“Miserable magicaps,” Mena moaned from the shadows. “This has got to be the worst timing in history. Even worse than walking in on May after her magical P.E. class.”

Caligari still sobbed into her chair, prompting the young witch to think fast. “Hmm,” she whispered to herself. “I do recall, if I grab her like this…”

Mena reached a shadow arm up into the air and grabbed Caligari’s left arm. She wiggled it back and forth, like a puppet on invisible strings. Caligari gasped as her other arm and legs were seized by shadowy tendrils. “Cool,” Mena said, “I’m like a Shadowy Septopus.”

Caligari went to scream, but another tendril held her mouth shut. The hapless professor stood up and walked around like an animated scarecrow, hiding behind the large platform at the center of the room, It was the observatory deck that spiraled up towards the stars.

Gemini led Law Pops, Cumberson and two rather large men in neon purple armor to the tea table. Nothing was visible of the guard’s faces but two pairs of red eyes glowing in their visors. “Lordy law,” Law Pops exclaimed in his drawl, sounding much like Deidre Love. “Magnificent. You even prepared us some tea and dinner. Your foresight is impeccable.”

Cumberson frowned, but Gemini gave a humble bow. “Of course, a brother in-law to my good friend, Laurence Pops is always welcome here.”

The little man had one of his guards hoist him into the seat. He sat with the bottom half of his head partially disguised by the tabletop. His towering top hat, however, reached all the way to the top of the chair. “Y’all don’t have a way for me to get a bit higher up, I reckon?”

“I got a nutritious box of Whole Grain Warlock Flakes, you can use,” Gemini said, causing the little man to give him the stink eye.

“I don’t need to grow taller, you ijit,” the little man hissed in a petulant voice. “I need a booster seat.”

Cumberson smiled smugly and Mena gasped. Both had realized Gemini had put his foot in his mouth.

“Oh,” Gemini laughed in his awkward squawky laugh. “I wasn’t proposing you eat the flakes. Merely sit on the box.”

“Ah,” Law Pops gave a high-pitched laugh of his own. “I misunderstood. Very well. A nice firm box is good for my tootsies.”

Mena cheered silently from the shadows as Cumberson winced. But the battle hadn’t been won yet. Caligari protested from beneath her gag, but Mena kept her arms, legs and mouth bound with her shadow tendrils. Quite an interesting position, she thought, for a supposed Phantominatrix.

“Before we eat,” Law Pops said, enjoying his new-found height. “Perhaps it’s best we get down to the nitty gritty. Loreena Cumberson, a proud member of your staff, has alerted me of some rather questionable happenings recently.”

Gemini turned a bit pale, before talking, “What kind of happenings, may I ask? I will assure you, as nonsensical as I may be, I am strictly no-nonsense when it comes to giving these students a good education.”

“It is not the quality of your education, that worries me…” Law Pops remarked. “It is your hiring policies.”

Gemini’s rainbow eyes turned towards the darkness where Mena kept Caligari bound. Even in the depths of the shadows, Mena’s heart pounded. Was Law Pops talking about Professor Caligari?

“Professor Peter Gaia,” Law Pops announced professionally as if he were reading court document. “Descendent of the mad philosopher Prognosticus, is now confined in the Worm Ward for Magical Madcaps. Was he your idea of an ideal role model for a bunch of young girls?”

“Well er… no,” Gemini stuttered and Cumberson smiled widely. “But sometimes, it’s important to hire people from all walks of life. There are many people who aren’t right in the head, but does that mean they can’t be mad geniuses? Honestly, deep down, I feel we’re all a little mad sometimes.”

“But do you regret hiring him?” Law Pops continued to probe.

“All of his credentials were there,” Gemini said back. “I only regret I couldn’t have figured out his issues in the first place and gotten him the help he needed.”

Law Pops stared harshly at Gemini, but his expression eased. “Seems about right,” he muttered, causing Cumberson’s smile to drop.

“Now Gemini, kindly pour me some o’ that sweet tea,” Law Pops said, and removed a packet of sugar cane from his suit. “If not, I brought some of my own.”

Two cups soared towards Gemini and Law Pops, but right as the liquid poured from the ceramic pot, Cumberson shrieked, “Wait!!!”

“Good lordy law,” Law Pops cried out,” Loreena, are you trying to tease my ticker?”

“Oh, Magical Mayor,” Cumberson gasped, breathing heavily, and holding her chest dramatically. “Look what this degenerate is trying to poison the teacup with.”

Law Pop’s squinted at the pink-and-white liquid. “Mah lantis,” he bellowed in a surprisingly deep voice. “Odditea! Good headmaster, you know as a politician, I only drink freshly brewed Realitea.”

“That’s debatable,” a woozy voice groaned.

Mena had lost her grip on Caligari in the drama. The wayward professor stumbled and staggered forward. “You only give us Realitea to keep us in the dark,” Caligari said, her finger pointing and wobbling. “But I shall pump LS-Tea through the waterways and everyone will be seeing rainbows like meeeeee!”

And with that exclamation, Caligari bent over and puked a pile of bright, neon rainbow all over the floor. She collapsed in her own pile of prism color vomit.

“Gemini,” Law Pops remarked in his country fried accent. “I’ve seen a buffalo in a blouse look less strange than that here display. What is going on here?”

“Magic Mayor Pops,” Cumberson said dutifully. “Let me be the one to inform that this is the daughter of the nefarious Phantom Lord. With his powerful grasp, he took over this academy last semester and plunged it into darkness and decadence.”

Law Pops raised a skeptical eyebrow. “The Phantom Lord? Controlled this academy? But how?”

Cumberson walked over to the collapsed husk that was Caligari. “I was informed by respectable student that Gemini had been possessed by one of the ultimate terrors from the Nightmare Void. There, he caused much dismay, causing this once respectable academy to succumb to evil.”

“Is this true?” Law Pops asked, pushing his teacup away.

Gemini’s head sunk towards the table. “I cannot tell a lie. That is the unfortunate truth I cannot escape from.”

“Indeed, Magic Mayor,” Cumberson responded and walked back to Law. “This is a decadent den of drunk denizens of darkness.”

If Mena wasn’t dreading what would happen next, she would have admired that zany zinger that would have made Zacharias proud. She waited with bated breath deep in the shadows.

“What will become of him?” Cumberson asked with giddy delight.

Law Pops commanded in a strong voice that exceeded his height. “I cannot stand for this. Gemini will be tried at the same place he instructed, by the Lollypop Judicial system.”

The short Magic Mayor turned to Gemini. “I hope y’all come quietly.”

The Clown Prince of Dreams cast a harsh rainbow glare at Ms. Cumberson, who surprisingly shuddered. “Even if some of this tomfoolery is true,” the jester headmaster said with ire. “This is trickery of the highest order. Somehow Cumberson knew I’d be here in these dire circumstances.”

Cumberson gave the look of an angelic bullfrog. “There’s no way I’d know he’d be in here, taking part in this debauchery. After all, I did not tell any of them to consume that criminal chamomile with that beast woman. They did that purely on their own volition.”

“She’s not a beast woman,” the Clown Prince snapped.

Law Pops made a motion with his head, sending the two guards towards the jester.

Gemini leapt out of his chair and did a backwards slide in his heels, clicking them. His rainbow eyes glowed wildly and he danced in place. The Clown Prince thrust his finger in the direction of his adversaries. “Try me on for size, peons. I perform dream arts faster than mortal eyes.”

Cumberson and Law Pops looked nervously at each other before turning their heads towards Caligari. A smirk crept across their faces.

“Guards,” Law Pops ordered, now standing on top of the cereal box. “Kill that sub-being. It is an utter shame to know that a respectable academy employed such filth.”

“No,” Gemini cried, stifling a hand forward. The guards seized the unconscious Caligari. “Please,” he said, losing his comedic composure. “Cali is one of the best teachers in the history of this whole school. And she freed me from the grasp of her father,”—Gemini looked down and mumbled—“She made me smile again, if that doesn’t count much for nothing.”

“Will yee come quietly?” Law Pops growled beneath his breath.

“Yes,” Gemini said, raising his hands to surrender.

“Excellent,” Law Pops said, and he hopped off his box of Wizard Flakes. Raising a hand, one of the guards obeyed his order and restrained Gemini. The guard bound him with cuffs that shot purple electricity between his arms. Law turned to the other guard, “Excellent. Now kill her.”

“Nooooooo!” Gemini cried dramatically as Law Pops gave a chuckle.

“It’s about time these girls for Nightcreeper defense,” the Magic Mayor said. “One who isn’t a nightcreeper herself. Loreena Cumberson?”

“Yes, Magic Mayor?”

“I’ve got a new position I’d like you to fill,” Pops remarked. “Can you handle it along with Magic Home Economics?”

Cumberson put her pudgy hands together. “I raised a daughter as I ran magic convince store at the same time. It will be my pleasure to fill both positions.”

The guard holding Caligari removed a large black dagger from his armor and prepared to plunge it into Caligari’s shadow heart.