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[polydeukes]

ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ | ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇ | ᴛᴇxᴛ | ᴍᴀɢɪᴄᴀʟ ᴡɪᴛᴄʜ ɴᴏᴛᴇs

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[polydeukes]

[There's a half-laugh, almost a bitter sound, because isn't that the story of her life lately. Wrong choices for good reasons digging her into a bigger and bigger hole.]

Of course it was. That's all I can seem to do lately.

[headmaster]

And it can be undone. Whatever happens, you'll always have us to lean on. We take care of you.

[And now he's reaching over to pull her into a hug whether she wants one or not.]

I would never let you stay unfixed. You know that.

[polydeukes]

Yeah. I know.

[No, she'll take it. Dad hugs are always good, no matter how upset she is with him. But at the same time, she also knows that there's a secret she probably shouldn't still keep.]

There's ... something you should probably know."

[headmaster]

You can tell me anything.

[He doesn't imagine that she's got much in the way of secrets he doesn't know about anyway. He's far enough ahead of her, and she hasn't been here long enough to have anything tucked away since she's arrived. Right?]

[polydeukes]

[And well ... she doesn't exactly say anything. Instead, she gets up from the bed, moves over to her closet and pushes her clothes to the side. Then, it's fairly easy to see ...

... the sandclock sitting on her closet floor.

So now you're all caught up, Dad.]

[headmaster]

[His face falls as she unveils the dark hourglass.]

How cracked is it?

[This is a problem they don't need. Josie could do a lot of damage here.]

[polydeukes]

Not more than when we sent it away.

[At least ... there's that.]

But I don't know how long it will last. Especially here. I mean, I'm guessing that it got brought here for a reason.

[headmaster]

Enough people use magic here. We'll put together a council and see if there's anything that can be done about it. Maybe we can even give it away to someone else. There's enough dark magic here that it shouldn't shift the balance.

[polydeukes]

[She wrinkles her nose.]

I don't think it's that easy. If we break the clock doesn't it just rebound into me anyway?

[headmaster]

Normally it would, but we've never had this many experienced users to ask. We know how magic from our world might act, but maybe there's a loophole in the magic from somewhere else. There could be options we haven't tried here.

[polydeukes]

Can we trust them?

[Because that's the other big important question. She doesn't want them to take her dark magic bomb and use it to do terrible things under the guise of trying to help her.]