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Augustus flung himself forward, stumbling through voidspace and leaping up to wrap his arms around the demon prince Enmity’s shoulders. His mouth found Enmity’s and then they were kissing hard. Enmity’s mouth split to welcome him, too many teeth brushing his lips and a long tongue unfurling against Augustus’s. His heart ached, joy and loss and grief and power, at the feeling of his husband in his arms.

“I missed you,” Augustus gasped, breaking the kiss.

“Aw, babe, you like me,” Enmity teased, toying with a lock of Augustus’s hair. His iridescent eyes—possibly just more scales over them, Augustus had never been sure—glittered in the light from the workroom outside this space. “Thou sweet fool.”

“A fool for love,” Augustus said, smiling.

Enmity took Augustus’s hand—the one bearing his wedding ring, the mark of the pact he’d made when he promised himself to Enmity—and kissed it before releasing that hand again. “I know. Why’ve you summoned me this evening?”

“Ugh, because it’s been too long!” Augustus said dramatically, flinging his arms wide. “As we mortals determine this shit! My every thought has been consumed by your absence, and I had to dampen even those thoughts for fear of discovery! Babe.”

“Babe,” Enmity agreed, with a snort. “Well, if it’s just that—”

He pulled Augustus close again, and reality splintered around the pressure of his body, cold flames licking over Augustus’s skin, everything dissolving into pressure and heat, sharp teeth and blood, soft kisses and caresses, sensations almost as impossible to process as they were to describe. It was agony; it was ecstasy; it went on for an eon and was over in a heartbeat. He wanted to be strung out in it forever, sobbing Enmity’s name—his true name, the one scratched invisibly into the inside of his ring, into the inside of his heart—and giving as much of himself as he could until there was nothing left of him to give—

But no, it was over too soon, as always, and left him with enough of himself intact to be helplessly content, sprawled out against his husband, draped lazily against his chest. His mind came back together, and his thoughts, as Enmity returned them one at a time, grinning teasingly, toying with his very self.

“Ah, fuck,” Augustus said.

“Thou love-struck maggot, my sweet prelate,” Enmity said softly. He played with Augustus’s hair. “Is there truly nothing else going on for you right now? Tell me of your mortal concerns. Is that fool von Beekeeper still stuck up everyone’s assholes?” 

“He’d be less uptight if he were,” Augustus murmured. “I guess there are a few things that might interest you. Let me think a little more.”

It wasn’t a request for time, but to be given more of his mind back. A bit of energy rushed back into him—it was a temporary loan, Augustus knew, but would probably last him until he made it home later, where he’d sleep very deeply. “Yes?” Enmity asked.

Augustus pushed himself upright, sitting on Enmity’s thigh, and scrubbed his fingers through his hair, trying to make himself a little presentable after a thousand years of torture crammed into a few heartbeats. “Well, it’s really just a little mystery…”

He summarized his last couple of days, starting from discovering Yujin over his paperwork and what they’d said about the missing papers, covering his investigations to date, and ending with his time in the school pub, leaving nothing out. “So, as you can see, the options are still wide open. I feel like it was probably someone on campus rather than a random thief from outside it, but as of yet I don’t have any proof. And what about you? What news from beyond the veil between worlds?”

Enmity reclined back into a throne of black fire that he’d summoned at some point that Augustus couldn’t recall. “Oh, well. The usual things. Demonic scrabbling for power and attempts to gain new footholds into the planar realms, pressures from different sorts of spiritual forces to gain power over the others, etcetera, etcetera,” Enmity said. “I’m not entirely sure it’d be unrelated, actually. But listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“Thou dost, as best thou canst. I know, my good insect. Anyway, don’t forget as you do all this that you should have two priorities here. The first you should know already, of course, because it’s my proprietary interest.”

Augustus laughed, tracing a scale on Enmity’s chest with a fingertip absently, trying to memorize its texture. “I know. You want me to find the way to bring you through into our world permanently to rule it, rather than to steal a moment here and there through summoning. And historically that hasn’t worked out well for demons.”

“Because it’s an invasion, and we are intruding into a space that can perform a siege upon us,” Enmity agreed. “I think the research you’re doing into the proof that the so-called physical plane and that the spiritual plane are two halves of a whole will help. If you can cement that idea in some way, or find whatever bit of evidence makes it click, then claim at least part of it is my territory, I’ll have a ground advantage. Can’t give up on any bit that helps.”

“Mmhm.” Augustus leaned his head against that chest, which had no heart to beat in it. “I’m working on defining it. It would help if so much of our art wasn’t built up around the assumption of us-and-them. I really think investigating into what falls outside that dichotomy will help—”

“Annnd that’s the part that might be related,” Enmity said, more serious. “I’ve never forgotten about the gaps in your memory, Augustus. You summoned me to try to find out what had happened to you in your past, and I’m convinced you managed to conjure something from beyond. But I don’t know what, still. I’ve been investigating the things outside the planes, the things from beyond proper planar space, that wriggle through the gaps. And I’m limited in a way even you aren’t—demons are very bound to a plane and territory; otherwise, I wouldn’t have you working on this task for me.”

Augustus nodded, sitting up a little more and making himself pay better attention. “You’ve found something?” 

“I don’t know if it’s your thing. But I’m pretty attuned to calls from your area of your planar space, because I’m always listening for you.”

“You are?” Augustus tried to sound flattered instead of smug.

“Darling. Sure. Yeah of course.” Enmity waved a hand. “We’re bound. The point is, I think something has been calling and trying to reach that space between, and is doing so from somewhere near you, and I was looking for it so I happened to spot it. I don’t know if it’s deliberate, and I don’t know if it’s successful.”

“But it’s certainly oddly coincidental when some of my research on that non-planar space got stolen. At a time that I have been trying to do a monograph about it,” Augustus agreed.

“Yeah! You fuckin’ get me! Thou brilliant, dirt-crawling creature!”

Augustus preened. “But what do you think the call’s trying to do?”

“I think it might be trying to pull something through.” Enmity hesitated, then patted Augustus’s leg. “And I don’t know what that’d result in. But whether or not it’s related directly, I think you should track down that Soren guy. If you have a sense you know Soren but can’t remember, he might have been someone you knew during that period of fractured memory. You know I can’t access that part of your mind directly to find out what you did, because that part’s just not there, but it definitely never felt demonic. If Soren is from that time, and was involved—”

“A big if. He might have just been someone I knew around then.”

“Yeah, we’re all speculative up in this fine bitch,” Enmity agreed. “But regardless, if he’s associated at all, if you borrow something of Soren’s—or kidnap him himself, I don’t care, whatever works, though I doubt you want him seeing me—I might be able to use him to fill in some of those gaps. Like using multiple secondary sources to get a better idea of a subject that doesn’t have any primary sources. Ya dig?”

It made sense—and getting ahold of something belonging to someone he hadn’t even introduced himself to yet was, at least, a minor challenge as these things went. “I do dig.”

“I know thou dost, thou wriggling mite,” Enmity purred fondly. 

“So to summarize—if I’m understanding—someone stole my research about dichotomies of the plane, which I’m using to try to redefine the planes as one thing instead of two, and they may or may not be using it to get a better grasp of what is between the planes, and they may or may not be the same person who is trying to access the space beyond the planes, and what they’re accessing may or may not be the same thing involved in the loss of my past memories, and this may or may not in some way relate to Soren?”

“Time’s up, babe,” Enmity said, and Augustus was thrown back into reality as the rift closed.

He lay on the floor for a few moments, his extra energy gone again, sucked back into the abyss with Enmity—gone home with Em, he reminded himself automatically, now that he was here instead of there—and slowly pushed himself up.

Thankfully, the campus workrooms all had running water so that materials could be extinguished if necessary, and he managed to shakily clean himself up before he stumbled home to bed. He did not encounter anyone he knew, at least, and once he was home he stumbled into bed fully dressed and immediately passed out.

He slept in a little the next morning, but was suitably refreshed regardless when he woke. It was Twosday now, he reminded himself, which meant that his day was empty of obligations until 1pm, when his office hours started … if he even wanted to go to them.

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Augustus tore his eyes away from the sight of Soren leaning over the menu, of the long line of his back and the way his suit lay tight across his backside. He had come here for a purpose—he had too many mysteries he was actively researching to add another to his plate! Besides, he was on a deadline. He had to eat, drink, and casually interrogate everyone who seemed relevant to the case of the missing research, then casually excuse himself and be back in his workroom within two hours. He didn’t have time to play around. 

He wondered if he was being so determined specifically to give himself another excuse to not go over and introduce himself, and thus actually confront that strange, fluttery-familiar feeling. He’d somehow come up with perfectly reasonable excuses like these every time he’d noticed Soren.

It didn’t matter. The excuses were perfectly reasonable, after all.

He ordered food at the bar—a flattened, battered, and fried chicken with a crema sauce and a collection of fried root vegetables with side salad—and took his drink, casually wandering the room and stopping to look at the stained glass window within earshot of the table full of drunken research assistants.

“—Like, if they want the workload to be this heavy this early in the year, I don’t know what it’s going to be like down the line.”

“I know! And that’d be fine if more of them were actually doing their job.”

“The day every professor does their job and doesn’t casually shunt additional work onto us will be the day that I see a sow soar ‘cross the sky.”

“We’re not supposed to be in charge of classroom work! We’re essentially just fancy librarians.”

“We’re not fancy compared to the librarians, have you seen—“

“The point is that that’s a totally different job description and I should complain. I should just complain to someone.”

“The dean?”

“I guess! But I’ve heard the dean’s currently overloading the professors with research work and if he just tells them to offload that all to us it won’t be any better. They’re the ones who signed up to both teach and research.”

“I’d rather do more research and less trying to distract a class I’m sitting in on.” 

“At least Spiders has only arrived late a few times. Fitzfleming has been acting so … so weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Like … emotional. She’s not like that normally. She cried once. I don’t even know why! She cried and started apologizing for nothing!”

“Oh, wow. Wow. Is everything okay in her home life!?”

“I’m not going to ask!“

“Okay, I know, but—” 

“Uh, is that Pennywright?”

The table of research assistants grew quiet. Augustus took a long sip of his beer, gazing at the window with admiration a few moments longer, then turned as if he had only just noticed them due to their sudden silence. “Oh! My apologies. Didn’t see you all there.”

“Yes sir,” one of them, who he didn’t recognize, said. 

“Can we help you with anything?” Pérez’s RA asked.

Well, in for a penny. “Do you know if everything’s been all right with Yujin, lately?”

“Yujin? They almost never come to get-togethers,” Olivia’s RA said. “And when they do, they’re usually pretty quiet. Secretive, actually, I don’t know much about them. Why, did something happen?”

They were obviously gossips. “No, nothing, really. They discovered some theft from my office and I was worried if they were feeling guilty or shaken about what a close encounter with a thief they must have just missed. I’m hoping not, though, it’s hardly their fault.”

“Theft?” Several of them seemed to perk their ears up. Some of them—the more bestial or elven of them, both of whom had ears that did swivel—actually did perk their ears up. “Like what?”

“Just a few books. I don’t know if I actually misplaced them, or if someone borrowed them and neglected to tell me, or if we have someone trying to hawk rare books. If you hear anything, can you let me know?”

None of them had any recognition about this on their faces, at least, and if one of them was the guilty party, they were an incredibly good actor when drunk. “Sure, we can do that,” said another one he didn’t recognize. 

“Thanks muchly,” he said, finishing his drink and wandering off.

It looked as though his food were up, so he snagged his plate and pretended to wander around looking for the ideal place to sit. This gave him a chance to slide in front of Octothorpe, who seemed surprised to see him. “Hello,” Augustus said cheerfully. “Fine afternoon.”

“Is it?” Octothorpe said. “It’s Firstday.”

“It is. It is Firstday.”

“I hate Firstdays,” Octothorpe said, sighing.

“Are you … okay?” Augustus asked slowly.

“Fine. I got a paper rejected.”

“Ah.” Augustus nodded. Obviously, Ethics wasn’t exactly scrambling to have people publish all the time, but the people on the Ethics board were still academics, and it never felt good when a journal decided not to go ahead with something you’d spent that much time on. “Sorry to hear it.”

“Anyway. Did you want something?”

“Company while I ate?” Augustus took a bite pointedly, and then another because the food was really good. And then, because Octothorpe continued to look at him with disbelief—neither had any issues with the other in particular, so far as Augustus knew, but they weren’t friends—added, “I do have a problem.”

“Of course you do,” Octothorpe said, glum.

 Augustus pretended that he’d been met with enthusiasm. “Someone stole some things from my office. I was wondering if anyone else had reported anything?”

“That sounds like an issue for campus security.”

“I know, but if it turns out to be someone using it for cheating, that’ll end up with your folks.”

Octothorpe sighed. “I guess it would. Cheating and forbidden spells, that’s all I get to deal with, not respected work in scholarly publications …” 

Ethics was normally called in when someone was performing magic that they really oughtn’t to, to determine if they were putting other people at risk. Augustus tried very hard not to think of the ritual currently brewing on-campus in his workroom. He tried very hard most of the time not to think of his husband at all, beyond vague thoughts of loving his darling Em. One never knew when someone whose magics lay in that area would start reading minds and if they might somehow get around your own mental wards. That would be a violation of Ethics as well, of course. Just … well, there was no comparison, was there?

He ate in silence for a few moments, waiting to see what Octothorpe would do, then finally said, “Okay, so if it does turn out someone—student, professor, someone from off campus—is stealing book for their own use, can I come to you? And if you hear anything more, can you let me know?”

“Yes to both,” Octothorpe said. “Of course, if it’s off campus, it’ll be out of my hands, but a cheating student or a professor trying to poach your work, both would be Ethics concerns. If I do bring you information, though, please don’t try to confront them directly. That could get—” he shuddered, “—violent.” 

Augustus was never sure if Octothorpe were a pacifist for moral reasons, or simply afraid of a fight. “Of course. Thank you.”

“Sure. Do you think I’m a hack?”

“Oh goodness no. Of course not.” Augustus ate a little too fast as he listened to Octothorpe vent about the publication’s response being too personal, though the description sounded pretty templated to him.

When  his plate was finally empty, he rose. “Well, try another journal,” he said. “You never know.”

“I already have.”

“Third time’s the charm!” Augustus insisted, beating a retreat to deposit his plate at the bar and ask for another drink.

Once that was pulled, he wandered toward Olivia, who was just finishing up their meal at the bar, having eaten it at a much more sedate pace. “Hello, Olivia. This seat taken?”

“I suspect it has been now!” she said cheerfully, gesturing. He sat in it. “What’s new?”

“Oh, this and that,” he said vaguely. “Is everything well with you? I couldn’t help but hear that you’d been late to class a few times recently, and I know that’s not something you’re usually casual about.”

They grimaced, their nose wrinkling and sending their freckles for a ride. “Von Beekeeper’s just really been riding my ass to get a paper done.”

That was relatable. “Oh, word,” he said.

“Yeah, I thought the whole department might be getting it,” she said with a sigh. “Really chasing that funding. Anyway, I’ve been working on it a lot lately, you know how it is. Sometimes I hear the bell go and think, well, I’ll just finish my sentence, but when I look up it’s five minutes past my absolute drop-dead limit for when I can get to class on time. I do feel very bad about it.”

“I’m glad it’s nothing serious,” he said, smiling at them. “What are you working on?”

“Ah-ah-ah.” They waggled a finger. “Our fields are a little too close and the pressure is a little too much; what if you stole some of my ideas? I’m onto your nefarious ways!”

There was no way she was actually onto his nefarious ways. Augustus wrinkled his nose back at her. “Sounds like you have theft on the mind lately.”

That seemed to surprise her. Her eyes widened and she sat back a little. “Excuse me?”

“Pérez mentioned you’d been grilling him about anti-theft warding details,” Augustus explained. Yeah, that must have sounded weird out of context. “For your sister.”

“Oh, yes, that,” Olivia said. They frowned at him. “What are you doing asking Pérez about me? I thought you two didn’t get along.”

“Oh, Pérez is fine,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “And I wasn’t, I was asking him about theft. Yujin noticed that I had a few books taken out of my office recently.”

Olivia groaned. “Great, my fears of theft are now increased. Anything valuable?”

“Nothing hugely so; it’s mostly just in terms of value to me and my work. And the fact it’s happening at all,” he added.

She nodded. “I haven’t noticed anything myself, but I’ll have to ask my assistant if he has. Great. Lovely. Cheers to that. Change the subject, okay?”

He waved a hand apologetically. “Sorry to stress you out, it’s just been my own personal concern since we found that. About that subject change … actually, there’s someone I’ve been hoping you’d introduce me to.” He looked around—

—but Soren was no longer here. He must have only grabbed a drink, or perhaps didn’t like the menu or its prices. Augustus tried not to feel disappointed about that.

“Yeeeees?” Olivia asked slowly.

“Oh, no, it’s just—that new professor. Soren. I was hoping for an introduction.”  

“Oooh, why. Is he your type?”

“I’m just curious. We haven’t met before.” They hadn’t, had they? “So I was hoping someone would help out there.”

Olivia looked very curious about that for a few moments, then seemed to dismiss it, shrugging. “I can do that later, if you want. I’m free tomorrow afternoon.”

He had office hours in the afternoon. Most of the time, students didn’t show up, though. “I’ll think about it, thank you,” he said.

But talking about time had made his eyes wander to the clock. Augustus downed his drink and rose. “I appreciate it, Olivia. Best of luck … and make sure you lock your office up tight!”

“Jerk,” she said, miming a kick at his ankle that was guaranteed to miss. 

Augustus returned to the workroom just in time; the ingredients had formed the perfect consistency, and were only just starting to bubble. He barred his door and jammed a chair under the handle for good measure, then decanted them, his chanting soft, the odd sounds rolling off his tongue.

His voice had just begun to go hoarse when the ritual finished and voidspace filled his room, overlapping on the real world. A darker space in it split and tore, and his husband stepped through, iridescent scales glittering, tall black horns almost scraping the top of the workroom (though they wouldn’t be able to touch the physical space of it even if they did so in here), tail lashing, naked and resplendent, taller than human, hooved and brilliant, surrounded in heatless black flames that wreathed his limbs.

“Babe! Darling! Thou wretched worm who hast hitched his wagon to mine horse,” Enmity, Demon Prince of the Dark Phlogiston said cheerfully. “What the fuck is up? It has been SO long as mortals determine this shit. Or so it hast felt to be apart from thee.”

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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. 

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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!
Please read the instruction post before commenting]

“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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