The Hex is in chaos when the friends return. The drow guests lounge in the common room, completely unconcerned about having devoured all food. "Oy, welcome back. By the way, you lot are out of food!" one calls out cheerfully. Hester's patience snaps like a brittle twig. "You might go buy us some if you ate it all," she hisses, the air around her crackling with irritation.
Before the argument can escalate, a knock at the door interrupts. Quintillius enters bearing a stack of fresh copies of the Strixhaven Times. The newspaper rustles ominously as the Hexmates read the headline: a rash of thefts across campus—with most of the stolen items currently in their possession. The ink seems to darken as the terrible truth dawns on them. Murgaxor has set the friends up. The realization sits heavy in the room, made worse by the news that school officials will search all hex rooms tomorrow morning.
They quickly decide to return our ill-gotten gains, though Debbie has other plans. The sound of frantic carving comes from her closed door. Sawdust filters through the crack beneath as she hastily crafts a counterfeit Grunge Guitar from scavenged materials, staining it with Hester's paints and applying a magical glamour to complete the deception. The false instrument hums with unstable magic as she passes it to Hester and KFC.
"I accidentally dropped the Bottled Lightning somewhere in the sewers," Debbie claims, her eyes not quite meeting any of the friends’. Meanwhile, Reyna executes her own sleight of hand, swapping the Thunder Flask with her nearly identical water bottle when no one is looking.
"Does anyone have anything else we shouldn't have?" Reyna asks, her voice echoing in the suddenly still room. Everyone shakes their heads, but Squid tugs insistently at Titania's sleeve.
In their shared room, Squid reveals a treasure trove of "found" items crammed into Titania's closet: vibrant potions glowing with unnatural light, a single muddy boot, a bicycle tire, and stacks of overdue library books. The collection smells of dust and faint magic. Before Titania can respond, Squid vanishes—literally—becoming invisible and unresponsive to Titania's increasingly frustrated calls.
"Well, to heck with it!" Titania snaps, her patience evaporated. She sets the potions safely aside, then prepares a Control Flames incantation. The spell flows from her fingertips as her magic yanks burning coals from the fireplace into the closet. The fire catches instantly, consuming the stolen goods, then the wooden closet, then the rug. Oily black smoke billows through the room as the fire alarm begins its piercing wail, coinciding perfectly with KFC's panicked announcement that the Petrified Egg is missing.
Titania's Locate Object spell distracts her from the blaze in her room. She shuts the bedroom door and has the whereabouts of the egg revealed to her. It is moving rapidly across the Quad, away from the Hex. Feathers sprout from her arms as she transforms into a hawk and launches through Hester’s bedroom window into the cool evening air.
From above, Titania spots Squid clutching the egg. "Not yet, Titania!" the child shouts as Titania dives toward them. Panicked, Squid hurls the egg randomly—directly into a crowd of First Years exiting the Biblioplex. The egg shatters with a sound like breaking glass, releasing a cloud of green smoke that smells of ancient earth and brimstone.
A tyrannosaur materializes with a bone-rattling roar, its massive tail sweeping students aside like autumn leaves. Screams fill the air as the dinosaur wheels toward Squid, lowering its head to reveal rows of gleaming teeth the size of daggers. The ground trembles with each step of the massive creature.
Squid, fearless in the face of certain death, reaches out and tickles the beast under its chin. The tyrannosaur's roar transforms into something like a purr, and it lowers its head further, allowing Squid to scramble aboard. It waggles its tail like a dog. Titania attempts to follow onto the creature’s back but cannot maintain her grip on the scaly hide. The tyrannosaur and its rider fade from view as Squid's invisibility power extends to his mount, leaving Titania bruised and frustrated.
Meanwhile, KFC and Hester bring their stolen items to Dean Nassari's office. The assistant's eyes widen at the sight, and the scent of expensive incense grows stronger as they're ushered into the Dean's presence.
The efreeti Dean dominates her soaring, domed chamber. Her magma-red skin glows in the lamplight while her coal-dark eyes smolder with intensity. Gold and brass jewelry clinks softly as she rises, her lower body transforming into a column of smoke and embers. The temperature in the room rises noticeably as she approaches.
Intimidated, the Hexmates stammer through their story of finding stolen objects in the sewers. Dean Nassari's expression shifts from disbelief to grudging acceptance. She carefully removes the Spectacles of Peripheral Vision from KFC's beak, placing them with care into a velvet-lined box.
"That," she states with satisfaction, "is the return of the second most valuable item stolen this past week. Only Prismari's Grunge Guitar has more value." The undetected counterfeit guitar creaks softly as if aware of its impending exposure, but the Dean simply places it into a glass case, none the wiser.
Across town, Debbie escorts the drow band Darkvein to Strixhaven's lone hotel. The innkeeper's welcoming smile freezes when she notices the band members, her prejudice as obvious as the empty key hooks behind her. "We have no room. We're full up!"
Ten gold pieces on top of the cost of three rooms slide across the counter with a decisive clink, and three keys magically appear for rooms on the uppermost floor. The discordant sounds of the band tuning up follow Debbie as she heads back to campus, exhaustion weighing on her shoulders.
Back at the Hex, Reyna deals with the aftermath of Titania's blazing solution. The fire brigade's heavy hoses drip water across the already trashed room. While cleaning, she discovers a white velvet bag containing a deck of cards—the legendary Deck of Many Things. The cards seem to pulse with ancient power in her hands.
"I will draw two cards," Reyna announces to the empty room, her voice steady despite her trembling fingers.
The first card—The Comet—promises increased arcane power should she defeat her next foe. The second—The Jester—offers her the choice between arcane knowledge or drawing a fourth card. Wisely, she chooses knowledge, which settles around her like an invisible cloak.
Hester arrives as Reyna finishes her final pick and decides to tempt fate herself. "Balance," she reads from her first card, and immediately feels a shift in her worldview. Her chaotic nature recoils as she vows to follow a guiding set of rules from now on. Her second card—The Idiot—causes her intelligence to drain away like water through a sieve. Fortunately, her final draw—The Star—restores some of what was lost, though frustration remains etched on her face with her newly dumbed down state.
Titania and Alister, arriving shortly after Hester, have an internal struggle within their shared body. Before long, it is Titania who triumphantly draws a single card: The Fates. The card burns itself into a tattoo on the back of her hand, promising that before they draw their final breath, one singular event in their life and all its repercussions may be undone at the asking.
The power of this magical deck hangs in the air like electricity before a storm.
