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absolutely unforeseen, unexpected, and unimaginable shock, Thomson had no choice but to do a comically long spit-take. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) the geyser of punch all spewed straight into Zandar’s face. Quickly noting that Mr. Calaveras contained more punch than she cared to drink, Thomson cast a Gramarye to teleport the liquid into her mouth in a steady stream so she could continue spewing punch for several seconds. (Apparently this is a proprietary Floozy spell; I never had the courage to ask why exactly they are required to learn it.)

By the time the deluge of punch diminished to a trickle, Zandar was absolutely soaked. She glared daggers at the moronic ungulate femme as she tried to wipe the fruity liquid off of her face. When Thomson held the skull up defensively, Zandar swatted it out of her hands

“What is wrong with you??” she snarled.

“So much!” Burnside answered from across the room.

"Oh Mr. Calaveras, I'm terribly sorry," Thomson mumbled as she bent down and tried to scoop the skull up off the floor.

“Well?" Zandar demanded. "I asked you a question! What is wrong with you?”

Thomson used her apparent discomfiture at dropping her best friend to quickly analyze the situation. Her advanced Floozy training would surely allow her to bend this femme into pretzels if she so wished. However, that would mean failing the mission. There had to be a way of salvaging this. Then Mr. Calaveras whispered in her ear, his voice as cool and quiet as a crypt: Her mind is one that can bear no responsibility. All shortcomings are the fault of another. Use this against her. Thomson nodded. “Of course, Mr. Calaveras. It shall be done.” As she mumbled, she recalled Adler mentioning that he had let Zandar believe his name was Lord Randall. From the chatter overheard at this party, it was apparently no secret that Zandar would endlessly complain about Randall to anyone who would listen.

Zandar snapped her fingers in Thomson’s vision. “Hello? I’m talking to you. Are you a simpleton who wandered through the Gateway by accident? Who let you in here?”

“Lord Randall!” Thomson blurted.

"HE let you in??" Zandar exclaimed, leaning forward with mixed interest and suspicion.

"I was merely changing the subject," Thomson admitted innocently. "What's he like, this mysterious gentleman of yours? I've heard so much about him, but it's all been so vague..."

“Ugh!" Zandar groaned, rolling her eyes. "Don’t even get me started! First off, he's NO gentleman! That lying, bleached loser has done so much to me. He brought me back to life without asking first! Who does that?? Also, he has this really weird mole on his-”

Meanwhile, Burnside was dutifully gathering intel as inconspicuously as she could. No one would suspect such a petite and well-mannered lady of anything "spicuous," whatever that meant. With a curtsy and a bow she asked a femme, “Is Zandar crazy?”

“Who?”

Burnside dropped this uninformative source and quickly moved to a mel. “Is Zandar crazy?”

“The rumors make her sound like it.”

Now we were getting somewhere! Not wanting to overtax her informants, Burnside quickly moved to some teachers. “Is Zandar crazy?”

“Yes.”

"Oh, I should say so!"

“Absolutely.”

At the pastry cart, Rebecca completed her Gramaries. She didn’t magick all of the pies; it would have been far too suspicious if every single one all honed in on Zandar Skönk the Body Magick Professor. She merely magicked enough of them to guarantee that Zandar would get pelted with most of the pies. Even not knowing what Zandar looked like other than that she was a skunk, Rebecca still felt confident that the majority of pastries would find their mark. She was quite pleased with herself. Not only was this the biggest magickal jape she had yet attempted, but it was going to be punishing an irredeemably wicked femme. How noble! How very witchy! Now there was just the matter of the catalyst to get things going. She stifled a devious giggle as she watched pies being grabbed up by eager pastry enthusiasts. Satisfied that the tools of her righteous fury were being distributed, she headed over to the self-playing string quartet.

Meanwhile, Zandar had gone into a full-blown tirade. “Pretty much everything that has ever gone wrong in my life goes back to that albino freak! From my birth until now! Of course there's no tangible proof that he was directly involved with everything that went wrong in my childhood, but it just makes SENSE! The Old Crow was working for SOMEBODY! When at last I actually met the white-furred fiend, and he viciously manipulated me and destroyed my life, it’s like one of those events that was so negative and consequential that it sent ripples back to the beginning. Like, retroactively! This is not mere speculation either! The theory is sound. There are magick books on the subject. Guh, I deserved so much better than this.” She rested her elbow on a nearby table and accidentally knocked over a plate onto the floor. “GRAH! Look at what Randall made me do!!”

Thomson merely nodded and tilted her ears with apparent sympathy as she set Mr. Calaveras down carefully on the table beside her and stooped to pick up the dropped plate.

Burnside checked to make sure Thomson wasn’t looking, then moseyed over to the cart and grabbed a few pies. Asking the same question over and over again was hard work! She deserved a well-earned pie break.

Rebecca nonchalantly sidled up to the four self-playing string instruments. “I think we need to liven things up here. Would you please play Infernal Galop by Jacques Offenbach?” The previous piece of music ended. There was a moment of silence and then the new selection began. It started low and slow. Rebecca rubbed her hands together and gave her best witchy smile.

Vulpimort shuffled into the ballroom and glared around at everyone with a sneer of disdain. His expression almost lifted when he saw the line of well-stocked pastry carts. Going to this dumb school for stupid goodie-goodies may be the worst experience of his life, but at least the pies were good. He selected one and inhaled its sweet scent, almost as sweet as his triumph would be when he someday showed them all ... he opened his mouth to take a bite, and then his ears perked up. The music had changed. Suddenly he felt like his body was being hijacked. NO! The spell he had been trying to master while neglecting his course-work! How could anyone dare to use it on HIM, the mighty Vulpimort?? It wasn't fair! Powerless to resist, he did an about-face and raised the pie high above his head. With a strength he never knew he possessed, he heaved the pie at an unknown target.

Thomson interrupted Zandar's rant to politely inform her, “Mr. Calaveras says: Look up.”

“What? Why?” Zandar looked up just in time for a blueberry custard pie to splat a perfect bullseye directly on her face.

The room went silent as all eyes darted between Zandar and the unfortunate fox.

Zandar used one hand to wipe the pie filling off her face. Her other hand was cleched into a fist and shaking with rage. She glared daggers at the fox standing a short distance away with his hand still raised over his head. The crowd began to nervously shift away from the self-proclaimed "dark mage" Vulpimort.

"Mr. Vulpstein," Zandar growled as she snatched a pie out of the hands of the closest bystander. "Are you challenging me to a wizard's duel?"

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