A few days later, Kas and Petaal disappear.

Isabella decides that they're probably going to Nunavut. She doesn't worry about them.

(She thinks about them, sometimes. That feeling clinging to the back of her neck doesn't go away.)

Author: dark_light	A few days later, Kas and Petaal disappear. Isabella decides that they're probably going to Nunavut. She doesn't worry about them. (She thinks about them, sometimes. That feeling clinging to the back of her neck doesn't go away.)
Author: truthwright	After about three months, she gets a lovely postcard from Quebec City. It says: Cloud-pine worked! So much crashing. So much fun. ♥ K&P
Author: dark_light	Neat. Postcards don't really have affordances for return correspondence, but Isabella smiles and keeps the card in her room propped up against the wall on the back edge of her desk.
Author: truthwright	The next one is from Las Vegas, a month later. Pretty sure you'd hate it here. K&P ♥♥♥
Author: dark_light	Isabella wonders why. This postcard goes next to the previous one. She carries on studying.
Author: truthwright	San Francisco. Miss you! K&P Seattle. Miss your tummy rubs! ♥ P&K Missoula, Montana. Tiny museum full of dead things here! Fun! Sevierville, Tennessee. Did you know there's a museum for knives? There's a museum for knives and it's awesome. The postcards are coming closer and closer together.
Author: dark_light	She really should have guessed this would happen if Petaal got ahold of cloud-pine and it worked. (She did not know there was a museum for knives in Sevierville, TN.)
Author: truthwright	A long silence (three weeks instead of the lately-usual one-ish), then a postcard from Paris. I know something you don't knoooooooooow
Author: dark_light	...Isabella has no idea what to do with that. (There are now enough postcards that they live all in a stack instead of propped up.)
Author: truthwright	That is okay, because three days after that, Kas knocks on her door.
Author: dark_light	"Hi," she says, hugging him. "I got your postcards. What do you know that I don't know?"
Author: truthwright	"Hi!" He hugs back. Petaal is being a horse, and does not join in the hugging. "Alethiometers talk to themselves—did you know that?"
Author: dark_light	"I know the answer hand is always spinning. Are they saying sensible things? Did you look at the Louvre one and count pauses on symbols and translate them?"
Author: truthwright	"It said I'm legally dead and some French girl's brother is fucking her boyfriend and the atomic weight of cobalt is about fifty-nine and some other guy has a teenage daughter he doesn't know about and my sweetie's never going to settle," he says. "There was more stuff but I forgot a lot of it."
Author: dark_light	Isabella opens her mouth, and then closes it. "...Uh, I know you didn't swipe my phone with the dictionary on it, did you get your own at some point?"
Author: truthwright	"Nope! I know it's supposed to be hard and stuff, but it just makes sense."
Author: dark_light	"...You're claiming you're an intuitive alethiometer reader?"
Author: truthwright	"Why, am I not allowed?"
Author: dark_light	"They're so rare as to have serious controversy over whether they exist."
Author: truthwright	"Well," he says, "boo."
Author: dark_light	"How hard will it be to talk you into hanging out with me all the time reading an alethiometer if I get hold of one?"
Author: truthwright	"Well, not all the time," he says. "But it's pretty fun."
Author: dark_light	"Routinely, a lot, in a sufficient capacity that I can get the thing read," Isabella says. "I can do some on my own - I assume - that being the idea of the research - but - damn, I need to go work out my find-a-lost-alethiometer spell now."
Author: truthwright	"You have a spell for that?" he laughs.
Author: dark_light	"No! I wasn't going to develop one until I thought I'd know what to do with an alethiometer once I had it! But I can certainly invent something!" She strides back into the house and up to her room.
Author: truthwright	Kas follows her; Petaal bounds after him as a Yorkshire terrier.
Author: dark_light	Isabella's spell-writing process appears to involve a lot of notes, half in English and half in witch-symbols, half on paper and half on random surfaces around her room.
Author: truthwright	It is fascinating, and also adorable.
Author: dark_light	Her excitement appears contagious - at least to Path, who keeps fluttering from perch to perch around the room. Petaal's terrier form is big enough to count as a perch.
Author: truthwright	Shortly after Path flutters away again, Petaal becomes a tiny, brightly coloured dragon and chases after him to give him kisses.
Author: dark_light	Path laughs. Isabella is momentarily distracted by cuteness, and then goes back to writing a grid of miscellaneous symbols on her wall in pencil and then circling half of them.
Author: truthwright	Kas hugs himself and awwwws and watches Isabella write.
Author: dark_light	"This could take a while," Isabella says. She frowns at her grid, erases a circle, draws two more, erases two others, and then picks up a notebook and starts muttering to herself about herbs.
Author: truthwright	"Okay," says Kas. "Will your teacher mind if I stick around for a while again?"
Author: dark_light	"Doubt it. Attic's right where you left it, probably slightly dustier. Nice choice of cloud-pine spray, by the way. The first one I cut had a balance issue and I had to go back for another inside of a year. Although maybe you crashed enough to ruin your first and this is your second?"
Author: truthwright	"This is our third," Kas admits. "I'm really good at it now, though!" says Petaal.
Author: dark_light	Isabella laughs. Pathalan lets himself be caught and gives Petaal an affectionate peck/nuzzle sort of gesture.
Author: truthwright	Petaal nuzzles Path right back, then lands on Kas's shoulder and turns into a king cobra.
Author: dark_light	Isabella's not really paying attention to any of this. She's drawing shapes on the wall and then smaller versions of them in her notebook and writing T-charts of pros and cons underneath the junior versions.
Author: truthwright	Kas decides to go see how the attic is doing. He opens the door. "...Uh..."
Author: dark_light	"Isabella!" exclaims Path. Isabella looks around. "That's... not the hallway."
Author: truthwright	"That is not the hallway," Kas agrees. "That is a bar. Wanna go check it out?"
Author: dark_light	"Why in the name of any and every goddess is there a bar in Metis's house?"
Author: truthwright	"I have no idea!" says Kas. "But I wanna find out!"
Author: dark_light	Path flutters nervously to Isabella's shoulder and tucks himself under her hair, against her neck. Isabella slowly gets up and walks towards the door. "What if it disappears after we go in and then it's not connected to the house anymore?" Pause. "Well, I guess then it spits us out wherever else it goes... and we have a flight that could last a while. No big deal. Okay." And she grabs her cloud-pine from where it lies on the floor by her sleeping mat, and steps forward with Kas into the bar.