"The rules are simple," the disembodied voice says.

Denny doesn't know where it's coming from. It might be God. She sure hopes it isn't. That would mean that her dad's Mormon neighbors were right.

More likely, it's the Mop Wizard. That would make more sense.

"If you tell the truth," he continues, then chuckles. "Well, if you don't, you get punished."

"Punished how?" Krista B demands. "I don't have anything to hide."

"Then you don't have anything to worry about, Krista Bertolli. Now, we'll start with..." He pauses; Denny imagines him looking at a spinning prize wheel. "We'll start with you, Krista."

Trying to think through this logically (which is admittedly not her strong suit), Denny looks around the room. Based on their order-- with Krista closer to the door they came through, Denny nearest the one they need to get to, and Tiff between the two of them, she supposes that it makes sense that he is going in order than spinning the kind of wheel that gives you chapstick.

"Fine," Krista B sighs. "Ask me your questions, Invisible Man. I choose truth this time."

"There is no dare option."

"I still choose truth."

"Even so. Tell me, Krista: how do you really feel about your stepfather?"

"He's a good guy." There's something clipped to Krista B's voice. It sounds like the time that she got hit in the face with a softball so hard that her nose started bleeding and she didn't want to stop playing.

"That doesn't answer my question. How do you feel about your stepfather?"

The briefest moment of discomfort and trepidation crosses her face. "I... I like him and I wish I..."

"Tell the truth, Krista Bertolli. How do you feel about your stepfather?"

"I like him and I wish I knew how to let him in." Krista B frowns. "What's your issue? Are you satisfied?"

"Indeed."

Tiff squints at the piece of stone in front of her. "Interesting."

"What?" Denny asks, wanting to be let in on what's happening. She whispers, leaning over to the kid, "Did you figure something out?"

"I think I did, but--"

"Silence!" The voice echoes. "Tiffany."

"It's Tiffany May but, yeah?"

"Tell me, do you wish to die?"

"No, not right now, I actually feel okay now that we're underground," she answers immediately. "I think you already asked me that, Invisible Man, which means it wasn't Despina in my dream, because it had to be you, which means--"

"Wrong. Try again."

"Well, hey-- about the conjecture or about the question?"

"You don't have time for this. The clock is running down. Either tell the truth or face the consequences."

"I'm being timed now?"

When Tiff, stammering, fails to answer, the disembodied voice makes a buzzer noise. "Time's up, Tiffany May."

Tiff yelps and removes her hands from the podium. When she upturns her palms, they are slick with blood. "What the absolute fuck is this?"

"What happened?" Denny asks, craning her neck to see and trying to understand the scope of the situation.

Obviously, the podium is some sort of threat and the disembodied voice controls the harm it causes. Denny isn't sure how. It's probably magic, but she has never seen magic done like this. As much as she has tried to do magic on her own and observed Robin in action, she has no clue what's going on here.

Then it's too late to try to unravel it in her already-fuzzed-out mind, because the disembodied voice is using her name now. "Stephanie McFadden. Denny, the janitor. Denny, the assistant coach. Denny, the prodigal daughter."

"Uh..." She doesn't know what to say to any of that. "Yeah?"

"See, I can be polite. We're starting with you. Now, tell me the truth: who is Jennifer?"

Her skin goes cold; her hands curl and clutch at the fabric in her pockets; and she considers not answering. "How do you know about that?" she stammers. "How-- I-- I don't talk about that, how do you know about that?"

"I know more than you think I do, Denny. It lies in the water; it lies in the soap; you can't escape divination, not in my domain." He pauses. "I also own a computer."

Shit. She forgot about computers.

"I am the one who asks the questions here," he continues, "and you are the one who answers. So do, so do."

"Pssht," and Denny can hear her voice rising and getting a little faster, "we don't have to dwell on that. I'm sure there's something more interesting about me that you want to know."

"Oh, we'll get to that. Now, tell us all who Jennifer is or you'll also get the consequences. You will also receive the punishment for failing to answer."

"Damn," she whispers. "I really thought that would work."

"Three... two...."

"She was my roommate during my last year of college," she blurts. "I don't-- I don't want to talk about this or about her, please. Come on, Mr. Invisible Manboy. Can we-- can we not? Please?"

Krista B scoffs.

Her game face is on. Denny knows what that looks like; before practice and before games, Krista always does this weird little thing where she pretends to be stoic and then immediately starts talking shit and making fun of everyone from her opponents to her teammates. So, though she knows that's what's happening, and she knows what Krista B is doing, it still hurts when the girl says, "Oh, come on. Are you really being so broken-up about your girlfriend right now? Come on, quit being a little bitch, let's just get through it already."

Tiff turns her head between the two of them and narrows her eyes at Denny. "Drew said you dropped out of college."

"I mean, I did--"

Krista B cuts her off. "Quit stalling. Hit me, Invisible Man!"

"If you could change one thing about your family," the invisible man asks without hesitation (and Denny can hear the grin in his voice), "what would you change?"

"Easy," Krista B replies, remorseless. "I would have my mom be in the picture again. Hit me again, come on, hit me you big pussy, you big fucking pussy."

"Wait your turn. Tiffany May?"

"Yeah, you asshole cuckhead?" Tiff asks, still wiping the blood on the sides of her jeans, wincing as she does. "The hell do you want? If this is some massive ploy to get us to spill our secrets, then you should know I don't have any. Everyone already knows my parents kicked me out. Tiff Sheridan is an open book and I'm so readable. Hit me, asshole!"

"Yeah, ask Beefany a question!' Krista B shakes the podium as much as she can when it's built out of the ground. "Let's go. I have to get to the ice rink."

"This will take as long as it takes. Tiffany May, why did you spend so much time leaving your house through the window instead of the front door?"

She blows a raspberry. "I didn't want to bother my aunt. Duh. Fuck off, you think I'm gonna be all weird and broken up about it? Please. Everyone knows."

The Mop Wizard sighs, off in his proverbial ivory tower somewhere. "Let's get back on track. Denny, since you're so unwilling to answer the question, we will continue on to the consequences."

"Wait, no, I did answer, I--"

"Tell me, Denny-- let's play a game of would you rather. A minigame, if you will."

"You're a really bad game show host," Krista B mutters.

The disembodied voice ignores her. "Would you rather reveal the truth of what you are or never indulge in that part of yourself again?"

"More questions? I thought you were going to make me do a feat of strength or something! You just want me to answer another question? I don't like to argue with people who are threatening me, but I think the girls are right, you could be a lot more creative with this."

"Oh, do you want me to force you into a vat of water and hit you with tennis balls?" The voice chuckles, low and rumbling. "Because that could be arranged but... unlike you, I am wise. Unlike you, I know how to save my strength."

"My strength is limitless, you... big jerk." She cringes at the botched insult. "I'm a goddamn Adonis machine."

"Answer the question. Would you rather--"

She cuts him off. "Of course I would rather reveal the truth."

"Even to sweet Jessica Fisher?"

She barely thinks about it. She hesitates. She knows how to answer, and that the answer is yes. On some level, she knows that. She knows she would rather reveal the truth to Jessie and risk her hating Denny forever than never be who she is ever again. "I-- I mean-- this is a part of me, and it's a part of me that I like, I've grown to like it, it's a part of who I am. So I wouldn't-- Listen, I wouldn't ever want to get rid of it." She can feel the panic and terror rising in her throat. What's this guy's angle? "So, I-- I-- Yeah, the answer is that-- I would rather tell the truth than never-- than not be a cool fucking werewolf, you know? I've been this way for almost ten years, and-- Well, that's a lot of words for 'the first option.'"

"And now we enter the speed round!" A bell dings to indicate that Denny has racked up more points.

"More questions?" she laments. "How could there be more questions?"

"You're being too wordy. I'm going to adjust the rules for the rest of the lightning round. You answer in three words or less unless I state otherwise, and you answer truthfully, or you get punished. Otherwise, one of your three friends, or better yet, your precious aboveground Jessie Fisher."

"Well, hey now, don't you touch Jessie, you jackass." Denny frowns. "Don't you ever do that."

"Um, or us?" Krista B pipes up from her podium.

Tiff swats her gently in the shoulder. "Come on, be normal."

"Shut the fuck up and don't ever touch me, Beefany."

"Krista is kinda right, though," Tiff continues, only a little deterred by Krista shoving her enough to make her stumble. "Why is it that we would get punished for Denny not telling the truth? For her, rightfully so, wanting to keep some secrets? Where do you get-- Oh! It's to deter us! Duh. I should have put that together before when you kept trying to get me to join you and then said I wanted to die when we all know I would sooner move to Kansas. We're not going to stop coming after you, dickhole. We know you're the one behind all the sickness and the ectoplasm and the--"

"Silence!" he bellows, voice echoing and unseen.

"No!" If Tiff's feet weren't planted, Denny knows she would be stomping one of them.

"Yes," he replies. The room shakes a little.

Tiff opens her mouth, but nothing comes out of it. There is just a dusty, hoarse croaking noise where there should be words. Tiff pats her throat like she did when she was choking on the grapes earlier. For all the kid's distress, eyes pleading to a ceiling and a god who definitely doesn't see them down here, she doesn't make a peep. Kepler claws at the leg of her jeans, then at the door, then at something Denny doesn't care to pay attention to.

She, too, looks to the ceiling. "What did you do to Tiff?"

"Just... stopped her from talking or a bit. It'll come back eventually." The Mop Wizard-- for this is him, and Denny knows it now-- chuckles. "Or maybe it won't. Who knows? We'll burn that bridge when we get to it."

"Could you teach me how to do that?" Krista B says, voice dry, sarcastic, and joky. There's a hint of something serious to it.

"We'll talk later," he says, like he's winking. "For now... Denny, we begin the lightning round."

"Do we have to?" she sighs.

He doesn't answer her. "First question. Yes or no: you are a danger to yourself and others."

"Uh-- No?"

A buzzer sounds. "Sorry, wrong answer."

"No, I'm right. Tiff, back me up here." She says it before she remembers that Tiff is still fighting with her own throat. Denny winces. "Right. Sorry, Tiff. The answer is still no. Objectively. I can't explain, but-- it's no."

As soon as she finishes speaking, her hands start to bleed from the palms. Denny doesn't know what to make of it, just that it hurts and she doesn't know how to stop it.

"Second question." The patience in his voice is audibly thin. "What happened at three-ten in the morning on March 29th?"

"I-- I-- No."

"Answer the question."

"I can't!"

"Three words or less. Three..."

"I can't."

"Two...."

"Jennifer died," Denny snaps, focused only on the ceiling. She doesn't have anywhere else to look. All she has is rage. "The fuck is your issue? I'm not doing this anymore! This is my business. What happened in Tennessee is my business and it's not anybody else's. So shut the fuck up and-- God! See, now I sound like Tiff! Now I'm blowing my whole stack!"

Denny takes a deep breath, runs a hand through her hair, and lets the breath out through her lips. She's got this. Though the Mop Wizard is still talking, Krista is still scoffing like Denny is pathetic, Kepler is still biting things, and Tiff is still making choking noises through moving lips, Denny doesn't hear them individually. She hears them in aggregate and it's really getting on her nerves.

Denny tries to tune all of it out. She pats down her pockets and finds, deep in one, a clump of lint. It's bigger than it should be and clings to the fabric. As if by a stroke of information, she remembers that she has half of one of those small off-brand Slim Jims in her bra.

It's all coming together. This is just an act of sweet serendipity! Who cares that the Mop Wizard is an actual threat instead of just a weird asshole who lives in the basement? A real life wizard is no match for a werewolf whose grasp and understanding of magic is tenuous at best-- and, well, Denny is definitely one of those things!

She takes the half-eaten meat stick out of the plastic wrapping, tears off a small chunk, wraps the lint around it, and lobs it at the door between the four of them and the next part of the underground wizard tower. The linty meat hits the door with all the power an angry, former-football-player werewolf can muster.

Part of the issue, then, is that it hits-- and it hits explosively. The impact sends rubble and debris everywhere, stirring up clouds of dust in the broken stone.

Denny barely thinks. The four of them have been in this room for long enough. "Come on," she yells to Krista B, not even looking at her. She grabs Tiff by the hand, gives Kepler a decisive nod, and pulls the group on through.

The Mop Wizard doesn't appreciate that, if his dark peals of laughter are any indication.

Oh, well. Fuck that guy.