Chapter 57.3

With a loud groan, Tessa tossed her pencil down and threw her head back. Her chair reclined with her as she moved, and she spent the next several minutes staring at the ceiling.Annoyed at the sight of her notebooks, Tessa finally stood up and wandered out to the kitchen to get herself more coffee. She needed all the energy she could get, and with each passing day, she felt worse and worse about the poor animal they kept trapped in the chambers under Lysander Hall.

After refilling her thermos, she returned to her room and set it on her desk. The thought of spending the rest of today banging her head against the wall sounded awful, and she tried to think of some way to distract herself. Instead of sitting down again, her gaze wandered over all the random crap cluttering her bedroom, eventually landing on the dresser nestled underneath the window.

She walked over to her dresser—barely visible beneath the mountains of clothes—and rummaged through her drawers until she found a small black box. Golden stars decorated the thin cardboard exterior, and they shimmered under the dim bedroom lights as Tessa used her feet to clear a space in the middle of her floor. She took a deep breath, sat down, then carefully opened it up with the respect it deserved.

On the inside, all the same stars that decorated the outer cover repeated themselves, only this time they were all connected in a web of constellations. She placed one hand on top of the box, then flipped it upside down and smiled as a small deck of cards fell into her palm.

This was her one and only tarot deck, though she didn’t use the whole thing. Her interest lay entirely with the twenty-two major arcana, and she often turned to these cards when she was feeling stuck or frustrated. Of course, these cards also worked great when friends were looking for help, or when she needed an excuse to get some one-on-one time with a cute girl at a party. This deck alone had gotten her laid at least a dozen times, if not more, and she treasured it greatly.

For the next five minutes, she tried to calm herself down by shuffling and reshuffling her deck. The more superstitious of her friends would have her believe that spending more time with the deck helped imbue it with her energy, though she wasn’t entirely sure how much she believed that. Personally, she just enjoyed doing something with her hands, and she appreciated the thought of having a deck of cards that had been shuffled so many times even the best card counters couldn’t keep track of things. Consulting the cards wasn’t about asking the universe for answers, it was about speaking with various parts of yourself that only sprang forth in response to new ideas.

Not in the mood for a more elaborate discussion, she decided she would only draw a single card. With a deep breath, she pressed firmly down on the top card before flipping it over. On the front, she saw an image of a man hanging upside down, suspended by straps around his right foot.

Tessa placed the card down, then the deck, and she allowed her gaze to wander over to the various magical notes on her desk. She’d been attempting to brute force her way to a solution for nearly two weeks now, and even with Imani’s help, she hadn’t made any progress.

Maybe the card was right. Maybe she just needed to step away, to do something else.

She nodded to herself, then scooped up all her cards and put them back in the box. Returning her tarot cards to their rightful place, she already felt renewed vigor in her steps as she grabbed her backpack and crammed her notebooks inside. Leaving her bedroom, she threw on her winter coat and quickly ran out the door, making her way to Lysander Hall.

As she entered the building, she made sure to take a full lap around the various hallways just in case someone was following her. After returning to the main floor, she headed towards a small door hidden away in the corner of the building that led downstairs to the basement.

Much like the other older buildings on campus, the basement of Lysander Hall barely saw any use anymore. Some had old classrooms that now served as storage, some had small relaxation areas filled with couches and coffee tables, and this one in particular had been redecorated sometime in the late 70’s, the results of which had unfortunately yet to be scrubbed away. Tessa wasn’t here for any of that; she instead approached a small dead end in a nearby hallway. There, she placed her hand on the wall and connected with her tattoos, allowing her magic to flow through the wall and reveal it for what it truly was: an illusion.

After several seconds of concentrating, the wall disappeared, revealing a small room on the other side that held another large, elaborate magical circle. This one, unlike the one under the cafeteria, was connected to Purgatory, and a while back Tessa had retrofitted it into a bridge between the two planes, which had allowed her to bring Amara and Vee back after they’d been trapped on the other side.

To Tessa’s surprise, someone was already here. Lying down in the middle of the circle, lazily leaning on one arm as she flipped through a book, was Chloé. The flash of magic pulled her attention away from her homework, and she quickly turned around.

“Oh, Tessa! What’s up? I didn’t know you were coming by!” Chloé said, running closer and pulling the witch in for a hug.

Tessa happily returned the gesture, always glad to spend more time with her friend. “Chloé, hey! If I’d known you were free, I totally would have texted you. Although, if you were already here, it wouldn’t have gone through anyways…”

After a quick smile at each other, Chloé gave Tessa enough space to restore the illusion. Once they were properly sealed inside, meaning no other students might accidentally find this place, Tessa sat down opposite Chloé and started unpacking her bag.

“So what brings you around here? Still working on getting our puppy friend home?” Chloé asked.

“You keep calling it that, and people are going to think that it’s friendly, no matter how many times we warn them. Did you see how many of them were itching to go say hi after our meeting? Amara made that thing look far too cute, and it’s given them all the wrong idea.”

“Aww, I think he’s adorable. Besides, I think he’s starting to warm up to me,” Chloé said, pulling her homework into her lap.

“What do you mean ‘warming up to you?’” Tessa asked. “What have you been doing?”

Chloé’s eyes went wide, and she quickly averted her gaze to the floor. “N-nothing… don’t worry about it.”

Tessa sighed. “Have you been trying to befriend the wolf?”

“…Maybe a little…”

“Chloé! You, of all people, know how dangerous shit from other planes can be!”

Half-burying her face in her hoodie, Chloé’s face started turning red. “Yeah, but when I’m intangible the wolf can’t touch me! It doesn’t growl at me anymore when I’m in the room with it, and the other day it even fell asleep despite knowing I was there with it!”

“Just… be careful, alright?” Tessa said. “I’d hate to see you get hurt.”

“I’m a grown woman, thank you very much, and I know how to take care of myself,” Chloé said, sticking a tongue out at Tessa. “And besides, it’s not like I can hang out with people, or play games, or watch movies, or go on dates… I might as well use my powers to try and befriend a cute little pupper from another plane.”

“Girl, he’s anything but little. He probably weighs, like, a hundred pounds, at least.”

Chloé chuckled to herself before changing the subject. “So what brings you here, anyways?”

Tessa kicked her feet out in front of her and leaned back against the wall. “Ugh, I’ve hit a dead end trying to build a bridge to The Wilds. I’ve gone over hundreds of different possibilities for establishing a connection, and I just don’t see a way to make it work. So, rather than continuing to bash my head against an interplanar brick wall, I figured I’d come here and work on some other stuff. Honestly, it’s really lucky that I ran into you here. Would it be cool if I asked about your abilities? And how they interact with this circle?”

“Absolutely! Anything beats this stupid math homework.” Chloé happily floated into the air for a second as she put her homework away. “I don’t think there’s anything I haven’t told you before, but I’ll do my best to help.”

Eager for the distraction, Tessa grabbed a notebook and pencil from her backpack before racking her brain for questions. It was time to start assessing what she would need for this new project of hers. “Okay, so, in the past you’ve said that this circle makes it easier to manifest yourself, like you’re doing now. Now, even though it’s easier, does it still require effort? Or are you still technically exerting yourself a little bit?”

Chloé scrunched up her face as she thought about the question, and her form briefly vanished, then reappeared while she did so. “I guess it takes a tiny bit of thought to hold myself together, but nowhere near what’s required outside of here.”

After scribbling a few notes for herself, Tessa continued. “How much have you experimented with your abilities?”

“What do you mean?”

“For starters, we know there’s a lot of stuff tied to your new nature. You can turn invisible, intangible, gravity only affects you if you want it to, things like that, but you’ve also got that cool shout thing. The one you used against Gautier?”

“Ohhh, I see where you’re going,” Chloé muttered to herself. “That’s definitely one of the stranger things I can do. I’ve only done it a couple times—it hasn’t been necessary since then, thankfully—but I guess I haven’t really thought much about it. It’s like… huh. I don’t really know. It’s kinda like the space between me and the world around me thinned, and I was able to disrupt that space to cause ripples or something. Does that make sense? I don’t think I’m making any sense…”

Tessa scribbled something in her notebook, then continued. “See, what I find interesting is that your shout ability seems like a pretty strange manifestation of your condition. It makes me curious if there’s other stuff you might be capable of if you started messing around with your abilities and your form.”

“My… form?” Chloé went quiet for a moment, holding her arm in front of her face as she cocked her head. “Huh.”

“Shit, is that weird to say?” Tessa said, pulling her face out of her notes for a second. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, I’m just curious about what you can do. Magic is all about experimentation and finding the limits of different expressions of power, and sometimes the coolest stuff comes from the combination of seemingly unrelated ideas.”

“No, you’re fine, I guess it’s just… I dunno. When I first reformed, I didn’t have much time to figure myself out before Amara, um, got all angry and stuff. Once things quieted down, it didn’t take long for me to realize just how tiring it was to keep myself manifested for long periods of time. In my head, it’s like we keep bouncing between normal life and magic combat life. When it’s time to fight, my abilities are super helpful and I love them, but then things switch back to normal and suddenly they’re nothing but a big, stupid inconvenience.”

A small ache appeared in Tessa’s heart, and she slid closer to Chloé before putting an arm around her shoulder. “Hey, I know it sucks, but at least you have us, right? And besides, it’s only been, what, a month since you reformed? Maybe you’ll get stronger over time! What if you like, I dunno, worked out or something? Can you work out magic? I mean, can’t, but your abilities work differently than mine do…”

Chloé happily leaned against Tessa, even hugging her tightly as they talked. “That’s honestly a good idea, Tess. Maybe I can beat this thing if I put more effort into experimenting with it! Actually, just the other day, I turned off my gravity while in class, and that was pretty helpful. So long as I have a desk to grab, no one can notice!”

Tessa laughed at the thought of Chloé clinging to a classroom desk to avoid floating away in front of all the other students. “That’s really smart! You’ll figure something out, Chloé, I know you will.”

Still leaning against each other, the two girls grabbed their respective backpacks and jumped back into their projects. Chloé returned to her math homework, occasionally asking Tessa for help before remembering the witch didn’t give a shit about school, while Tessa had flipped to a blank page in her journal to officially begin her new project.