A Messenger from Nephelokokkygia

What it Really Said in the Formula

Chapter 13: What it Really Said in the Formula

"Lies, my dear boy, are found out immediately, because they are of two sorts. There are lies that have short legs, and lies that have long noses."

--Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio

As wild things, corvids quickly recover from violence. The Murder's only real concern was the missing Chiaroscuro. Humans, by contrast, often have a much harder time. It seems strange to only now realize Schrodinger was a carnivore. But the salmon the group ate together never gushed blood.

Unlike the rabbit.

Grace felt sick. Making it more unbearable was knowing this was no savage beast, but a great friend who had been nothing but helpful to Grace. Even when his language tended towards sarcasm.

"It was going to hurt Goldtalon..." she tried to speak without gagging. "I didn't move, but you saved him! Thank you." She wanted to add Please clean off that blood.

Goldtalon failed to realize the danger he had been in. He was trying to fly along with Bennu. Though they were technically the same age, his phoenix hatchmate had already fledged. Besides breakfast, lunch, and dinner, flying was the main thing the griffin talked about.

"'Thanks' are obscene." Schrodinger batted a paw. "Any of you would have saved me if our positions were reversed. Well, maybe not the raven—whom I'm sure will turn up soon. The Astral has many corners to tuck oneself away in."

"Why did it have horns?" Fox poked the dead animal with her foot.

"That's a jackalope," answered Schrodinger. "No ordinary rabbit. But I could show you what a jackalope is better than I can tell you." His eyes began flashing, like soundless ambulance sirens.

"Would it be like shadowboxing?" Grace asked after some hesitation.

"Not exactly. But I promise it won't be painful," were the last things Schrodinger said before the fog.

At first, Grace had trouble discerning whether the mist was only an effect of her confusion. Sharing her cloud clone's viewpoint was a similar experience. But while in that situation she felt numb, in the place Schrodinger brought her she possessed all her senses. The musky smell of wet leaves beneath. The taste of sick-sweet wafting off pine needles. And stepping on what felt like a pinecone actually hurt! In the impenetrable fog, she heard breathing.

Thankfully, it was her friends. Diana was also weeping. Fox grumbled in response. Above, Grace could hear the flapping of crow wings. From bits of the sky she could see, the girl knew it was late in the night, or early morning. For the first time since spying out the hole in the Ambrosius Institute's roof, she saw stars. Something rubbed against her side. She would know that softness anywhere, even without its metallic shine.

As a chick, Goldtalon's down felt softer than a cloud, which Grace knew for a fact since. After molting, the griffin's plumage felt gentler than cotton, with none of the slipperiness of silk. Grace petted his side, gratifying the half of him that was feline.

"Hjckrrh! Where are we, mommy?"

"You're not the only confused one." A flash of red light penetrated the mist, and Bennu was standing between Grace and Fox. "But I believe we're about to receive a lesson! I so enjoy those. Especially when it involves altered states of consciousness!"

If Schrodinger were present, he never made himself known. Someone who did, though, was a man crashing through the pines. While not a giant in the sense of a man-eating ogre dwelling in a sky castle, he was at least seven feet tall by Grace's estimate. His barrel chest was covered by a maroon flannel straining under the effort. He wore dark green trousers, which—even with suspenders—he had to keep hitching up. The face under his black beanie cap consisted in the main of a shaggy brown beard. These details were less significant than the fact he brandished a huge ax.