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“You want to talk to me?” Pérez sniffed imperiously. “I suppose so. But if any of my students arrive, you will need to leave immediately.”

“Of course,” Augustus said, as if he were surprised that Pérez would even think he had to say it. “I know how devoted you are to teaching your students. I’d never dream of interfering with that.”

Pérez looked mollified. Conversations with Pérez were remarkably easy in some ways; pompous people loved feeling as if their vanity was rooted in reality. The challenge was going to be in keeping up a friendly stream of compliments without being too overt about how much he was massaging Pérez’s pride, and in avoiding either losing his patience or being so friendly that Pérez walked all over him. 

“The thing is,” Augustus began, affably apologetic, “I’ve noticed some of my books and documents going astray. I was wondering if you’d noticed anything similar?” Pompous people also loved being viewed as the solution to the problems of lesser people.

“Nothing’s gone missing,” Pérez said immediately, but with a frown. “I’m confident of it.” 

He didn’t seem inclined to check, Augustus noticed, but that wasn’t necessarily a sign of any guilt; if he were to look, he’d probably do it privately. “I just don’t want Yujin to blame themself. They’ve been worried about the possibility of people entering their room without permission and taking their keys. Apparently some professors haven’t been that great about waiting outside …?” If Pérez recognized this was referring to himself, he didn’t react. Augustus went on. “I suppose if nobody’s taken anything from you, I have to worry that it’s a bit more targeted, rather than a crime of opportunity. I’d think they’d prioritize your work, given your standing.”

“It might simply be that my defenses are better than yours,” Pérez pointed out. He seemed genuinely concerned now, though, stroking his clean-shaven chin. “What kind of work was taken? Demonic? Conjuration of such spirits? If you let some half-trained rogue steal those things, we might have a real problem on our hands. Most of the reading materials should be harmless by itself, but they contain just enough instructions that if the thief also got hold of ingredients, and hadn’t stolen any of my important work on warding, the results could be catastrophic!”

“It seemed to be mostly theoretical studies on planar work, outside the realms of demons or other standard extraplanar spirits,” Augustus said, trying to hide his amusement. He couldn’t quite resist adding: “Are you accusing me of demon summoning?”

“Ugh!” Pérez threw both hands up. “Spiritual Conjuration isn’t all the same, and you and I both know that, but it’s a slippery slope. The knowledge demons can offer is too dangerous to intelligent men such as you and I, and that’s the problem here!”

Augustus made sympathetic noises until the small rant finished. “Yes, yes,” he agreed. “Don’t get too worked up, Pérez, you’re going to wrinkle your suit. Lovely work, by the way, where did you get it?”

For a moment, he thought he’d risked laying it on too thick—but his assessment was correct, as Pérez calmed down and smoothed his shirt front. “It’s custom. Why, planning on impressing someone? Hoping to take advantage of your husband’s constant absence?”

“Never without his permission,” Augustus said, smiling. “Fortunately, he likes to know I’m happy and enjoying my life. My husband aside, if you think just stealing some theoretical reading is as dangerous as it would be if it involved demons, I’d love advice from a colleague so well-versed in spiritual protections.”

Pérez hmph‘d softly. “I don’t know much about how to deter theft from more mundane sources. If it were me, I’d set an alarm ward and leave it at that. I can’t believe I’ve had to talk about alarm wards twice so recently. It’s really not my area.”

“So you have heard of other thefts?”

“Not in any relevant sense,” Pérez said. “Olivia came by a week or two ago to ask about warding alarms for material intrusions and how one might get around them. Their sister runs a jewelry shop in town and she wanted to know what to look for in case of trouble.”

It took Augustus a moment to place the name, since very few professors went by given name—but given that the person in question was Olivia Spiders, it was generally more confusing to use her family name. Olivia, a cheerful younger professor of Spiritual Contract Law who went by both she and they pronouns, was perky, friendly, and tended to joke around; he recalled them as an easy person to talk to. It didn’t seem relevant, per se, but Olivia’s personality meant that following up about it later would at least not be a trial.

Augustus began, “Well—” but before he could continue his interrogation, there was a rap at the door. Disappointed, he rose at once. “I’ll see myself out, then. Thanks for the help, Pérez. I always appreciate your thoughtful answers.”

Pérez preened. “Of course. Stop by any time.”

So that had gone well enough, he thought as he stepped past the student who was on her way in. He headed to his workroom. He kept it much tidier than most others that he’d seen—no crystals spilling across the counters, no half-erased markings—but instead, it was a fairly comfortable open space with a small bed against one wall for late nights, a carefully-organized work desk with the most dangerous books and papers tucked away in there rather than his office upstairs (all of which thankfully seemed to still be in their place), and a huge apothecary’s cabinet full of magical ingredients.

He set up the wards to keep the upcoming demonic intrusion from bleeding out of the room, combined the relevant conjuration-voidspace materials and set them to developing, and headed back out to the pub, stopping by his office only briefly to grab his spare jacket so that he wouldn’t bring the smell of sulfur with him.

The campus pub, named the Magician’s Apprentice, was just starting to come out of its quiet period; it was still relatively early in the afternoon, but just late enough that people who favored an early dinner had started to come by. He could see a few professors and students sitting by themselves—including the aforementioned Olivia Spiders, who was wearing a flowy pantsuit with wide lapels that somehow didn’t swallow her despite her diminutive size; they had their hair up in an elaborate series of braids, and the sunlight through the window reflected both off the tall glass of ale in her hand and the freckles on her face.

Also sitting by himself was Octothorpe the Hunter—not actually a hunter at all, and a vegetarian who reputedly fainted at the sight of blood, but from an unusual sect of wizards who, upon graduation to their full rank, were required to claim a unique color much as clowns had to claim a unique pattern of face paint. Hunter was, based on Octothorpe’s outfit, a shade of dark green. Octothorpe himself was of orcish heritage, with small tusks and strong, greenish features, and he hulked sadly over his own tankard.  

Nearby sat a table of research assistants; it sounded as if they were complaining about something or other as a group (Augustus had to assume it was probably their professors) and they had clearly already been drinking pretty heavily. Yujin wasn’t there with them, Augustus noted without surprise.

He went to the bar and ordered himself a beer, and as he waited for it to be pulled, he looked around again to try to figure out who to approach.

But before he could decide, the door opened again and admitted—what was his name again?—Soren. Augustus’ heart skipped a beat as he watched Soren glance around, bending over a menu. He was about Augustus’s age, also human, with dark skin and even darker, curly black hair, wearing a simple soft gray suit that fit his angular form nicely. Augustus couldn’t help but admire his appearance.

Soren was a recent hire, a professor of Conjurations in, to Augustus’s understanding, the field of Aetherial Spirits. He didn’t know Soren, he was pretty sure, but the few times he’d seen him around, a strange spark of familiarity would shake him, that sense of don’t I know you from somewhere that never seemed to find a home. Perhaps they’d given guest lectures in the same place or something like that. He could probably find out if he asked, but, too uncertain of the strength of his own feelings, he’d never actually talked to Soren before. 

[What should Augustus do? Comment with details.]

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Well, if Augustus didn’t yet have infinite time in a day—and it seemed as if he still did not—he supposed that the next best option was to come up with a plan that would let him get as much done as possible.

If he wanted to see his husband at all today, he needed to set aside time to perform the ritual, which would take one hour to prepare, two hours for the ingredients to come to readiness, and an additional hour to cast. The problem was that the ingredients spoiled rapidly once they had come to readiness; if he missed the window of preparation, they’d be ruined. He couldn’t afford to waste ingredients willy-nilly, and Em would be none too happy about his bell being rung but the door not opened.  

Normally, Augustus would simply spend the whole time observing and overseeing the process, but it was technically possible for him to prepare it, go out for a couple of hours, and then come back in time to finish things off, so long as he minded the clock. Normally he cast it at home, but he had enough ingredients at his workroom here at the school to cast it at least once; that might shave off the small bit of travel time he’d otherwise have to deal with

It was the only way he could justify it when he had so many other things that he felt like he should be doing. But he didn’t want to have another day with no time spent with Em, especially now that he’d already taken his husband’s ambrotype home and couldn’t look at it at work. And that wasn’t his husband’s real appearance, only his disguise in his proper public persona as Emmet Darkfire, handsome and tall and pale, with a rakish grin and a stark white suit. Beautiful, but still not the person he really wanted to be seeing. Not that he had the option of an ambrotype otherwise; he wasn’t sure Em would even show up on a glass plate as he normally appeared.

So: no point in preparing the spell until he was ready to be back and starting to cast in three hours, as he’d just lose the ingredients. That gave him a couple of hours to spend first—might as well return the library book during the hours it was open so that he could hand it back to Fernandez in person. Then, he could try to find Pérez; he believed Pérez had office hours right now, while Fitzfleming might be in class, and one was much easier to interrupt than the other. 

That should take a little time; after that, he could pop into his workroom, prepare the ingredients, and head back out. Then, in the two hours while they developed, he could head back to the campus pub for dinner. If he spotted any of the research assistants or professors there, he could ask around—see if the theft was a widespread pattern or if it seemed to be just him. Plus, who knew what useful rumors might be flying about? Finally, he could rush back to his workroom to see his husband.

It was a solid plan, he told himself, and most of the individual stages could be canceled or changed on a dime if something came up that he needed to follow up on immediately. Thus satisfied, he picked up his bag and headed to the university library.

The library was a great old thing in a hulking, ominous stone building. It was deeply haunted, but seemed to reject all attempts to move the hauntings on in any reasonable proportion; their unfinished business seemed tied directly to the library itself. The librarians who stayed long enough to get any sort of rank within their internal processes were made of stern stuff.

Jacinta Maria Fernandez was no exception: a tiny, middle-aged half-elven woman who always dressed to the nines in full suits. Augustus was aware that outside of work, she was a remarkable shot with a pistol and could drink most sailors under the table, but at the library she was prim, proper, and hard-done-by, her hair bound up in a tight knot. She never wore makeup. “Mr. Pennywright,” she said, as he approached. “Here to borrow more materials already? Your assistant borrowed our new loan just yesterday.”

“They did, and I enjoyed it marvelously,” Augustus said, producing the book from his bag. “They also told me that you wanted it back as soon as possible, since many people had requested it, so I thought to return it as quickly as possible.”

Her eyebrows rose, and she seemed to warm a bit to him, though it was possibly his imagination. She took it, pulling down the ledger and making a note of its return. “That was quite quick, Mr. Pennywright.”

“I didn’t want to put you out, Ms. Fernandez,” he said agreeably. “I’ll have Yujin stop by soon with more materials to acquire, I’m sure—but while I’m here, can I ask you something?”

“I cannot guarantee an answer, but you may ask.” 

He noted a subtle emphasis on the may. Perhaps Fernandez had been a schoolteacher at some point, or perhaps it was simply underlining her warning. “I found that a few papers and books were missing from my office. All my own books, not the library’s, thankfully, but I was wondering if you’d been having any similar problems here?”

That earned him a fierce frown, and her hand wandered briefly to her waistband under her jacket, as if she were contemplating what to do to any errant book thieves. “I don’t believe so. We do inventory regularly, and we haven’t had any books turn up missing the usual way recently—that’s to say, nobody has asked us to find anything that wasn’t marked checked out but also wasn’t where it was listed as. Of course, there’s always situations where someone holds onto a book too long, but to my best knowledge, they’re all things we have notes on.”

“I see,” Augustus said. He wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or not. Perhaps the thief didn’t want anything that was too easily traceable from the library, but he thought that they’d be more likely to have tried to steal something in a public space first, not a private one.

Fernandez pondered him for a moment, then abruptly said, “I’ll have Percy do inventory to confirm. And if anyone else—professor or student—comes by with similar complaints, I’ll let you know, shall I?”

It was an uncharacteristic offer from her, and he smiled at her reflexively. Perhaps his quick return of this book had indeed made her more likely to do him some favors. “Thank you. If you can’t get hold of me, please tell my assistant.”

She nodded and turned back to her work; he watched her for a moment, but had clearly been dismissed, and he headed out again soon enough.

Next up on his impromptu schedule was Pérez, and Augustus briskly headed up to the man’s office. As he’d expected, it was within the office hours, so he knocked. If Pérez was with a student, he could always send Augustus away.

“Enter,” he heard, so he did.

Pérez wasn’t with a student, and had the familiar bored look of a professor who hadn’t had a student for the entirety of his office hours. That might be good; he might be more inclined to talk. Nevertheless, Pérez scowled, drawing himself up behind his desk. “Pennywright. My office hours are for students, not professors.”

He didn’t say peers, probably because he didn’t think he had any. He was beautiful, Augustus had to admit; he was currently wearing an almost uncannily gorgeous suit, so dark blue it was nearly black and with stardust threaded through it so it glittered in the light whenever he moved. His silver hair was long enough to touch the floor when unbound, and in some rituals he would leave it down like a waterfall over his robes; today, it was in a long braid draped artfully over his shoulder.

Augustus smiled at Pérez, ignoring the cold reception he was getting. “I was hoping we could talk,” he said.

[What should Augustus do and how should he
approach this conversation? Comment with details!]

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[Apologies for having missed Day 4!
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“By all means, don’t let me keep you!” Augustus said with a laugh. “Do you have a busy day even on Restday?”

Yujin pulled a face. “Not at all,” they said. They were perennially single, and though Augustus didn’t get the impression they preferred it that way, that didn’t mean they spent much time on solving that problem. Or doing much socialization for any other reason, in fact. “Just hoping not to do too much work on Restday either, if I’m being honest.”

“I’d always prefer you be honest,” Augustus said lightly. “No, no, by all means. I’ll take a look through the rest of the room myself, and I’ll follow up more tomorrow. And I’ll do my best to corner Fitzfleming and Pérez to get them to lay off.”

“Ugh, I don’t want them to think I went running to you.”

“I’ll tell them I got it out of you via torture.”

“Hm,” Yujin said. “Have a good rest of your day, professor.”

They headed out and Augustus sighed, scrubbing his hands through his hair and looking around again. Nothing for it but some hard work.

He wished he’d kept some sort of inventory; he suspected that half the books on his shelf could go missing and he wouldn’t realize which ones were gone until he had a need to look for it specifically. Still, there weren’t a lot of egregious gaps, and the few places where he noticed that a shelf seemed to have more wiggle room than usual, he was able to identify a title that should have been there but didn’t seem to be on a quick scan.

It took a few hours, but he made it through his shelves and his desk, and by the end, he was pretty sure the totality of what was missing was: The paper Yujin had mentioned (Shadows of Fear Etc); a book on how the other plane was segmented by kingdom of entity (demons, elementals, uncanny spirits and so on); several folios on various deep dives into different forms of entities; a book that scandalously conflated Structural Spiritualism with Conjuration and proposed our plane was simply another of the outer planes; several papers that were written in retort to it; a book about ghosts and possession from the perspective of material-vs-spiritual analysis; and a hobbyist collection of real life encounters with creatures and entities that seemed to come from no known plane.

The problem with determining a commonality in what was missing was that these were all subjects that related to Augustus’s field of study specifically, and so they all made sense to appear together. But at least no more personal things were taken. He put the list to the side and resolved to sleep on it.

But before that—well, he’d come out here to research, and so he might as well research. And if anything else were to go missing, it’d better not be a library book, or Fernandez would come for his head; best to get that out of the way quickly, as Yujin had suggested. He sat down, tried to clear his mind of his worries, and began to leaf through the book, making notes.

By the time Augustus had finished reading and note-taking on Umbric Resistance in Summoned Spirits, it was quite late. He hadn’t realized how much time had passed until his stomach growled, and he glanced out the window to realize it was already dark. It looked like the library book would have to be returned tomorrow, if he had time to do so—but he packed it to take it home with him, just in case whoever was doing this still had access to his office.

He put his husband’s ambrotype in his bag as well.

Once home, he cooked himself a modest meal (pan-fried salmon over a gingered rice and roasted vegetables); it was late enough now that he didn’t want anything too heavy in case it kept him from sleeping well, though he somewhat ruined the effect by slicing himself some of the leftover pie he’d purchased the day before. 

Sometime eating sweets right before bed gave him dreams; disappointingly, that night wasn’t one of them. He woke annoyed, wishing that he’d had a chance to see his husband even if only in his dreams, and ate a breakfast of rich egg-soaked toast with cream, nuts, and berries to cheer himself up. 

That took slightly longer than he had available, and he ended up three minutes late to his his Firstday morning class, but considering he was keeping them for three hours, he doubted anyone minded. He hadn’t left himself time to prepare for this class, but it was a 100-level introductory class that he’d taught dozens of times; he could teach it in his sleep. Still, wouldn’t do to make a habit of it.

When class was finally over, and the last of the students had walked, slithered, or scurried out of the lecture hall, Augustus began clearing the board with a frown, deep in thought. He needed lunch, of course, but after that … well, he had many options ahead of him for the day, yet only enough time to do two or three of them. There were the options of returning the library book or talking to either Fitzfleming or Pérez, of course, but he could also continue his research, work on his monograph, call his husband, or something else—should he be asking around about Yujin among their peers? Ask any of the other professors if they’d noticed something strange? Discuss the problem with the department head or the dean? Was it something that needed to go to the Ethics board? Or, hell, he thought to himself ruefully, maybe he could just go get drunk.

Not for the first time in his life, Augustus wished for more time than he had available to him. Surely that was a problem he’d be able to solve someday.

[What should Augustus do next? Comment with details.]

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Hello all! Apologies for having to take a break day so early, but Aveline and I are out of town for the night, and the setup in this hotel makes it extremely difficult to write*, so no section of story today. Instead, Day 3’s turn-in time is extended by a day — please get your comments in over here by 5 pm on October 5th! (If I need to go a day or two past Halloween to wrap up, I will.) Thanks for your understanding,!

* It is however haunted, dead quiet, and abandoned-seeming and oh boy is it giving me ideas for something in the future

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“I didn’t expect you to be in today either,” Augustus said with a smile, trying to hide his irritation. He’d given up husband time today to do research, and now he had to deal with— 

—well, with what exactly? Perhaps it wasn’t so strange that Yujin was going through his things. Being his research assistant did give them a certain amount of leeway, though going through his desk itself was a bit of a transgression in terms of personal boundaries.

Augustus attempted to get a quick overview of everything that had been disturbed without letting his smile slip. Nothing except the desk seemed disrupted, at least at a glance, and most of his desk was still in place, including his ambrotype of his husband—an odd image, that, since it barely resembled the man, but charming nonetheless and he was glad to see it untouched. The papers spread out seemed to mostly be personal research, some of which he’d sourced, and most of which were his personal notes about spiritual hosting—the summoning of spirits and anchoring them onto this plane instead of the other by giving them some kind of host, and how that related to the dichotomy of the planes. It looked as though some other personal papers were there as well, bills and notes and so on, though he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Those could have been pulled out incidentally.

“What brings you here, then?” Augustus asked lightly when the silence had stretched on for perhaps a moment too long.

Yujin had remained frozen the whole time, looking a little flushed and very mortified, but that still wasn’t a sign of any actual misbehavior. Frankly, being interrupted like this looked bad, and thus would be mortifying even if there were a reason for it. Now, they seized on the question, flashing Augustus a relieved—even grateful—smile and stepping around the desk. “The library finally got in that loan of Umbric Resistance in Summoned Spirits, and I know you weren’t the only one with a request for it, so I decided to check it out and bring it in before anyone else could get their hands on it. By the way, you might want to review the relevant parts and get it back as soon as possible, Fernandez was really annoyed by how much demand there’s been for books on this subject lately and how many people are harassing her, so you getting it back quickly will probably help get you in her favor …”

They were rambling a little, brushing down their coat and making sure their sleeves were out of the cuffs. Augustus nodded. “Thank you for getting that for me,” he said gravely. He didn’t ask more. He deliberately didn’t ask, seeing what Yujin would do if he didn’t.

That earned him another flashed smile from them. “Of course, it’s my job. Um. Anyway, when I came in, a paper I’d brought yesterday wasn’t there. I was a little worried, but I thought maybe you’d come in and put it away or something, so I figured I’d check your desk.”

He definitely hadn’t come in yesterday. He’d been gardening most of the day. “That’s odd. What was the paper?”

Yujin winced. “I don’t remember the title. It was that one by Mahogany Mahoney. You know, the one on common fear legends from different extraplanar locations. The one that’s like Shadow-Fear-Shadow-Shadow.” 

“Shadows of Fear from the Shadows Feared by the Unshadowed?”

“That’s the one,” Yujin said, rolling their eyes. Relatable. “Anyway, did you take it?”

“I didn’t,” Augustus said, frowning now. “I didn’t even know you’d brought it. You’re sure you didn’t forget it?”

“I definitely came in with it,” Yujin said. “I wasn’t carrying anything else. I can’t imagine I’d have walked out with it and I remember putting it on your desk so you’d see it. I checked around and there’s a few other things I think might be missing, unless you’ve taken them to your workshop?”

That was alarming. “What else?”

“A few books and folios on extraplanar studies that I usually see around here. But I don’t know everything you have.”

“I’ll have to check,” Augustus said. He came around to do so, sorting through his papers almost absently. “Only you and I have keys to the office.”

Yujin nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. So if someone did come in, they either teleported—bypassing your wards without damaging them—or stole keys from one of us and put them back without us noticing.”

Neither option was great. At least, other than the things Yujin had pointed out, Augustus hadn’t yet noticed anything else missing. “Do you know who might have had access to your keys?”

 “I never left them alone with anyone deliberately. I might have occasionally stepped out of my room to get a package or some such from the front door without taking them with me or locking up, because why wouldn’t I? And occasionally other professors have barged into my study room to ask for specific papers that they’re accusing me of hoarding, so there’s a small chance one of them might have grabbed the keys and returned them without me noticing,” Yujin admitted, more embarrassed than defensive.

Augustus nodded, gathering up the pages that Yujin had spread out and squaring them. “Which professors?”

“Ivory Fitzfleming and Cordero Pérez are the worst offenders. Most at least wait in the hall,” Yujin grumbled.

“Keys aside, you should have said something,” Augustus chided. “They don’t get to abuse my assistant because they want access to the same resources. They can ask like anyone else.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But that’s not your fault,” Augustus added gently. 

Fitzfleming was a Professor of Structural Spiritualism, not Conjuration—Structural Spiritualists focused on the essence and spirit that existed in this plane within objects, plants, animals, and so on, all of which could be awakened and used. Most Structural Spiritualists viewed Conjuration as a field that was largely historic—in other words, no new achievements could come from it, just repetitions of old discoveries. Fitzfleming was no-nonsense about things in general, but was, to his understanding, working on a paper that might have led her to demand access to some of his research materials. 

Meanwhile, Pérez was in Wards and Protections, and was both pompous and beautiful, especially for a man of his age. Warding, as a field, tended to view Conjurations as playing with fire unnecessarily, but on the other hand, the entire field of Warding hardly needed to exist if Conjurers didn’t do their work. And Pérez had already nagged Augustus in person a few times to share information about Augustus’s monograph to ensure he didn’t get “over his head in demonic nonsense.”

Of course, it might not have been either of them. Augustus sighed. “Thanks for getting this for me, Yujin. And for looking into this weird disappearance.”

“Of course, sir. I wish I had more to add, but … well.” They shrugged. “May I be excused?”

[Comment below. Should Augustus:
> Make Research notes from new book & return it to library immediately
> Ask Yujin not to leave — and what would you have them do?
> Try to find Fitzfleming — and how would you approach the situation?
> Try to find Pérez — and how would you approach the situation?
> Give up on all this and call his husband after all
> Do something else
Describe the details in the comments!]

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