As a recap page, all spoilers below have been unmarked. You have been warned.
- Lapointe: I want every stone we have out looking for this child.
Ophelia: For Marlowe? Well, if you say so… I can have the stones collected and ready by tom—
Lapointe: No. Today.
Ophelia: Today? You want forty seeker stones out in the city, during the day? Forget about people asking questions. You’ll have people panicking!
Lapointe: I DON’T CARE! I want them found today! When people ask… Just tell them… Tell them… It’s to find a kidnapped child.
We open on Monday morning to Lucy on Tobi's couch. After spending the last two nights at his place, they're wearing an outfit pieced together from a dress belonging to Su-Yeong and a shirt belonging to Tobi. Tobi lets Lucy know that he'll be at work for the majority of the day, asking them what they want to eat for dinner and shooting down their offer to cook it themselves. He explains that they can't go out and get ingredients if they're hiding from the government, just as Su-Yeong can't leave the Karim's bakery.
Lucy's mood darkens at the mention of Tobi's girlfriend, which Tobi misinterprets, either accidentally or deliberately. He assures them that they'd probably get along great under less charged circumstances. Lucy's sarcastically skeptical of this, then changes the subject — they don't mind being cooped up, since they still need to repair the shirt they ripped, either accidentally or deliberately. Tobi awkwardly reminds them that they don't have to do any of his chores, then leaves after they insist.
As soon as Tobi's gone, Lucy drops the vestiges of their cheerful act. Frustrated, they take it upon themselves to do every chore in their reach, from window washing to laundry to doing the dishes. Now that they're alone with their thoughts, they berate themselves for feeling upset:
- Lucy: Oh, stop it! What did you expect would happen? That you’d just fairy tale princess your way into a relationship with the cute guy you met once? Get a grip! Of course he’d already have a girlfriend! Of course it’s that husk! My life isn’t dumb and complicated enough! But he gets a clean apartment out of all of it.
We cut away from the teenage relationship drama to a frazzled Dr. Cynthia Brandt as she confides to Ophelia Banksly that she's spent an entire sleepless day and night fruitlessly pursuing Lapointe's assignment from yesterday. Try as she might to find it, Lucy doesn't have a government record anywhere, even after accounting for misspelled or changed names. Ophelia shrugs it off as poor organization as a whole — after all, she can't even reach Lapointe in her own office, which has been locked all morning.
On cue, the door unceremoniously opens. Sylas' father steps out of the room, straightening up his clothing. He excuses himself, leaving Cynthia to deliver the bad news to a distracted Lapointe. She's annoyed at first, but after Cynthia clarifies, Lapointe takes the news surprisingly well.
- Cynthia: They’ve never been to a doctor, or a dentist. Never gone to any school, never been involved with the law. There’s no official documentation of them whatsoever. They might as well have never been born. With the exception of their contest registration… This child is a ghost.
Even their contest registration, the only official record of their existence, is suspect, since Lucy provided a fake address that Cynthia couldn't find in person. Lapointe vaguely recognizes the last name Rothart, but Cynthia suspects he's made up as well. After all, the only Rotharts on record are Joe and his parents. Lapointe instructs Cynthia to dig up information on him as well, then comes to a realization as she stares at Lucy's photograph. Flustered, she dismisses Cynthia and sends for Ophelia.
As soon as Ophelia arrives, Lapointe orders her to recall all the seeker stones currently in use searching for Su-Yeong and send them into the city. Ophelia's uncertain, but promises to have them ready by tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning isn't good enough for Lapointe, though — she wants to find Lucy today. Ophelia tries to discourage her, since having forty seeker stones surveilling a civilian population during the daytime isn't a good look, but Lapointe isn't having any of it. More quietly and thoughtfully than she's been all morning, she tells Ophelia to spread the word that she's looking for a kidnapped child.
The scene cuts away to the Dubois family home. Sylas plays the piano for his mother, who is bedridden, and Emilia, who dozes in her arms. Everyone is content until the door opens and Sylas' father enters. Sylas is nervous and jumpy — he was expecting his father's meeting with Lapointe to last longer — and Lady Dubois is distinctly chilly to her husband. Emilia sleepily realizes what's going on and perks up when she realizes that her father is home.
Antoine scoops his daughter up and offers to spend the day doing anything Emilia likes, over his wife's protests that they had agreed to let Emilia spend the day with her. As he turns to leave to take Emilia to the shooting range, he dismissively tells Sylas his time would be better spent playing piano for Philomena, as her father has told him she could use some cheering up. Sylas reluctantly agrees.
Meanwhile, Ivy and Piper run along rooftops in search of Lucy. Ivy's worried that it's been two days with no sign of them, and Piper's guilty that he couldn't keep up with Lucy after they flew away. Ivy reassures him, since she can't blame Lucy for not wanting to come home to Thierry. She regrets not doing more to help Lucy — in her mind, it would have been better if she'd helped them run away from home rather than enter the contest in the first place. Piper, in turn, comforts Ivy, reminding her that it's more useful to focus on the present than wallow in guilt over the past.
The pair's ruminating is cut off by the distant sound of seeker stones. Ivy panics, hiding in a bell tower. She's shocked by the sheer number of seeker stones — there certainly weren't that many on the island looking for Su-Yeong. Realizing that they're probably looking for Lucy, Ivy initially decides to hurry up in finding them, but stops at the last second.
- Ivy: I can't, Piper. What if she sees me?
The seeker stones spread throughout the city as the citizenry looks on in confusion and suspicion. A blue stone passes by the window Lucy's napping under, and the light prompts them to wake up, loudly protesting to an absent Rothart that they weren't asleep. Realizing they're alone, they calm down and begin to space out.
We flash back to a much younger Lucy, who has a bandage taped over their right eye instead of an eyepatch. They begin to mess with it, protesting that it itches when Rothart pulls their hand away. He chides them on the possibility of their eye falling out, then hands them a spinel to keep their hands busy. He tries to coach them through using it as a power stone, but Lucy's efforts produce nothing but a headache. They ask to go home, but Rothart only tells them that they are home.
The flashback ends. Lucy's no longer out of it — now they're frustrated. In a fit of anger, they rip off their eyepatch and hurl it across the room...
Only to hear a knock at the door. Sheepishly, they crawl across the room and put it on haphazardly, then pick up a pair of sewing scissors and ask who's there. The visitor says nothing, then starts to force the door. Lucy does their best to keep the door shut, but an application of burning hot magic forces them back. Lucy looks up in fear as Magister Lapointe opens the door. They immediately start shouting at her to stay back, threatening to drain her magic if she so much as touches them, but she ignores them. Silently, she touches their cheek and kneels in front of them, pulling them into a hug. She promises to them that they're safe now. Metaphorical roses bloom around the pair as Lapointe tells Lucy that they're a child she lost years ago. A child named Morgan.
In summary: When Cynthia's dig through Lucy's records turns up nothing, Lapointe gets desperate in her search for them. When she finds them, we learn that they're the result of her long-running affair with Antoine Dubois. We also learn the name they were given at birth: Morgan.
Tropes:
- Amplifier Artifact: A younger Lucy attempts to utilize a spinel cabochon as magic jewelry. It doesn't work.
- Call-Back: The panel layout and rose imagery as Lapointe gushes to Lucy about finding them echoes Lapointe's suckering of January
four chapters ago. - Eye Scream: "It'll be worse if [your eye] falls out. You don't want that, do you?"
- Flashback: We see Lucy shortly after whatever happened to their eye.
- The Un-Reveal: Lucy removes their eyepatch, but before we can see what's underneath, there's a knock at the door and they hastily scramble to replace it.
- Wham Line: The end of the chapter.
- Lapointe: I never thought I’d see you again. After all these years, I was sure you were lost to me forever. But you’re here, it’s really you. I know it’s you. My sunshine. My baby. My Morgan.
