The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 13 – She Got That Dragon In Her

I have to award Headmistress Quillyn both for her gravitas while dictating her notice to the students and staff of the College, but also style points for magically affixing a notice to every dorm and office door without leaving her desk. She’s shut Hogwarts the College off from the outside world, both physically and magically, until they can figure out who is attacking people.

Some take this news better than others, but Chise’s tight little crew are more concerned with Philomela suddenly declaring she has to leave the school. For the time being, she’s stuck there with everyone else, as is her grandmother’s familiar Alcyone. But while she’s slow to speak up for herself, Lucy is well enough to return to the dorm she and Chise share.

As golems patrol the school grounds, Chise doesn’t sleep well, and in the morning all students are summoned to the courtyard in their tracksuits. They’re soon met by our boy Fabio Zucchini Macaroni Zaccheroni, who is kept in check by his supervisor/handler, Ms. Wachmann.

Fabio summons a brace of ghoulies for the students to fight using only weapons forged from blocks of clay he hands out. They have talismans to protect them from death, but this is a test meant to test the mettle of the young sorcerers when there isn’t sufficient time to use sorcery.

Chise doesn’t forge a weapon, because she’s never used one before—which doesn’t sound right but with Elias and other powerful sorcerers by her side, I suppose she’s never needed one. And she still doesn’t, as she learns when the monster attacks her. Her body moves all on its own, picks the beast up with one hand and snaps its neck like a twig. She’s the first to defeat her monster, followed by the knife-proficient Rian.

Others have more difficulty, while Philomela deals with her monster with ease and efficiency but doesn’t react well to Isaac’s praise, and curls up into a ball of insecurity. Rian and Chise then team up when Fabio challenges them directly. This brings out a bit too much of the dragon for Wachmann’s taste, and she stops both her and Fabio with her bare hands, demonstrating why Fabio doesn’t cross her.

When everyone passes and Wachmann takes Fabio away by the ear, Philomela is not looking well, so Chise pops her onto her back and takes her to the nurse’s office. Lucy claims to have to stay close to Chise when she tags along due to the mana she’s emanating, but c’mon, she’s worried about Mela too. So am I! And I definitely don’t want her going back to that wretched mansion with that even more wretched grandmother.

Meanwhile, outside of the sealed-off College, Muriel is hard at work recruiting someone who’s good at finding things to track down the stolen grimoire that’s being used in the attacks. After the first cour of this second season contained a large amount of buildup to a larger conflict, this first episode of the second continues that trend in preparing for bigger things.

It’s a perfectly cromulent outing with some fun and touching moments, but at the end of the day buildup is buildup. Eventually the payoff will have to come, and I’m confident we’ll get one before long.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 12 (Part 1 Fin) – Trick or Treat

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.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 11 – Patience Makes Prudence

Lucy’s newest collapse was due to the fact that whoever stole her magical power is still actively sapping it, just as they are with Simeon. This is a dangerous matter for adults, and so both Elias and the nurse Alexandra warn Chise to kindly stay out of it and focus on her studies.

Chise is particularly shocked that Elias refers to Simeon as someone who could be a “friend” of his, especially since he’d previously called Lindel and even Rahab mere “acquaintances.” The College is changing both of them faster than they know.

Chise runs into Philomela in the hall, who is on the verge of panic over her satchel of potpourri running out of scent. Chise can see the satchel is well-worn, and is happy to replace the fragrance. When she offers to make some with her “one day”, Philomela is happy to the verge of tears. I worry about her, and fear those who she must answer to and what they might make her do.

Zoe and Lucy have a warm and fuzzy little scene when he visits her at night just because, and she asks if she can pet his snakes. While there’s obviously a double entendre in there and there’s amorous ramifications to asking to touch a gorgon’s snakes, in this case, Lucy is compensating for the loss of her beloved spiders, and as a friend, Zoe is happy to accommodate her.

Chise stops by home to announce to a disappointed Silver that both she and Elias will likely be living at the College for a while; her to be closer to Lucy, and him so he can continue the investigation of the attacker. She also visits the hidden passage and fulfills her obligations to the hounds by providing them with sheep to eat.

Hazel is the one who provides the sheep to Chise, who feels bad for not being able to come up with the means to repay the hounds herself. Hazel makes the observation that she needs to stop recklessly jumping into action without thinking things through. The best way to do that is by developing patience and the skill of careful observation and assessment.

Back at the College, Halloween festivities are in full swing despite the attacks, which are being kept secret from all but the faculty and administration. Lucy is supposed to participate in a gathering practical at the “Waste Tower”, which is a venue for collecting various magical items for pay. She doesn’t want to be beholden to her brother.

That said, she could collapse again at any time, so Chise and Zoe restrain her. When Rian and Isaac visit Lucy, the four decide to go in Lucy’s place. But when they arrive, they meet with the wrong faculty member: Fabio Zaccheroni, who is about to embark on another task entirely with Philomela in tow.

Philomela makes sure to warn Chise to watch out for Fabio. But when Headmistress Quillyn opens her first piece of daily mail, it’s a letter from Philomela’s family stating that she’ll be withdrawing from the College. I know Chise is going to make more of an effort not to try to save everyone, but if she can somehow save ‘Mela from her awful family, that would be great!