And Viola falls on the rug.

She jabs out a hand to try to keep her desperate counterspell going - and it doesn't meet anything.  It's like the counterspell she's trying to manipulate just isn't there.

And the ship's harness that was around her isn't there either.

She blinks open her eyes (they'd suddenly been closed?) and sees what looks like a room that just can't be what it looks like!

She lifts her arm, feeling for her dear Pamina's control panel... but not only didn't she feel the panel or seat or anything else, she did feel a gravity field.

Somehow she's on a planet?

Lying back, Viola looks around the impossible room... a frosh dorm room at the Royal Academy of Villarosa.  Everything she remembers from her own frosh year is in place, from the blue-trimmed picture of Queen Iulia to the canopy bed (had she rolled out of it a moment ago?), to the trunk she'd always closed, to the gold string she'd tied through the trunk's latches...

... wait.  Which frosh is tying gold string in her trunk latches this year?

Viola looks at her arm, and doesn't see the scar she'd left there after that voidblasted Lunetta had hurt her.  She looks at her chest... and she's wearing a blue-trimmed frosh nightgown.

Well.  She frowns, still lying on the floor.

An illusion?  An immersive illusion?  It's possible... but not with any equipment on the Pamina or anything that could possibly be on the Bandersnatch.  Unless that murderous Lunetta had managed to pervert the Moon itself into...

... no.  If Lunetta actually completed a ritual on the Moon, Lunetta wouldn't just be putting her in an illusion.  She'd be killing her.  Just like dear dearest Marius.

And gods grant Lunetta kills herself too, and tears herself apart in futility!

 Viola sits up carefully, and then when her stomach and the room don't respond, she swallows, tries to form the politest words she can despite her suddenly-clenched fists, and speaks.

"O gods, if this the waiting-room you've put me in, I must protest your allusions!"

There's no response.

(All the stories say there usually isn't one at once, even in the waiting-rooms.)

She cautiously stands (she can stand fine, despite her caution) and makes her way over to her bookshelf...  If there's a message, it'd probably be there.

But in fact, it contains only the same frosh class books she remembers taking.

She flips through her books in dawning hope and terror.  No, this isn't the Upper Plane. 

Unless the gods were playing a cruel joke on her.

No, not even Venlis would be this cruel.

-- So it is the Royal Academy again - is she really somehow back in her frosh year --

She bursts out her door screaming "Hello!  Hello!"

"Uh, what happened?"

Cornella, confused, hugs back the sobbing girl she'd just met the previous day and had now run out of her room to break into tears on her shoulder.

Gods be praised, Cornella wasn't offended - just confused.  Fortunately, they'd at least already met each other (at least it seemed that way from what Cornella said), and she was kind enough to accept Viola's mumbled excuse of nightmares and homesickness.

But... if she really does have another chance... before that voidblasted Lunetta starts getting her claws deeper into people and then killing Marius --

She needs to stop things.

She runs off, down the stairs and up the hall and up the other stairs she knows ever so well, and pounds on the door to Marius's rooms -

"Hello," the school computer's voice says, as deathly-neutral as always.  "What is your business with the Prince?"

Viola stops dead-still.

She isn't even getting through to Abelard.  She hasn't gotten the automatic response - ever since -

Oh horrors.  Marius's barely even met her!  What would he think if she just barged in and started telling him the plans she's already just starting to come up with --

Voidpits, he'd probably just tell it all to that Lunetta!  She's still got her claws into him, and he's so dear and honorable he hasn't noticed yet and he even thinks he's happy!

Well, that's something she'll have to deal with first thing.  She doesn't know everything Lunetta was up to this long ago, but she has a good idea how to find out...  

She sinks back against the wall, thinking where to start - and then, imagining Abelard actually opening that door without knowing her, realizes she just couldn't bear it if he mentions her to Marius now!  She whirls and runs away and barely catches herself to run down the stairs.

Well.

First thing, find out what Lunetta is doing.  Which involves just tapping her wrist, and saying...

... and if that doesn't work, she'll be betraying herself and Lunetta will know something is going on.  She... probably won't kill her yet?  (Viola shivers with the feeling of that dark magic creeping toward her.)  Maybe corner her for some painful questioning?  And fortify all the plots against her, and try to poison dear Marius against her!

So she needs to start something else first.  All right; what does she know Lunetta was already doing this long ago?

"Lunetta's going to keep blackmailing you, you know."

Septima gulps at the hissed whisper and turns to the strange girl whose face can't be seen beneath her long grey hooded cloak.  She hasn't thought of it with that name - she's been trying not to think of it at all, but -  "How do you know -- I mean, what're you talking about?"

Viola leans back against the school wall and smirks beneath her borrowed hood.  It's even easier than she expected. 

"Well, you just admitted it.  Beyond that, not your business.  Your business is, you'd better tell everything to the Headmaster right now before Lunetta draws you any further in.  He'll let you off - he won't care about a prank you pulled on a duke years ago, or the little things she's pushed you into doing so far, when you're coming out and confessing it yourself ostensibly unprompted."

She remembers how the Headmaster had said as much, years later, his tail thwacking his desk for emphasis about how he would've accepted her confession then, before things had gone too far and it'd come out another way.  She can't remember what Lunetta had gotten Septima to do already now, but that part doesn't matter - to the Headmaster, or to her now.

"R-really?"

Septima's whisper quivers.  She isn't even thinking of denying it anymore.  Part of her wants to cry; another part wants to run and hide.

"He'll believe me?  When Lunetta's betrothed to the Prince and -"

"It won't just be your own word."  Viola smirks again at how well things are coming.  "You won't be the only person accusing her.  Wait half an hour or so, and I'll be inviting someone else to come there right after you.  I don't think you know him at all, so the Headmaster won't even be able to think it's collusion."