Twilit Mage

Chapter 48: The Escape Gambit

"Mercy, you're crazy."

Raoul tried to laugh, but the sound came out stiff. "I mean, that joke's kinda weird for this situation, right? Like, dude–"

"That wasn't a joke," Mercury said. "I'm serious."

"Okay, for real, you can stop kidding now–"

"I'm not kidding!" Mercury glared at him in frustration, and Raoul flinched back. "I don't expect you two to come with me," she said, "but I'm going. I'm sorry, but I keep thinking that thing that's loose now...it's our fault. If Riley gets killed because of us..."

Raoul swallowed, his last hint of a smile fading and dissolving into nothing. "Hey, don't worry," he said, but it sounded like the one he was trying to convince was himself. "Riles is not gonna die. And what are you gonna do against a big scary thing even the teachers can't handle, anyway?"

"I have to try–"

"Mercury." Georgiana's hand on her shoulder stopped her in her tracks, making her turn around. "Do you have any semblance of an idea how to get to Riley in the first place?"

Mercury opened her mouth and closed it again. She wanted to say she had one. She really did. But in all honesty she had never thought that far.

"I...um..."

"Listen." Raoul's voice was quiet and understanding, the smile on his face returning as a sad caricature of itself. "I hate to say this, but Robot Girl's right. You're not even gonna get outta this classroom with Ms. Soulless out there and the lockdown thing, remember?"

"But that's–"

"Wait." Georgiana lifted a hand. "Let me think. You need to get past Ms. Solstice, don't you? Then you need to get out of the building despite the lockdown and into the library building, all without anyone noticing your disappearance. To say nothing of actually rescuing Riley from the unknown terror."

Mercury swallowed. Put that way her idea sounded a lot more impossible than before.

"I mean..." she ventured, even though she knew the others would never let her get away with this. "I could make myself invisible and–"

"Isn't there like a magic filter on this classroom? Pretty sure you can't, Mercy."

Mercury's head spun back towards Raoul, the hopelessness inside her growing. The magic filter. Of course. How had she forgotten that? It needed to be disabled first, and of course she had no way of–

Wait.

"The key!" she burst out, nearly forgetting to whisper. "You can turn it off with a key, it's in the desk. I've seen her do it!"

"So we just gotta sneak to her desk somehow and not get in trouble." Raoul grinned and shrugged. "Easy peasy, right?"

Georgiana said nothing. She only stared at the desk, then at their classmates who were still too enveloped in their own worries to notice their discussion. Then she abruptly turned around. "I think I might know a way."

"What's the plan?" Mercury and Raoul whispered in unison.

"The plan," Georgiana replied, "involves Raoul picking a fight with me."

"Hey!"

"And one of my things...mysteriously landing behind the teacher's desk."

Raoul blinked. Then understanding dawned on his face, and his entire expression changed in a heartbeat.

"C'mon, Dragon Lady," he said much louder than before, the grin on his face forced and chilly and threatening. "You wanna say this is Mercy's fault? I'm not sure if you got no heart or no eyes!"