Celica had started working on the doll in earnest. The cloth was such a pale blue, it was almost white. The stitching she was using was thick and carrot orange. Celica was focused on that entirely while her copy was sitting next to her reading through recipes from a book titled Unconventional Brewing. Which was probably going to be required reading for everyone in our class.

It was one way to have an audiobook.

Real Celica weighed the small thing in her hands, next to her was a jar of brightly colored green and yellow beads, that looked about one third empty. The doll was barely the size of her palm, it seemed too small for all the hope that was riding on those cloth shoulders.

The jar weighed about a pound, glass included, the doll probably weighed less than most restaurant burgers.

And it was our best, perhaps only, hope to get rid of Death's Echo without getting caught.

We couldn't get caught.

Celica clenched the doll in her hand tightly, the purple glow started in her hand then flowed into the doll. She whispered something to it, then the light stopped. She then lowered her hand down to the table, laying it flat and her palm up.

The limbs twitched, and as if it had just taken a breath. Then it stood up in her hand and hopped down onto the table. Fake Celica stopped reading.

"Now Russel needs to set it to find Jantres' magic. Then it will come back without needing any extra spellwork," Celica said.

"Then it can start searching," I mumbled.

"That's the idea. We're ending whatever plan our thief has before it begins."

I hoped that would be the end of it. That our culprit would give up with that one failure. Or that it would delay those plans to the point where they were caught or left real evidence.

We can't outpower our opponent, but hopefully we could outsmart them. We could do this. I needed to trust my fellow Dragons.

The doll moved gracefully, even with the slight twitchiness of the movements. It mimed a curtsy aimed at the fake Celica.

Real Celica reached over to her copy and patted her on the shoulder. The copy vanished and faded into little purple bits of light that reminded me of firework sparks. They flowed back into Celica's hand like bits of glitter caught in a whirlpool.

The doll seemed to notice despite the lack of eyes. Maybe something like M's ability to sense Death's Echo? It recognized a thing made from the same power? I barely understood how any of this worked.

The doll stumbled a bit as it went back over to Celica, following her hand across the table like a puppy wanting attention. It would have been endearing if I hadn't seen so many horror movies with killer dolls.

"I'm calling it Hope," Celica said after another moment of leading the doll in a circle around her mug of tea. It was staying on its feet despite the tight turns Celica had it doing. It should be okay navigating the school without supervision.

I couldn't really keep down the dread at the risk of getting caught. I didn't doubt them, but even the best plans could go wrong once put into the real world. It felt like boiling lava in the back of my throat.

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Hope seemed to like its name though. It stopped trailing Celica's finger to look up at her face when she'd said it. Hope stood there, frozen and still just looking up at Celica. Even at its full height it couldn't have been more than five inches tall.

Small.

I remembered the one time I had seen Death's Echo in person. It looked at least twice that long. Would this tiny little thing really be able to even carry it?

Hope, huh? I guess that was all we really had at this point.

"Wow, you got that done faster than I thought," Russel said as he came down the stairs to join us.

Celica rolled her eyes, "It's not a complicated build. I've had holes in dresses that were harder to deal with."

Hope didn't notice me or Russel. Even as he sat down next to Celica to get a better look at it.

Lucky for him the seat was no longer occupied by fake Celica. He reached over to pick up Hope, holding it in his hand so that its head hung off the edge of his palm.

Russel looked up towards the ceiling. "Hey, can you show us an Echo real quick?"

There was a low rumble from above us then a knock on the wall behind me. Russel grinned as he left his chair. The Echo was standing there mid-knocking.

A lot of people knock on that exact wall in that pattern. Huh. We might need to look into that later.

I was no idea what Russel was doing, but he held Hope into the center of the Echo by the wall. There was a pulse of orange that bled through the Echo Blue. Then it retreated into Hope.

The Echo vanished, and Russel stood there with Hope in his hand.

"There. It's ready," he said as came back to where we were sitting and placed Hope in the middle of the table.

"Then we'll send it out tonight," I said. "If it's ready, no reason to wait right?"

"We'll leave it to Jarec, he knows more about when the right time to send it out is." Russel commented.

Jarec's expertise was going to be invaluable here.

(*********)

Jarec was barely back in time. I wasn't sure where he'd been, but given that he had a boyfriend, I wasn't sure I wanted to ask.

He didn't even say anything as he ran up the stairs and into his room. A little rude, maybe. But not out of character enough that it was really worth thinking about.

Fethris raised an eyebrow at the behavior though

Until he slammed his door open and bounded down the stairs so fast he nearly fell on his face. That was a bit much. I saw a brief flash of red in his hand before he stopped in front of me. "Hey, I need you to help us with some tests tomorrow."

Fethris perked up from where he was sitting.

"Sure," I agreed. I was more confused than concerned. There was no way he and Fethris were done with their project, right?

"Here," he said as he held out a red flower with five petals on a black twisted stem, all made of paper. It reminded me of a cherry blossom yet colored like a poppy. "This isn't final shape, but the basic versions of the enchantments should work."

"So this is what, a distance test?" I asked as I picked up the flower and it wrapped itself around my right wrist. The flowerhead sitting perfectly on my outer wrist like a watch.

"Basically. Also just making sure nothing explodes," Jarec explained with a grin.

"I would rather it didn't," Fethris commented.

"Look, with Serafina we can't really assume everything is going to work as intended," Jarec teased.

If he wasn't right, I would probably be mad at him. "That's fair, just let me know what you need from me."

"All you should have to do is wear it, the flower should send sound to my end and you should hear anything mine picks up. We figured half a mile should be enough distance."

"We thought extra distance might be best, we're also testing sensitivity, does it pick up what we want it to that kind of thing," Fethris commented.

I nodded, that made perfect sense to me. "That should be plenty to cover the whole school. Thank you again."

"Don't worry about it, the telepathy thing is just as annoying for us. So think of this as a project for us as much as for you," Jarec deflected.

"Also, it wasn't exactly hard to do, between the two of us," Fethris added.

"Still. I know it was work, and I want you both to know I understand that." I wanted them to know I meant it.

"Work," Jarec scoffed, "We learned some new things and had fun. Don't worry about it so much."

"I'd rather you feel appreciated, no matter how little effort or how beneficial it was for you two." I wasn't budging on this, Jarec was not going to out stubborn me. No one could.

"I'm not changing your mind, am I?" Jarec asked.

"Do you think I would still be here if my mind changed easily?" I teased with a laugh.

It made Fethris laugh too, "Yeah, that's fair."

The look on his face reminded me of Mom a little. Whenever Dad said a particularly sappy compliment she sometimes got actually shy. He looked to Fethris for backup, which he didn't get.

I had mercy on him by not teasing him more about it.

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