How it was possible for a stick with no mouth, lungs, voice box, or any other discernable feature that might allow it to make such a horrific sound could scream was beyond her comprehension, but that was the least of her concerns at present. Because rather than dropping the stick as it raised that keening alarm to its owner, she tightened her grip and went with her other, less wise plan: the helter-skelter sprint to the door.

All the while the stick kept up that wail, piercing her ears and the previous silence of the night, making her want to scream as well and then hurl it against the wall. Not only that, but the stick, remarkably, began to buck in her grip, swerving and swinging itself back and forth as though trying to maneuver itself free.

The first jerk nearly wrenched her arm from her shoulder. The second, which whipped back the opposite way, made her cry out in pain as her hand was smashed into the wall. Behind her, she heard an even more ominous sound:

The voice of Lady Brenner. “What is the meaning of this?” the woman thundered.

Perfidy didn’t look back, grabbing the doorknob with her free hand and flinging it open, forgetting about the small porch, her feet tangling on the steps as she dived to the ground, the stick twisting and torquing itself erratically while she clung to it with both hands now.

The sounds she was making weren’t the only ones now, the whole of New Dawn coming alive as doors were shoved open and feet hurried outside. Murmurs fell from shocked lips. In one case, gruff laughter carried to her ears on the wind.

A dwarf’s laughter.

Which, of course, was the precise moment that she knew she’d been had.

Not that she had time to be angry about that, because Lady Brenner’s magic stick (she had no problem thinking about it as ‘magic’ anymore, because there was no doubt it was magic, or enchanted, or something, not that she knew the difference between those terms) wasn’t done with her yet. As she fought back to her feet, the stick managed to twist itself in such a way that her arms were twined like two ropes being wound together, and then it…well, it hit her.

Hard.

In the face.

She was so shocked by the turn of events that she didn’t even register the warmth of the blood trickling from her nostrils until the stick had hit her again, this time in the ear. It left a ringing sound in her head and a stinging sensation to boot. Cringing and yelping, she jumped back, simultaneously dropping the stick.

Where it landed at her feet, unmoving. The picture of innocence.