"Good evening ma'am, we're looking for orientation."

"Ah, yes. Ms. Belor and Ms. Amber. The House has been expecting you. You have had your garments tailored already, good. You need housing, a map, a mentor and fifth-rank wands. The House is arranging a tutor; however, first you should be shown around."

An elevator dings, and the doors open. Another identical doll is inside. 

"If you'll follow," says the doll in the elevator, "This doll will escort you to your new housing, and then show you the student dining hall."

You'd think they'd do some variation on them; she inwardly weighs reasons in favor of and against doing that.

Mari goes in the elevator pressing no buttons, nor staring at the doll's flawless porcelain — skin, carapace, shell?

For Marianne Belor, who wants to touch everything, accumulating mana from resistance is like breathing.

The doll presses a button - twelfth floor - and the elevator moves. 

Moments later, the doors open to a simple hallway. Doors crowd around on both sides. 

The doll leads them down the hallway for some minutes, taking it farther in a straight line than should fit in a reasonably sized tower - then it stops at a door. Room 1273. 

The doll produces a pair of small stone necklaces from its uniform. "Here are your keystones. If you should lose one you will be disciplined and the price of a replacement will be taken out of your stipend. You may take a moment to view the room now, or you may proceed to the dining hall."

"Thank you!" Marianne loops one over her neck and tries to figure the door.

The door opens.

Beyond there is a two-bedroom apartment, with a small kitchen and a sofa and chairs and a table and a television. Another door stands open to a small bathroom with a tub and a sink and a toilet. 

It's a little better than the apartment they left this morning. There's more furniture, and it's newer, and there's a little more space. But there's nothing obviously magical aside from the fact that this fits into a much smaller space than it should.

"—cool."

She shuts the door and follows the doll where it leads.

Back down the hallway to the elevator. Second floor.

The doors open to a vestibule, and right off that there is a large cafeteria, with wooden tables and a long counter with another identical doll behind it, clearing up the remains of lunch. A couple groups of uniformed students are sitting around talking quietly.

Off to the left side of the room there's a corkboard covered in index cards, and to the right side there's a wide balcony that opens out onto the city-cavern.

"If you wish to come and go by broom, the cafeteria balcony is open to all students. Make sure you have your keystone, or the wards will reject you."

She thinks she's heard the word 'broom' once or twice, but the word hadn't really processed. She's slightly concerned that if she tries to process every new concept her brain will melt into a puddle.

"Understood, ma'am."

Lily nods demurely.

"Now it's time to find a workroom for you two and introduce you to your mentor."

The doll hasn't budged from the elevator; it punches in the fourth floor and the doors close. The new floor appears to be a complex of offices; the doll leads them to a small meeting room and ushers them in.

"Your mentor should arrive soon. Please wait here patiently until then. Is there anything you require before this doll leaves?"

"No ma'am."

Marianne takes a look around the 'workroom.'

It looks like a meeting room, with a small table for four, chairs, and a whiteboard. There's a closed laptop on a desk in the corner. The walls are beige. The floor is smooth stone. 

She sits down, leaning her cheek against a closed fist.

Hawthorne is a lot faster than she anticipated. She had been expecting to wait a few weeks at minimum, but no, they just... gave them an allowance and began the induction.

It is very weird and cool at once.

Lily takes a seat on the same side of the table as Marianne, and pulls out her potionmaking book.

Time passes. 

After some time, Lily checks the time on her phone. 

"It's been forty-five minutes. I guess this mentor, whoever they are, is pretty busy."

There is the steady clip of shoes on tile, then the door flings itself open.

A tall ash-white woman stands on the threshold, bound in a voluminous cloak. She has no flesh past her forearms, gouged out as well in many other places. Her hands and wrists are replaced with casts of black metal and amethyst. Both pockmarks and prothesis are surrounded by webs of scarring and rashes of inflammation. A thin metal cane holds perhaps a third of her weight.

"Dispel foresight detection identify status investigate."

Her voice is an indifferent drone: do you have a membership card with us, would you like to sign up for one? She makes a sharp cutting motion in front of her chest and lines of white light form and melt away. She snaps her fingers with a metallic clink and the quality of the air shifts in some indiscernible way.

Then she strides into the room, folding her hands at her waist. She stinks of smoke.

"You are sudden, children. What do you expect me to teach you?"

Lily's gaze flicks down to the teacher's prostheses, then back up to her face.

"... Where to begin. How to be witches, in a society unknown to us, with physics and technology and culture we're unfamiliar with - the uses of magic, the understanding of who we are now and what we can do and what that entails. Likely more. I was told by Penelope that witchdom is more violent than the human world, and, well..." She tilts her head. "Your appearance would seem to bear that out."

"You are crass to speak of a person's afflictions on a first encounter, Amber. War is your first consideration, not sickness nor accident. Why is that?"

The woman takes the seat before the whiteboard.

"I know enough to know there is healing magic great enough to repair most mundane injury. Therefore your injury is not mundane. And I am inclined to believe witches are the greatest threat to witches, much as humans were to humans in the world I once lived in."

"I'm not going to confirm or deny speculation about weaknesses, even to children. As for the rest of your answer — have I been giving you the impression I'm here to teach Assimilation I? Take it on your leisure. Why so quiet, Belor? Give me a better answer."

"Do you intend to teach us divination, so we no longer need a teacher?"

Under the table, the woman raps Marianne's shins with her cane.