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When I woke, I was really seriously disoriented. I was holding a raccoon that it took me only a moment to remember was Renna. The sunlight that stabbed through the back grate and had woken me kept my eyes from adjusting to the dark that most of the room was in. I drew myself up, out of the light.

Aresh was there, dead asleep on a second mat.

And we hadn't, to my knowledge, unlocked the door after making out. Had she somehow been there and we simply hadn't noticed?

As I slithered to the exit to get to the side-house, I found a wax tablet on the floor near the door. Several sentences of gibberish were written on it, and it was addressed to Renna and me (not in code). I picked it up, and found under it the code table Night had found. It was probably from her.

So much like Renna.

I pushed the door open and, upon finishing my business in the side-house, sat on the front porch under the broad shade, and set to work on the code. I had not gotten far enough in to be confident that I had started right when I was interrupted.

"What IS it with you and that cellar?" Samik stepped out of the house, having issued his challenge. He was holding a bunch of grapes, and popped one in his mouth.

"What?"

"Don't play dumb. You two woke up half the city last night."

"Sorry about that. I'm still not sure what you mean, though."

Samik rolled his eyes. "I did not need to know that my sister is a screamer. But I guess I already knew that..." He glared at me, and I attempted to recall any other instances of our making out within his earshot.

"I hope we didn't really... well, obviously we didn't literally wake up half the city, but anyone who was ill."

"It took some effort to convince Night not to go and check on you." Another grape.

"Shoot. Sorry. I'm still not sure what you meant, though."

He just blinked at me. "You can't be serious."

"Well, you implied that I've done something else unpleasant in this cellar, that's all."

"What about lie through your teeth and have Renna come back asking for more? Does that sound familiar?"

It's funny, but I was happy to hear this. Literally, what ran through my mind was, "Progress! Now I'm getting down to what his real problem with me is!" but before I could follow up, Renna interrupted:

"Samik, shut the fuck up. You're annoying me. Thank you for the grapes."

Samik was so shocked he relinquished them without a fight, and just stood there as she popped one in her mouth. I was pretty surprised, too - Renna had a very clean mouth, cleaner than mine, and I don't use foul language all that much.

She sat on my lap and fed me a grape. To her brother, she said, "I didn't realize that sound carried so well all the way up to the second floor. My sincere apologies for that. Is the matter closed?"

Samik nodded, then, his thoughts elsewhere, said, "Yeah. Yeah, all settled. Oh, and... I still couldn't find your puzzle thingy. You can have mine." He held forth his hand, and one appeared in it. He handed it to me, and it immediately vanished. I didn't even feel it for a moment. "What." He took his hand back and it was there again. He pressed it into my palm, but it again vanished rather than make contact with me. "Huh. Umm. Judging by your expression of surprise, I take it you didn't know that happens."

"No, indeed not!"

"Good. Because I spent half an hour rooting around for that thing, and if that was supposed to be a joke, it wasn't a funny one. Now call yours to make sure."

I put out my hand and my puzzle popped into existence again. "Oops. And, uh, thank you."

He sighed, hard, and slammed out a "No problem.", then huffed indoors.

"We did tell you not to worry about it..." I trailed off.

Renna fed me a grape, then stretched. "Now my sleep schedule is totally shot again. I should be going to bed about now."

"Before you go... Do you have that code I slipped you?"

"Sure. What is it?"

I suddenly couldn't say. Stupid enchantment.

"Oh fine. I'll get it, and solve it. You didn't make it too hard, did you?"

I shook my head. She disappeared downstairs, and was gone longer than I expected. Night slithered out and coiled next to me. "So. How are you doing with it?"

"Hadn't had a chance to get started, really."

"You start in the upper left..."

"No hints! Come on, where's the fun in it?" My fingers played over the surface as I read it out - "It turns o". Suddenly, I halted - an L was visible under a coat of light white paint, and an O was painted over it. "You repainted it."

"Yeah, there were a couple mistakes in the table."

"Mistakes in the table."

"Like, that line had two Ls, and no O."

"No wonder we always had such a hard time decoding. It was broken."

In another two minutes, I had the whole message: 'It turns out, this code is pretty easy and I think its pretty strong. See, the two pretty-s looked nothing alike. Three of them, now.'

A shadow fell over me, and I found Renna gesturing to me with the sheet of paper, visibly upset. "What... is... THIS?"

I took it from her, and began to read her decryption: 'Lily is super-hot, and I'd totally...' As I read it, Renna said, "I don't even want to know what comes next."

"What? That's not what it says." I checked the code, and became confused. "The words don't even line up. How can you solve a single-key cipher of this length without word lengths? In a few minutes? I told you, it was easy. This isn't it." It's the enchantment. Must be interfering with her ability to read it. Or did it substitute some other coded message at the time I wrote it? But I checked it... did it make me read it wrong? No, these words definitely don't line up. Is it still active, making me think it's someting else, and she wrote what it really is? No... she didn't really decode it because she just wrote from the start. There would be scratch work all over.

"Umm, Night..."

"No, Famir. Night is not reading this."

"Er, right. Not with what you wrote on it, anyway."

Night had sidewound back, and was looking on in concern.

And I had nothing I could say. Renna took the message back, and said, "Is this a joke?"

The enchantment told me to say "Yes. Just read to the end.", but I was terrified of what she'd make up in that space. I simply froze.

Fortunately, so did the others.

"How... about... we... we go home by the shortcut right after breakfast?"

Renna crumpled up the note and threw it at me. "I'll be resting, then." She stalked off down to the cellar.

Night looked at me. "What was that?"

"I give up." I tossed the paper onto the compost heap. "It should be okay by the time we get home." She'll understand once she sees the enchanters. I had the feeling I was forgetting something, and in retrospect it's obvious that I was trying to remember to keep Renna away from them. "So, how are you feeling? Better?"

"Yeah. After I threw up the tenth time, all better." She ran her hand through her hair, chagrined.

"... I hope you don't mind if I continue to keep my distance."

"Go ahead."

"And maybe we should seek breakfast elsewhere."

"Probably a good idea."

I went down to the cellar again, and found Renna splayed across the mat we'd used, and Aresh sitting alongside, clearly having just been talking. I slithered in, donned my kilt, and changed my shirt, all in silence.

This silence was maintained as we got up, left, and headed down the mountainside. It felt to me like we were heading to our executions; I imagine Aresh felt the same. Renna... Renna was visibly upset, but also confused.