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."

Septima stares at this girl.  She's short enough to be a frosh; her voice doesn't sound familiar but that might just be a spell... "How do you know all this?  Who are you?"

"Call me -"

No, not the gods' herald; They almost certainly sent her back here and now, but they didn't give her any appointment so she's not going to risk Their frowning on her.

"- the Herald of Past and Future."

Pause one beat, waiting for a Divine smiting or Lunetta's voidcalling computer somehow slipping in.  Septima isn't looking sure enough...

"So will you tell the Headmaster?"

Septima stares at the girl who's probably not Chyrna's divine herald Herself.  "Y-yes."

"Who are you, knowing all this --"  Raul reaches out to snatch back this weird girl's hood and see who's been spying on him.

Viola's charmed hood resists his tug.  She remembers smugly how dear Marius had taught her this spell; it hadn't been useful often, but it sure is now!

"Call me the Herald of Past and Future."

She puts sparkles in the air above her sleeve-cuffs, remembering how much dear Marius had liked that.

"And supposing I believed you -"  Raul tries to keep the guilt out of his voice, but he's pretty sure he's failing.  "Would anyone believe me?"

"You won't be the only person going to the Headmaster.  Lunetta did this with someone else, too."

"Hmph."

Raul's pretty sure he'll agree, but he won't admit it so quickly to someone who looks like she's probably just another frosh.  He'll make her talk him around a little more first.

Viola slips into an alcove she knows very well from the future, uncharms her hood, rolls up her cloak, and lets out a long breath.  Her first scheme is (probably) successful; that dreadful Lunetta will have her reputation besmirched.  Dear Marius won't totally overlook this.

She runs her fingers slowly, longingly, over the stones where one day she and Marius would kiss...

... but that's in the future now.  Gods grant it still is.

  She glances down at her bracelet for the obvious (still-risky) next step now, but decides she's got an excuse to put it off a little longer and do it in private.

It's far too painful seeing Marius at the gates.  She can't but call out a greeting and exchange a few words - simple meaningless words about the school they're starting.  He doesn't seem to notice the obvious passion in her words; she doesn't know what he'll make of it when or if he does think back over it and notice, but gods grant nothing bad.

She doesn't even ask who or what he's waiting for.  She doesn't think she can bear it, yet, if it's Lunetta.

While Selvya is listening to Lunetta telling her story to the Prince, and making confirming noises with one fragment of her attention, she gets a call.

It's hiding its origin.

She could of course trace it, at least far enough to tell whether the Headmaster or Royal Watch or someone else is hiding the original caller -- but that doesn't matter.  She might as well just answer, and trace later if she cares to.

"Hello?" she says in her normal girly voice.

Viola clenches her fingers.  Has that terror already pierced her scramble-route and alerted Lunetta that she's calling and then she'll be coming --

-- no, she'd just be getting pointed questions at worst.  Lunetta won't be killing or enchanting anyone yet. 

She swallows and repeats the words she'd wheedled out of Selvya's parents so long ago and in the future.  "Priority lunar heavens; by Venlis, by King Arbutus.  No-notice and confirm."

A long-neglected process, carefully put in by the designer who was not yet sure what sort of computer he might be designing - who did not yet appreciate he was designing his daughter - who was alert against the misaligned disaster it might be - spins to unconscious action.

Selvya finds her voice speaking words without her intention:  "Priority lunar heavens confirmed."

And at the same time, she doesn't care or pay attention to the words, or to the call anymore.  Figuratively blinking, she just keeps listening to Lunetta and Marius.

A triumphant grin steals across Viola's face.  She's done it.  Just like she did in the future.  Except without anyone else at her side.  Lunetta's most dangerous ally is now hers.

"List any activity directly related to me," she snaps.  "Then, anything directly related to Lunetta."

Apparently, dear Marius is talking with Lunetta.  Soon, Viola too is listening to Lunetta talking about how someone named "Lila" is claiming all the world is a story, a romance story.  Obvious nonsense, but still - she orders the computer not to interrupt without her permission.

But, she realizes, it might not just be nonsense.  If a mysterious dream came at the same time she got sent back to the past, might that not also be from the gods?

Still, with Marius trying to analyze Lunetta's dream... she doesn't want him doing that so quickly.  It's time to interrupt him.

"Computer, program Lunetta's ring to probe the flyer as if trying to take it over.  You don't have to actually take it over - please don't, in fact - but make an alarm sound.  And make sure this isn't traced back to you.  And, are you able to do the same to Marius's gem?..."

She's not sure how they'll react; that'd never happened in her past.  She'll watch and find out...

... And by this time, Septima and Raul should've gone to the Headmaster.  Maybe if he needs more evidence for a faster reaction, she can wheedle her way in with a story of being insulted by Lunetta that's not really lying since it did happen in (her) past.