Hide and Seek: The Mad Girl Sees All novel Chapter 98

Chapter 98

Lyra didn’t waste any time. She pulled out the second card and walked up to the Cowcat.

“Seal,” she said.

A flash of white light, and the Cowcat vanished. The card now had a picture of the Cowcat on it, a D in the top left corner. and “Bounce” written in the bottom right.

The third was a Tabby Mirage, D Tier. The fourth was D Tier, and the fifth…

Lyra worked through them one by one, her movements speeding up. She placed the card over each cat, infused her will and every time, there was a flash of white light: cat gone, new card formed.

Finally, Lyra reached the last cat, the Tricolor Mimic, the first cat to talk in the Cursed Forest mission. She felt a rush of anticipation, thinking this one might just surprise her.

She placed the card over the Tricolor Mimic and pressed her finger against the back.

“Seal,” Lyra said. A flash of white light, and the Tricolor Mimic vanished, the card taking shape.

Lyra flipped it over and saw that, for once, the letter in the top left corner wasn’t a D. It was a C.

“This one’s different!” Lyra’s voice was bright with excitement. Lyra thought, ‘Ha! I knew it!”

Lily leaned in. “C? C Tier?”

“Yeah,” Lyra said, picking up the card. The Tricolor Mimic sat on it, its fur patterns sharp and clear. The shadow behind the cat was clearer than the others, like a short-haired woman.

In the bottom right corner, it said “Voice Mimicry.”

Lyra lined up the nine cards in a row on the table.

With Ivana’s card, that made nine D Tier and one C Tier in total.

“Ivana,” Lyra called out, looking up at Ivana, who was still floating in the air. “Is there anything else you can think of that we might have missed?”

Ivana thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No, that’s all for now. I’ve already told you everything I could sense from the cat’s body.”

“Alright,” Lyra said, holding up the card. “Take a break and get some rest!”

“Okay,” Ivana replied. Her soul shrank back into the card, the light fading as she settled back inside.

Lyra set the Ambercat card down next to the nine others and turned to Lana. “Lana, we’ve got ten cards, nine D Tier and one C Tier. Should we wake them up one by one and ask them some questions?”

Lana glanced at the ten cards on the table. “We’ll need to wake them all up at some point, but there’s no rush for the others.”

She tapped the C Tier Tricolor Mimic card. “Let’s start with this one.”

Lyra picked up the C Tier card and spun it in her hand. “You want to see if there’s any difference between C Tier and D Tier, right?”

“Exactly. Lana nodded. “Ivana said souls keep getting drained. D Tier probably means a soul was drained down to D, while C Tier means this one has more left than the other nine.

1/4

m MT

22222

O

bat,

Chapter 98

“Either she died later, so her soul wasn’t drained for as long.

“Or her soul was stronger than the others when she was alive.

“Or maybe she had some way to make her soul stronger,” Lana added.

Garrett added, “No matter which way you look at it, a C Tier card should have way more details for us than a D/Tier one, at least in theory.”

Lyra flipped the card over. The Tricolor Mimic crouched on the card, with the shadow of a short-haired woman pressed against its back.

She sent her mind probing into the card.

She found it.

The soul inside was bigger than Ivana’s, huddled in the center of the card, completely still.

When Lyra’s mind brushed against it, the soul shuddered slightly.

“Release,” Lyra said.

The card lit up, and golden veins shimmered and swirled across its surface as white light surged out, gathering in midair.

A woman with short, ear-length hair materialized above the table. Her features were sharp, her shoulders narrow, and the faint outline of a military uniform clung to her.

Lyra’s heart skipped; she recognized that face. It was the woman she’d seen inside the Scrying Orb during the Cursed Forest mission.

Jane Sullivan.

Behind her, Garrett let out a soft gasp, his pen clattering to the floor. He didn’t even bother to pick it up.

Lana took a shaky step forward, her hand almost reaching out, but she stopped herself.

The soul slowly opened its eyes, its gaze drifting through the room, over the equipment, across the faces of the people present, until it finally settled on Lana.

“Little Lana?” the woman said softly, a hint of confusion in her voice.

Lana’s lips moved, but no words came. She tried again, still silent.

“Janey,” Lana finally managed to say, her voice so low it was almost a whisper, trembling with emotion.

Jane hovered in the air, her soul’s outline trembling. “Little Lana, I…”

“I…” Jane faltered.

Her lips moved, just like they did in Lyra’s memory.

“I failed.

“I didn’t make it back alive,” Jane said.

Lana took a step forward. “You didn’t fail.

“You made it through two rounds. Your walkthrough got logged in the tactical database, and your plan saved eleven players worldwide, Janey,” Lana said.

2/4

4

O

m

MT

|||

O

Chapter 98

Jane’s soul trembled even harder, her short hair flickering in and out of focus in the air.

“But I died. The Wraith invasion happened, Jane whispered.

“Even if you fell in battle, Lana said hoarsely, “you didn’t fail.

“Janey, you’re the pride of Draconia.

“Janey, I’m so glad I could see you again.” As she spoke, Lana couldn’t hold back anymore, and a tear rolled down her cheek.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify