Chapter 777

This chapter is from Lily’s perspective

Remember, because Lily is taking charge [These are Kat’s thoughts]

—

Lily took a glance over at Apep, checking his appearance once again. The fact he was wearing what amounted to a jacket with no undershirt swayed her choice. Lily hopped down from Kat’s arms and transformed back into her humanoid form. “Ok, so. We’ll need to work together for this. Well sort of. See Kat,” Lily turned to face her girlfriend and tried very hard not to blush over her attire. She failed, but she did try. “I’m thinking that if you use your dream walking ability on me, I can stay in Memphis form, and Apep can pretend to have found a stray kitten he was feeding in the storeroom.

“Once we get outside we’re pretty much set. Either Apep gets told to get rid of me, and he can just drop us off at the front gate where we’re free to leave, or I can pretend to be annoyed at him for something and run off. It should be fine as long as the guards aren’t shooting down random pigeons or whatever. What do you both think?”

“Well, I’m not entirely sure if I can use that skill on you while awake... otherwise I don’t see any issues,” said Kat as she turned to Apep.

Apep tapped his foot softly a few times as he thought it over, “I... I think it’ll work? I’ve never snuck in a pet before but that’s because we have a family wolf. Lazy thing he is but very fluffy. Still... I’m just trying to think... hmm... I think it might be fine? The issue is that familiars or just possessed animals. I think we have wards against that on the perimeter... so I’m not sure how that would affect you both...”

.....

Kat and Lily shared a look. Lily just shrugged and turned back to Apep, “What’s supposed to happen?”

“Well... I think for possession it’s easier to just to end the link. People don’t tend to connect too deeply to the animal because it causes issues on both ends... so... worse comes to worst I think Kat would be forced out of your head... but then again that’s NOT how possession of animals works. Umm... because from the sounds of things Kat’s body isn’t going to stick around right?” Kat nodded, “Right so... there’s not really anything like that...

“Hmm... I mean... it might be closer to a familiar link... but even still I don’t think... wait how does this work? Where does Kat’s body go exactly?” Apep asked.

Kat shrugged, “I mean... I don’t really know? I mean... it LOOKS like it enters the body of whoever’s mind I’m going into... but I don’t... I don’t think that’s what happens? Because that wouldn’t really work would it. Hmm... now I’m not so sure...”

“Alright...” said Apep with a frown, “Honestly I don’t think that kind of... magic?” Kat made a ‘so-so’ gesture, “or not? Well... um... I’m going to say chances are you’ll be fine, or worse comes to worst you’ll both be split apart and can run... probably?”

Lily let out a quick huff. “Ok, that’s fine... but if it’s still a possibility things go south we need a plan to get in contact again,”

“Hmm... well Jara can contact me... if you get to her...” offered Apep

Lily rolled her eyes in response and said, “True, but have you considered that if your wards catch us whatever wards she has will ALSO cause us problems?”

“Oh... right...” said Apep clearly not having thought things through to their logical conclusion. “Um... hmm... we don’t really have protocol for long distance communication really... I mean we have mirrors for REALLY long distance communication but they’re too expensive to have for inter city stuff and we have the Emergency System for the really important things that need to be known right now!

“For... um... for communication just in the city we have couriers that are really quite fast. It doesn’t take more than an hour to get from one end to the other so thinking up something better just hasn’t really been important...”

“Could we send you a courier?” asked Kat.

Apep shook his head, “No no, you have to have permission from my father to send messages here. The system is a little strange but it works. You can choose who you receive messages from. It keeps the complaints official and through intermediaries. Problem is... I don’t have a personal message, just the general one to this house. So you’d need permission from my father...”

Lily frowned, “Is there seriously nothing?”

Apep shrugged, “I mean a skilled enough telepathy mage could work... but no. We’d need to connect everyone before that and I’m not sure if that’d work considering you’re a demon. We’ve got a bunch of wards against it anyway...”

Kat frowned “Not to be too much of a downer but... do you have any ideas with a chance of working? While I’m not against sharing your thoughts... you seemed to know it was never going to work before you said anything about it...”

Apep winced slightly and said, “Um... no... not really...”

Kat glanced over at Lily. [I think we might need to just try this out. Demon stuff tends to bypass standard magic wards so I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re just going to be fine. I don’t really see any other way to go about it. We can sit here and test ideas constantly and have it amount to nothing. I mean, other than just relying on demonic bullshit, is it really likely we outsmart whoever designed the wards? They probably had months or years to plan them and that’s assuming they haven’t just continually been added to over time]

*I think you’re right... though actually one more thing I nearly forgot.* “Well Apep it looks like we might just have to try. A question though... do you happen to have a note we can give Jara to prove we are who we say we are?”

“Oh... um... hmm...” Apep started patting himself down and managed to find a piece of paper with something on it, Apep pulled out a pen from another pocket and was about to start writing when he paused, realising what exactly was on it and shoved it back into his pocket. “Nope. No paper here...”

“Apep... both of us have enhanced eyesight...” said Lily after a moment of shocked pause, “even if it’s a little dark down here we can both see perfectly fine. Pretty sure we both saw exactly what happened,”

“Nope. No useable paper here!” said Apep with a shaky certainty.

*Ideas? I mean... we still really need a note or something. We probably could push it but... my bets on that being a bad poem about Zuhra he never finished.*

[Oh? How do you know? Did you write poems about me?]

*Of course, not Kat. That’s a brilliant way to get caught. No, I spent my time finding ways to write about you without making it look like I was writing about you. It was a surprisingly interesting exercise. Food was one topic, and landscaping was another. I think I might have also done a fake report about play-do as well. Not sure if I still have any of them. I deleted a couple when you nearly caught me once. Sort of panicked.*

[Lily, that sounds adorable. I think we could have a lot of fun reading them one day]

*Nope. No way. That’s ridiculously embarrassing.*

“Well do you have anything else we can use?” asked Lily pushing down Kat’s ideas and trying to ignore how warm it made her feel, “We do need SOMETHING. Oh and don’t say like ‘take this necklace I’m wearing that I never take off’ because that’s a sure-fire way to make it looked like we kidnapped you or something. Just... is there any way we can get a letter? That really is for the best...”

“Um... er... if I can get you to the main house there’s plenty of paper around. The city has a few paper mages get paid just to produce basic paper,” said Apep.

*Oh. Right I’m a paper mage... hmm... could I actually make permanent paper though?* Lily quickly tried to remember all the information she’d been over in the book but... *nope. Doesn’t look like I’ve been taught how to do that dammit. That’s assuming I can even use mana right now. I theoretically know how to make fake paper but that doesn’t even last an hour.*

“I think we’re going to have to just go for it. Apep. If I fall asleep that’s fine. Just carry us someplace where you can write us a note and then try and get us outside. Otherwise I’ll do what I can to help,” said Lily before turning back into a Memphis and looking at Kat.

“Um... alright I suppose?” said Apep nervously. Kat however was willing to trust Lily. She burst into a cloud of purple smoke and headed for her girlfriend.