Chapter 206: Bad Spot

Pitter patter drowned the rainforest sounds as well as the thrumming of the engine from the entry door to the Lavish.

Theora, Treeka, and Bell were sitting in the fold of a giant silk-cotton tree together with Omi, Poxie and Log, shielded from the rain by an umbrella-shaped bubble barrier above their heads. Bell was running low on mana after using too many shielding Skills to block off sounds as of late, so this was the best they could do in terms of preventing being overheard. Still, an open and honest discussion with all members of the polycule was overdue.

Omi sat cross-legged right in front of Treeka’s pot while Poxie cowered the furthest inside the root fold of the large tree to remain absolutely shielded from drops — her wood would start swelling if it got too moist, and there weren’t many places to dry on the train. She was hugging herself into Log’s embrace to help with her anxiety over this meeting.

Bell was the only one sitting outside the shielding of her own barrier, high on a root fold of the tree, enjoying the rainfall and keeping an eye on the entry around the corner.

“So who do you think it was?” Treeka asked Omi when a lull in the conversation gave her the opportunity to broach the topic they had all gathered for.

Omi grimaced and leaned back against the bark. “If only I had a clue. I mean, it’s got to have been someone who can enter and exit places without notice, right?”

“Or someone who can teleport objects to places,” Bell supplied, shifting to face the crowd a little more as her legs dangled off the tree. “Truth be told, that part seems the easiest for like, anyone with magic to do. Doors aren’t well protected on this train. Even I could potentially pull it off — sound barrier around the door, open it, slide in with a tendril. It’s that easy.”

Treeka turned to her, staring wordlessly, and Log eyed her with suspicion.

“… I didn’t do it,” Bell added dryly. Poxie and Omi turned to stare at her too. Bell held up her hands in defense. “It was just a hypothetical! It wasn’t me!”

“I could probably also do it, if someone placed me at the door,” Treeka admitted, earning herself a round of stares too.

“This conversation is making me feel incredibly safe,” Poxie snarked, causing Log to give her an affectionate kiss on her neck from behind that Poxie readily leaned into.

“I probably couldn’t do it,” Theora said with a hint of pride in her voice.

“Alright,” Log said with a smile and gestured at Theora. “Whatever y’all have to say, I’m trusting this girl.”

Theora nodded and decided to take this one-of-a-kind chance to steer the conversation back to figuring out the mystery. “It’s probably most likely that the letters weren’t actually physically placed inside your rooms, but instead materialised by someone meddling with the fabric of reality.”

Log blinked at her, tail flapping against the bark with a twitch. “Maybe I’ll reassess my vote of confidence.”

“But,” Theora continued unfazed, “rather than trying to puzzle out how the letters were placed, I think it would make sense to unravel the motive. Assuming that Fentanyle was kicked off the train for using an undeclared ability — what kind of abilities did she leave undeclared? Figuring out what she did might tell us what might have provoked her to use it.”

Omi furrowed her eyebrows, biting her lip. “Kicked off the train,” she repeated. “You really think that’s all that happened? You’re saying… she’s still alive…?”

“At the very least, I don’t think she died on the train,” Theora hedged. “But if I were to guess, I’d think she’s more likely to be alive than dead right now, yes. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to first pretend to kill her and then actually kill her.”

“Unless…” Treeka hummed. “Unless someone just wanted to throw investigators off the trail and actually killed her — but then pretended that she died in a totally different way.”

“Sheesh, your thoughts are dark,” Log blurted out. 

“I’ll have you all know that the idea of changing reality to that degree is ludicrous by itself, it would take a tremendous amount of magical energy.” Bell gestured around the forest with her tendrils, adding, “And I’m not sure there’s anything around that could actually source it.”

“So… it’s unlikely that someone would have used it to change the site of the murder?” Poxie asked, leaning back into Log’s chest.

“I think what’s making this convoluted,” Theora weighed in, “is that they wouldn’t just have had to fake Fentanyle’s cause of death, but also had to kill her in a way I wouldn’t notice. Because I’m fairly certain I would have woken up if someone had been in actual peril. But nobody else would know that, except for my companions. The fact that I didn’t notice anything that night is why we are all sitting here.”

Bell let out a dissatisfied moan, scratching the side of her face. “I’m not sure your theory is working out as well as you think, either. I mean — if we follow it to its conclusion, that would mean someone spent an extraordinary amount of energy making it seem like Fentanyle got killed, instead of kicked off the train. What would be the point of that?”

Theora shrugged. “That’s exactly why I would like to know what she left off the sheet.” She looked at Omi, giving her a reassuring nod. “I’m sorry if this is all overwhelming for you. I can’t offer you certainty, but as I said, I do think there is a good chance Fentanyle has not died.”

Omi let out a deep breath, and nodded. She trailed along one of her antennae to calm herself down. “It’s— thank you. It’s a lot, but, I mean, I’m tempted to just assume she’s fine for now until we solve this mess and I receive confirmation.” Her voice was wobbly and unsure, but she steeled herself through it. “Basically, Fentanyle really didn’t like the idea of joining a space where people would truly know what she’s capable of. She thinks being unpredictable makes her stronger in fights, and she’s… well, she’s had to fight a lot over the years, and not just because of me. She’s a secretive person, you know? She really welcomed my transition a few years back, and I think that’s partially because it changed so much about how I look, so I am more difficult to recognise. I mean — I think she would have been supportive either way, but she did a lot to help me change myself at the earliest convenience.”

“Oh, transition?” Bell asked.

“Mhm!” Omi took an antenna into her hand to show off the tip.

Now that Theora looked closer, she could see scar tissue right at the end.

“I trimmed them,” Omi said proudly. “Because boys tend to have longer antennae, so I kinda felt uncomfy with them. That’s the only thing you can still actually see, everything else was done by magic.” She smiled at the antenna before letting go of it and sobering up. “So, either way — what I’m saying is, Fen likes being undercover, being secretive, and gathering information. So things she left off her sheet are related to that… Let me think…”

“For example,” Poxie said, “there’s that her crows won’t die of old age. They don’t have individual lifespans. They also don’t individually need food or water; she can just dedicate a few crows to keep her body up with nutrition.”

“Right,” Omi said, “kept that secret in case the train came under long-term siege.”

“Wait,” Treeka interrupted. “But how was she thinking she’d use these abilities, if using them would get her in trouble?”

“I don’t think she was aware,” Omi answered. “I knew, because I was worried. But… I never told her…” She bit her own lips. “If I had, maybe she’d never…”

“And then there’s the crow formations,” Log added, quick to change the topic. “It’s the one I tried to abuse when I fought her. Basically, if enough crows form very specific constellations in space, it triggers certain magical effects. Like, she can silence someone if crows form a specific three-dimensional cage around them, for example.”

Omi nodded. “The formations give her a bunch of abilities, actually. I might be able to make a list if I think for a while, but it’s mostly fight-related, and the reason she kept it hidden is because it’s easy to counter when you’re aware how it works — you just have to hinder the crows from getting into position.”

“And then there’s the third eye,” Poxie murmured.

Bell perked up. “Third eye?”

“Each crow has a third eye that is closed most of the time,” Log supplied. “But once it opens, she can see through walls… Well, not just that. Through anything, really. It’s for gathering intelligence.”

Silence fell after this, and when Log noticed, she looked around quizzingly. She even turned to Poxie to whisper, “Did I say something wrong?”

“Gathering intelligence,” Bell echoed, planting her tendrils in the surroundings to gently carry herself off the high root. Beads of raindrops rocked off her head when she landed. “Alright — hypothetically speaking, what about this. Fentanyle’s crows scour the train, because of course they do. She wants to stay informed. Wants to know what’s going on, because she feels the need to protect Omi from harm. Thus, she has to know everything.”

Bell walked along the edge of her bubble barrier, just so that the rain would continue showering her.

“And she notices a discrepancy,” she continued. “Something isn’t right. Something feels off. So she opens her third eyes.” Bell turned toward the crowd, her tendrils radiating from her as she spread her arms. “And sees something she’s not supposed to.”

Poxie cuddles herself back into Log’s arms, swallowing anxiously. Log began to caress her cheek.

“She gets kicked off the train,” Theora followed the train of thought. “But if anyone knew she found a secret, that in itself would threaten the discovery of that secret… Except, if everyone were to believe she got murdered instead…”

Bell nodded. “Then people would be too preoccupied solving that murder, and have no clue that a secret even existed, nor that Fentanyle was possibly still out there.”

“But what kind of secret could possibly be important enough to both warrant pretending there was a murder, and creating a new reality?” Treeka asked, worriedly. “It must be pretty bad, then…?”

Theora had to agree with that assessment. She turned toward Log. “So, Fentanyle was still in the Lavish after you failed to expel her, and she was wounded,” she summarised. “Right?”

Log nodded, her body language tense. “She definitely was. And I don’t think she could have left the Lavish, either — we would have seen her, or someone in the lounge or diner would have witnessed her teleport there.”

“So… whatever secret she saw, she saw here.” Bell looked around, frowning. “Well, not here, necessarily. But in the engine carriage.” She began walking up and down again, lost in thought.

Theora started wracking her brain too. She was incredibly tempted to search through the engine carriage, but after what she’d done to the train earlier that day, the staff probably wouldn’t appreciate her snooping around. In other words, she and Bell would have to find a time where everyone else was occupied, even the staffers. A moment where nobody would be likely to run into them… When could that be?

“This is such a mess,” Omi let out with a sigh, but her voice sounded a lot less heavy now. The fact that Fentanyle may have actually not died because of her seemed to lift a weight off her shoulder. 

Theora wanted to offer a few more words of solace, but before she could, she was overcome with dread. A shiver went across her body as her perception slowed down — something was about to go deeply wrong.

She was already up on her feet and forming the words to stop Log when a bundle of tendrils shot right past her. A little zap sound scratched the inside of Theora’s ears as Log’s fingers brushed against a new-formed small and glittering spot on Poxie’s neck, right beneath her ear.

Tendrils wrapped around Log’s body and arm, pulling her off Poxie gently and revealing a gridlike barrier like iridescent glass hovering just above where Log would have touched her neck.

“Not there,” Bell said, softly pulling Log further away and adding more layers of protection. “That feels like a bad spot. Don’t touch Poxie there.”

And then Poxie started crying.