Pandy and Thaniel crouched, hidden in the shadow of the tower, as strange men went through the manor. There was quite a ruckus when they discovered that Thaniel’s room was empty, and Cassie was taken inside, where they heard her calling for Thaniel. At first, it seemed the boy would go to her, but Pandy jumped into his lap, holding him down with the weight of her intention as much as her body. It seemed to work, because he stilled, and eventually the voice ceased.

  To Pandy’s relief, Cassie was returned to the courtyard after that, though she was put up on a horse, rather than standing with one of the men. To Pandy’s knowledge, the young woman had no more idea how to ride a horse than she did, and the nightgowned figure sat stiff and pale atop the huge beast. For the first time, Pandy paid enough attention to the lazy maid to realize that she was probably no more than sixteen, which made her eight years younger than Pandy was when she died.

  It took a surprisingly long time for someone to poke their head out of the window, probably because no one would imagine that a young child’s first impulse would be to climb onto a slippery, sloped surface some thirty feet above the ground. The head belonged to a middle-aged man who glanced around, then withdrew again. A moment later another man climbed out, this one younger and clad in less armor.

  Beneath Pandy’s long ear, pressed against Thaniel’s chest, she heard his heart pounding so quickly that it seemed it might simply leap out and run away on its own. The boy was wide-eyed and silent, unmoving in his small sanctuary, beneath a narrow overhang on which sat a glowering gargoyle.

  Seeing that Thaniel wasn’t going to move, and their pursuer was coming ever closer, Pandy pushed her back legs hard against the boy’s grip. At this, Thaniel finally looked down at her, and Pandy wriggled free, though she remained precariously perched on his knee.

  Pushing as hard as she could, Pandy leaped, thinking, , as if it had ever worked before. To her shock, a message appeared in the air as she flew much further than she should have been able to, almost causing her to miss her landing.

  Hop successful. 12.5% experience gained towards next level.

  Pandy’s paws splayed out as the gargoyle’s head impacted her belly. It would have knocked the breath out of her if she still breathed. As it was, her back legs once again scrambled for a hold, scraping against the leering face and prodigious proboscis. The sound was terribly loud in the stillness, and the searcher’s head whipped around to stare toward them, his eyes narrowing.

  Well aware that they were probably only still hidden because the man’s eyes had yet to adjust to the darkness on the rooftop, Pandy managed to turn around, backing up as Thaniel stood and made a leap for her. His bare feet thumped on the roof as he landed again, and the man trying to find him began moving in their direction.

  Come up come up come up, Pandy thought. Thinking fast, she hopped toward the gargoyle’s rear end, quickly jumping down and away from Thaniel’s hands as she moved along the narrow ledge that circled the tower. There were more gargoyles stationed here, one every ten feet or so, but the protruding bricks on which they sat would make a decent walkway for a small child, and a difficult one for a grown man.

  Just as she was beginning to despair, Thaniel put his book up on the ledge, then laboriously pulled himself up after it. Snatching up the book again, he pressed his back against the wall and began to follow Pandy. The ledge ended just beyond his tightly curled pink toes.

  “Bunny!” he said, in the too-loud whisper of children everywhere. If Pandy could have face-palmed, she would have, as the strange man hastened his steps. He had been proceeding quite cautiously, but now he hurried forward.

  “Nathaniel?” he called, in a soothing tone Pandy would have trusted if he hadn’t come in the middle of the night with a group of men who’d terrified Cassie. “We just want to talk to you. Something’s happened to your father.”

  Thaniel – Nathaniel? – almost missed a step, his little face as white as his nightgown as he followed Pandy. The boy’s eyes were huge and terrified, and for a moment, he glanced back toward the man, rather than watching Pandy.

  Pandy thumped a foot, then hopped a little further. If anything had happened to The Father – and she wasn’t saying it hadn’t, since The Father was the sort of man Things Happened To, and rightfully so – Pandy had no doubt that the men chasing them were the ones who’d caused those Things to happen.

  By the time she reached the end of this thought, Pandy’s head was spinning, so she focused on the next gargoyle. She and Thaniel had spent a great deal of time in and around the gardens, and she knew every part of the building, at least from the outside. If she could just get Thaniel to come on a little further…

  “Bunny!” Thaniel whisper-called again, and this time their pursuer’s eyes locked onto the little ledge. If she could see him, surely he could see them, too, or did zombie-bunnies – or whatever Pandy was now – get some ability to see in the dark? That would be very handy, and she really wished she’d figured that out and had the chance to test it before Thaniel’s life depended on it. Why didn’t her worthless stat sheet mention it? Dark Vision, level 10. How difficult was that?

  Pandy reached the next gargoyle, hanging back just far enough that Thaniel should be able to see her bouncing tailless rump. She really hoped she could reattach or regrow her tail, because a rabbit without a cotton pouf attached to its behind must look very strange. Had Thaniel kept the little ball of fluff?

  Looking up, she saw that this gargoyle was, ironically, shaped like some kind of horrific, deformed rabbit. The teeth were viciously curved and pointed, while the ears were ragged curves that looked like blades. It was sitting up, with long, scythe-like claws gripping the front of its pedestal, and Pandy crouched, swallowing hard.

   she shouted as she hurtled through the air. This time, no message appeared, and Pandy ricocheted off the statue’s concrete side in what probably would have been a very painful way for any other rabbit. Clutching desperately at the monstrous toes, she wondered two things. First, what made her skill actually work the last time? Second, how much LF could she lose, exactly? If she went splat in the courtyard below, would that be enough to end her undead bunny existence?

  A little hand caught her by the scruff of her neck, and if Thaniel hadn’t dropped his precious book in order to hold onto the gargoyle in much the same place, both he and Pandy would have discovered the answer to her second question, at least.

  The book fell surprisingly slowly, its pages flapping in the wind until it landed on the stones with a desultory thump. Thaniel gave a soft, pained sob at the loss of his beloved tome, but he didn’t hesitate to pull Pandy back up.

  “Where are you going, Bunny?” Thaniel asked, giving Pandy a little shake as he gasped for breath. Tears silvered by moonlight tracked down his cheeks, and there was a river running from his nose.

  Pandy looked up, pointing with her paw. There, above the twisted rabbit gargoyle, was a window. It was too small for the man following them, even if he could edge his way along this narrow shelf, and if Thaniel stood on the gargoyle’s back, he should be able to reach it.

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  Thaniel caught his breath. “I can’t make it up there,” he told her. His voice trembled with fear, and Pandy leaned forward, pressing her face into his throat. She knew from experience that her quivering nose against his skin usually made him giggle, and though it didn’t work this time, she did think he relaxed, at least a bit.

  The man behind them called again, this time to someone below. “He’s up here somewhere, Captain! We need more men, and a light, if possible.”

  A light? Were they going to throw candles up here? She hadn’t seen anything to indicate that this world had electricity, but it was possible it was a relatively new discovery, and this poor neglected building simply hadn’t been upgraded yet.

  Pandy began wiggling again, trying to indicate that she was going up, with or without Thaniel. This was a complete lie, of course, since her job was to protect the boy, and she couldn’t do that when they were in two different places.

  “All right,” Thaniel whimpered finally, having nearly dropped her twice in the last few seconds. He carefully swung one leg over the rabbit-goyle’s back, settling into place as if mounting a horse backwards. The long ears bracketed the boy’s back, and he shifted, trying to use them to stand up. For a moment, Pandy was afraid the stone would crack, sending them hurtling downward after all, but the statue was as sturdy as it looked, and soon enough she was being raised overhead so she could scurry into the deep window ledge.

  Immediately, she realized that she’d miscalculated. The window was definitely big enough for Thaniel, and he could probably perch on the ledge with her for some indefinite period, but the glass was also sealed shut. All around the edges, she could see some kind of mortar or glue, holding the wavy pane of glass in place.

  Thaniel’s little fingers clutched at the edge of the sill, and he pulled himself up on his toes, seeing the same thing she had. “Bunny, that window doesn’t open,” he said, as if she hadn’t already figured that out for herself. Though, to be fair, she was a rabbit, so not figuring things out was probably par for the course.

  Pandy began scratching at the old mortar/glue, hoping that it was as poorly maintained as everything else on the building. It crumbled beneath her claws, and for once, she was actually pleased that no one ever bothered to take care of what had undoubtedly once been a stately, if not majestic, home.

  Thaniel’s eyes brightened, and he stretched out his hand, trying to help, but squeaked and dropped back down. Pandy’s heart would have stopped if it hadn’t already, and she spun around, staring downward. The boy was clinging desperately to the gargoyle’s ears, terrified but safe, and once he got back to his feet, she returned to her efforts.

  Suddenly, light flashed by outside, just catching the edge of her vision. She turned again, peering out to see an object, something like a lightbulb and something like a candle, moving away from them, back toward the main part of the roof. It didn’t seem to be connected to anything, so whatever it was had to be charged. Was this world much more technologically advanced than she’d realized?

  Pandy redoubled her efforts, chips of brittle gray material flying away from her sharp claws. Over and over, she thought, Where was the System when she needed it?

  That was it. One side of the window was as clear as she could get it, so she focused on the next. There was no way Thaniel could fit in here with her while she worked, and the boy was smart enough to figure that out. Every now and then she paused, looking down to see that he was hunkered on the gargoyle’s back, mostly hidden by its broad ears as the light circled, trying to reveal their location to those below. Hopefully it didn’t have a camera aboard, or their run of not-entirely-terrible luck was over.

  The bottom of the window came free, and the thick pane of glass sagged heavily, almost managing to pull the top from its adhesive without her intervention. Pandy stood on her back legs to scrape away the last bits, continuing to frantically call out the name of her theoretical skill. Had she only imagined the last message acknowledging her skill use? Or was Hop the only skill that worked?

  Only one side left, but there were multiple voices calling to each other now. It sounded like they’d created a search pattern, which meant they’d soon realize there was only one place Thaniel could be. Who would expect a not-quite-six-year-old to brave a narrow ledge in order to reach a tiny window that anybody with two brain cells to rub together would realize was probably completely sealed shut anyway?

  The window clicked, then leaned slowly away from its former resting place. It was incredibly heavy, nearly squashing Pandy flat before she managed to shove it back through the hole, where it fell inside the tower, shattering loudly.

  At the sound, the men’s voices stilled, and Thaniel’s pale face looked up at her from where he was huddled against the wall. “Bunny?” he whispered, and Pandy stuck her head out, shaking her head until her floppy ears swayed wildly.

  Come on! she thought, seeing the light zipping toward them. Thaniel stood, and she moved backward as he pulled himself up, his little body rapidly filling the small space where she’d been standing, shoving her backward. Her rear legs suddenly found themselves standing on nothing, and she ran like a character in an old cartoon, legs windmilling in space. Don’t look down! It was always fine until they-

  She looked. There was nothing below her except a winding set of stairs, which she discovered as gravity asserted itself. She hit the steps with a loud thump and a pop that told her something inside had just broken. This wasn’t the first time her body had made a sound like that – Thaniel really could play a little too rough sometimes – and last time she’d hopped in circles for most of an hour before it fixed itself.

  -25 LF

  That…was a lot. But also not much, given that she’d taken the edge of the stair right across her spine. Pandy lay there, belly up, sprawled and helpless, as Thaniel wiggled in through the window and nearly fell right on top of her. Fortunately, he managed to catch himself, lowering his body down so he only stepped on one of her paws.

  -3 LF

  How much was that now? Five from the tail, plus twenty-five, plus three, so she was down thirty-three points. She started at zero, so how far into the negatives could she sink? Was it a nice round number, like fifty or one hundred, or something strange, like, say, thirty-four? Or was her health effectively infinite so long as she didn’t become bunny paté?

  Sobbing, Thaniel scooped her up, and Pandy desperately wished she could let him know that she was – or would be – fine. She did manage to move her head, turning so she could lick his cheek. His skin was salty and damp from all the tears, but it was worth it when he pulled back to stare at her with startled eyes.

  +1 Corruption Point for Drinking the Tears of the Innocent

  Now Pandy’s eyes were as wide as Thaniel’s. What was a Corruption Point, and why did she have a feeling that it couldn’t be anything good?

  Unfortunately, Pandy couldn’t move anything below her neck, so she must have broken her spine fairly high up. She blinked rapidly at Thaniel, however, and he hiccupped loudly. Twice. He must have been trembling, too, since her head was wobbling back and forth.

  “Bunny? Are you…all right?” His voice was both hopeful and terrified. Pandy desperately tried to look innocent, though she knew from her long nights in front of the mirror that her red eyes made that difficult at best.

  Somewhere below them, a door was flung open, and footsteps began pounding on the stairs. If she was going to search the manor for anything related to a potential mass murderer, she would start with the dark, sinister tower lurking alone at one end of his home. That meant they’d definitely searched this place at least once already, so it wouldn’t take them long to check in any hiding places below.

  Up it was.

  Pandy flicked her eyes to the side, trying to urge Thaniel to start up the stairs. He’d frozen like a deer in headlights, but now his brows drew together and he clutched her limp body to his chest as he whirled and ran upstairs. They passed a door that had clearly been broken down, then another, leaving them at the very top of the steps, staring at a door that was miraculously intact.

  “What do we do now?” Thaniel whispered, and for another miracle, his voice was actually quiet.

  Pandy glanced at the handle of the door. Maybe it was unbroken because it was unlocked, so the intruders hadn’t had to use force to get in? Thaniel put his hand on the doorknob, and it turned easily, letting them into a dark, cramped space that Pandy dimly remembered from her very earliest memories of this world. It was The Father’s laboratory.