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Ophelia didn’t hate Physics as much as she hated Chemistry, but it certainly wasn’t her favourite subject. Especially since she and Sera had been having trouble getting their circuits to work in the last lesson and she hated feeling stupid.

“I did some reading,” Sera said as they took their seats. “I know what we were doing wrong.”“I hope so,” Ophelia said. “I’ll die if we fail again.”

Sera snorted and started to wire the dynamo into the circuit. She had her tongue sticking out between her teeth the way she did when she was concentrated. Ophelia watched intently trying to figure out what she was doing different until a sharp tugging in her chest made her gasp.

“You okay, Phelia?” Sera asked without looking up.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. “Someone just walked over my grave.”

“Oh?” Sera glanced up at her and frowned. “Are you sure? You’ve gone really pale.”

“Yes, or at least it’s not physical.” Ophelia gritted her teeth because the sensation was strengthening. Stop it! Please, I don’t have time for this right now. Her plea seemed to work because the sensation subsided after one final tug.

Ophelia? What’s wrong? Kira’s voice rang in her head.

It… erm… I’m not sure but it felt like this. Ophelia projected the sensation at her.

Hmm… The Key is trying to tell you something. We’ll talk to it at lunch.

It can talk? Ophelia asked in surprise.

Not exactly, Kira replied. But it can communicate. I’ll show you how.

“Stop woolgathering, Phelia,” Sera said. “We’re ready to test the circuit.”

Ophelia looked down obediently as Sera flipped the switch. To Ophelia’s relief the little bulb lit up. “Hey! You did it!”
* * *
“This is getting to be a habit,” Sera said as Ophelia bundled both her and Kira into the most private corner of the school yard. “Is this about what happened in class? And don’t say nothing happened, you turned the colour of old porridge.”

“Yeah, the middle of class wasn’t the best place to discuss it,” Ophelia said. “The Key wants to talk to us and it wasn’t very subtle about getting my attention.”

“Ah! I see,” Sera said. “So how do we find out what it wants?”

“We ask it,” Kira said. “Can you summon it please, Ophelia?”

“Sure.” Ophelia summoned the crystal into her hand. Kira reached out and covered the gem with with her hand, motioning Sera to follow suit.

“We must look weird,” Sera said. “Now what?”

“Well as I understand it we just need to close our eyes, open our minds and relax,” Kira said. “That should allow the Key to communicate with us.”

“I’ll try.” Sera sounded dubious. “But this is getting very weird.”

“You mean it wasn’t very weird already?” Ophelia asked.

“Even more very weird, then,” Sera said.

“That’s fair.” Ophelia close her eyes and tried to clear her mind. For several moments nothing seemed to happen and Ophelia was about to say that it wasn’t working when a cascade of images flooded into her mind.

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