Novek walked over to Tanner, and with a whisper indicated the Doctor, “Tanner, I think it's time the fathers got some answers, don't you?”

  Tanner nodded in response, his answer similarly quiet, “I think you're right. My question is where the staff, and the children, are — everyone we've seen are just older students.”

  The two turned to follow the Doctor, who — rather than heading to one of the side rooms, returned to the main entryway. His eyes narrowed as he glanced at the corpses left in the front room, but he did not comment or stop, and instead continued around the back wall of the entryway. Turning around the corner, a flight of black stone stairs sank into the floor, revealing a lower half of the room. Lyn was still making a show of difficulty — or, no wait, these stairs were actually quite large for them.

  Savron was standing at the bottom of the stairs watching their descent, as Moira and Lyn reached the lower platform. He looked up at Novek and Tanner, and did not seem surprised in the least that Novek and Tanner were following. Nor was he making small talk while they descended. Interesting.

  While he didn't trust Savron as far as he could throw him — probably about six, seven meters by his rough estimate — he had some information that he believed was tactically relevant. He didn't think showing he'd noticed would give anything away to someone who'd already been present, so he went for it. “Did anyone else notice how those Humans didn't speak, and moved almost simultaneously?”

  Lyn's hand opposite Savron flicked to the side. “I was not party to the fighting — I was either busy helping open cages, or treating wounded.”

  Moira was turning around, taking in the entire room — Novek could see a subtle glow flicker into existence and then vanish as she mapped the room. Mid-turn, she spoke, Yes — curious, isn't it? I'm assuming it's related to a name some of caged students mentioned — Klaxon. Do you know anything, Dr. Savron?

  “I know little, myself. They showed up earlier today, prepared to capture and transport the more… useful… Brin and Ber.”

  Lyn rapped their staff on the ground to emphasize their question, “Which brings up an interesting question — why are you here, Doctor?”

  “I've been sent on an errand — which has consequences if not completed in a timely manner.” As he finished speaking, Savron turned and strode the hallway leading towards the center of the facility, which sloped further downwards.

  Tanner, now, broke in with a question, “Doctor, no disrespect intended, but you're not on staff here. Speaking of the staff — where are they? All I've seen is students. I am here for my pups, and after seeing what's going on, and I am leaving, just as soon as I have them safely in paw.”

  “A good question. I can take you to the remaining staff, who I am sure can help you locate your pups, just as soon as Lyn and their chaperone are escorted to the Clackaw, as they requested. Will that do?”

  “Sure, Doctor. As long as it doesn't take too long.”

  “They're just a bit further down this hall.”

  It wasn't far at all, perhaps thirty meters, when they came to another smaller junction, where the hallway they'd followed came to a second, smaller ring, which continued to either side around a large central room, whose thick metal door was almost four meters tall, with a wheel almost as tall as Lyn sticking prominently out of it. It was slightly ajar, and Novek could see what looked like a much larger version of Rezzan, covered in bandages and poultices, wings fully spread out on an improvised nest of pillows and carpets. Rezzan herself could be seen atop a pillow near the head of the larger bird, obviously conversing with the broodmother. They were both surrounded by a gaggle of the smaller clackaw; a few of which ceased their hopping and clacking to turn and look their way.

  Savron swept his hand towards the imposing chamber door, “As promised. Your patient.”

  Lyn and Moira stepped carefully through the doorway — while the door itself was massive, only a thin entryway was available at present.

  Savron followed behind Moira, but stepped to the side of the door, rather than into the room. Tanner made to step through, when the Doctor reached out and took a hold of his arm. “Tanner — If you and your friend — could give the patient some privacy until Lyn has a chance to ask if other visitors are acceptable. I have some questions about recent goings-on at Bell House.”

  Novek peeked through the door to Lyn, who had stopped and was looking back at him, “Lyn?”

  Lyn made a shooing gesture with their hand that Savron could not see from where he was standing. It indicated they did not want Novek and Tanner to follow, “Oh, Davon. Could you and Tanner retrieve some heavy gear that I set down between a crate and the wall upstairs?”

  It took Novek a moment to realize that Moira had brought them up to speed on the disguise. “Sure, Lyn. We'll be back soon.”

  “No rush. You and Tanner should go find his pups to set his mind at ease. This will take a while.”

  Novek nodded to Tanner, who was watching him. Tanner immediately answered the Doctor, “Well, it seems we have some time. What did you want to know?”

  “Well, I'd been wondering, how is Nat doing these days? Still just a fixture around Bell House?”

  “No, up and about — even recently taken up travelling, with some new companions.”

  The doctor leaned against the door, which smoothly and quietly closed the small remaining distance. Novek immediately started, but decided to let the doctor explain himself before he went straight to violence — as both Lyn and Tanner seemed to know him. The doctor watched Novek, saw the restraint, and then with some significant force, spun the wheel on the door, which halted and latched with a loud clang, followed by a mechanical hum which echoed from the surrounding walls.

  “Oh, that's good to hear — because otherwise I'd probably have just killed a man.”

  Nat turned and stared at the door which had just closed behind them. A loud thrum echoed in the cavernous room around them, which set the clackaw to making a racket.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  From behind him, Lyn observed dryly, “Huh. I thought I was going to have to come up with outlandish story to get them to close the door. The pumping isn't great though.”

  Nat forgot for a moment he was supposed to remain in-character, and mumbled loudly enough for Lyn to hear him, “What? Pumping?”

  “Yes, this is an isolation chamber — similar to the one you were kept in at Bell House. But this one is designed for maximum isolation — aetheric shielding, and vacuum pumps are working to remove the air.”

  Nat paused, waiting for Moira to speak up, but then noticed that he'd stepped out of the aetheric form entirely, which was quickly diminishing. “Moira?”

  No response came.

  “She likely can't hear you at the moment. Aetheric shielding in the walls will absorb energy coming in, or going out — which is why they have the broodmother here, I'd wager. They haven't done their research though — or they didn't have time to do things properly.”

  “What does that mean? We're on our own?”

  “For the moment. Let's go introduce ourselves, however. We have a job to do, and we need to discuss the impending loss of atmosphere more urgently than make contact with Moira. Honestly, I hadn't expected that, so now we're on the clock.”

  Nat and Lyn walked directly toward the broodmother — who was now paying close attention to them, even amid the chaos that was a flurry of smaller clackaw who had become agitated and noisy bare seconds before. It seemed they'd figured out the pumps were depressurizing the room.

  Lyn walked directly up to the broodmother, and skipped the preamble entirely. “We need to talk, quickly. May my assistant use his Talent to give us time to speak?”

  Rezzan turned and stared at them, “What have you done? They're pumping out the air! You'll get the children killed with whatever you've done to anger them.”

  “Nothing, that we know of, except defend ourselves. But we're short on time. I ask again, may we extend the time we have to discuss the situation?”

  A sonorous voice, resonant yet haggard, escaped from the broodmother, whose head barely lifted from the pillows it rested heavily upon. “You may.”

  Lyn turned to Nat, held out a hand, and inclined their head at the broodmother's nearby wingtip.

  Nat took Lyn's hand in his, then reached out to lay his other hand upon the broodmother's feathered wing, when Rezzan's own wing shot out to intercept his own.

  “What are you…”

  [Slip]

  Darkness descended — without Moira to light the Talent, it was pitch black. It was not, however, silent, as he'd brought a bubble of air with him.

  “…doing you… what?” The feathered hand let go of his.

  Nat ignored the half-question, “We only have a few minutes at most, even accelerated. I couldn't bring much air without Moira to reduce the mass.”

  Lyn jumped in immediately. “I'll speak fast then. First off — as agreed, we're here to offer our help. We have no idea why they've decided to pump the air out of the room — but there was a group of Humans who attacked us outside. That was not our fault, as you know, Rezzan.”

  Two voices in the dark asked, simultaneously, “Rezzan?”

  Nat couldn't see Lyn's face, but imagined they were just as confused as he was, as they asked the darkness. “Yes. What's going on?”

  “I'm not Rezzan, you idiots. I'm Nezzar. We'd made a deal with Trant to buy time for Mother, but some agent-led group of humans sieged the building and started detaining conscripts for some Human war — we'd been unable to get in until you morons—”

  “Nezzar, decorum.” That would be Mother, then.

  “—folks assaulted the front door, and now we're trapped in here, and they've started pumping the air out, which isn't generally a problem for adults, but the children don't have the stored gas reserves to survive more than a few hours, at most.”

  Lyn sighed heavily, “Yes — I'm aware. We have a solution for that.”

  Nat couldn't help himself, “We do?”

  “We do. But it will put Nat here out of commission, so I'd like to get started with the healing work as soon as possible.”

  Nat furrowed his brow, “How much can we do without Moira, though?”

  “Well, obviously first we'll have to get her back. I'd normally spend time discussing the planned therapy and so on, but alas, we're short on time — do we have your permission to begin? Also, is it Mother, or is there a different form of address you prefer?”

  Nezzar began to respond, but fell silent as the haggard voice of the wounded Clackaw filled the darkness. “My name is Tessan, but Mother will do. As for the healing — we have talked with multiple healers, and it is agreed, there is nothing to be done for me. The healing was only to provide sufficient time to bring one of my daughters to maturity. If they or the children die, it's all for naught — so that must be the priority.”

  Lyn was not to be dissuaded, “Oh, I think we can do better than that.”

  Nezzar piped up again, their voice recognizably more shrill than Rezzan to Nat, “What does that even mean? You're a Silverpaw, not even a Skilled healer — or your name would have come up in our inquiries.”

  “Ah. But I'm only half of the equation, at most. With your permission, Mother, we'll bring our third.”

  Tessan took a pained breath before their answer, “None will be able to enter — the pressure difference holds it closed more surely than any mechanism.”

  “I only need to knock, not open it. Shall we, Nat?”

  [Slip]

  There were a number of tiny clackaw staring at the group of them. Likely disturbed by the sudden dark statue forms they'd taken for a couple of seconds on exit. Back in the light, Lyn kept hold of Nat's hand, and led him back towards the door they'd come in.

  They placed a pearlescent white hand on it, silver palm to the metal, which sparked just as contact was made. “Iron. This will do. Back in we go — no air, please. It will be at least a few minutes — I'll tap twice if we need to leave to talk.”

  [Slip]

  Back in the Talent, Lyn let go of Nat's hand, and he stood and waited patiently in the silence and the dark. Or mostly dark — every minute or so there would be a clearly visible stream of electricity arcing between Lyn's hand and the door for a second or two.

  It had been maybe ten minutes of subjective time when Nat thought that the surrounding darkness might have brightened slightly. Two more minutes passed, and he was sure of it — the surface of the door where Lyn's palm was pressed was starting to glow ever so faintly with a subtle aetheric blue-white.

  Nat wasn't sure, but he thought he'd heard the faintest whisper of Moira's voice. He strained to listen, as the world around him lightened. He wasn't sure he'd heard it, but he imagined she might have whispered ‘pattern’. Well, worth a shot — what could it hurt, after all? He held out his hand, and formed the little flame that he had used to invoke Moira early on. He wasn't sure if that's what she'd want, but as nothing changed after a minute, he assumed she'd meant the more complex waveform.

  As before, he built it out of flames to start, and then moved to strings which he wove together. He tried to recall their discussion, about how it was like opening a door — was that irony at the moment — and on a whim he curved the cord, so that rather than standing straight up in his hand, it bent into a shape reminiscent of a doorway.

  The thought of creating a tiny door for Moira tickled his fancy, and he found himself filling the curved arc with aetheric flame, so that the woven strand acted as a door frame, with the aetheric fire acting as the door itself. Hinges were next, and oh — a doorknob was critical, obviously. Nat found it interesting that he couldn't visualize the door in his mind, but once it was in hand, he could conceive of how it should look and modify it to suit — he wondered why that might be.

  Another few minutes went by as he refined details of his aetheric construction, but it wasn't having the desired effect; honestly he probably should have stuck to the simple pattern. He was about to dismiss the entire thing to start anew — maybe with a quick hop out of the Talent to check on Lyn, when it occurred to him that he'd forgotten something very important.

  The doorknob was only on his side — he chuckled silently. Of course that could never work — he wasn't the one who needed to open it. A moment later and he'd added an identical doorknob to the far side — and stood grinning as he appreciated the flight of fancy. With a laugh to himself, he made to erase the whole of it, but a tiny motion on the doorknob caused him to hesitate.

  A moment later and the door swung open, and a tiny figure of light came into existence as it passed the line of the door — and a much more detailed Moira walked onto his palm. Now, this is new.