[author note: yes, i know this is a lot of characters. you'll get a more in-depth —and indulgent— look at each of them in the next few chapters.]

elsewhere in the House, in a room known to its inhabitants as Couch City, and egg timer rings. eleven children’s activities are interrupted.

Ben: oh shit. they’re not back.

Jen: the cookies aren’t here?

Jen: wait, that was bad, i think.

Jen: they’re ok, right?

Leo: they said they wouldn’t go super far.

Luke: i believe Bree and Ellis are well.

Luke: the two probably just got lost.

Jen: oh, ok.

Duff: my jaw has jackhammered its way through the floor.

Duff: and impulsive, psychopathic child and a pushover teen boy, exploring a sentient, non-Euclidean house in search of a hypothetical room of cookies,

Duff: lost?

Luke: that was a very impressive sentence.

Duff: thank you.

Leo: um… Criss! can you make a card to find them?

Criss: oh, good idea.

Criss: a’ight, let’s see.

Criss: '''a card that flies through the air, leadin’ us to Bree n’ Ellis.'''

Criss(he/him) reaches up the sleeve of his suit, where a magical card should be found, per his power. he retracts his hand a second later, still empty.

Criss: shit.

Malcom: that kind of makes sense though, because too easy.

Malcom: the Old Man wouldn’t like it.

Amy(1): '''because too easy''' explains like everything in our lives.

Callie: damn right it does.

Luke: perhaps someone else could lead us to our friends.

Luke’s ability is ordering objects to do things, but only in an offhand, indirect manner. the paperclips his statement was addressed to remain stubbornly inert in his sweatpant pockets.

Luke: okay.

Luke: i can’t order objects to find them, so we’ll just have to search the House ourselves.

Luke: let’s split into four groups.