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Bureaucracy has a lot more in common with a garden snail than first impressions might lend one to believe - for all intents and purposes, they both are slow, their brief existence is abhorred by gardeners the world over, while in parts of said world,  some consider them delicacies.

The magical world is plagued by bureaucracy, much like my garden is infested by snails and Peneloper Auttsley is about to witness it all, firsthand. I trust she will have no idea what's in store as the rules and regulations and NDAs come piled as high as Everest. But she must ascend this mountain of paperwork if she is to engage with the Council of Four.

I imagine she will be filled with awe, amazement, delight, wonder, and quite possibly shed tears at the sheer magnificence of their perfected leadership. Though this is not a Crispen chapter, I sense him scoffing, as he lounges in one of the waiting chairs in the lobby. Phil Collins' shuffles out of the headphones slung around his neck and he shakes his head disdainfully and thinks at me a reminder, You are to be an unbiased narrator. 

'Unbiased ' is unnecessarily emphasized. 

Crispen rolls his eyes. Peneloper, unaware of the conversation Crispen is thinking to me then, which is being broadcast to me now, eyes the plethora of magazines scattered on the coffee table. The selection, or lack thereof, appalls her: Golf magazines from the late eighties, Cosmo's with all the quizzes taken, Green Pages unironically colored red, crumpled up Sunday funnies of only Family Circus.

Chant thumbs through a Cosmo, pausing briefly on a page said to reveal the secrets of the female orgasm. He turns fire-engine red at the word. Orgasm, heretofore referred to as 'The Word,' proves to be a fearsome opponent to his fragile virginal disposition.

Crispen tries his hardest to ignore me, though my description of the Luric boy tugs at the corners of his mouth. Reluctantly, he smiles. His fat, feathered companion roosts on his shoulder, head tucked under its wing, drool cascading from a parted beak as it dreams whatever it is birds' dream. Anderson stands sentinel at the Proprietor's door, fingers scratching away at a silver cross earring he'd procured sometime between Chant's house and now, a journey that had taken precisely seventy-seven blinks.

A bespectacled lizard woman clacks long, red nails against her keyboard without looking at what she's typing. In her position, it does not matter what she types. After a few sentences of "difebej djdsjsbg grkeosa," Latin for "This is definitely not Latin," she looks at the normally empty visitors lounge and realizes, to her horror, the status quo has been broken. An arrival of people has occurred under her snout and it becomes glaringly obvious, she does not know for how long they'd been there - hours, days, or years. Shifting gears from a snail's pace to that of diuretic molasses, she stabs the air with one of her nails, beckoning the new arrivals over.

Peneloper and company meander through a collection of gold chains tethering everything to everything else, as though the crumpled papers in the bins, and discarded chewing gum stuck to the bottom sides of the seats were of equal value to the silver sconces, digital wall clocks and gold plated espresso machine, a gift - as evidence by the bright red bow still stuck on top of it, from Boyle, Bane and Derndach Ad Agency, for, if you believed the accompanying card, 'A job well done, Lucinda.'

A clipboard and pen are slid toward Peneloper. There is nothing of interest to note about this sign-in sheet; it is run-of-the-mill, standard paper with spaces to accommodate the first, middle, and last names of those wishing to enter. Peneloper breathes out, takes the pen in shaking fingertips. She frowns, gaze lingering on the phrase, 'middle name.'

• We Wait And We Wonder •

Chant and Crispen huddled around Peneloper, her the unknowing meat in a gorgeous boy sandwich. A combination of Chant's masculine musk and Crispen's gaze that somehow managed to see beyond what Peneloper would have liked him to see, made her resolve quiver. Much like the pen grasped in her hand.

Asked to disclose her full name had to be the worst thing she'd experienced thus far, and that included her e-meter test where she'd broken the thing because her thetons were, and I quote, "Too many and too angry and would require one million dollars spent in buying the services of robed, sci-fi occultists to exorcise them back to their volcanic homes for proper reincarnation."

She had refused, and the man administering the test, pudgy with a receding hairline, barrel chest pencil-thin mustache, and a perpetual sheen of sweat, marked her a lost cause and left her reeling by telling her she would someday usher about the apocalypse. And yet, that experience was preferable to her divulging her full name.

Crispen nudged her shoulder, while Genesis, groggy from his nap, pecked lazily at the birdseed offered at the fleshy center of Crispen's palm. "It's just a name," he said.

Of course. Just a name. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. What a crock. If a rose had been saddled with Peneloper's middle name, it would have shriveled up until none of its genera could be found on the earth, and CEOs of perfume companies and florists alike went bankrupt because thistle weeds made for terrible stand-in scents and bouquets.

She grimaced, pen hovering over the paper. The lizard woman, whose brassy nameplate identified her as Lucinda, followed by three triangles, blew concentric circles of smoke from her snout. Peneloper debated asking her for leniency or a pass, as it was the Council who'd summoned them here and not vice versa. Weren't guests of honor or VIPs supposed to receive special treatment? Or had all those documentaries about Hollywood celebs at LA's most exclusive clubs getting escorted to roped-off private booths and where the Don Perignon flowed like water from a broken tap been complete and utter BS?

If so, Peneloper would have to reevaluate her life's goals. Being famous surely wouldn't be worth the work, slander, paparazzi, and lack of privacy without such perks.

Lucinda Three Triangles looked about as willing to compromise or concede as a brick wall. With a rigid posture, apathetic reptilian eyes and the shoulder pads of her blazer skimming distended earlobes, she oozed the noxious, deadly miasma of a mother. Glancing at her desk and noting a silver frame filled with several smaller lizard people in matching Christmas jumpers, confirmed Peneloper's inkling and, refusing to test a mother's temperament, she kept her mouth shut.

Lucinda's two sets of eyelids worked in tandem to whisk away a yellowish booger crystalizing in the corner of her right eye. She released a yawn, bored by the lack of happening, thus exposing all to the horror of a well-brushed set of crocodile teeth.

All the better to eat those who refused to sign their names, Peneloper thought. She eyed the paper, fingers tightening around the pen. Just do it. Just write your name. Get it over with.

It's easy, simple, and harmless except for the threat of violence promised in Lucinda's predatory smile/snarl (smarl?). Peneloper knew this and yet every time she touched pen to paper, bile crept up her throat and the room swayed. This instance, she lurched forward, a dry heave escaping her mouth, and with an accidental twitch of fingers, she slashed the paper with the point of her pen.

Lucinda Three Triangles sighed and tore off the ruined sheet. In a voice that a hundred cigarettes smoked for a hundred years couldn't have perfected any better, she said, "This-s-s time," her tongue flicked out of her mouth and slid her glasses further up her snout to rest between warts, "less-s-s pres-s-sure."

Peneloper nodded. Less pressure, yes. She could manage that. It's not like she didn't know how to write, though must it really be her full name? She grimaced, the back of her throat seizing, mouth as dry as Mother Auttsley's toast.

"Miss Auttsley," Anderson reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek, navy ballpoint pen. "I find the pens here rudimentary in feel. For more elegant script," he clicked the pen, "might I suggest my own?"

A fluster congregated in Peneloper's cheeks. She was sure she turned redder the more she stood there lingering and not accomplishing anything. This must have been like how Mr. Howell felt every time he stood in front of the class "teaching" "accurate" "history."

Just do it. Write your name.

"No thank you, Anderson." She flashed him a smile, which he returned before tucking the pen genteelly back inside his jacket pocket. "Unfortunately, my hesitation does not correlate to pen-feel." She bit her lower lip.

Chant, having regained his senses after delving into the lace-thonged world of Cosmopolitan magazine, touched her wrist and squeezed. "No one here's going to make fun of you."

She gritted her teeth. "Just because you didn't laugh when you found out doesn't mean—" Her gaze flicked over to Crispen. "Not everyone's as sweet or as easily flustered-" As though a color-by-numbers version of himself had replaced the flesh and blood one, crimson started shading Chant's cheeks, earlobes, and neck. Peneloper giggled, "-like you."

While it might be horrible to admit, seeing her best friend uncomfortable and agitated gave Peneloper the courage she needed. Breathing out, she proceeded to do what hadn't been done in over seven years: Peneloper scribbled her name, in its entirety, onto the space provided.

When all was said and done, she stared at a name she'd taken great care not to think, write, read or say, though it'd become harder with the boy of crows' involvement in her day-to-day.

Peneloper Rayburn Auttsley.

Rayburn. Each letter seemed to burn like coals on the page. Inky fingers of scrawl rising and twisting toward her as if trying to pry free the lid she kept sealed on her memories. Peneloper blinked, exhaled, and the memories—scented with aftershave, chocolate, peanut butter, and tobacco—returned to the fringes of her mind temporarily unavailable, though never truly forgotten.

The task asked of her completed, Peneloper whirled away from Lucinda, the clipboard, the desk, the prying eyes of all four of her companions, and marched through the jungle of chains back to her seat.

Crispen turned to face her. "Your middle name-"

"Don't." A patch of floor caught Peneloper's disinterested gaze. She focused. Tile, perhaps marble or vinyl or linoleum scraped underfoot. Squeaky clean and shiny enough for a dismal recreation of herself, ashen complexioned with tired eyes and hair that could have been mistaken for a wren's nest. She sighed.

"Nell—" Crispen's voice, closer, on the cusp of saying something she refused to hear. His shadow spilled across the floor, an ink blot bleeding toward her.

"Please, Mr. Heavensley. Do not."

He didn't listen. In fact, he had a penchant for not listening, except when it came to overhearing her thoughts. Crispen then made a showing of this skill by saying, "I know you're worried about me making a mockery of your name but—" She grimaced, kicked the toe of her sneaker along the floor, leaving a scuff mark to scar someone's hard work. Genesis glided through the air and landed on Crispen's shoulder. "—I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint. A name like that is nothing to laugh at. It's cute."

Copying a page from the Luric Family Handbook (entitled, Vocal Cues for the Everyday When Words Simply Fail) she grunted her acknowledgment. Deep down, she pretended that another one of her walls hadn't crumbled under the wrecking ball of Crispen's honest and direct and flattering manner. She didn't like one bit how he inched closer to her heart with every passing minute.

Crispen chuckled as he sat beside her, Genesis hopping from shoulder to lap, where he gave one stretch of wing before laying down for a nap, round two. Crispen stroked his sleeping bird's back.

"You okay?" Chant squeezed himself in the seat opposite her, though other larger, more appropriately sized chairs were scattered throughout the room. Unable to anchor his gaze, it flitted from one object to the next, though he did everything in his power to avoid glimpsing the stack of Cosmos, their pink covers displaying a variety of racy headlines. Apparently, he'd learned all there was about the female orgasm.

Peneloper shrugged.

Chant's eyes narrowed, the green of his irises a deeper emerald that dazzled under the glow of the overhead lights. "Nell, I know it's been," he wrung his hands in his lap, "years since—"

"Goodness, Chant," Peneloper snapped (this, too, could be found in the Luric manual on how to overreact to acts of kindness called, Too Uncomfortable In Your Own Skin, Vol. 1). "You're not even in your wolf form and I can practically see your droopy ears and limp tail."

Chant flinched. "I didn't mean—"

"Sorry." She patted his head, then after debating if a good scratch behind the ears was in order (Answer: it was, though the eldest Luric would never admit to it), she continued, "It's just—"

A wisp of smoke floated through the doors. After a second of hovering in front of Lucinda's desk, where its gaseous form rippled like the surface of a lake, it dissipated. Lucinda frowned.

"I used to love my middle name," Peneloper continued, trying to mask the crack cutting through her voice, "but now it just dredges up—"

Chant's warmth spread across her hand. His thumb traced a trail along the mounds of her knuckles. "I know," he said.

And like with all best friends, nothing further needed saying, because it was all there, in the words, in the pregnant pauses, conveyed in the expressions and the in-between expressions, scenting the air: Chant's compassion, his understanding, and all his love that would be hers until she decided against it. Peneloper would never decide against it.

Lucinda stood from her desk, moved toward them, and coughed. Her pointed tail slapped the ground.

"Ahem." She pressed a button and the arched doors labeled, "Entry" screeched open, revealing a bland foyer with a fountain at its center, surrounded by a half-moon of plastic ferns. To the right, a single elevator. A door at the far left blinked Exit. If you dare.

Peneloper shuddered and did not dare. Soft notes of Anya wafted over the speaker system. Lucinda bowed and pointed a fingernail toward the elevator. "The Council will s-s-see you now."