"Why is it called the cathedral, anyway?" Simon asked in a whisper.

Baz rolled his eyes. It was a Saturday morning, just before dawn, as they crept through the eerily silent doors of the cathedral. There was barely a hint of lightening sky through the tall windows that lined the main room—the nave, Baz's mind provided absently—and it was very dim and shadowy. (Though Baz could see just fine, of course. But the shadows were really very oddly shadowy.)

"It's not though, it's not nearly big enough to be a cathedral, cathedrals are huge."

Baz sighed. "Yes, Snow, I'm very glad that you've studied medieval architecture, now hush."

He should have known better than to ask the impossible, really. "It's just a chapel, really, so why would we call it a cathedral?" Simon continued muttering, as he peeked behind pews, checking to be sure no one was there.

He wasn't wrong, Baz had to admit to himself. But. "Maybe it's just the design," he offered.

From the outside, it did look much like a cathedral in miniature, nearly perfect. Flying buttresses (though surely such a thing was structurally unnecessary for such a small building), bells up in the towers, small gargoyles watching them from high on the walls, the intricate stained-glass windows of course—the whole reason they were here.

And it did echo strangely inside, more than you would expect, even with the high ceilings and all the stone surfaces. There was something odd about the heavy arches, something off in the inner proportions—how high was that ceiling? how long was the aisle exactly, before the altar and curtained mirror next to it at the end? Sometimes there was a telescoping feeling, something that made Baz slightly dizzy if he turned quickly… magic, he thought. Who could tell. He didn't spend that much time here, apart from the obligatory rituals and gatherings. He did know there was an entrance to the catacombs in the corner, behind the mirror and the screens at the east end, under the rosette window….

Simon came back from looking behind those screens. "No one here," he said, still quietly. The stillness was a bit daunting.

That was why they had come this early, of course. It had taken a whole week and a half of classes in the new term before they had any opportunity to come investigate the stained-glass hare. A week and a half of Simon fidgeting about getting on with the hare-hunting. A week and a half of… oddness.

Simon must have spoken to Penelope and Agatha, because Baz had heard not a breath of a rumor about "Pitch and Snow" or anything related to it. He caught both girls staring at him occasionally in the dining hall—across the dining hall, since he and Simon didn't sit together now or anything. Penelope mostly looked thoughtful; Agatha mostly looked suspicious. Baz mostly tried to ignore it all, to pretend, in public, that nothing had changed.

No one else seemed to suspect anything different between them. Though Professor Chilblains had seemed pleased with their latest joint assignments in chemistry class and had made a comment about "finally working better together, it's certainly long overdue."

Things weren't really that different. And also they completely were. They still sniped at each other in class, but it was more good-humored, more of a challenge, less of an attack. Simon tried not to mention Baz's father, and Baz tried not to mention the Mage (and where was he, anyway? no one had seen him since the hols ended).

When Sir Bleakley went on one of his rants about the evils of vampires in Magickal Historie lessons, Baz set his face blankly, as always—but now Simon would scoot surreptitiously closer, till their thighs pressed together, or even gently put a hand on Baz's knee under the table. The first time it happened, Baz froze, not quite knowing what to do. The fourth time it happened (Sir Bleakley was rather prone to ranting), Baz took a breath and carefully snuck his right hand under the table, while he continued pretending to take notes with his left. Simon grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard. Baz let him keep holding it till the bells rang for the end of the lesson, and concentrated on trying not to lean into Simon's shoulder too conspicuously.

They were taking other things a bit slowly. Baz couldn't risk losing control of his fangs, or anything else, especially in the room. There was the Anathema to consider, he pointed out to Simon, who got that frown-crease between his eyes but nodded. (In fact, Baz just couldn't risk Simon… he had already had three terrible nightmares where he'd ripped into Simon's throat, and then woken thrashing in pure, gasping horror, alone in his bed. He'd had to check on Simon across the room—no smell of blood, no wounds, just his usual snoring into his filthy pillowcase; Crowley, Snow, wash your sheets already—and then retreat, to the common area down the hall, or sneaking out to the stables or the bell tower or down to the catacombs. Somewhere else, anywhere else, while he tried to banish the fear and the images from his mind.)

And then Simon had showed him the mysterious notes, about finding the white hares on the Watford grounds, about danger.

So here we are, thought Baz, peering around the cathedral once more, as he approached Simon, who stood in the middle of the aisle, peering up at one of the windows in a southeastern alcove, near the front altar.

"There," said Simon, pointing, as Baz came up behind him. Baz just nodded, tipping his head back to study the window.

It was a wide, arched section near the top—green hills with windmills in the background and a rising sun, flowers and vines along the edges—and a leaping white rabbit across the foreground, surrounded by white swirls of mist or breeze. There was illegibly ornate writing along the bottom. The whole scene was just beginning to brighten with the dawn, the opaque white milky and opalescent, the reds and blues and greens vivid and glowing.

Simon looked at Baz. "Ready?" Baz nodded, and Simon stepped back.

At least Baz had managed to convince Simon that they should do at least a modicum of research in advance, for a change. They had a few options to try. Baz pointed his wand up at the window and said, "Whistle down the wind." He waited, a little anxiously. This was an old phrase, not much in use anymore; perhaps it had lost all potency as a spell. Behind him, Simon softly whistled a few falconer's calls. It might not help, but then again...

A few bright rays of dawn light peeked over the edge of the window and through it, lighting up the stained-glass scene. It began to glow, brighter than any of the other windows, even the ones directly next to it.

Baz took a step back, bumping into Simon.

The light glowed brighter, then fell, like a slanted column, a spot-light, full of sparkles, down to the flagstone floor in front of them, and a figure appeared—a hare, white-gold and glimmering, sitting up on its hind legs, stretched long and thin and looking 'round. It was large—about as tall as Simon, but not nearly as huge nor as bulky as the other two had been. It looked very nearly delicate, misleadingly so, like one of the sighthounds in the stables… and it was transparent. Baz could see the pews through it, through the spiraling glints of golden dust within the hare's outline.

Simon smoothly shouldered his way just in front of Baz, wand clutched in one hand, his right hovering over his left hip. "What are your intentions?" he asked in a ringing voice. Simon always insisted on asking this first, though it had been pointless thus far. Baz couldn't decide whether it made him want to kiss the git, or to smack him.

The hare cocked its head, looking at them curiously out of one gleaming black eye, then dropped down onto its haunches, shaking its long ears briskly before looking at them again.

There was a sound, so odd that it made Baz shake his own head. It was like wind chimes, a mix of ringing and tinkling and the sound of the breeze itself shaking the chimes—and it felt like it was in his ears and inside his head at the same time. It left a lingering sense that he couldn't trust his own hearing.

Simon was grimacing, one hand on his head. "Baz, do you hear that?"

"Yes," Baz answered. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, just deeply unnerving.

"Freeeee…" sighed the sound. The voice. It tinkled, chimed again, and this time Baz realized that was laughter, of all things.

He and Simon glanced at one another. Baz resettled his grip on his wand, and Simon said again, firmly, "What are your intentions, then? Now that you're... free."

"My intentionsss..." its voice trailed off into a long sigh. Speaking words, it had less chiming and more of the sound of air rustling. "Yesss. I will find the othersss. But first."

It moved closer, just one lolloping rabbit-step, though strangely graceful, as if it wasn't really touching the ground at all. Then it peered again, first out of one eye, then the other. "You have freed me," it said. "I owe you a debt."

"Oh Yeats," Baz muttered. Because that sort of thing never ended badly, with fairies and demons and genii….

Simon was obviously thinking along the same lines. "I'm not sure that's necessary—"

"I can See things for you," the hare said in a magnanimous tone, clearly not listening. "There will be something."

"What?"

It took another undulating half-hop forward, the light moving with it as if a spot-light were trained on it; still lazily, but Baz and Simon both stepped back. "Shh. No need to fear, children, the future can be readily seen, if not commanded."

Baz raised an eyebrow, consideringly, but Simon quickly said, "I don't think we need—"

"It is a debt," the hare said, transparent nose twitching as it lowered its head to the ground.

"Well…" Simon glanced at Baz, but he could only shrug. "Well, you—you don't have, um, an object for us, maybe? There was a key, and a cup..."

Sudden silence, sudden stillness. The hare didn't move, not even an ear-twitch, for such a long moment that Baz began to feel nervous. Then it spoke again, very softly.

"A key? A cup?"

Baz grabbed Simon's arm before he could speak, and shook his head just slightly. The skin on the back of his neck was prickling, all down his spine. Danger, danger...

And then the hare was suddenly levitating, floating up off the ground like it had forgotten how to act like a normal rabbit, and the rabbit-shaped outline seemed to be growing dimmer. Air was moving, ruffling Simon's pale coppery curls, blowing Baz's black hair across his face. A low sound started, a wailing that grew and grew, like the wind among the trees out in the Forest, like the old air raid siren that Watford sometimes still used for emergency drills.

"Where are my siblings?"

Baz tried to pull Simon surreptitiously toward the door.

"Where? Where?" The wailing drew the words out longer. The hare was barely visible now—the light in the room was bright and diffused, the hare grown so transparent that only the bright, rapidly swirling golden dust seemed to indicate its location—and that swirl was darting wildly about in front of them, around and back, like a flock of birds turning and flitting through the air. Baz didn't know where to watch, where to look….

"I'm sorry," Simon said, and Crowley if he didn't sound sincere. "They... they didn't say anything, they just tried to kill us. The Moon Rabbit only screeched at the sky when I tried to talk to it."

"Lies, liesss," the wind-voice hissed. "Tell me the truth!"

"Snow, come on, let's just—"

"It is the truth," Simon insisted, hands on hips, instead of fleeing like a normal person.

"Lies," it said again, and suddenly Baz felt a terrible pain in his head, a pressure that made his knees buckle with the suddenness of it. Next to him, Simon cried out, and stumbled as well.

But he knew this pain, like seeing a long-forgotten face. He hadn't felt it for years (since he was four, in the dim school nursery; a rough, implacable hand on his shoulder, pain in the side of his neck, glowing eyes before him, ordering him to drink this now and a foul taste in his mouth), not for years... but he wasn't liable to forget, was he.

Though not exactly the same—this was less a compulsion, and more like someone dragging a book out of your hands and tearing frantically through the pages. He was overwhelmed with emotions not his own—fear, urgency, anger, with a vast underlying loneliness that made him want to stagger. As unnaturally vivid as a film, memories of their battles with the other two hares splashed across his mind's eye (shrieking giant hares, fear and adrenaline and Simon shouting about intentions and we're not here to hurt you, great Keats and Shelley, Baz had forgotten that bit). He could even see… was that Simon's memories of fighting them as well?

Baz couldn't tell how long it lasted—seconds? minutes?—but just as suddenly he was released and gasping, huddling on the floor. Simon was next to him, struggling to sit up, as air still whipped around them, a tiny storm.

The wind hare was moaning now, wuthering, like some bloody Brontë novel, and they may have all been magicians, but Anne was the only sensible one... Now isn't the time for literary criticism, Pitch, he told himself, not when that voice was keening, but with words...

"Dead, murdered, how, how, how could you, you're just children, we are ancient, even penned for centuries by that damnable wizard, how could this happen…"

"I'm sorry," Simon said, even as he tried to help Baz sit up. "You saw. I did try."

"How, how, how…"

"Maybe, after centuries, they… forgot how to talk," Baz said, just to say something, as he elbowed Simon and tried to signal him wordlessly to draw his bloody sword, did the boy have no sense at all?

"Never," the voice snarled, ringing discordant and awful now. It seemed to come from all around them at once, and Baz couldn't see the golden storm of dust… and where had he dropped his wand? "Never, you must have done something… I would never forget speech, speech is air, is breath, is life… what did you do?"

Another dig into Baz's head—gods, it felt like a fist grabbing behind his eyes and wrenching. Again, the battles with the other two hares flashed rapidly before him (no hint of Simon's memories this time, and he could, distantly, feel Simon shaking his arm and shouting, but he couldn't respond), and then a flare of irritation from the hare, and it began rifling deeper, through other memories, flicking through them almost too quickly for Baz to register… it was so strange, memories, especially old ones, that were normally faded and vague, but now suddenly springing to disconcerting life in his head... Father, frowning and shaking his head over some infraction, his disapproval like a hook in Baz's five-year-old throat; leaning against his tree, unobserved, watching Niall and Dev laughing and wrestling over something on the Great Lawn, a strange mix of relief and wistfulness in his chest; little Arachne, his sister, newborn and fussy and fascinating, and he was too afraid to hold her, he might hurt her…; breaking Simon's nose last year, that give of bone, that vicious satisfaction, that flood of shame; and… oh gods… her face, Mother's face, he—he'd forgotten, and this was vivid and real in a way that the photograph he kept hidden under his pillow at home could never—

It was all too much, and he kicked, mentally. The pain in his head suddenly dulled to a vague ache, though Baz was still unable to pull away, or to speak, or to move much. Oh, so you can do this without feeling like you're ripping the top of my head off, Baz groused inwardly.

Unexpectedly, he got a reply. Of course I can, and it was accompanied by a vague unease. I was in a hurry before. The feeling of urgency had died down, and was replaced by some puzzlement. How strange you are, vampire-child, all wound about with fate…. And your threads are faint.

What threads, what are you talking about? Baz growled, still struggling futilely.

Threads, it said. Like so. Baz got a sudden mental image: threads, strings, tied to him like a web, each connecting—connecting to others. There was Niall, and Dev, his father, his little sister and brother, his stepmother, his Grimm cousins… other students, teachers….

Is this a metaphor, he demanded, sourly, and got a shrug-feeling back.

Mostly, it said, and shifted in his mind, with a feeling like plucked harp strings. Baz hadn't played harp in ages, but it thrummed similarly through his head, individual notes. It wasn't painful, exactly, but the reverberations were overwhelming, the more so because… because he always tried so hard to handle them gingerly, distantly…. Everything was safer that way, especially because no one… knew. About him. Still, the connections were there: his family, deep and complex; his friends, cherished if dim; and… and him, Simon, who was more than a thread—he was a cord, a cable, and when the hare shifted again and strummed it, it sang through him like a gorgeous chord, harmony that made him feel like he was soaring…. Baz clutched his head.

Well, well, well, said the hare, its tone sly and calculating, and began to shift again, reach to try again, and suddenly Baz was livid.

Get out, get OUT. Baz pushed—he could almost feel his eyes starting to glow. He shoved, and the dull pain, the feeling of invasion behind his eyes, receded.

Suddenly Baz could breathe, and sit up, and look around. Could see above them, where the specks of gold were buzzing like angry insects.

"How did you..." The hare's voice was outwardly audible again, and rather taken aback.

"Baz!" Simon's hands were on his shoulders. "Did you just throw it off?"

"Apparently?" Baz avoided looking into Simon's eyes. Thrall fighting thrall was all very well, but Baz had never used it before, and he wasn't about to start now with an accident….

"I am out of practice," the hare sneered. Its tone turned gloating, glorying in revealing a great secret. "And your roommate, who is a vampire, a monster himself—"

Simon interrupted, looking utterly unimpressed. "I know, and no, he's not."

"You... know." It faltered, crestfallen, disappointed, like a gossip whose news is old hat, then rallied, its voice hardening, hissing. "No matter."

An explosion of air, and suddenly Baz was five feet away, skidding across the floor to the foot of the large covered mirror by the head altar. Papers—pages torn from some of the songbooks and hymnals in the pews—fluttered down around him. He sat up, dizzy. "Simon?"

Simon was across the aisle, scrambling to his feet, sword finally in hand, but the air was full of sharp, splintering laughter.

"And what about you, oh golden boy, oh chosen one..." The hare, or the haze it seemed to be made up of now, descended on him—he swung his sword, but it laughed as the blade passed right through it, no more effective than against a cloud. "Foolish," it sneered, and wrapped itself around his head, an eddy of golden glittering mist through which Baz could see Simon's face, shocked and wide-eyed.

Baz tried to pull himself up, but stumbled when the heavy brocade cloth he was grasping slid off the face of the mirror and to the floor. He was up again in a moment, and running over, but almost as quickly, the hare squealed, recoiling away as Simon staggered.

"Echhh," it spat, swarming and hissing around him. "What are you, what are you, you taste like sand and death, rotting soil, you leech, you locust, you cuckoo's egg, sheep-clothed wolf, poor pathetic thing, as well none of them know…."

"What are you talking about?" snapped Simon, swinging his sword yet again, straight through the center of the cloud, but still ineffectually.

"I don't think it likes the taste of your brain, Snow," Baz drawled, pressing his back to Simon's as they tried to anticipate and dodge the roiling golden haze. "I don't suppose you've seen my wand?"

"Just use mine," Simon said, and pressed it into Baz's hand without even looking.

"This is not going to work," Baz muttered (his own brain felt a little broken—no one just offered up their wand for someone else to use; it was all but taboo to even touch another magician's instrument, even with permission…), but flicked it. A blue fireball burst into his hand with no problem, though it had no effect when he shot it at the hare.

"Any ideas, here?" Simon asked.

"For fighting an incorporeal ancient monster rabbit? Not a one."

Simon stabbed and swung, Baz sent every offensive spell he could think of, but nothing seemed to make a difference. The hare was wailing again, flurrying around them like a snowstorm, the sound like an ill-hinged gate. Baz thought there were words, but it was ranting, and mostly nonsensically, about heat and death and vengeance.

"Doomed. Cursed," he finally heard it say, and he whirled, to sketch a protective ward with the wand, onto Simon's back, and then onto his own chest. He was very quick (he'd only been practicing them for five years), but the hare began to laugh, hollow, echoing. It sounded nothing like a chime any more.

"Not cursed by me," it said suddenly, clearly. "This was upon you long before." It was suddenly all around them again, a miasma of white light and gold flecks. "Perhaps this will be kinder," it said, sounding almost thoughtful. Cold wind began to swirl around them violently, tearing at Baz's breath, whipping his hair into his face.

And then Simon was dropping the Sword of Mages, and choking.

"Simon?" Baz caught and lowered him before he could collapse to the ground, wheezing and twitching.

Yes, said the voice, almost dreamily, and it was in his head again, though softly. Kinder this way.

"Don't give me that shite," Baz hissed at it. "Come on, Simon, Simon, please breathe." He batted a hand at the haze around them, but he could only watch as Simon struggled to suck in air, clutching weakly at his throat. How could this be better than anything…?

Well, it allowed. Maybe kinder for you.

NO, Baz said, screamed mentally at the hare. He couldn't think, but if it was stealing his breath… he tipped Simon's head back slightly, pinched his nose and sealed his mouth over Simon's, blowing in. Simon's chest rose, but he still gasped and choked, and his blue eyes were panicked.

Baz did it again, while shrieking internally at the hare: Stop, stop, just take mine instead, blame me, go on, I'm the one who killed the others, I drank them, it's my fault they're dead—

He could feel the hare's rage spike, but it said, You… not you….

Why not me? He blew another breath into Simon's lungs.

Won't work on you.

What? Why not? Vampires breathe, he thought wildly, I breathe, come on Simon, come on.

The only reply was an abrupt flurry of many-colored lights all around them for a moment.

What— Baz began to think, to say, when suddenly there was shouting by the door.

It was Penelope and Agatha. They were doing something with the ground that seemed to involve placing stones in a circle, and then Penelope was shouting about "caught between a rock and a hard place" and a lot of other things that Baz thought he should probably listen to more closely, but Simon—Simon was still choking, and his lips were turning blue, and Baz breathed into his mouth again, but….

Then the wind around them subsided somewhat, and Baz looked up to see the hare sitting in Penelope's circle of stones, transparent but decidedly rabbit-shaped, growling and hissing at them. And most importantly, Simon was breathing—gasping and coughing really, but his chest was moving up and down on its own and that was all Baz really cared about.

Agatha was brandishing her mirror, and the hare was staring at it, crouched in its glowing beam of light again, and trembling, but more with anger than fear, Baz could still feel. It seemed to be wriggling, as if in a snare, and what would happen when it broke free?

"Basil!" shouted Penelope. He looked up in time to see her toss him another stone, about the size of a cricket ball. She pointed urgently. "The window!"

He turned, and threw the stone as hard as he could through the center of the stained-glass panel. Not the smartest idea, with the girls present, perhaps he should have held back a little, but it did the trick—the leading burst, glass shattered, and the hare screamed.

Baz scuttled back to Simon (he had turned onto his side and was curled up a little, but still breathing, still breathing), but before he could even check on him again, Penelope was shouting, "Over here, Basil. That just made it corporeal, now we're going to have to fight it."

Baz swore under his breath—he couldn't even use his fangs this time, not in front of the girls—and grabbed up Simon's wand, but by the time he'd hurried the five feet to Penelope's side, it was clear that something strange was happening.

"Penny?" said Agatha, warily, as they all watched. The hare, transparent no longer, was lying on one side, collapsed and shaking within the stone circle in the aisle. It seemed smaller; its fur was white and highlighted with gold, but it was also wet in patches, and it dripped a dark, shimmering liquid, pooling on the stone floor with a rainbow sheen like an oil leak under a car. It was breathing quick and shivery, whistling like a draught under a door.

Penelope's eyes were narrowed. "I'm not sure…."

"Magic sword." Simon's voice came from close behind them, slightly raspy, and Baz turned so quickly he almost fell. Simon looked dazed and wind-swept but whole. Baz wanted to grab him so badly it made his head swim for a moment.

Penelope sounded nearly as relieved as Baz felt. "Oh, Simon, are you—"

"Fine," Simon said, and pushed up next to Baz, leaning only a little. He clutched the Sword of Mages in his right hand, and studied the hare where it lay. "I think… I think maybe now that it has physical form… all those hits I landed before are physical as well."

"A solid theory." The hare's voice still had that strange ringing, but it was hollow and weak now, and disrupted by shallow panting.

They stood and watched for a moment, watched its side rise and fall, over and over, far too quickly. Simon looked around at them finally, his face pained, and lifted the sword slightly. "I—I don't want it to just suffer… should I…."

"Unnecessary," it said, very faintly.

Simon looked back down at it again, and nodded solemnly. He knelt down so that his face was nearly the same level as that shining black eye. "I am sorry," he said quietly. "About your… your family. About this."

Baz twitched. He thought of Simon gasping for breath, and he wasn't very sorry at all.

Nor I, vampire-child, the hare said into his mind, gently. The fever of rage and madness seemed gone now, and underneath, a chasm of grief and loneliness yawned open. Baz drew back a little, skirting the edge, but did not withdraw entirely.

A debt, it said, its gaze suddenly clear and piercing. Not this again, he thought, but it would not be put off, as stubborn as Simon Snow kneeling by its side, and he didn't have the heart to refuse, so instead he said, Yes?

A long pause, while the hare seemed to look into the far distance, eyes dim and unfocused. Lost, it said to him at last, in a tone that was an odd mixture of smug and regretful. Doomed, you are. Both. But you. Threads, waiting to pull you down, to choke you.

They won't, he snapped instinctively, angry, a little panicked. I won't let them.

Eh, it said, shrugging, even its mental voice faint now. It caught his eye once more; briefly, he had the impression of walking through a tattered bead curtain over a doorway, trailing wisps of ribbon and thread and broken strings wafting aimlessly through the air, across his face—and then of the other hares, dead, gone, gone, gone. Untethered can be overrated, it said, and then he felt its mind withdraw from his as its eyes closed.

Simon shifted, and Baz laid a careful hand on his shoulder until, a minute later, the hare's breathing shuddered out, long and slow, and stopped altogether. Simon shuddered too, and Baz squeezed his shoulder.

Agatha sighed behind them, and asked quietly, "What do we do now? With—"

Baz thought of the water-hare, dissolving into bank of the moat, and of the moon rabbit, catching fire and disappearing. Maybe fire? But before Agatha could even finish, the hare's body shivered slightly and began to sift down with a whisper, turning into a pile of fine powdered dust within the circle of stones.

"Well," said Penelope. A faint draught stirred the dust on the floor until a glint of gold could be seen. Simon reached over and plucked it out—a gold feather. They all watched it gleam in silence for a moment.

"How did you know to come?" Simon said suddenly, into the quiet, looking up at the girls. "I mean, I'm glad you came, you have no idea, but—but how?"

"The mirrors," said Agatha. She gestured toward the large one by the altar, and held up her own. "We were getting ready for breakfast, and mine suddenly showed you, Simon, fighting something invisible. Here, in the cathedral."

"It didn't look like it was going very well," her mirror chimed in, wryly. (Its voice was more crystalline, the whine of a finger on the rim of a goblet. Baz had never been sorry that it didn't speak often; the sound set his teeth on edge.)

"It wasn't," Simon said, clambering to his feet and dusting off his hands on the knees of his trousers.

"Simon." Uh-oh. Baz didn't know Penelope Bunce that well yet, but it didn't take Simon's flinch to tell him that that tone of voice did not bode well.

Not to mention the stricken look on her face. "How could you keep this from us, Simon?"

"The note said... that it would be dangerous. And I didn't want to put you in danger."

"What note?"

Baz sidled over and sat down in one of the pews. He wasn't hiding. He just didn't much like the idea of being the tallest person in the room right now.

"Just... I don't know who it's from. It just said to find the white hares—"

Penelope was practically spluttering. "A mysterious note, from an unknown source, and you just go haring off after it, without even telling anyone—"

Baz tried to hide a snicker, mostly unsuccessfully. Not just at the pun.

But Agatha was not unobservant, nor amused. "What's so bloody funny, Basilton?"

Baz shrugged, languidly. "Just nice to hear that someone else agrees with me about this hare-brained endeavor," he said. "Crowley knows, Snow doesn't listen when I say it."

"'Hare-brained'? That was terrible," Simon told him. "And I listen to you, Baz—"

"But DANGER." Penelope was difficult to distract it seemed, when she wanted to be. "It's all very well to say you want to protect us, but what about you?"

Simon hesitated, shrugged. "I have Baz," he said. "He's been—I would have died with the very first rabbit if it weren't for him."

Baz tried not to flinch. Maybe, he thought. Of course, Simon hadn't been trying to wake them up then either; maybe he would have been fine. Maybe he would have been safer...

"Well, thank the gods for that," said Penelope, fervently. "But still, Simon—"

"I haven't even found them all yet, Penny," said Simon. "There are supposed to be six, and I don't know—"

"Six?" Agatha gaped. "How many have you faced so far?" She stared accusingly at Baz.

"This was the third," he answered, when Simon said nothing. When her gaze did not let up, he lifted both hands defensively. "It was Snow's idea to keep you out of this. Don't look at me."

She didn't just look, she glared. "Isn't that Simon's wand, there?"

Baz could feel himself blush. "I—I dropped mine, it's—it's here somewhere. This was his idea, as well."

"Was it, now," Agatha muttered, but only Baz seemed to hear her.

"And what is this meant to be for?" Penelope mused, picking up the golden feather and turning it over in her hands.

"There's a key, too," Simon admitted. "And a cup."

Penelope demanded to see them, "because we can help you, Simon, you know we can," while Simon tried to protest, and Agatha seethed quietly and did not, in fact, stop glaring at Baz.

Baz lounged back in the pew and looked pointedly away, up at the window, now shattered. He hoped they would leave before they had to explain that to anyone else.

What did he care about Wellbelove hostility? He was here for Simon, and the three remaining hares, one of which was a complete mystery... or was it.

First the moon hare, and then the water hare, and then this one, made of light, made of air... oh bugger.

Baz broke in suddenly, interrupting their debate over what the objects meant. "What—what were the other hares you've found so far, Snow?"

"There's an old locked book in the Mage's office," Simon said. "With a warren of rabbits on the front, in silverwork. And a rabbit-shaped stone in the ritual tower. I don't know anything about the last one though."

Stone, too. Which left... Baz could feel himself blanch, feel any color and warmth of exertion drain from his cheeks, leaving him chilled and clammy with sweat. He nodded once, and said, "Ah. Well. I think we'll definitely be needing more of your help after all, girls." All three of them looked at him oddly, but he leaned forward and scrubbed at his face with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Basil, what is it?" Penelope sounded concerned, though Baz couldn't imagine why.

Baz shook his head a little, and willed his voice not to shake. "Only that we're probably looking for a hare of fire."