The clocks whirled in warning but she was too far gone to take note. The drugged lassitude swirled in delicious eddies, twisting her conscious down medicated paths of peace.

When the hands aligned on the portended 11:11, Mistress Lillura, teacher of Abjuration, lolled her head to the side and stared in bemused bedazzlement at her familiar's agitation. Draped across the divan, she was exposed in a multitude of ways, not in the least of which was her state of clothing.

As the Mistress of Shades and Shards slid through the dark inky blotch of reality and was subsequently birthed within the protected chambers of the Abjurist, alarms jolted, safeguards locked into place and with a shattering klaxon the entire tower ripped free from its temporal perch.

Satariel found herself...immobilized.

Surrounded by Scorpicores, Lillura turned bleary eyes, growing sharper with fearful clarity, upon the Deaconness, and if it were at all possible, she blanched whiter.

"Impressive." The word hung on the air between them as Lillura found herself in the distinctly uncomfortable position of being the sole recipient of the deathly inert gaze of Mistress Shah.

"Deaconness! Forgive me! My protection spells are in place to insure my safety, had I known you were coming I would've deactivated them." Moving at an incredible speed due to her own hasted actions, Lillura sought to disarm and dissuade her protective devices from their readied state.

Satariel said nothing and remained in a frozen state of statuesque perfection. The scorpicores who had scuttled to form a protective phalanx around their Mistress quite suddenly jerked upward on their clawed hindlegs, suspended in agony as dark shadows poured wildly about them. Quite clearly, while she herself could not move due to the protective spells of Lillura, her control over the shades had not diminished.

"Let me, I'm dispelling the--" Lillura tried to focus through the hazy effects of her drugged state, "Why are you here?" The question slipped past her lips and she immediately wished she could repeal it, seeking to hastily adjust the rudeness of her query, "I mean, forgive me, Mistresss Shah, to what do I owe the honor of your presence?"

Shadows swirled dangerously, and the scorpicores were suddenly torn apart. Shredded in a shower of ichor, flesh, and gore. The room was splattered with their remains, dark blood spilling about the stunned Lillura as Satariel stared unblinkingly at her misguided employee. "I'm here to discuss your Reflection."

The implied menace was unmistakeable despite the lack of inflection in Satariel's tone.

Lillura sent a sharp look toward one of the many mirrors that lined her chambers on a gasp. She was already aware of what she would see but her sluggish mind could not keep up with the pace of this event. Instead of the pale white flesh, marred by a myriad assortment of vicious scars and coated in the slick remains of her protective guards, she saw instead the beauty of Fleur Rousseau. Relief billowed and left her legs weak. She collapsed back on the divan before she realized that Satariel's recognition of her casting could not bode well, "I-I can explain."

"Explain what exactly?" Satariel skittered forward in that odd disjointed fashion of movement, "That you're using one of our students as a dislocation device? That you've taken it upon yourself to mask your presence with one of our foremost students. An Overseer to our newest House? That a sorceress of Fleur's standing serves as nothing more than your protective armor to be discarded should your nemesis find you?" Each question drew her nearer until she hovered above the cringing abjurist.

"I-.." She could formulate no response, mesmerized by the fatal allure of the poised Deaconness. Lillura almost welcomed her end. To die by the hand of Satariel Shah for overstepping was a release from the perpetual fear that Nasarach would find her. Drifting backward, she offered her supine form for Shah's punishment, submitting as she had been taught. Trained. Broken.

"This will not do, Lillura. Fleur has proven herself to be an asset." Unblinking eyes stared down upon the sacrificial white throat of the woman before her and the shadows boiled and spilled about them both. The dark essence of many a vicious shade sought to free itself from The Mistress' hold and wreak its dark lovely pleasure upon that submission.

The pressure was unbearable, the madness to be found in the empty pits of those soulless eyes, seared the lingering haze of the drugs from Lillura's mind and she moaned, "Forgive me, Mistress Shah."

"No longer do I grant forgiveness." The former Priestess intoned and Lillura closed her eyes against certain death.

Nothing came. No sharp rending. No burgeoning pressure. No blow descended. And Lillura found the tension in her trembling body ratcheting ever upward. Moments passed. Moments filled with the sound of her terrified hitching breath. Finally, she could stand the fear no longer and forced her eyes to part.

Backdropped against the raging vortex of angry shades, the exquisite symmetry of her features was viciously awful. Satariel's empty eyes burned into Lillura's as she decreed: "You will find another."

Unable to maintain consciousness against the onslaught, Lillura murmured her obedience, "Yes, Mistress Shah," before descending into the retreat of her mind.

The shadows twined, twisted, and coalesced about the High Priestess of the Shaitan, drawing her into the darkness and pulling her from within the gore-stained tower, leaving the unconscious Lillura behind to do her bidding.

Something wasn't right.

Quillyan's brow knit in vexation as she read and reread her notes, the flawless azure of her gaze tripping across lines of fastidious scrawl, struggling for resolution to the spell dissection that had devoured her previous days. Hours surrendered to the stately gloom of the library had yielded much information and some answers, but the pieces still fit imperfectly. An essential element of the spell composition theory continued to elude her, and she sensed that it was much simpler than the complex solutions she had crafted while working backwards through the process.

Exhausted frustration gnawed at her patience, and that pair of plump lips pressed tightly to arrest the string of profanities tempting her tongue. *** Grant. She imagined the ViperFang apprentice lazily lounging somewhere - even bored perhaps - as she sacrificed both sleep and society to toil over his assignments. Certainly, if she'd attended Mistmark's more advanced lecture, the one in which he was enrolled, this assignment would doubtlessly be more manageable, but such a shift in procedure would inaugurate a host of new problems, for she wasn't prepared to explain to Master Mistmark - or anyone else - why such an action was necessary.

"This little exercise? It's nothing," Grant soothed with an abrupt smirk, eager to silence her protest. "A clever girl like you, Quilly -- you'll pick it up in no time."

"I don't know anything about this type of spell," she countered sullenly. "Don't you at least have some notes... or something?"

"Notes?" his compelling laughter graced air in genuine amusement. "I never take notes." The novice's eyes narrowed upon him, as if she could strike him dead with the unmitigated force of her malicious will, but she spoke not. "Don't look so upset, my dear," he continued, gripping the curve of her chin affectionately between his thumb and forefinger. "Challenge is good for you, right? Give us a smile?"

Quillyan cursed him venomously and yanked her head away, lengthy limbs tensing in sudden defensiveness.

"Suit yourself," he hissed, a cruel smile tilting his seductive mouth, "just get it finished by the end of the week. I'd hate for the gossip winds to find out that you're a faithless slut who whores herself out for a couple of simple rhymes. It'd no doubt scandalize that pathetic little house of yours."

Again she retraced the papers detailing her progress, her forlorn obsession sensing a solution just beyond cognizance. With a couple of weary, dull blinks, she acknowledged the possibility that fatigue, more than anything else, concealed her answers. An hour of sleep last night, two the night before, and everything seemed despairingly fuzzy.

But the afternoon sky was pristine blue, the spring air sweetly scented with new blooms. Perhaps a walk would enliven her wit; and indeed, even as she gathered and ordered her notes, her meditation regarded the grand irony of her situation in gloomy humor.

In a school full of masterful sorcerers, she sought answers from books. Bothersome, bewildering books.

At least they were discreet.

Quillyan?s eyes, already so expressively large, seemed to widen farther before collapsing into suspiciously narrow slits, the dark fringe of her lashes almost obscuring the dazzling blue within.

?Mistress Lillura?? she repeated in a whisper brushed by disbelief.

?Yes,? Ebonique replied, her deliciously husky voice also a quiet breath. ?I swear, I heard her tell Mo?sem.?

?Mistress Lillura?? Quillyan repeated yet again as her lean form crowded the curves of her fellow novice. ?Mistress Lillura, the pale disaster of a teacher??

?Yes,? snapped Ebonique, quickly losing patience with the red-head?s skepticism. ?Like I?ve said three times now, I heard Mistress Lillura tell Mo?sem that you?re a student of ?high caliber? who needs time to recover.?

Quillyan?s long arms folded themselves neatly before her slender midsection as she reckoned with this strange tidbit of information. After a couple of moments, her delicate features - now a subtle and healthy tan - relaxed into simple bewilderment. Finally, she replied: ?That?s weird.?

?I know.? A small hint of a smile.

?Thanks a lot,? she immediately returned with mild sarcasm, all the while echoing the expression of the lovely diviner. ?Well, thanks for telling me at least. I?ve barely spoken to Mistress Lillura, and honestly, I?m surprised she even knows my name.?

Ebonique said nothing, content to leave the other student to solitary speculation.

?Well,? Quillyan said finally, retrieving her books from the stone ledge beside one of the side entrances to the main building. ?I?ll see you in Mistmark?s.?

After Ebonique departed, the novice meandered down one of paths towards the gardens, plentiful sunlight spilling over her nubile body. Despite the flawless blue of the sky, she still wrestled with a vague sense of foreboding: the same pestering sensation of looming danger that had been her constant companion for several days.

In the brilliance of a beautiful afternoon, these dark fancies seemed silly. Grant was pleased with her work. Her friends seemed well. Classes were manageable.

Why then were her dreams so unspeakably terrible?

((rumors from the Faculty Lounge))

Of all of the instructors Quillyan needed to speak?with?concerning her selected schools of focus, Mistress Lillura was the one who inspired the most apprehension.? Sure, in her novice schedule, she'd taken the very basic course in Abjuration and had performed passably well, but at the introductory level, her primary teacher had been a mere Mage, and Lillura's presence in the classroom?was only?occasional and remote - more of a supervisor than a professor.
?
Considering the many stories she'd heard?about?the woman's capricious, occasionally violent whims,?Quillyan had always counted her distance as a blessing.? She was perfectly content to give Mistress Crazyrobes a wide berth.
?
Until now.?
?
Between final evening classes and dinner, she resolved herself to confront the tragic beauty and conquer this uncomfortable conversation first, for whatever else she was doomed to face with Tracha or Mistmark would likely be palatable in the aftermath of this grudging, menacing meeting.

And of course, the classroom in Lillura?s spire was entirely empty, disclosing only the ghostly traces of dozens of students who had, at some point during the day, occupied the space: a scrap of notes, a forgotten fountain pen. With a reasonable apprehension, Quillyan crossed this deserted auditorium, effortlessly locating the passage of stairs that led up to the Mistress of Abjuration?s private quarters.

So she climbed, in only the company of her own shadow.

Quillyan paused before Lillura?s heavy door, her willowy figure?s many nerves keenly accorded with the inundating emptiness of the air behind her and it?s peripheral insecurity. The dreadful weight of foreboding stilled a hand poised to knock for a careful breath or two, and then, in a rush of clean determination, she rapped that set of sharp knuckles against the solid span of wood.

Silence greeted the movement?s echo, so then, she stuck again, her voice lifting in brazen accompaniment: ?Mistress Lillura? It?s Quillyan. I -- I need to speak with you for a moment.?