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[Transcript]

        “YOU’VE DONE WELL TO BEST MY MISTRESS, MORTAL HEROES,” screeched a horrid little imp. “SIGN YOUR NAME IN BLOOD WITHIN HER TOME, THE DEMONOMICOMICON, AND THE POWERS SHE ONCE WIELDED WILL BE YOURS!”

        “I feel like that’s not tempting for a pretty obvious reason,” Isabel replied, poking at the spirit she and Isaac had defeated with her shoe. The Underwriter, as the spirit had dramatically declared herself, gurgled softly in her beatdown-induced slumber, spitting up a little ectoplasm like a baby would its fruit slop. Isabel politely used her foot to roll the villainous spirit over on its side.

        “YOU COULD PROBABLY WIELD THE POWERS BETTER THAN SHE DID,” yelled the imp.

        “...Hey, buddy. Would you mind keeping your voice down?” Isabel sighed, plugging her ears just a little too late. “This is a library, you know... and your boss is trying to sleep.”

        Bayview Biddle School’s library was a labyrinth, a dusty maze of long-forgotten backrooms, silent study nooks, and winding, shadowed corridors of shelving. Modernity spread outward from its heart: in the library’s shallows, fluorescent lights beamed proudly down on rows of new computers; further out, they flinched and flickered, concealing and revealing darker knowledge lost to time since like at least the year two-thousand. It was said that the archive’s farthest reaches still relied upon the Dewey Decimal System and its arcane paper talismans, and that some of the outskirts’ most overdue books had accrued higher bounties than the world’s most wanted criminals.

        “Isabel, if I could play devil’s advocate here,” said Isaac, pausing for a brief “haha” before continuing his sentence, “this DOES seem like a pretty convenient opportunity for you to get a new tool. It’s even a book!”

        “...Yeeeah, I think I’ll pass,” said Isabel, watching the Demonomicomicon’s fleshy bookmark tongue trail acid as it flailed about repulsively. “To be perfectly honest, I’m really not that into books. I only carried some around to feed ’em to Eightfold... and, uh, I didn’t miss the words much once she’d slurped them up, y’know? I’m more of a look-at-the-pictures kinda girl.”

        “THE DEMONOMICOMICON HAS PICTURES,” howled the imp, turning to a later page.

        “EW! Put that away!”

        “That’s NOT cool, man.”

        “SORRY,” the impish spirit screamed apologetically, flipping back to tamer chapters. “NO THAT’S MY BAD.”

        “...C’mon, Isaac,” Isabel said, sighing and turning to leave. “I’ll stick to Spectral Fist. We’ve got enough Activity Clubbers dealing with dark and dangerous spirits as it is.”

        She paused when she saw Isaac flinch.

        “Y-yeah,” he mumbled, looking at the ground.

        “Oh, uh... I didn’t mean you and your big storm guy, Isaac, I—” 

        Isabel hesitated. She’d been vague about one incident when coming clean to Ed and Isaac after school the other day. Max had played along and done the same, deferring to her judgment... but she’d been doubting the decision ever since.

        “...I meant Mr. Spender,” Isabel finally clarified.

        She’d been stalling for their teacher’s sake. She knew that now. Isabel had wanted to hear an explanation from Spender first. What was the shadow that had leapt from him the other night? What else had he been hiding all this time? She’d wanted to share a confession that would bring the Activity Club back together, not a secret that might turn them all against him. Isabel had been protecting Spender, or some image of him that she’d relied on up until now: the one who’d stayed, who’d kept her safe, her rival and her goal in getting stronger... the kind and constant older brother she’d admired. She’d wanted him to take the chance she’d given him, to notice she’d been waiting, and then trust her with the truth so she could help him.

        Isabel couldn’t hope for that from Mr. Spender, though, if she wouldn’t offer Isaac what she’d longed for, and had promised him.

        “...Mr. Spender?” Isaac repeated back to her, tilting his head quizzically. “Oh, um.” He scratched at his staticky hair. “I didn’t think you meant me... or him... either?”

        Isabel squinted. 

        “Who else is dealing with dark and dangerous spirits?”

        Isaac opened and shut his mouth a few times like a fish eating food or asphyxiating. Most of his heroic fantasies about rescuing Max from his potentially evil baseball bat had not included Isabel as backup.

        “...Who ELSE is dealing with—THAT’S AN ‘M’!! You’re making an ‘M’ with your lips!!”

        “N-NO I’M NOT! HEY, WET GO OF MY MOUFF—”

        “I’M PRESERVING EVIDENCE! YOU WERE ABOUT TO SAY MAX!”

        Before long, the chaos and a brief physical altercation had calmed to a cautious exchange of the secrets they’d been hesitant to share.

        Isaac swayed and braced himself against a cobwebbed bookshelf.

        “...Spender is... a medium... like me?” His tone was hushed. He put a hand against his chest.

        “Wait, Isaac,” Isabel said, doubling back in her confusion. “What do you mean ‘somebody’ told you Max’s spirit was a threat? He found his haunted bat, like, completely at random, didn’t he?? Who could possibly know what—?”

        “I...” Isaac left his thoughts, turning back to her with wide eyes. “...I’m sorry, I... I can’t tell you that, Isabel.”

        Isabel blinked. A saddened understanding found her face, and she nodded, relenting and looking away. Isaac had never asked her for the secrets Spender kept from him; he’d assumed she was against him, in his infinite suspicion, and the distance his resentment had created had discouraged her from reaching out a hand. Perhaps he’d spared her from discovering her own divided loyalties. When at last she had reached out, she’d still held back for Spender’s sake... at least until this moment. Isabel frowned. Trust was something you could give without receiving it in kind; in Isaac’s case, she couldn’t fault him for refusing to reciprocate.

        “Trust me, Isabel,” Isaac began, and she looked back at him. “I’d tell you if I could, but...” He closed the hand he’d pressed against his chest into an angsty fist. “It’s not you, Isabel... it’s me.”

        “Words every girl loves to hear.” Isabel’s sarcastic smirk had the curl of a genuine smile.

        “No, I... I really do wish I could tell you. It’s just, there’s this... person... that I swore I would keep secret, and even though I’m doubting him right now... I don’t want to break my promise yet.” Isaac met Isabel’s eyes with hesitant resolve. “For my own conscience’s sake. And for the—for the friend that I looked up to when I first gave him my word. He might not have deserved it, and I... I don’t know if he ever trusted me the way I always trusted him...” He shook his head. “There’s a lot I didn’t know about him, maybe, and blind faith filled in the gaps... but... I still want to hope that he could be”—Isaac sighed—“who I used to think he was.”

        Isabel took a deep breath in, then out.

        “...Believe me, Isaac, I really, really get it.” After a beat, she punched him lightly on the shoulder, the truest sign of Isabel affection. “We’ll figure out what’s up with Max. I trust you, Isaac... so you don’t need to say another word.”

        Isaac stared back at her, swaying slightly from the impact of her fist. His eyes were wide and restless, searching Isabel for some new reason he should doubt her that he hadn’t yet considered. 

        “...No gets left in the dark,” he said, repeating the rule she’d announced the other evening, when she’d shared so many secrets that he wasn’t sure he’d earned.

        “I can handle this particular darkness. I’m a big girl,” Isabel replied with a shrug. “You’re the one with the Pikachu nightlight.”

        “That was a gift from my uncle. I’m showing respect to my uncle. I sleep fine without it, but not with the guilt of not using a very kind gift from my uncle.” Isaac dismissed her teasing like smoke, with a wave of his hand. “Look, I... I trust you too, Isabel.” 

        He wanted to. He always doubted everybody, but he really, really wanted to. Isaac steeled himself, and took a deep breath in. 

        “...There’s this spirit named Doorman. He lives in the house where Dimitri—where I hurt Dimitri. He’s taught me so much, but I... I think he’s been using me, too. I showed him Max—I shouldn’t have, but—” 

        Isaac hesitated. He’d done it again. He’d broken his promise... but he had to believe it wasn’t a mistake. Isaac wanted to believe in the Activity Club. He wanted to be one of them, and trust that he could trust them. 

        “Doorman... he knew Max’s spirit. He knows your grandfather, and Spender, too. I think they’re all his enemies,” said Isaac, giving Isabel a guilty, searching look. “But I don’t know if they’re mine. I don’t know if... if Doorman’s really the good guy in all this.” He shook his head, then met her eyes again. “I only know that... we’re on the same side, Isabel.”

        Isabel stared back at him. Doorman. Doorman. Isabel’s hand closed as if to grasp the bright umbrella she had lost. Doorman...! That was the spirit that Flipflop had mentioned, the one who’d claimed to know his missing master. That was the spirit who worshiped some “Angel.” That was the spirit who’d sent Flipflop to the dojo, where her grandfather had vanquished and imprisoned him. Flipflop had said—

        “Isaac,” Isabel asked him in bewilderment. “Are you in a cult?”

        Isaac blinked. 

        “Not... anymore?”

        “...SO THAT’S A HARD NO ON THE DEMONOMICOMICON?” screamed the imp.

        “AH! You’re still here??” Isabel jumped, gawking down at the spirit incredulously.

        “I’M JUST SAYING, IF YOU’RE INTO CULTS—”

        “It’s a hard no on the Demonomicomicon,” Isaac said, covering the ‘H’ on his hall pass to convey his stance phonetically. He was admittedly a little tempted by the weird little devil’s offer, but it would look really bad if he admitted that now, and the impulse was mostly just a Pavlovian response to hearing the spirit say “Comic-Con” over and over again.

        “THEN YOUR SOULS ARE NOT FORFEIT, AND MY MILENNIA OF SERVITUDE HAS ENDED,” screeched the imp, and it disappeared in a flash of sulfuric smoke. The Demonomicomicon fell to the carpet with a wet squelch, then scurried off beneath the shelves to lay its eggs somewhere disgusting.

        An awkward silence followed. Isabel and Isaac exchanged a look of mild disconcertment.

        “...All’s well that ends well? With none of us in binding devil pacts?”

        “I’d say we dodged a bullet,” Isabel shrugged, “but that implies what we accomplished was impressive.”

        “I mean, I do think I learned a lesson. I just don’t know if I needed it? Or if it will ever be relevant again.”

        “Hey, that’s middle school,” scoffed Isabel, clapping her clubmate on the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s hustle. I gotta get back to the computers before Starchman notices how long I’ve been away.”

        It was too late, however: a Starchman had noted her absence from her English class’s research expedition to the library... but not the Starchman Isabel had thought she’d need to worry about.