Time passes. A few minutes pass, and besides taking a sip from one of the water bottles that is now tinted red, Cynthia doesn't do much.

Cynthia starts humming something for around five seconds, then stops abruptly. Libby phases in next to them, Cynthia looks tense and crinkles the water bottle as she grips it tighter.

"Did it work? Something just felt... Wrong."

"I mean, I don't see anything that could be my Libby-equivalent," she says, slightly frustrated. "Do you?"

"Nope. That's what has me worried. Feels like last night?"

The two start staring in one direction, down a street...

Thea doesn't really know what Cynthia's talking about, but follows the looks – is there anything interesting down there?

If, by interesting, you mean a non-monstrous Shadow Thea? Then yes. She walks out of a side-street and smiles. Again, it's a little predatory.

"Miss me?"

"I'm pretty sure I hit you, you missed me with like three tries." Intended message missed.

... Intended message hit. "Wait, why are you back here? Thea?"

Quiver. "I. Uh. I thought she was gone?"

"That's how it should work..."

Libby moves in front of the humans defensively. "Hey, Shadow! Why are you still here?"

"Why, I don't know what you mean. I'm just here to observe! It's lots of fun, y'see."

"Right... What was it again... I was screaming, Harry was... Wait, damn. Right. Hugging part."

Cynthia turns towards the normal Thea, "What did she talk about before I was there? Before the whole knives part?" and then promptly hugs Thea from the side.

Thea is a little bit shell-shocked, and doesn't respond to the hug as she usually would. "Uhm. She, uh—"

"Ooh, that part was my favorite!" says the Shadow, clapping her hands in excitement.

Thea starts at the clap. "Uh. Just that. My problems are my fault."

"Well welcome to crash therapy, or something like that."

Cynthia detaches, but leaves her hand on Thea's arm. "She might say it. Or, like, you. Once again, philosophy stuff..."

Cynthia jumps backward. "Wait, do you have a crush on me? Is that what she meant?"

"Wh- what."

"Yeah, no, she's right. It was mainly just that her problems are her fault. Her family, her friends, her society as a whole... I can go into more detail if you want."

The shadow starts stalking closer.

"Society as a whole?" Libby moves an arm in a 'stay at a distance please' motion to Shadow-Thea.

"Jeez. You're one person, you can't blame everything on you. Society had like, what, six-thousand or more years to mess itself up? I don't follow that whole debate... Either way. My friends are all dead and I'm sure I have worse family. Not like I did anything to deserve that stuff. Don't blame life on anyone."

"Sooooomehow I feel the details are about to be spouted... Just ignore the Shadow?"

The Shadow rolls her eyes, but stops.

"Oh, yeah, no, she knows it's not really her fault. In a way. But she could be doing so much more to fix them. And she's not."

She tilts her head and gives Thea a look, as if daring her to contradict it.

Can she just disappear again? Please?

Not quite that easy, even if Cynthia thinks it will be. "Soooo welcome to the Midnight Hour? Here's your opportunity. The shake-up..."

"Or, ya know, you can just drop flowers and nice letters during the Hour. I can help."

"But that wouldn't be as fun!" says the Shadow. "I mean, look at her!" she says, then nods in the direction of Thea.

"Just get lost already! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"It... What? You feel th--..." Puzzled few seconds. "You think doing good things isn't as fun as I am? I do good things. I have fun doing them..." Cynthia took the nod to mean herself, thinking it would only really talk to Thea.

She sighs, and looks at the regular-Thea. "It might be hard, but can I hear this stuff without the exaggeration? Listening to the negative parts of yourself sucks, for both of us, and I just lost my sense of what the hell it's trying to say."

"Ugh," says the Shadow, but then it just folds its arms and taps one foot against the ground.

"Apparently it likes to torture me. It convinced me that I am the problem, because, y'know, I kinda am, and then it started throwing knives at me. There was some weird stuff before that, but I was kinda busy thinking the whole thing was a hallucination."