[	Tags	|	arcadia peverell	]
[	Mood	|	uncomfortable	]

This shouldn't have taken as long as it has, but I don't think Mitchell is going to come back through here. I believe he'll come back--the diviners were clear enough about that--but not through here.

In the meantime: I don't mind doing nursing work; after all, I'm still a journeyman at Pantaleon's, and I expect to take orders from senior staff. But the assumption that this is all I'll ever do or be--and that I'll probably stop doing this when I get married and start having a family--is, as Althea would say 'downright annoying'. (The way my sister talks sometimes, you'd think we were hedge-witches, not that there's a Moot seat in the family.)

I think the worst of it is listening to that thunder out there. We're miles away from anything like an arcane settlement at this hospital, and nobody else here knows what the jittery feel of the air tonight means. And I can't tell anyone, because I'd be breaking the Withdrawal Acts if I did. Some of them here can actually feel it. Some of the patients are more sensitive, because they're drifting in and out of their bodies--people do that, sometimes, when their bodies aren't doing what they want them to do anyway--and some of them just hate the noise.

Everett feels it. I wish I knew what to say to him. He thinks he's just eccentric, like the rest of his family. I know there's more to it than that. And Maddie is perfectly right. He could be keeping his mouth shut because he thinks I'm a mundane myself--there's no reason for him to assume that I'm not.

Maybe after most of the others are asleep and people start taking breaks, so that everyone's busy--I'll put up a ward or two and see if he notices. I would feel better with wards in place. I know that isn't a normal storm out there. Not that the wards I can do by myself are much good, against something like that, but I want to do something. It's driving me mad.

[	Tags	|	althea peverell	]
[	Mood	|	impressed	]

The Magister was right about Miss Leffoy. She and Rosenthal are running that artifice like they made it themselves, and they've got it working somehow with Piccard and Gardiner's toys, even though that shouldn't work. Magister Goyle and I went in there to talk to them about it just as everything started to go strange, and they were already running it, so we left them to it because there's so much else that has got to be done. I didn't realise it ran on tantric principles (I didn't think we knew very much about things like that here in Britannia, back when Arabella Leffoy was alive--and it was the Peverells who went to India, not the Leffoys), but of course, that wouldn't have come up as long as I was working on it with Magister Goyle. But Miss Leffoy and Dr Rosenthal are amazingly tantric. Right down to the driving each other right over the edge and making the whole world crazy with longing just looking at them before they try to do anything part. (I don't have the patience for that kind of tantra.)

I can't wait for all of this to be over so Miss Leffoy and I can take up the flagstones and get down in there and fix it up proper. There are some things Magister Goyle is too overawed of the Leffoys to let himself just do on instinct, and I wish he hadn't been that way. And Dr Rosenthal is not so hands-on (unless he's working Miss Leffoy, but she's not an array). But Miss Leffoy and I will fix this thing up and then the Germans will wish they had never come after us. Maybe Tom can help us. I know he knows about it. He heard the ghost or the thought-form or whatever she is in there when Greengrass was in the girls' loo. I wanted to ask him more about that but we never got the chance, and then that Iberian girl showed up. I wish I knew where he was right now, so we could go in there and monitor those two, but they sent Miss Malaspina to go and find him and she hasn't come back yet, which makes me wonder if maybe Davy and Thecla and I shouldn't go take a looksy around and see if he doesn't turn up.

[	Tags	|	althea peverell	]
[	Mood	|	worried	]

I don’t think it was such a good idea for Magister Goyle to let so many of the good prefects leave campus even for two days. Of course I don’t know anything about being Jewish so I don’t understand why all the Jews had to go away, but I do understand that the Leffoys are going to do what they are going to do, period.

But another girl’s been attacked. She’s in the infirmary. And apparently Magistra Lindsey is incredibly angry with all of us. I never knew Leah Lindsey very well, but Cady’s been at St Pantaleon’s for the last two years (before she decided she’d had enough and went to go work for Mundane Affairs) and I don’t think Cady knew quite what to make of her.

Davy is taking this incubus stuff so awfully hard. It’s starting to worry me. We have absolutely got to kill this thing tonight.

I also haven’t heard from Cady in a longer while than makes me comfortable to think about. Despite the name, it’s never really occurred to me that working for Mundane Affairs was really dangerous. Unless of course you were queer, but Cady’s not queer; she’s just thick when it comes to dealing with men.

[	Tags	|	althea peverell	]
[	Mood	|	hopeful	]

So now we can concentrate on catching the incubus. We need to work out who the real target is. There's Pettigrew and there's Baddock (although Davy says that's not the incubus). There's Wood and there's Brown. I hope Davy can kill it soon. He takes these things so very personal.

[	Tags	|	althea peverell	]
[	Mood	|	hedonistic	]

Notes:

* Cross asks really good questions, but I think Miss Leffoy and Bradbury are calmer.

* Everyone wants to know what to do if the castle starts moving of its own accord while they're trying to get everyone down to the Great Hall. And nobody's got a good answer for that, except to keep moving toward centre.

* Everyone's mighty surprised that Magister Goyle's taking over, except for Miss Polly n'me, on account of we've been in on it since jump, and I think Magistra Chattox must have known.

Nutter really cleans up nice. I don't think I've seen him but twice since I came here. 'Course, I suppose he's always with Forrester, who is beautiful and completely oblivious (maybe he just likes boys?) I bet that pretty cloak Nutter wears would look absolutely fantastic draped over the back of a chair with the rest of his clothes.

I really should not have any more of those petty-fours.

[	Tags	|	althea peverell	]
[	Mood	|	cheerful	]

So here I am, back at school again. I've only been gone for two years, never expected to be back so soon, but that's the war for you! I liked being out at the front, too, but Professor Goyle said he needed a journeyman to help him with his work on the castle, and I've been doing that for the past week, but now he wants me to help with the seminars, because he's going to take over the school. Won't that be fun?

I don't think he's very happy about it at all. Not that you'd ever get him to admit that. Ugh. I think it's going to rain. And it probably won't stop for a while if it starts. Oh well, it's not like my work is outdoors.