This institution was brimming with secrets that Juniper wasn’t equipped to unearth with her traditional methods. Two weeks of investigatory work sunk in people and places with very little to show for it.

No one on that damned campus was willing to talk to her and those that did weren’t high enough within the social circles to hold anything of value.

She didn’t have anything to offer besides her services but those who would want to make use of her skills had enough clout and stars in their stores to higher a quality delver over some perceived hodunk bumpkin from down south.

Accessing records on the vanished clerk also proved difficult.

With only a name to go off of and her only access point within that department being Daliah, Juniper had run into a fast dead end on that front.

Her other lead was less frustratingly annoying to deal with but that had its own roadblocks.

She’d tied her clients thread to one of her fingers and made two curious revelations.

The first and most curious revelation was that the missing girl was on campus. The thread behaved strangely, becoming slack upon Juniper's exit from the campus grounds and growing taut while within its boundaries.

It didn’t lead anywhere specific. No, that’d be too easy.

Instead the thread dissipated at the threshold of the building that affluent guests were privy to.

A place she didn’t have access to.

And taking a glimpse into the astral and where the two overlapped was a compounding of that frustration.

An annoying revelation that required getting cozier with a tight lipped faculty. A task that Juniper did have a solution for, all things considered.

“Junie!” Magnolia beckoned for her sister, arm hooked around Willow as the trio walked towards the academic building. Juniper picked up the pace, glaring at the crimson spires while she entered the facility.

“This class is going to be so much fun!” Magnolia squealed. She unhitched from Willow's side and latched onto Juniper’s arm.

Juniper laughed, “Aren’t you supposed to be embarrassed at these sorts of things? Your older sister is going to be sitting in your class as a guest speaker.”

A condition to her acceptance that Juniper was certain the Matron would have forgotten about.

“She’s been fixated on this lecture because she figured you were gonna be around to add your experiences to the lecture. Just won’t shut up about how cool her sister is.” Willow needled Magnolia in a playful tone.

Magnolia didn’t respond, merely hiding her face in Juniper's arm.

“Honestly I don’t know what I’m going to add that those big city books haven’t covered. I’ve got experience but isn’t that anecdotal evidence or something?”

Magnolia pulled away from her sister, “There’s a lot of stuff the books refrained from covering, as I’ve come to figure out…” The joy in her eye flickered before rebounding in brilliance. “And I’m so lucky that at least in this topic, I’ve got first hand experience to look to for answers. And you’re obligated to tell me everything.”

Juniper raised an eyebrow, “Obligated? I’m a guest speaker, not an academic. I’ll answer questions within reason but if you have some dying curiosity, pester me back at the dorm.”

It’d guarantee her trade secrets remained such. And maybe give her sister a leg up on the competition.

“Just a heads up before we enter class. There’s gonna be a girl that’s going to question your credentials.” Magnolia sighed.

Juniper gave Magnolia a reassuring pat on the shoulder, “She can take her complaints up with someone that gives a shit.”

It was a welcomed change of pace to enter the classroom and let the roadblocks of her investigation recede into the background. She scanned the room from the back to the front, taking note of the clear dividing lines separating the eccentrically garbed women in the back from the tight knit aristocratic group on the right and her lonely and defiant duo on the left.

Juniper refrained from making a face. Seemed like Magnolia was having a difficult time of her own.

“Good morning fledglings.” Juniper redirected her focus to the slimy man in the crisp white suit greeting the rest of the class. “Today’s lesson is special because we have someone on campus to color our readings with their experience. Let me present, Miss Winthrop.”

Remember to play nice, she told herself.

Given her impromptu cue, she walked on the raised stage and sat down behind the lectern, letting Del Marin continue with his introductions.

“What does she have to do with our lesson on the astral?” One of the veiled students asked. The rest of that clique whispered to one another in conspiratorial tones.

Del Marin turned to Juniper and waited with the rest of the class in anticipation for her kind of response.

Juniper cleared her throat, “I’m a licensed Delver. I’ve doven into the cracks and bends of the astral more times than I can count and dealt with its quirks and denizens when necessary. Whatever your book tells you, I didn’t read it, I’ll do my best to supplement that education with my first hand accounts.”

“This institution is truly going down the drain if our education is being enhanced by foreign rabble.” A girl with raised cheekbones and a nasal inflection proclaimed. The rest of the group piled on the laughter.

Juniper sighed.

“You remind me of one of my clients.”

The girl rolled her eyes with another chiming in, “I’m sure your kind serves a different breed of clientele.”

Juniper brushed off the insult and continued, “A pair of Incants brought to blustering tears over the disappearance of their daughter. I don’t know what your book suggests about the astral but the one takeaway that I’d give you is that it loves its fill of overconfident kids strutting feathers they’ve no experience preening.”

“We don’t need to-”

“Imagine their grief over a botched coronation ceremony, the first slotting that defines us as Incants. For them, it was something simple, their abilities useful in their own right but not exceptionally difficult to wrangle and tame when they awakened to their gift. You,” Juniper pointed to the veiled girl that questioned her capacity, “Why is the astral a dangerous place for Incants?”

She rose from her chair, taking in the measured gaze of Del Marin, as she reached the edge of the stage and waited for a response.

“We are vulnerable on the other side and remain so after slotting, whatever we housed being a passenger in our domain and influencing the malleable space around us.” The student responded.

“In non-book speak,” Juniper paused, “The astral is impressionable. Doesn’t take a genius in an academy to understand that much. The issue becomes when we conflate what little we do know with mastery over that landscape.”

“What do you mean by impressionable?” Willow asked.

“It’s a fluid place. Space is indeterminate and swathes of it function under dream logic. Finding a sliver of the astral on our side of existence can show you that much. Place feeds on the ambient… stuff. People. Places. Objects. It informs the astral what it’s going to look like and how it’s going to operate.”

“What does this have to do with the missing girl?” The veiled student brought the conversation back to the example.

Juniper smiled.

“The book should also have mentioned that its creatures are masters at molding the space around them. Incants have a lesser form of this power, our domains anchoring a space within the astral like making a claim to the Weave for a hideout but shaping things is complicated. We can only do it as deftly as the spells we bind to our bodies within our domain. What those chucklefucks in the story didn’t realize is that spells have their domains too.”

The obnoxious girl looked at Juniper with displeasure, “Obviously. If that’s the con-”

Juniper reveled in cutting her off, “What they didn’t understand about the astral is what led me to the girl and the Treasure House. You see, slotting goes both ways.” She paused and took a measure of her audience.

Del Marin was nodding at her to continue.

The veiled entourage were attentive. It was hard to tell with their faces obscured.

The collective royalty group resigned themselves to let her finish.

Good. She’d make things interesting.

Juniper reached into her bag and pulled out a brush.

“Ah.” Magnolia made a high pitched noise before placing her hand over her mouth. She knew what the brush was for.

Juniper began to wave the brush around.

“My golden thread led me to the Treasure House. A singular tree, gnarled and twisted, stood on the manicured lawn under the velvet sky.” Juniper felt this image take shape within her mind and a cloud of pigments coalesced to reflect this. The quality of her artistry was rudimentary but the effect was enough to keep a younger Magnolia enraptured for hours on those troublesome nights.

“There was a single house on the lawn. The horizon stretched from end to end, with the stars of the astral plane bleeding into the indigo-velvet hues of the creature's domain. The moon in the sky seemed to drip with a similarly colored ichor.”

The show borrowed more details from her memories of that time. Of the single light that shined like a lure against the darkened backdrop of the domain.

Of the chimney in its red and black brick and the gaseous creature that dribbled out of its opening.

Its body was amorphous, tendrils spreading out in the sky like a wound in the world, festering with mouths and eyes and ears.

“I opened the door to the Treasure House and found a couple of opened rooms amidst an endless combination of living spaces. Those rooms that were visible housed the remnants of people that had been subsumed by the spell. Where they once were bound existed the corporeal shadows burned into chairs and beds and corners of rooms.”

She’d followed her golden thread inside. Felt the tug of the creature attempting to redirect her attention to the trinkets and curios it’d suckered its other guests. It was a sensation Juniper could ignore quite easily, the aftereffects of the spell bound in her body making it difficult to focus on anything other than immediate tasks at hand.

“I found the missing girl in a sealed iteration of the house. The walls breathed when she did, trembled at a quickening pace when I approached her. Half her body was etched on the wall that I’d found her at, her eyes and mouth agape as the creature took from her. I had to pry the trinket she’d claimed for herself and the spell relinquished us as a result.”

Juniper ran her fingers through the scene and the cloud of pigments dissipated.

“The creature was still an unnamed thing and tethered itself to its domain to attain the kind of power it had. She had everywhere else in the astral to find a spell worth binding and thought, like her parents before her, that it’d be as simple as solving a riddle to force its submission.”

Juniper avoided looking at Maggie and her eyes.

“I echo our presenters sentiments,” Del Marin interjected, “And refer you fledglings read some of the accounts of first generation Incants that survived the First Dive. If I remember right, our very own matron is a survivor, if you can believe it.”

Interesting but Juniper could see it. That woman had a quality to her that Juniper wasn’t able to pinpoint, a distance that elevated her from the people around her.

“We already know that the other side is dangerous,” another girl declared in an unamused tone, “So why are you two up there not giving us something new to chew on that the books haven’t covered?”

Juniper rolled her eyes, “Nothing I teach you is going to matter because you’re rotten to the core. The foundation, the fear, it’s gone.”

The girl furrowed her eyebrows, “Excuse me? You don’t get-”

“No, you don’t get it. Coddled and arrogant is at your core and nothing I say is going to help that.” Juniper turned her attention to the rest of the crowd, “For those that are willing to listen, the biggest piece of advice when running on the other side is to hold fear in your heart. Nothing over there is what it appears to be and your senses will lie to you if you let them. Spells will take advantage of your carelessness so don’t give them an opening. Their challenges can be as simple as a display of combat prowess to as luck based as a coin flip. Observe their behaviors before your approach if it's something that you can handle. And run the fuck away if you can’t handle it or someone like myself will have to fish you out in a body bag or worse.”

Some of the students registered with the flurry of advice she’d thrown their way.

The lot she was criticizing didn’t care to dwell on her advice.

“Thank you, Miss Winthrop, for your lessons on the astral. We will begin discussing your progress on grimoire choices as the deadline for the final exam approaches.” Del Marin started his own back and forth with the rest of the class.

Juniper tuned most of it out as she sat and waited for her opportunity to present itself.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“That was an interesting presentation, Miss Winthrop.” Del Marin started to say as the students shuffled out of the room.

Magnolia and Willow gave Juniper a mocking, pitying glance before walking away.

The bastards!

Juniper doubled back to Del Marin, “I just spoke from experience. Felt a little presentation was fine if it got the point across.”

Del Marin smiled, “Well you certainly have a flair for the dramatics. Carrying that tool around with you, you must be great at parties.”

“Work keeps me away from that sort of stuff. Not a lot of friends to make in my line of work that don’t want something out of you beyond your company.”

Del Marin ruminated on his next words, “I’d say that you don’t do yourself any favors but considering the company I keep, you’re much more tolerable, if quite disheveled and uncouth.”

“Uh huh.” Juniper curtly replied.

“That was meant to be a compliment, I promise you.”

“Why is it that I don’t believe you?”

Del Marin shrugged, “Believe me or not, that’s your prerogative. Just know that with some makeup and a taming of that wild mane of yours, you’d have your pick of associates.”

Juniper twitched, holding herself from ripping the man’s head off for the audacity.

“Noted.” She struggled to say through grit teeth.

The two stared at one another.

“You need something from me, don’t you?” Del Marin said in a neutral tone.

How honest did she want to be?

“Something, yeah.” Juniper admitted.

“Alright,” Del Marin crossed his arms, “What is it that you need? You don’t look like the type to beg for stars so is it a carnal desire?”

Juniper’s stomach lurched.

“This is business related, you fucking sleeze.” Juniper answered with venom.

He wasn’t shaken up by the vitriol, shrugging and moving past it, “Would this business matter have anything to do with you trying to contact one of the institution's guides?”

Juniper steeled her expression, “Among other things, yeah. I don’t exactly have the clout to chase after my curiosities and you do.”

Del Marin nodded, “And this guide is business related how exactly? Is this work going to jeopardize the longevity of this institution?” The casual, easygoing nature in his voice quickly dissipated into something more serious. It wasn’t an outright rejection but a careful consideration of her request with all of the consequences it entailed.

“I doubt anything I do will be the crack that splinters this institution. I can’t tell you what I’m doing exactly but I’m doing it for some two-bit client’s peace of mind.” Juniper downplayed the mothers involvement in all of this.

“So you’re taking my comments in stride to use my clout around here to get information.”

“Information and access, yeah. Tried going about things my way and ended up getting stonewalled very quickly. Everyone’s tightlipped and my presence on campus is merely tolerated.”

His eyebrow rose, “Access? I’m flattered that you think I’m a man in high places but I don’t think I could even gain access to guide records if I wanted to.”

Juniper shook her head, “Not there. With enough sweet talking, I’m sure I can find someone to talk about that mystery guide. No, you look like the kind of guy that’d have access to the building in the far corner that esteem looking guests go to.”

“And how exactly did this guide tie to the auction house?”

An auction house? Juniper’s heart sank, mind jumping to the worst conclusions for the end state of the missing girl.

“Let’s say that my delver’s intuition is pointing me in that building's direction and I don’t have access. You look like you do.”

Juniper was playing with her cards close to her chest. The man was a sleaze and his allegiance to the coven was pretty clear due to his employment but her only alternatives were Daliah and the damn matron of the institution. Both bad options.

“Would your inquiries have anything to do with the upcoming gala?” Del Marin asked?

“The what now?” Juniper replied.

“You sly minx,” Del Marin smiled as he made connections within his mind, “You’re trying to crash into the gala!”

“I honestly have-”

“Oh you don’t need to play coy, Miss Winthrop. You’re looking for a guide to get you into the private event. Whether for your benefactor or for your own connections, getting into the auction house would make someone from your background an actual piece on the board.”

Juniper blinked.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Del Marin waved away her incredulity, “If all you wanted was entry into the event, all you had to do was ask. Get yourself cleaned up and you’d work as serviceable arm candy for the rest of those investors to draw in.”

Juniper thought about stressing her confusion but refrained. His misunderstanding was her opportunity and clearing things up would only make his cooperation harder to attain.

She feigned perking up, “Do you really think I can attend?”

Del Marin ate up the act, dialing his “charm” to eleven, “Of course, señorita.”

Juniper made a small prayer to whatever god would listen that she’d have the strength to tolerate the man’s company in the coming days.