The students’ little field trip in the Waste Tower is filled with dread and foreboding. There are some creepy moments like carnivorous plants only Rian and Chise can see, some not-so-friendly sorcerers in the caves Zoe has to paralyze with his snakes, and a far-too-handsy Fabio, who knows Chise is a Sleigh Beggy and “wants” her.
She doesn’t even have to unleash the dragon; Carty pops out to warn off the rogue sorcerer. Ultimately, the trip to the tower is pretty anti-climactic. No one there seems to be behind the attacks on Alice and Simeon. But we do learn that, like Chise, Rian has killed someone at some point. That’s how the two can see the plants while the others couldn’t.
While that’s going on, Alice tries to get through to Renfred for the umpteenth time, trying to get him to see her as his bodyguard and not his daughter. To which I say, why not both? Alice all but screams “kid” by confronting him in a ghost sheet.
It’s not that Renfred doesn’t trust her ability, but believes she has the potential to be more than him. Her old father may have sucked, but clearly her new one doesn’t. She shouldn’t sweat labels and just focus on being the best Alice Swayne she can be.
As Alice and Renfred fumble their way into another philosophical stalemate, Seth tries to keep Lucy from running after her friends. She doesn’t want anything to happen to them on her account. When she bumps into Alice in the hall, she’s in tears, so Alice lends her the ghost sheet.
This is how Seth finds her: a little whimpering ghost in the hallway. He pulls her into a hug which she accepts. She also accepts that Seth doesn’t hate her and didn’t abandon her. She knows that he was ostracized and had no choice but to leave. She thought she had to hate him because of that, but she never wanted to.
Finally, before this first part of seaon two wraps up (Part 2 will air in October) there’s the matter of Philomela and her grandmother moving to withdraw her from the College. Granny channels her voice through a barn owl handled by one of her servants, but Headmistress Quillyn happens to be in the courtyard when she arrives.
When Philomela’s classmates realize what’s going on, they’re outraged. Philomela clearly doesn’t want to leave, but she’s wired to obey without question. So Isaac takes her arm and runs off into the College with her, taking her out of the equation.
Once her granny and Quillyn verbally spar for a bit, the headmistress calls upon the cat dorm mothers, three of whom transform into their true Cait Sith forms. With Elias standing by in reserve, Quillyn has the upper hand, and announces that the entire College is being sealed off due to the spate of magical attacks.
I’m sure Granny Sergeant would have preferred to quickly whisk Philomela away under cover of secrecy, but the headmistress has bought her time to determine what she wants to do, which is most likely to stay with Chise and the others and continue her education.
Here’s hoping she gets that, gets to have her potpourri satchel-making date with Chise, and the attacker is found and dealt with, all when Part 2 rolls around in the autumn.
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