"I think so. But I am not so confident that I would open a portal directly to my home from Arcadia once we go through." 

"Can we get another one of that spell for checking?"

"Yes, just a moment." There is a short pause. "Nothing else came through a portal. If we linger for long enough something will reach us, but that would take several hours."

She's still taking several airlocked gates to her house but okay. 

"It is very good that you have a reliable divination to do about that."

"Divination is extremely useful even when the horrible monsters re less horrible and less pervasive. I am very glad you didn't land somewhere less packed with powerful witches and people who know powerful witches." 

Chu Wanning opens the portal back to Arcadia. 

"I might want to try to learn that divination," Bella remarks as they walk through. "Though I haven't even finished trying to figure out the anti-divination thing in that one book."

"--It isn't, actually, a single spell; it's a combination of powerful scrying and auguries. A lesser augury might eighty-twenty you the benefit, though." 

"Also good! But I am additionally willing to learn multiple spells if they add up to knowing where all the mals are and what they are doing."

"I can't disrecommend that course of action." 

And when everyone has stepped through the portal and it's closed behind them, because it's a cheap test, Lucy closes her eyes and clasps her hands and bows her head. 

Lucasta? 

I've been told you're, like, me, but a goddess, and a goddess of some pretty sweet things, and I think that's awesome. 

My situation is less than awesome. Lucasta, I had a one in four chance of survival, me and my brother both, and we both made it because we were clever and strong and lucky, and because we were in the same year as Orion Lake--that's a tangent but I'll explain Orion Lake later if you want--anyway. My twin brother and I are only alive at all because we were insanely privileged--Mum had siblings and they're all dead--outside this one school that can't take even half the magical children of our world, the survival rate is one in twenty. There are so many horrible monsters, and they kill us and kill us and kill us, but with witches, we have a plan to maybe stop them, and we could use your help, and I think probably you want to help us because you're me, and I want it so much--I've survived all this time in a zero-sum environment on the hope that something like this would someday happen. 

We are suffering and dying and it needs to stop. 

Please. 

Lucy falls out of her body, and lands somewhere else. 

There aren't really things, in this place, but it isn't a physical enough place for that to be disorienting. 

There is one other point of reality here, besides Lucy. 

She looks just like Lucy, mostly, but with wings, and feathers scattered over her skin, and older. 

"Come here," she says, and holds her arms out. 

Lucy doesn't consciously realize what she means for a moment, and by the time she realizes, she has already impacted the goddess's front and flung her arms around her. 

She chokes down a sob. 

"You can let it out. You're safe here. Poor girl." She hugs her alt close and strokes her hair. "It's all over now. You're safe. You can die, still, but if you do I will catch you, and I will bring you back. Even if one of those horrible maw-mouth things gets you--call for me, and I will find a way to kill it. Things like that oughtn't exist." 

"Of course I will help you with this plan of yours. But more than that--do you even realize how you're hurting? It's like an impacted tooth in your soul, and I can feel it, because not only am I a goddess to whom you are praying, but I am you, and my soul is the same as yours. But listen. It's over now. It. Is. Over. You can be as generous as you want, as kind as you want, and those poor dears from your world, they might be wary of it, but that's all you have to worry about now, alright? There's no risk, anymore, that you'll give away something you need and get yourself killed and leave your brother bereft if not doomed and your parents in grief. You do not have to think like that anymore. I will make you a witch and you will have even more power to share, and you will be fine, no matter what, and you can follow every single kind and gentle impulse you have." 

She kisses her on the top of the head. 

"Let it out. It's safe to cry, now. It's safe to grieve, now. I've got you. I'm a goddess and I've got you. There's someone out there who cares. You weren't naive to hope." 

Lucy trembles, and bursts into tears. 

She cries for a long, long time. 

Eventually, after what must be hours subjective, she shakily pulls herself up a little, and says, "You said...you could make me a witch?" 

"Yes. It's a power I have, to grant magic even where there existed no potential before, to one who professes my name. I can't make you anything but a warlock with me as your patron, but that's not so terribly limiting." 

"Yes. I--suppose I don't have to tell you I want it, you're me--"

"Yes. Now, let's see what we can work out..." 

Despite how long it took subjectively, Lucy returns to an awareness of her body bare moments after she left it. 

She releases her hands, raises her head, and grins. A very magical shimmering marble appears in her hand.

"Lucasta's agreed to help. Also, I'm a witch now! She can do that! Bella, Wilbur, you try it!" 

"- you're a witch? Are you also still a wizard or nah - how do I try it -"

"I'm still a wizard! She can grant power, it's not, like, she switched me over--you just sort of, call out to her, sort of like talking to someone on a comm spell or something, but without any mana?"

Hey Lucasta! You sound cool! Hi? Is this thing on?

There is a soft feeling of amused affirmation, inside her head but clearly originating outside it, and a sensation like an outstretched hand, for Bella to take or reject. 

Sliiiightly concerning but in for a penny! Grab?