shake up the sleeper agents in the High Court.’”

“Interesting,” DeeDee said.

“Please don’t tell me you agree,” Rowen said.

“Of course not,” DeeDee said. “She’ll die if she gets caught fomenting such a scheme.”

“Celeste and I told her the same thing.”

“But her idea has potential,” DeeDee continued, seeing the possibilities align with her plans. “Janet’s already had her magic aptitude confirmed in front of witnesses, so there’s no need for her to repeat it. And since nobody outside the walls of Elba House knows about her darkness affinity, Janet can use it under this new persona of hers.”

“Use it for what?”

“It’s twofold,” DeeDee said. “First, she’ll use it for the betterment of the commoners of this kingdom, especially for its outsiders.”

“But Lady Dorian is—”

“I know what you’re thinking, dear,” DeeDee said. “Since she’s impersonating the real Rosalie Edgeworth, she won’t take the magic aptitude test.”

“But won’t Prince Blaise help cover for her?”

“Yes,” DeeDee said, “and we’ll use that against Lady Dorian. We’ll see just how far the Prince is willing to go to protect his fake Rosalie.”

“Even if it threatens Janet’s life?”

“I don’t think the Prince would go that far yet,” DeeDee said, then placed her finger on Rowena’s lips when she was about to speak. “We’ll let Lady Dorian take the credit for Janet’s deeds, but we’ll have that fake and that oaf of a Prince bend over backwards to maintain their image in front of their peers. Janet’s suffering won’t go to waste.”

Rowena pulled her hand down and said, “Damn it, I hope it won’t have to come to that.”

“It won’t.”

“And the second?” Rowena said.

“Janet will use her persona to help me and my sisters find out LaLa’s whereabouts,” DeeDee said, “and in exchange, we’ll help her find the real Rosalie. And by ‘we,’ I mean everyone in this room and Janet’s club mates downstairs, as well as my sisters. You need not worry so much, Mother Goose.”

Yet Rowena eyed her and said, “Exchanges require compensation, you know.”

“I understand your misgivings,” DeeDee said, “but this is a mutual relationship. I won’t have your daughter do anything too dangerous, okay?”

Rowena kept eyeing her for a few moments, then said, “I’ll trust you, because it’s you, DeeDee.”

“I know,” DeeDee said.

More moments passed in silence between the pair of women, two motherly types staring and plunging the temperature of the room by at least ten degrees, enough to raise goosebumps on one’s forearms. It attracted the notice of the other two occupants, Maxine leaning in her chair away from the pair of women seated next to her and Celeste glancing up from her work, only to sweat as she continued writing.

(Then RuRu Marionette’s words filtered through DeeDee’s mind, saying, “Big Sis, are you there?”

“I’m here,” DeeDee said. “What is it?”

“It’s Janet,” RuRu said. “Now that she’s been absorbing her darkness affinity, she’s been seeing moving shadows in the memories of her clones.”

“What kind of shadows?” DeeDee said.

“The kind that darkness affinity users can see,” RuRu said. “And get this, Big Sis: Lady Dorian was the only one interacting with these shadows.”

“There’s no way,” DeeDee said, wondering what she might have missed in her perusal of the entires of Janet’s clones. “I’ve studied all 31 of their entries, and I’ve only seen Lady Dorian use the four tangible affinities: earth, water, air, and fire. There’s no way she could—”

“Calm down, Big Sis,” RuRu said. “I don’t think she’s got the darkness affinity. I think she’s using artifacts to help her see and communicate with these shadows.”

DeeDee paused for a time, thinking back to this afternoon at Elba House with Janet after guiding Janet’s friends into her new headquarters that doubled as their designated clubroom. In particular, she remembered asking Janet if she had seen a third pair of glasses when they had been moving her inventory last night, but Janet had said she only saw two pairs of glasses on the shelf that night. As the wheels started turning in her mind, DeeDee thought that maybe Janet was right: maybe Lady Dorian was looking for Rosalie’s profile book to find the whereabouts of the real Rosalie, and maybe she must have tampered with the five profile books and hidden her own book to cover her tracks after failing to find Rosalie’s book, and maybe she could have stolen some items to help her see and communicate with her allies that were also using those same items.

“What is it, Big sis?”

“My God, I have it!” DeeDee said.

“Wait, what?” RuRu said. “What are you talking about?”

“My inventory,” DeeDee said as it all came together like the missing pieces of a puzzle. “The missing pair of glasses! The pendants! Oh, RuRu, thank you so much for this!”

“Eh?” RuRu said. “What are—”

“I can’t talk now,” DeeDee said. “I’ll talk to you later.”)

So DeeDee said, “RuRu’s given me a clue about the break-in at my shop.”

Her three peers stared at her, open-mouthed.

Then Rowena said, “Really?”

“Yes, really,” DeeDee said. “Rowena, your daughter’s amazing. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to see it,” and she went over her breakthrough with her friends. In particular, she said that Lady Dorian must have infiltrated her shop and stolen a pair of enchanted glasses and a pedant after failing to find Rosalie’s profile book. Since she couldn’t find it, she said, Lady Dorian must have settled on taking her own book, tampering with five others, and stealing items from her inventory to help her communicate with her allies on the sly.

“Rogue magicians?” Maxine said.

“The cult?” Rowena added.

“Yes and yes,” DeeDee said. “And since they’re using enchanted items, their true affinities won’t give them away. They’ve taken advantage of our church’s refusal to recognize darkness affinity users in their registry.”

“No wonder Conner dumped me,” Rowena said.

“Hey, at least you got registered,” Maxine said. “I couldn’t register with the church here because of my affinity. I had to settle for a rundown abbey in a border town, and there were almost no donations.”

(Then RuRu’s voice streamed through DeeDee’s head, saying, “Hey, I’m not done talking.”

“What is it now, RuRu?” DeeDee said. “Can’t you see I’m busy at the moment?”

“I know, but listen.”

“I’m listening,” DeeDee said.

“I’ve had my suspicions,” RuRu said, “but it wasn’t until Janet pointed out the shadows in her clones’ memories that I realized who’s behind all this.”

“You mean the cult from the Schrader Kingdom?” DeeDee said. “I already know they’re—”

“We’re in the Kaden Kingdom, not the Schrader Kingdom,” RuRu said. “Neither the Blaise royal family nor the High Court would ever allow foreign entities like that into the Student Commons Town or the Academy or the Royal Palace.”

“As they shouldn’t,” DeeDee said, “but that doesn’t mean their security is infallible.”

“It’s not a security breach,” RuRu said.

“Then what is it?”

“I’m talking about sleeper agents.”

“I’ve heard Celeste and Rowena mention them,” DeeDee said, thinking back to her conversation with them after they got Janet’s affinity pool above ground, but Celeste had thought they were in the royal family, and Rowena had thought they were in the High Court. “If it’s not the royal family or the High Court allowing them in, then . . .”

DeeDee paused as it all fell into place.

“Go on, Big Sis,” Ruru said. “You’re almost there.”

When it dawned on her, DeeDee said, “Do you mean the Church of the Holy Light is behind all of this?”

“That’s right,” RuRu said. “Think about it: the church in the Schrader Kingdom went underground after their king officially abolished it, right?”

“Maxine said so, yes,” DeeDee said.

“With nowhere else to go,” RuRu said, “they joined the Church of the Holy Light in the Kaden Kingdom, infiltrating its top ranks and forming a cabal. After everything that happened to Rowena and Maxine and Janet’s clones, who do you think has the power to pull all of that off?”

Her theory left DeeDee silent as she rolled the possibility through her head, for Maxine had mentioned a saintess in their ranks just before she was tortured to death. So she said, “Do you think they have a saintess?”

“Yeah,” RuRu said.

“Is it Lady Dorian?” DeeDee said.

“I don’t know for sure,” RuRu said, “but maybe that’s why LaLa’s been gone since Monday. She might be investigating the Church of the Holy Light.”

“Have you heard from her yet?”

“Not yet, but I’ve informed our sisters.”

“Good,” DeeDee said. “Have you heard anything from them yet?”

“Actually, yes,” RuRu said. “I’ve heard from ReRe that someone had tampered with King Blaise’s magic mirror inside a private study in the Royal Palace.”

“Did that mirror show anything?” DeeDee said.

“Yes,” RuRu said. “The mirror showed a confrontation between Janet and Lady Dorian, but then it went blank before coming back on again with Prince Blaise and Janet arguing.”

“I see,” she said. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” RuRu added. “Three female students were there watching it all unfold. The Prince approached them to ask something, but then he turned away.”

DeeDee imagined those three witnesses as Lady Kessler and the Drevis sisters, but for the life of her, she couldn’t find the link connecting them to the rest of this mess. For now, DeeDee just said, “Is that all of it, RuRu?”

“That’s all,” RuRu said.

“Then keep me informed,” DeeDee said.

“I will, Big Sis,” she said, then paused for a bit. “Oh, and one more thing.”

“What is it?” DeeDee said.

“Janet’s been chugging straight from my bottle,” RuRu said. “Expect her to wake up very soon with a massive hangover, so be prepared for anything, okay?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” DeeDee said, but RuRu didn’t reply. “RuRu, what’s happening over there?”

Again there was no reply.)

Then the office room went dark, only illuminated by Celeste’s big blue hitodama floating before the open double-door entrance and DeeDee’s lamp beside her feet. So DeeDee leaned over and picked her lamp off the floor and poured her magic into it, making the surroundings glow brighter, as Celeste and Rowena and Maxine and DeeDee all stood up.

“What on earth is going on?” Rowena said.

“It’s your daughter,” DeeDee said. “I think she’s waking up.”

“But didn’t you say she won’t wake up until later?”

“I did, but—”

DeeDee stopped when the floorboards rumbled beneath everyone’s feet, and running footfalls approached the office from the hallway, and a voice (maybe Sir Kevin Sydney’s) was yelling something unintelligible through huffs and puffs. It wasn’t until Kevin entered the room, passing through Celeste’s hitodama, that his words made any kind of sense:

“Something’s happening with Janet!”

“WHAT?” Rowena said, storming into the hallway.

Then DeeDee and the rest ran after Rowena and Kevin down the hallway through the illuminated darkness of the glowing lamps held in the hands of Janet’s silent clones. In the glow of their lamps, and they all had glowing red eyes and slasher smiles on their faces, and they raised their fingers to their lips and mouthed words nobody could hear. When the group of five made their way towards the half-turn stairs, their shadows swaying in DeeDee’s swinging lamplight, they stomped their way down like shambling spirits in a haunted house.

With the last gulp from RuRu’s bottle going down her gullet and collecting into the pool of her stomach, Janet felt lightheaded as she tried to stand up from her chair. She heard RuRu’s voice calling out to her, yet her words were garbled through Janet’s addled brain. Janet looked over at RuRu approaching her, yet her outline kept shifting in and out of focus as Janet keeled over and blacked out . . .

Yet instead of hitting the ground, Janet opened her eyes to blurry shapes coming in and out of focus. After blinking a few times, she regained her senses and found herself in a wide clearing with an enormous fountain therein, its base bigger than that of the fountain in front of the Royal Palace, taking up twice the circumference of Janet’s own darkness affinity pool. In the center of this fountain was a huge two-tiered basin, a smaller upper basin spouting green spraying arcs into a larger lower basin, which overflowed into the teeming dark red reservoir of the rest of the fountain. The admixture of green into the wine-red pool surrounding it created a green phosphorescence over its dark red surface, giving it a surreal appearance.

Then someone whistled behind her, so Janet turned and saw RuRu stepping in beside her and saying, “Now that’s what I call a gorgeous fountain, wow!”

“Is this my fountain?” Janet said.

“It’s yours, all right,” RuRu said. “My sisters will be super jealous when they see this thing, and that’s not all,” and she waved her arm across her surroundings. “Take a look around you, Janet. Your garden is gorgeous!”

So Janet turned and took in the full sweep of the moonlit scenery: huge elms reaching its green-laden branches towards the night sky, and big royal poinciana trees here and there with blooming red flowers, and big clumps of green vertigo grass all over the clearing and beds of creeping red thyme carpeting the ground. The effect of two kinds of trees and two kinds of shrubs fluorescing green and red beneath the moonlight was like a scene taken out of a fairytale.

“All of this is mine?” Janet said.

“Yep, all of this is yours,” RuRu said, beaming back at her. “Now get ready for your pledge.”

“My pledge?” Janet said, thinking of a knight swearing his life and his sword to the service of his lady. “You mean, like a knight’s pledge of allegiance?”

“Eh, kind of,” RuRu said, walking to the edge of the fountain and climbing its ledge and crouching over the surface, then waded her arm in the water and pulled out a dripping broadsword and stood back up on the ledge. “Janet, you come from two distinguished knights in this Kingdom: one is Sir Jude Fleming, the Captain of the Old Guard, and the other is Duke Wilhelm Bartleby, the Captain of the Black Guard.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Janet said.

“As you should, for they are your ancestors,” RuRu said. “Also, when the High Court and the Church of the Holy Light canonized Lady Graves as the Patroness and Protector of All Saintess Candidates, I also gave her a title, but she refused it. Do you know why?”

“No, I don’t. Why did she?”

“Well,” RuRu said, “she wanted that title to belong to the realm of the living as a title that others can look up to in times of need.”

“What title is that?” Janet said.

“You’ll know soon enough,” she said. “Now take a knee and put your hand over your heart.”

So Janet kneeled on one knee and placed her right hand over her heart, then said, “Like this?”

“Perfect,” RuRu said. “Now clear your mind of everything and focus on my words.”

And Janet did so, breathing in and breathing out and closing her eyes and focusing on the sound of RuRu’s voice that said these words:

“Lady Janet Fleming, know that you are about to receive a blessing from the Guardian of the Darkness. As such, respect is your flag, compassion your cloak, patience your staff, wisdom your shield, and truth your sword. Now swear to me: Do you swear to use your flag to remember the dead, your cloak to comfort the weary, your staff to assist the weak, your shield to protect the innocent, and your sword to prosecute the guilty in high and low places?”

“I swear,” Janet said.

“Do you swear,” RuRu added, “to fulfill the duties of the office I am about to bequeath to you?”

“I swear,” Janet said.

“Then by the power vested in me, RuRu Marionette, the Guardian of the Darkness, I hereby dub you the Black Saintess,” and RuRu tapped the blade over Janet’s right and left shoulder. “Now rise and take up your sword,” and she threw it over her shoulder, where it fell into the waters of the giant fountain, splashing and rippling its surface.

Janet stood up, saying, “Why did you do that?”

“Oh, come on, girl,” RuRu said. “You can’t just expect me to give everything to you, can you?”

“But you just—”

“If you really want that sword,” RuRu said, “then you’re gonna have to get it. Now hop to it!”

Janet deadpanned, saying, “You’re rather quirky for a Guardian.”

“I’ve been called worse,” RuRu said.

Without further ado, Janet climbed onto the ledge of her own fountain, standing next to RuRu, but after a few moments of looking, she said, “Where the heck is it?”

“It’s right over there.”

“Where?”

So RuRu pointed it out, and Janet followed the direction of her pointing hand.

“I still don’t see it,” Janet said.

“Then let me help you out,” RuRu said and pushed an unwitting Janet into the water, a big splash overflowing the ledge and wetting the hems of her maid dress. “That’s for drinking from my bottle without my permission!”

Yet Janet couldn’t hear her words as she fell (or floated) into the depths of her mind, staying there for God knows how long in unconscious slow-wave sleep. Here she heard the screams and moans of her clones as they expired from the living world and entered the spirit world. And one by one, the thirty-one clones that Janet had met in the women’s bathroom on that awful Monday morning appeared before her, then eighty-five others that she had yet to meet appeared with them, and then numberless silent clones of Janet that were DeeDee’s proxies appeared behind them.

They all had glowing red eyes and slasher smiles on their faces, raising their fingers to their lips and carrying lamps whose lights glowed a pulsing dark red with a green corona shimmering from their edges.

And as one, they all pointed at Janet, their lips pronouncing syllables she couldn’t hear, so she looked down on herself and saw a white gown she wasn’t wearing before. When she looked up at her clones again, she found them all surrounding the enormous fountain in the same clearing she had been in, yet RuRu was nowhere in sight.

Then one of her clones (her suicide clone) took her hand and guided her to the fountain’s edge, helping her up and over the ledge, then entering with her into the seething dark red waters up to her thighs.

“Sorry about that, dear,” her clone said in RuRu’s voice. “That was just your baptism.”

Janet blinked, saying, “What’s going on?”

“Your baptism is finished,” her clone said and smiled.

Janet blinked again, saying, “Why are you—”

And Janet’s clone morphed into RuRu Marionette, and Janet found herself standing on the surface of the water, and RuRu said, “Looking good, girl!”

When Janet looked down on herself in the teeming reflection, she gaped at what she was wearing: a nun’s black veil and white-caped habit, her black gown reaching just shy of her knees and opening at her thighs, revealing black thigh-high stockings and black knee-high knight boots, white cuffs over black sleeves and black gloves, and dark red lip gloss on her lips.

“What the hell is this!” Janet said.

“It’s your battle dress,” RuRu said, looking her up and down. “With a look like that, you’ll catch men’s eyes and amaze women’s hearts, that’s for sure!”

Yet Janet squirmed in her new clothes, saying, “I’ll die if someone sees me like this!”

“Too late, dear,” RuRu said, pointing behind her shoulder. “You’ll just have to get used to it.”

Janet turned as the scene shifted again before her eyes and found herself standing inside the Ghost Hunting Club’s designated clubroom. And here stood DeeDee and Rowena and Lady Graves and that masked nun from last night’s dream, as well as Kevin and Ridley and Mindy and the Drevis sisters and their club advisor Baron Underwood, all gawking at her, eyes wide, Rowena and Lady Graves and Mindy and the Drevis sisters cupping their mouths in their hands. And the others (from the three statuettes and the four busts on the shelf to Sir Abram and Daniel Van Weever and Janet’s thirty-one clones and Janet’s silent clones through the open double-door entrance) were also gawking at her, eyes wide and some with their hands to their mouths, thinking God knows what about Janet’s fashion sense.

At times like these, strung up to the umpteenth extremity of death by shame, Janet did the only thing that any sane woman would do in this situation.

She fainted.

To Be Continued