Dan picked up the note of genuine distress in his sister's next question.
"Are you...are you safe, Dan?"
"No! I'm a VERY FAT lobster with a thin shell! If you didn't mean for this to happen then come find me!"
"Dan, we're working on it, I promise! It's just that I'm so inexperienced and Mom's not a very talented scryer. We're calling in favors as we speak. Where are you now?"
"It's...a little cave sort of thing. Just big enough for me, nothing else in here."
"Huh."
"What?"
"Er. So I've been reading up on lobsters, obviously, and apparently that's the sort of place a male lobster makes his den in."
"Fuck, I'm in danger - "
"No, probably not - think about it. Narrow opening you can face with your claws, right?"
Dan felt realization growing.
"Hm...yeah. Ok, so I'm safe here, just gotta stay here."
"Yeah, but also...ok, so, let's talk about options."
"What do you mean options?" Dan said warily.
"For getting you back in piece, dork! There's a couple of ways we can do it. One is just to straight up come to that beach, get scooba gear, and fish you out. That's the safest option. But that requires an extremely precise scry, and it's going to take the most time. There are other options that are faster, but have different risks."
Dan gulped.
"What kinds?"
"So..." Kate begins, sounding hesitant. "There's one that's fairly low risk, but I...really don't want to suggest it to Mom. It would actually technically be longer even than the scuba, but what we would *do* would be faster - it'd just take you longer to get back."
Dan felt like something wasn't being said.
"Why do I have a bad feeling about this..."
"I want to be clear I'm not saying we should do this, just that it's an option so I want you to be aware of it."
Dan thought for a moment. Kat did seem to be legitimately trying to help.
"Ok..."
"So, magic can be disrupted by various factors. Not all that disruption is bad - spells that are more powerful under a full moon were disrupted by the moon. Mom and I both have spell links to you, and if you do something that disrupts your own magic in the right way, we can cast spells *through* those links, including a teleport."
"Can't you just teleport me when you get the scry?"
Kat made a hissing noise of inward breath.
"Not...as easy as it sounds, turns out. If you were, in fact, a regular lobster, then yes, I could summon you right now. But you're as magical as I am - which makes locking onto you with a summon really, really hard."
Dan groaned.
"So if you'd just done this to torment me, I'd be safe and sound by now."
"Yeah," Kat said with a wry tone, "And ain't that a bitch? Look on the bright side, I can't just poof you wherever I want normally, either."
"And if I make it out of here I'm sure that'll be comforting...So what would I have to do, and how long would it take?"
"Two weeks..."
"TWO WEEKS?! What could I possibly do for two weeks?!"
Kat coughed.
"Um. Breed."
Dan just goggled for a beat.
"Ex...CUSE ME?!"
"Yeah, lobsters have two weeks of foreplay followed by one extremely wild night of fornication. You - that is, male lobsters - are courted by the female, who has to shed her shell in order to reproduce. You'll basically guard her while she's pumping your head full of pheromones until she's ready for you to fill her egg-"
"NOT THE POINT KAT!"
"Don't shout! Good grief, I ought to do that to you so you know what it feels like -"
"What does me breeding have to do with the magic?!"
"Sex is extremely powerful. Duh."
Dan took a deep, deep breath.
"...Other options?"
"Well, we can get a sense of where you are now, but it's a fairly wide area still, about a mile square."
"Grand. And?"
"Well, we know that most of that area is a lobster fishery, proving your liberators were a bit bad at research. If you're quick and careful, you can find a lobster trap, get caught, and then at least you'll be *safe* while we look for you."
Dan groaned.
"...you're telling me one of my best options is to get intentionally caught and, presumably, eaten."
"By a human, and yeah. Option four is theoretical, and I'd be very careful about it if I were you."
"Ugh. Tell me the worst," he said, snapping his claw menacingly at a smaller lobster who was checking his cave as a potential home.
"You're a shapeshifter, so you can change yourself. You could make yourself a less appetizing or stronger lobster."
"Could I...turn back into a human?"
Kat made another thoughtful noise.
"I mean, technically, but I'm given to understand spawning clothes takes years of practice and so you'd be naked...on the shoreline...in Maine."
"...point..."