The college dorms were small, but big enough to squeeze in a few pieces of furniture.

The couch was more of a low seat by the kitchen, but it would do.

Paige's roommate, Candi, took one look at him, and then at Paige, and then she said she was going to go to the cafeteria.

She didn't reappear after that.

Paige looked embarrassed, but then she turned back to business.

"Can I read the letters?" she asked. "Maybe I'd recognize something you didn't."

"Sure." Tony started taking them out. They were getting a little crumpled.

Paige grabbed a laptop from the wall. Then she took out her phone and pulled up the series again on it.

"You can use the bathroom if you need to. I'm going to try to go through this," she said.

Tony was dying to know if she found anything, but he also really needed the bathroom and a shower, if he was honest. He'd brought a change of clothes.

By the time he was finished, Paige had typed up some of the letters. She was really fast.

"I passed typing with flying colors," she explained. "I've kind of thought about being a writer.... I guess normally this would be a dream come true for me, a story like this...but not when it's this creepy."

"Did you find anything?" Tony couldn't wait any longer to ask.

"I'm not sure what it all means," Paige said. "I went through the ones addressed to Hope, but there's only a couple. So I went over the ones written by her. Her hand is hard to decipher, but I'd assume it's a real quill pen. No address. How is Karen getting them? Unless this is a replica.... It'd be hard to replicate this, though--it's not printed paper and it's hard to copy someone's handwriting that well, and why would you bother? So assuming this is the real, original letter...well, this parchment, it's not modern either. It's way too thick, and it doesn't seem like our processed paper. I've seen paper like this a few times. I'd swear this is real."

"I thought so too," Tony said. "So that adds to the 'maybe it's all real' theory."

"It gets worse," Paige said. "Now that I've read Hope's letters, I found things that made it sound like she was in another world. She doesn't use that word, but she's asking if magic is important and how it could affect someone to not have it."

"Magic? Is that what that word was? I thought it was maven," Tony said.

"She smudged the 'g' and 'c' badly, but I'm pretty sure it's magic," Paige said. "That makes more sense?"

"You're right.... I should have thought of that," Tony admitted.

"If she's just speaking in the third person, that might mean she's the one she's asking about," Paige said. "It would be a good way to write in code. The whole thing sounds like a dialogue between a student and teacher. She calls Karen that. It's kind of like Equestria Girls with their diary book."

"What?" Tony said.

"Nevermind. The point is, this could be recent," Paige said. "And there's more. I counted up these letters. She's been gone for 2 days? The letters cover more events than that. I found a new one in the binder that you didn't mention before. About a ball, and one about Finishing School."

"What?" Tony said. "Let me see."

She handed him some sheets of parchment.

Tony looked over them. "Paige, these weren't in there before," he said, sounding ghostly. "I looked through the entire folder, every single page. These are new."

"Since...since you stole it?" Paige looked green almost.

"It's hard to believe it, but yeah, it would have to be. I know I checked it all. I wouldn't have risked not doing it," Tony said.

"That means it just...appeared in here." Paige leaned back weakly. "That's so spooky."

"Karen's letter to her, though, didn't it say that she could just write in 'here' and Karen would see it?" Tony recalled.

"Oh...yeah, it does. There's instructions in here." Paige turned to a different page. "But not just to Hope. I found other drafts of the same instructions to different people. I was putting them all in a line with the different names.... Here." she slid her chair over to the kitchen counter. "But, Tony, there's...at least 20 of them."

"20!" Tony almost squeaked. "I knew there was a lot, but I didn't realize it was that many."

"With Hope that makes it 21,"  Paige said. "I haven't gone through them all in detail, but I was making notes of anything that was in more than one that I saw, and even some of them are in a place I don't know. I saw the word 'Envera' multiple times. I saw that Thesaurum word too, but also others with capital letters. Other names, I think.... Let's see..."

 She consulted a sticky note. "Olme...Arcadia (isn't that a real place also?), Lunas, Meri.... They're all names from that series. Different regions or countries in it."

"So that means..." Tony rubbed his chin. "That these people she kidnapped were all in the same story?"

"Based on this, Tony--" Paige shook her head. "--they could have made up half the ensemble of characters, if they were all main characters--but there's not one called Hope, I think. They might be minor characters, even side ones, or expendable ones. Even so, there's not that many shown in the story. I don't know if they're even characters the audience would see."

"If this is like an isekai," Tony said, "what's normal? I mean, it's all we have to go on. Maybe Karen is copying it in more than one way."

"If it was like that, they'd either be main characters or side characters who become main characters because of the reincarnation," Paige explained. "And that's harder, because if this is real...they might not look the same, and they wouldn't have the same names.... I haven't gotten through all their names yet."

"Let's do that right now," Tony said. "Think about it, if you do recognize them, it might tell us where Hope could be."

"Okay..." Paige said.

They spent several hours doing that. Paige ordered pizza while they were doing it, and got coffee from her coffee maker.

They wrote down the names, but they couldn't read most of the letters.

"I'm pretty sure some of these are in Korean," Paige said. "Only it's written in the English alphabet. That's only done for English speakers to find it easier. I know that much from my weeb friends."

"Karen clearly speaks English," Tony said. "Maybe she had to translate it."

"Yeah, what I'm saying is maybe we should too," Paige said. "I don't know how accurate it would be. It would probably take hours, but it might help."

"We have till tomorrow morning," Tony said. "One of us should type this up too."

Paige sat back at her laptop.

"Okay, hit me with it," she said.

Tony tried reading some off to her.

It did take hours, but they deduced that one letter was in fact Korean, one was Japanese, one was Russian, one was German, two were Chinese, 5 were Spanish, 4 were French, one that took them a while to identify they finally realized was Tagalog, one was Hindi, one was Zulu (that took a while too), and only the last five were English. But 3 of those were clearly not American English and were written differently enough to make them hard to realize it was even English. But they thought one was Irish, one was Australian, and one was British, the more slangy British that doesn't sound like English to people who aren't used to it.

The last two, Hope's and one other person's, were American English. But while Hope's was written with her Kentucky accent plain in her expressions, the other seemed to be from farther west. Or maybe farther east. Tony wasn't sure.

"I didn't notice these ones before. I thought they were Hope's," Paige said. "But then I saw the names.... Rob, Brittany, Christina, and Leon. Those are not names from the story."

"None of them?" Tony said faintly.

"The only one who might be is Leon," Paige said. "I'd have to re-read it...which I was going to do anyway, but it'd take days. I don't know where to start. I know at least they aren't in the most recent season."

"The other names also?" Tony said.

"I can already tell you none of them are characters. I'd remember ones that sounded that foreign. All the names in the story are English," Paige said. "It's one of those.... Like I said, in isekai, character's name's change."

"So we have no way of seeing if they're in the story we know or not?" Tony said.

Really, only Paige knew, but semantics.

"Nope." She shook her head. "Hope's probably not going by her real name in it either. But maybe you'd be able to tell by how she acted. You should read it."

"I'm gonna," Tony said. "But I really wanted this to tell us something."

"Let's forget the ones that are not in English for now." Paige sounded tired. "It's harder to read the other ones, but at least we should kind of understand them, right? I mean, their handwriting is awful, but...could be important."

"Yeah, at least it's only 4 other people..." Tony said. "But apparently Karen's kidnapping people from all over the world."

"Not necessarily," Paige pointed out. "They all could be in America. Big Melting pot. They just speak another language. Or, yeah, she could have traveled. We don't know her that well. One thing, though...if she didn't know all of them, it makes more sense if they weren't all in the same area. That would have to be hard to cover up. So I might think it really was out of different countries."

"Then she's one sick and powerful psychopath," Tony said. "All these people need to get home...or have they?"

"One thing that's bothered me," Paige said. "Aside from the first letter with instructions in it, I didn't find any of her responses to these other people."

"Me neither," Tony said.

"See, I was hoping you'd found them already and just hadn't been able to put them in our bag," Paige said.

"Nope, they're all gone," he said.

"Does that mean they all did as she said...if she asked them to do what Hope is doing?" Paige answered.

"I hope that it means they all went home already," Tony said. "But with 20 of them? I don't know. These letters seem to be in order...kind of, but only the last ones are in the book. The others are all just in the folder."

"True.... Even Hope's last page that was in the book, it's not..." Paige held it up. "I didn't notice that before.... They must come out when the new letter comes in."

"So we don't know how recent they all are, then. For all we know, these all could have been in yesterday or two days ago and knocked out by Hope's." Tony rubbed his face. "I don't know how we can help that many people if I can't even find the one I know."

"Let's just focus on what we do know." Paige tried to sound calm. "At one point at least, they were all in this book. They might not be anymore...so either they failed or succeeded. What did she ask them all to do? At least with the four we can read.... Let's just try to find the first one."

That took another hour of shifting and trying  to read bad handwriting.

Finally, they found what seemed to be the first update letter of each person. They weren't sure why Karen kept all these but her own letters were missing...unless she needed to refer back to these ones to write to her current prisoner.

It sounded as if Karen had asked each of them to research both the geography of the world and the artifacts and tools used in it, particularly magical ones.

"Hmm," Paige said, finally. "It almost sounds like she didn't know all the places in this world till these people found them. They're describing what Olme, Meri, and Lunas are like. Those were all introduced in different seasons, I mean in detail. "

"Is there anything weird about them?" Tony was so tired by now, but he kept plugging away.

"Olme is the only country in the story that has a council instead of a ruler." Paige rubbed her temples. "A magical council too. I don't remember much else about it except that we meet a few big characters there--but most of them die in the war."

"Main characters just die in the war?" Tony was alarmed.

"Um, well, not really main characters," Paige said. "The main characters go through Olme as part of the war, but they mostly didn't die. Maybe one or two side characters who were friends of theirs did. That was season one, so I don't remember all of it. We'll have to check..."

"Nevermind. What about the other two?"

"Meri is a fun one. That season covers the war turning around for the alliance. They use underwater attacks--oh, it has mermaids."

"Seriously?"

"They're mystical characters. That's not that unusual for them to be in this kind of story." Paige shrugged.

"But are they important?"

"Well, they attack the navy of one of the invading countries, but honestly, other than that, they didn't do much except sing, and it's not like you could hear it." Paige gestured dismissively.

"And the last one...Lunas?"

"The most northern province," Paige said. "I only remember that because it was a big deal that in winter they didn't get sunlight for part of the seasons, like Alaska. So the long nights made people think they were mysterious. They were supposed to be good stealth fighters. They came into the war and it finally ending. That was season 3. I dropped it after that. I thought it would get pretty boring, and it was already kind of bad.... I mean, a lot of new ideas, not a lot of development."

"Karen sucks at writing but can trap people in her stories?" Tony said.

"It looks that way," Paige said. "I mean...it's so unbelievable, but on the other hand...if this was fake, it sure sounds like it was big enough to these people to travel around. You couldn't hide that, unless it was...in the middle of the Congo or something, and there's no way that's what they're describing."

"Unless that's part of the act, but why keep it up to the person they know kidnapped them?" Tony said. "But if this is...really some other dimension, we can't get to it..." He sank back. "That means it's hopeless."

"It's not hopeless," Paige said quickly. "If they can go in, they can go out. If we just knew how she did it, maybe it can be reversed by other people besides her.... I mean, it's a small hope, but it's not impossible, right?"

"I might not be..." Tony tried to perk up. "But the odds are really not looking in our favor."

"I think we should print all this and take it to Olivia," Paige said. "We shouldn't let her see the real stuff--she might try to take it. But if she doesn't know about this, this outta throw her for a loop."

"Wow, how did it get to be 10 pm already?" Tony looked at the clock.

"I knew this would take forever," Paige sighed. "Maybe we should try to sleep. I'm exhausted."

Tony thought he was too wired to sleep--but again he nodded off almost right away when he lay down.

He had nightmares about Karen chasing him in her car and yelling at him about disappearing.

 He woke up in cold sweat, and it was already early morning.

* * *

They were at the address before Olivia was.

"I feel kind of like this is stalking," Paige admitted, tugging her jacket closer.

"If she's part of a kidnapping ring, I think it's deserved," Tony said.

"I know, but if she calls the police on us, it's going to look like we're guilty," Paige said.

"Then we run." Tony poised as if to do that.

This would have been way cool if it was a movie--but it wasn't, and he was a nervous wreck, though he was also so tee-ed off at Olivia and Karen, he didn't have room for nerves.

Olivia pulled up in the same car as before, in uniform.

They'd hidden by the trash bins of this house, so she didn't see them till they stepped out.

She gasped, but at least she didn't scream.

"Mr. Kane!" she said. "And...who is this? Your sister?"

"No, I'm Miss Turner," Paige said coolly.

"So you remember me still," Tony said tightly.

"I don't want any trouble." Olivia backed up. "Miss Shingle left my care yesterday. That's the last I saw of her."

"Crap." Tony would have sworn worse, but ladies were present. "And did she say where she was going?"

"No...I think she was looking for you still," Olivia said.

"Olivia," Tony said in a lower voice, "do you realize that Karen is shady as a dark alley at midnight?"

Olivia swallowed.

"I admit I am not sure what to make of what I heard yesterday, but I work for her. I can't just poke my nose where it doesn't belong."

"We have a list of 20 people we think are missing," Paige spoke up. "And she's the common denominator. All of them wrote to her. You can't just not care about that...and if she gets arrested, you will too, as an accomplice."

Olivia blanched.

"I don't know about any kidnappings," she said. "Karen has hired me for years to drive her places and clean her car for her and do other errands...not really in my job description, but she pays well, so I did it. Only she always wants privacy about it. She said she was a famous writer and she didn't want her fans to bother her. I didn't know any better."

"Did she ever talk to anyone while she was around you who seemed like they did know her?" Tony asked.

"I..." Olivia seemed to wrack her brain. "It was usually driving around for her interviews."

"Interviews?" Paige repeated.

"She travels all over to interview people for the accuracy in her stories," Olivia said. Then it seemed to hit her slowly that that could be the front for kidnapping them. "Oh...my..."

"Mother of Jefferson Davis," Tony muttered. "Did you see any of them?"

Olivia thought. "It's hard to remember.... I know I drove her somewhere in Virginia."

"Why were you there?" Paige asked.

"I was visiting family," Olivia said. "She just happened to be there at the same time and she called me."

Just happened to be, sure, Tony thought. Karen was so creepy.

"I can't remember what she did, but it was a little house." Olivia rubbed her temples. "I'm getting a headache suddenly, I'm sorry."

"When was this?" Tony asked.

"Last year," Olivia said. "Come to think of it, I might still have that location saved in my phone..." She took it out and opened a Maps App. Then she put in Virginia...

"Ah, here it is, Mission Blvd.... It might not be what you want. But if I giv eyou this, will you leave me alone? I don't want to be mixed up in this."

"Then I guess you'll stop doing things for Karen," Tony said. 

"I can't," Olivia said automatically.

"Why not?" Paige said.

"I...hmm..." Olivia frowned. "I'm not really sure. I just know I can't."

They both shivered.

"I think you can," Tony said. "Try, all right? She can't be all powerful, right?"

"I don't understand," Olivia said.

"We should go. I feel like she's tracking us wherever we go," Paige said.

"Do you think we could get a flight to Virginia today?" Tony asked.

"Maybe if we got the leftover tickets," Paige said. "You really want to follow this lead?"

"It's worth a shot," Tony said. "I've got to head to Connecticut to meet my dad anyway. It's on the way.... Oh...but you don't have to come, of course. What was I thinking?"

"Are you kidding me?" Paige said. "20 people are potentially missing, 21 counting the one we're looking for. I'm pretty sure it's my civic duty to help you solve this now. Besides, I can't be sure she wouldn't come after me to find out where you really went. It's safer if I'm not here."

Olivia winced.

"I just realized we shouldn't have said that in front of her," Tony said. "Hey, you never saw us, all right?"

Olivia shook her head.

They were pretty sure she'd crack if Karen asked her--but then, Karen might not think they'd look for Olivia in particular. They had to run while they could.

They'd packed their stuff already in case they had to make a break for it, so they took off.

Tony called the nearest airport and was told they did have tickets available for a flight that day--but it would cost him.

He paid for it anyway. There was no time to lose.

* * *

Finishing School had a routine that I soon fell into. I kept updating Karen regularly--but I was starting to despair, as she still did not answer me.

I tried not to think about what it might mean if she never answered me.

Perhaps, I thought, time flowed differently in this world and it had not been days for her.

I passed my second week in Envera in this way. Having a regular schedule did actually help me adjust to the situation faster than I had at the lord's mansion.

I thought little of most of the other pupils. Only a few were nice, and most were younger than me, and some looked down on me for that very reason, or because I used to be not a lady.

I could beat them all in riding, but not in anything else except reading, and that wasn't a class, just part of the etiquette.

I did terribly at that part, and I was embarrassed by the way the others smirked at me and whispered to each other when they thought the mistresses weren't paying attention.

I did begin to see that there was more to the art of socializing in this world than just looking good. There was a strategy to it that smart girls would apply. Sure, it was all over shallow things that I thought didn't matter at all, compared to essentials like good character and good sense, but there was some mental effort even so.

I felt like I was training to be a model in a way. Having to act one way, dress one way, look one way.

I was also advised, not so nicely, by the Fashion Mistress, to try lightening potions on my tan to get a more refined look.

I ignored this advice.

Despite all this activity, I still had a lot of leisure time in the afternoons, and most of it was spent either trying to read the books I had smuggled in with me, or in being anxious about not hearing from Karen.

Finally, at the fifth day after I arrived, and the end of the week for the school, a new page appeared in my tablet notebook.

I was checking it very tentatively, and I almost dropped it when it happened.

My roommates, thankfully were not round. I'd met them: Tabitha and Riviera, and they had had little to say to me, being already best friends with each other. They preferred to sit in the parlor during their free time.

So, being alone, I went to the window for more light and peered at the new page.

To my utter shock, it wasn't Karen's handwriting, but it looked like Tony's--though at first I didn't realize it because the paper made it so different, but then I looked at some of the vowels and thought, That looks just like his writing.

But I couldn't believe this. It had to be some cruel joke.

I struggled to make out the words:

"Hope, I decided to try this. I have no idea if you'll see it, but there's nothing else I can do. I've been trying to find you ever since you disappeared from our house. I found this woman named Karen who claims you're all right and seems to be using this here book to contact you. I don't know if it's magic or whatever, but if it works, you gotta reply and let me know if you're okay.

Trying to find a way to get you back home, but so far all we got was this book and a folder of paper from other people writing to Karen what's-her-name about being in this world of Thesaurum.

Most of them aren't in English, but the ones we could read all sound just like yours, like they're stuck. If you know of any more people like you, you've got to let us know, in some kind of code. Or any way we can help you solve this so you can come back.

Mom and Dad don't remember you, but I convinced them you're real with some evidence.

If you get this but can't reply, just know we're doing all we can, but I can't risk telling you more. If Karen found this again, she might do something to us. So far we're one step ahead of her, but if she can read this, then it might be better not to say anything too detailed, so if you can't be telling us nothing important, just write that you're okay. Please...

I don't know what else to say without knowing if you'll see this or not, so I'll wait to hear from you--Tony."

I stared at it, and I reread it at least twice before I even knew what I thought.

I decided finally that it couldn't be a trick. I didn't think Karen would think to make Tony sound hesitant to contact me and share details if she wanted to trick me.... Besides, what would it get her? I'd just have more questions she wouldn't  answer.

This did tell me why she hadn't responded!

Oh, good on Tony! I couldn't believe it!

But...Mom and Dad didn't remember me? So that was how Karen would keep my disappearance a secret...but...

I burst into tears. I think I had some reason to.

I was an emotional wreck for more than that, too. Tony had actually found me, in a sense, even if he wasn't here. I wasn't as alone as I thought--but in another way, it hurt all the more, because I knew he'd worry about me...and that I had no way to get to him. And he could be in danger if Karen knew what he'd done.

I had a thousand questions for him, but what could I ask that would be safe to answer?

After I calmed down a bit, I saw that this did not fix anything yet. I was upset and relieved and afraid, but I was none the wiser for it.

If I wanted Tony's efforts to pay off, he needed to know what I was up against...and maybe he could tell me more about the story. I didn't know how long he'd have access to the magic book. I wanted to tell him all kinds of things and ask all kinds of others, like how long I'd been gone, but I couldn't waste the chance to get a leg up.

I could ask all the rest once I got out of here.... The main thing was to escape.

So, drying my eyes, I grabbed my pen. I'd had to sharpen it finally, and done a bad job, but I managed to get it to write.

As I started to, I realized he'd said something else I couldn't just let slide.

Had he said there were...other letters to Karen? Other people...other people were trapped? Or were they just in other stories?

I couldn't get my brain around that, and I needed more details.

Numbly, I wrote out a short message:

"Dear Tony:

I don't know how you found me, and I want to thank you a hundred times, but there's not enough time to spend on how I feel right now.

I'm all right. Currently I'm still at the Finishing School and I hope to stay out of the main plot. I have a little less than three months to be stuck here, if I do as Karen says.

If you have her book, maybe you can tell me more about the story. Do you know anything about what she's planning to do? Anyone who might be dangerous?  Anyone I shouldn't offend?

Everything here depends on being able to act like a perfect little socialite, and it's killing me, but it might kill me for real to mess it up too bad. I need help!

I can't tell anyone the truth about me because they'll think I'm crazy, and they might hang me or something like that. You're the only one who knows.

...What other people could be stuck here? Are you sure it's in the same story?

Please write back as soon as you can, in case she steals the book back from you.

--Hope."

It seemed very terse to me, but I didn't know if I could spend much time on emotional messages if I lost this connection soon. I hoped Tony would understand why I had to be all business.

Even if it hurt.

What I didn't expect was a few minutes later another message began to appear--I could actually see it appear word by word on the page.

And it said:

"For your last question, we've counted at least 20 other people's records of being there..."

The letter kept writing after that, but I stopped reading for a full 2 minutes and just stared at the page without really seeing it, while that thought went around in my head:

20 other people could be isakai-ed.