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>Bring 'em along
Can he come in? That's multiple questions. <span class="mu-i">Can</span> he come in? You don't know, maybe? Can <span class="mu-i">he</span> come in? It'd be a giant pain in terms of getting anything done, but it would make Real Ellery very unhappy. First you bring Madrigal in, now his clone? Think of the look on his face! Ha! And, even if you doubt their conversation would be very productive, you think Fake Ellery should get to have it. You know what it's like to have important parts of your life missing. If you had somebody to blame, you'd want to chew them out too.
(All this time since you found out, and you still don't have anybody to blame. You still don't even know why. Three years gone, and for what?)
"Okay," you say. "Sure. If you think it won't explode anything?"
"I don't care if it explodes anything."
"Oh," you say. Positive thinking? "Well, um, if it does explode anything, I'll simply escape it. As I am a heroine. And you'll simply die, but that's okay, because you'll come back to life again. So that's fine. Great! It's settled, then. Are you ready right now?"
"Yeah," Ellery says, and gets up out of his desk chair, and makes to rummage around in his garbage whatever. "Hang on a second. I have some stuff that'll let you hop along into the same manse—"
"I don't need stuff," you scoff. "How do you think I was going to get in in the first place? Come back here."
Ellery comes back here. (Finally! People listening to you!)
"We'll just be a minute, Gil. Or a couple minutes?" If Ellery's manse runs ten times faster... "One of those. Okay, hold still."
Ellery lets you pick up his hand (by the sleeve; Ellery is excruciatingly unmarried) without protest. Learning about everything really must've done a number on him. Or was it Gil's blessing? It's helpful, whatever it is. You shift your grip downward, to his palm, and peer into his muddy brown-blue eyes, and, as always, as ever, see <span class="mu-s">through.</span>
-
Fake Ellery is nothing more than a paper bag; you punch through him and are on the other side, a wide hollow red-black space. There is a lounge chair here, and too many empty beer bottles, and most importantly Fake Ellery himself, looking bewildered. "Lottie?"
"Yes!" you say.
"How the fuck did you do that?"
"Using my magyckal powers?"
"...Did you always have those?" He scans your expression. "You know what? It doesn't— it doesn't matter! It doesn't really matter. Here."
Fake Ellery turns, and the space wheels around him, causing you to nearly lose your footing. There is all of a sudden a door, oak and heavy, and Fake Ellery walks up to it.
"Are you nervous?" you say.
"No." He hesitates, nevertheless, then places his palms flat against it. There's a <span class="mu-i">SHUNK</span>— and a SHUNK-SHUNK-SHUNK-SHUNK-SHUNK, as unseen bolts slide back. Maybe imaginary bolts. He works the handle, then, and the door opens.
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