“In and out, Malthus,” I said to myself. “Nobody’s looking for you. They have absolutely no reason to suspect you. In and out. Easy as pie.” I could practically taste the doom in the air, but sometimes the comforting lie is all you have.

I slipped into the library, finding it still abandoned. That was one hurdle cleared, but I would have to pass by the AV Club’s room to get to where I had left Mariko. I held my breath, tiptoeing carefully past the door. If I listened carefully, I could just make out Maggie’s voice, though I couldn’t tell what she was saying.

The Sewing Club room was as I had left it, and Mariko still lay on the beanbag chair. I detected a whiff of smoke in the air; I hoped the stubborn woman hadn’t tried to cast any magic. If she had, those shackles would have already shown her the error of her ways. “I hope you’re ready to move, Mariko. There’s absolutely no time to waste.”

The brunette twisted to face me, panic written all over her face. “Who are you?”

“What? Oh, this disguise. It’s me, Soren.” I flipped up my mask to break the spell.

“Soren?” I supposed I deserved that scornful look. “What do you want? Haven’t you done enough today?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” I said with an awkward chuckle. “I’m full of surprises today.”

“Finding out you were a Holy Brother was surprise enough. Don’t bother lying to me again; I know that uniform, and I heard the broadcast over the loudspeakers. How could you help them do this?”

“Listen, I’m not… we don’t have time for this. We can have our little repartee once you’re safely out of here.”

“I… what?” She narrowed her eyes, as though hoping to see some hidden truth. “No, what are you really here for?”

“I assume you want to make it out of here alive,” I said. “If you don’t, I can leave. It would be a lot less work for me.”

Mariko once said I was forever stumbling upon her at her worst moments. I could add another to the pile; I had never seen her so completely flummoxed. “You showed me those pictures of Ms. Edwards, captured me, joined with terrorists who are out to destroy the Tower… and now you want to get me out of here?”

“That’s not a bad summary.” It sounded a tad circuitous when she said it like that. “My quarrel isn’t with you. I think Ms. Edward’s scheme is doomed to failure, and the Tower is going to come down.” I carefully left out that I was the one who would scupper the plan. “I don’t think you deserve to go down with it.”

“No, I won’t go! Not without Headmaster Tachibana, and not when they’re about to destroy the school!”

“You’re in no position to make demands, my dear,” I said. “And you need to stay quiet! I didn’t exactly run this by the Holy Sister. It’s only a matter of time before somebody wonders where I’ve wandered off to!”

“Wait, they don’t know you’re here?” Her expression softened.

“To them, you’re a demonkin. If Ms. Edwards thought about it, she’d have you hauled into the AV room and…” I trailed off. Mariko was an imaginative girl, and I figured she would conjure up something more awful than I could. “Well, it wouldn’t be pleasant. She wanted to kill you before, remember?”

“I haven’t been able to think about much else,” she replied in a quavering voice.

“Then will you see sense? I can get you free and out of the Tower. I just need you to cooperate with me.”

“What’s going to happen to you?” she asked.

“Don’t concern yourself with that.”

“But-”

“No, I must insist that you don’t. It will be easier for everyone involved. Now, do you agree?”

Mariko’s expression brooked no argument, like an exhausted mother dealing with an unruly child. “Soren, look me in the eye. No, right in the eye. Is this another trick, like with the phone?”

“No,” I said. I wanted to flinch away from her intense look, but I held her gaze.

“Why are you here?”

“I felt shabby about what I did to you before, and I couldn’t live with myself if you were harmed.” It was bad enough having such weak ideas bouncing around in my head without having to voice them. How humiliating. “There, are you satisfied?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Do you promise to come along quietly?” She nodded, thank the Dark Lord. I undid her bonds with an enchanted key and helped her to her feet.

I noticed her rubbing her wrist. “Please tell me you didn’t try casting any spells after I left.”

“I had to try,” she said as she fetched her purse. I noticed for the first time that the metallic shackles were pitted along the inside.

“You tried to use your disintegration affinity, I take it?” She nodded. “You always were a stubborn one. That must have been terribly painful.”

“I’ll live.” Her brusque demeanor seemed unlike her. Then again, I’d never been her enemy before. “Why are you asking about me? I thought there wasn’t any time to waste, Mr. Holy Brother.”

I couldn’t help but sigh. “I suppose there isn’t. Follow my lead.”

I glanced around the corner, relieved to find the hallway abandoned. “Zone of Silence.” A flickering, yellow aura surrounded the AV Club’s door.

“Why are you casting that?” Mariko whispered. “You can’t move it once it’s set.”

“No, but it might just keep them from hearing us.” I took her hand, forcing her along behind me. It was shaking like a leaf, of course. Oh, well; there wasn’t time to have her pop a nerve pill.

“Is that where they’re keeping Headmaster Tachibana?” she asked as we passed on by.

“What’s it to you?” I hissed. “What, are you going to launch a one woman rescue mission? Even if you were a fighter, you’d never make it.”

“Somebody has to try,” she said.

“No, quite frankly, they don’t. Who would ‘they’ even be? There is no they.”

“There’s you and me,” she said, dragging her heels. “You could take them by surprise. If we did it right, we could-”

“My dear, how much do you weigh?”

“What? Why would that matter?”

I summoned my most demonic expression and looked over my shoulder. “You aren’t so heavy that I can’t knock you out and carry you to safety. I’d rather not, but it’s entirely up to you.”

That shut her up. I didn’t like the horror in her eyes, but I could live with it. More importantly, so could she. I put the mask back on, though. It was the only barrier I could put between us.

As we descended, I chanced a look at her wrist. “That’s a nasty burn.”

“So what? It’s not like I can make my hand more useless.”

“Let me see.”

“Or what, you’ll knock me out and make me?”

I couldn’t help but wince. “Don’t be like that.”

She planted a hand on each hip. “How am I supposed to be?”

“Please? Let me put your tutoring to work one more time. It’s not much, but it’s all I can do for you at this point.”

With a sigh, she presented her wrists. “There, finally some cooperation,” I said. “We’ll have you patched up in a jiffy. Light Heal.”

She hissed as my hands came close to her old scars.

“Sorry,” I said on reflex.

Mariko shook her head, withdrawing her hands. “You said one more time. What do you mean by that?”

“I won’t have much cause to use it after today,” I replied.

“You aren’t… you’re talking like you’re going off to die.” The worry in her eyes hit harder than her earlier coldness. Our Father Below knew I didn’t deserve it.

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” I said. “I always land on my feet.”

The elevator had other ideas, suddenly wrenching to a halt. Our destination was in the basement near the garage, so we had been descending at a high speed. Mariko and I were both bowled over, and I just saw her head clip the edge of a handrail as she fell.

I was at her side in an instant. “Mariko?”

Her pained murmur told me she was alive, though probably regretting it.

“Of all the times for this damnable thing to fail!” I felt justified in distrusting the elevator all those months, though this was a Hell of a time to be proven right.

My tirade against technology was interrupted as I noticed two things. One was that the elevator’s walls almost seemed to sparkle somehow, and I detected a whiff of sandalwood, with just a hint of lavender.