Prologue

I’m dead. Finally. It’s about time. I’ve waited long enough for this day. The darkness is finally different, no warmth, no gray…

                Aw, Graemons. The gray is fading in now, even if it is slower than usual. For a moment there, I really believed that this was the end of it all. I mean, am I supposed to live until the whole world goes up in flames? And speaking of flames, I can feel the warmth spreading to my limbs now. Nuisance really, all this dying just to come back to life again.

                What should I do this time around? I’m an old soul that has outlived the usefulness designed for it. And it’s not like being an immortal is getting any easier, what with how quickly the world has decided to explore every aspect of itself.

                One thing’s for sure. I’m no longer dead. I can hear the birds cheerfully squawking, so I must still be outside. There’s no other sounds, really, just the rustle of grass in the wind. No other signs of life then. I feel cold, but comfortably so. I sniff the air and decide where and when I am. Meadow, near a cattle farm, under the shade of an old oak tree, early summer. I can tell without even opening my eyes that the sky is clear, and that there are baby sparrows in a nest ten feet at an angle of elevation of 30 degrees to the left of my current position.

                My chest rises again, and I flinch at the stabbing pain that still hasn’t left. I really shouldn’t let people assassinate me with a knife to the kidneys.

                Oh well, might as well get up and face the life. You can’t fake death by ignoring life. The two are too attached together for that. Besides, lying about will just make me tired.

Scholarship

 

“Life and death are one thread,” August read aloud, her 12 year-old voice unusually solemn, “The same line viewed from different sides.” She snapped the heavy tome shut and tossed it casually on the bed beside her. “Just what kind of school is this?”

                Candace was busy picking off the last few cat hairs on her uniform’s blazer to shoot her sister a glare for mistreating the book. “You had all summer to read up on it.”

                “Yeah well, I had all summer to say goodbye to my Muggle friends.”

                “Your what?”

                “Muggle friends.”

                “August, this isn’t some Harry Potter book. Heck, this isn’t even remotely like that. Who gave you that sort of idea?”

                “You told me that you learned spells there. And that accidents happened a lot. Other than it being an all-girls school, there’s nothing that I can think of that keeps it from being just like Hogwarts.”

                Candace folded the blazer and placed it neatly in her trunk, on top of the freshly ironed skirt and shirt, both emblazoned with the school’s initials. “It’s not like Hogwarts because there’s no such thing as Mud-bloods or Muggles. There are wizards and then there are people. Either you have magic or you don’t.”

                She closed the trunk and dragged it towards the front of her pristine room. “Did you finish packing yet?”

                August flopped back on the bed. “Why would I? I’m not going.”

                Candace whirled to face her sister, her pony-tail whipping about her shoulder. “Yeah you are. Or do you think that Mom and Dad are going to let you skip out on the scholarship that the school gave you?”

                “That thing’s bogus, you of all people should understand that. They just want to sucker me into their school, collect another witch or mage of whatever it is you call female wizards.”

                “Mom and Dad don’t see it that way. Besides, think about it. Do you really think that the incidents are just going to go away? That if you ignore them long enough, they’ll stop and you can pretend to be normal, ordinary, ungifted? I thought Grandma taught you better than that.”

                “I’ve done fine on my own. I don’t need some stuffy teachers and snotty girls to show me how to control my powers.”

                So that was it. Candace sighed and sat down beside her sister, who slowly sat back up. “Hey, it’s gonna be alright. The school’s actually really awesome. The pictures can’t do it justice, especially since the public relations committee doesn’t know how to work a normal camera to save their lives. Besides, there’s Faunae there.”

                August’s eyebrows shot up, “Faunae? Actual Faunae? Like, real talking plants?”

                Candace nodded. “I mean, I’ve never heard of anyone who can actually communicate with them, but the firsties always try. And there’s not just Faunae. There’s like, a billion things in the Forest that no one sees. And everyone tries to spot the groundskeeper. And the food is awesome, and the snack shack has so many amazing candies that I’m not even allowed to bring home because they have magic in them.”

                “I’m going to be the worst in my class. Everyone else has grown up around magic their whole life.”

                “Come on, you know that’s not true. No one’s allowed to learn magic outside of school, and there are no magic schools for anyone younger than you. You’ll be starting out on the same page as everyone else. Heck, I’m top of my class in everything ever since first year.”

                “Everything except battle class, which you still suck at, by the way.”

                Candace jerked back from her sister. “How do you know that?”

                August shrugged and grinned, “Wild guess. There’s all those monsters out there, and you said that battle class was required learning so that wizards stood a chance of defending themselves. And you definitely are not the monster-slaying type.”

                Candace laughed. “Nope, and I never will be. I don’t have to be either. I plan on working in the Research and Development division of the Parliament when I graduate in a few years. I won’t have to worry about being attacked by Grimwore and Graemons.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost midnight. Six hours before dawn, before the Bus was due to pick the two of them up. She hissed a sigh as her thoughts turned to the infirmary at the school.

                August stood up and started to head for the door. She hesitated with one foot in the hallway. “Are you going to be okay going back?” she asked suddenly.

                “No,” Candace answered automatically. She blinked and tried to cover, “I’ll be better than okay.” She forced a smile, but could feel how fake it was.

                August saw right through her. “Maybe you should take the year off. I mean, it’s only been three months.”

                “Plenty of time for me to get over it,” Candace said stiffly. She changed the subject quickly, “Mom’s gonna kill your allowance if you leave your room a mess. Say goodbye to those floating jute balls.”

                August raced out of the room as the realization hit her. Candace forced herself to walk steadily to the door, to close it slowly and quietly. She even made it back to her bed before the tears broke out. She tried to keep it quiet, brushing the tears away angrily. She should be over it by now. It had been three months.

                Three months since her only friends had left her behind and gotten trapped in an ancient spell in the dungeons of the school. Fitz, her boyfriend, and Jason had been killed in the explosion that had collapsed a section of the building. The memorial service had been private, and Candace had been excused from her exams to go home.

                Sylvia, the only survivor of the accident, was still in the school’s infirmary, in a coma. Candace had made several trips to the school, as often as she could get away, but there had been no signs of improvement. Dr Claude Knight, the most renowned wizarding medical doctor in the world and Sylvia’s father, couldn’t make sense of it. By all accounts, he said that she was in perfect health, and that he couldn’t find the cause was baffling. Candace was fairly certain that he hadn’t been by the Academy half as much as she had.

                She sighed once the tears had all dried up. Dammit, she wasn’t supposed to cry anymore. Fitz was gone, dead and gone. She was going to have to start living with that some time, and she might as well get used to the idea.

                She didn’t even remember falling asleep.

Bus Ride

                The bus ride to the Academy was uneventful and quiet. Other than her and August, there were only three other students on the coach bus. There weren’t very many wizard students between Pennsylvania and Boston, but the trip was short enough not to warrant plane tickets.

                Candace leaned back in her chair and tried to sleep. August, oblivious to what the other students were doing, was stretched out on the floor, wrapped in a blanket that she had decided at the last moment to take with her. The two boys at the back of the bus were going to St. Malcolm’s Institute of Sorcery while the girl who kept on glancing over at Candace was in her second year at Belladonna Academy, along with Candace and August.

                The two schools were practically neighbours, with a few acres of the Forest of Mysteries separating them, connected by tunnels so old and forgotten that only four people knew about them. Candace grimaced as she forced herself to correct that. Only two people knew about them. And even she didn’t really count. Sylvia and the others had only just introduced her to the mysterious tunnels the previous year, when she had started dating Fitz.

                She closed her eyes, but Fitz’s smile kept her from dozing off. She settled for staring out the window. Last year, at the banquet after the day’s Welcome Back activities, she and Fitz had fallen into talking. With Jamie being gone on as an exchange student to the Canadian wizarding school Jillian’s, he had noticed her sitting alone. At first, Candace had been wary of some sort of prank of the type that he and Jason were known for, but she had discovered a serious side to Fitz and they had spent the night debating wizarding ethics that they weren’t supposed to have learned about yet. For fifteen year-olds, it was probably the most boring topic that either of them could have come up with, but they were both laughing, poking holes in the other’s arguments while others flicked food at each other.

                Since the schools were so close, they often had joint classes on particular topics. One of those was battle class. And it was just Candace’s luck to get paired with Sylvia, Fitz’s brother. And somehow, the three of them, plus Sylvia’s boyfriend and Fitz’s best friend Jason, had become a group of rebels; sneaking out past hours, getting caught in various awkward moments by teachers and being stuck in detention together had become a norm. And by some miracle her grades hadn’t dropped.

                Candace smiled. Jamie was not going to believe half the stories that Candace wanted to tell her. It was going to be good to have an ally on the first day of school. Candace had already picked up on the general mood towards her, and it was not friendly. Sylvia, Fitz, and Jason had all been popular while she had just been the nerd. Even last year, there had been nasty stories going around her back about why she was allowed to hang around the Trinity at all. That’s what people had called them. The three had been together since before school had even started, and were by and far the strongest wizardlings at the two schools.

                “Just two more years,” she muttered under her breath.

                August stirred on the floor beside her. “Hmm?”

                “Nothing, you can go back to sleep. I was just thinking out loud.”

                August rolled onto her side, her back towards her sister. “How much longer until we’re there?”

                Candace glanced at her watch, even though she didn’t really need it. “Two hours still. You know there’s a lot of extra seats available.”

                August didn’t bother to make a reply. She yawned loudly in the quiet that had settled over the bus and began to stretch.

                The bus lurched to a stop, causing August to slide several feet forward before friction regained control. Candace’s brow furrowed as she took in the forest that surrounded them on all sides. The bus’ doors opened and she heard the clomp of a boot touch the first step. The driver said something, but she couldn’t hear what the newcomer said by means of a reply.

                The doors closed as the new person made their way up the stairs. She was a girl around Candace’s age, with pale eyes that clashed with her black hair that fell down her back, several braids spaced at random intervals, one of which was white. Her nose had a slight turn to it and her lips were set in a natural frown. The hilt of a sword protruded from her left shoulder, a blue gem set in its hilt. And she was dressed in the school uniform already. Candace had never seen her before.

                The girl’s gaze met hers for the briefest of moments before sliding away as she chose to sit in the second seat from the front on the door-side. Candace swallowed and pulled her sleeves over her hands, suddenly feeling cold. August, beside her, flung the blanket off, stood up and made her way over to the seat across from the new girl, curled up in the window seat, and dozed off again.

                The bus continued to rumble on, bouncing as it crossed potholes that the driver had failed to miss. The sea of green foliage outside whisked by in a blur as the bus picked up speed. Candace had almost dozed off when a black shape whipped past her window, crashing into the side of the bus with a loud crack.

                Startled, she turned to see what it was. The bus lurched as the driver slammed on the brakes, throwing Candace roughly into the seat in front of her. Finally, the bus came to a halt, and Candace braced herself against the seat as she tried to see what had caused the bus to stop.

                Standing in the middle of the empty road was a figure wrapped in a long black cloak, the edges of which were shredded so that they flew about in the wind. Dread filled her as she recognized the cowled figure for what it was: a Grimwore, a creature of the dark. And not just an ordinary Grimwore, which was rare enough, but a Reaver, which maintained a human shape and was incredibly fast.

                She fingered her ring in the habit she had developed before battle class. Except that this time she didn’t have a sword. The driver lurched from his seat, drawing a battle ax from where it had been stashed beside him. The Reaver raised one bony white hand towards them. Time slowed. She could actually see the green of its magic as it summoned a spell.

                The ball of green floated in the air, sailing towards them. When it made contact with the bus, the impact was powerful enough that the bus was tipped back, end over end. Candace screamed as she was flung about the interior of the bus, smashing into the seat and the roof and then the floor. The bus landed on its side, completely blocking the road. With a sick screech of twisted metal, the roof as torn off.

                A scream clawed its way out of her throat as the Reaver strode toward them on invisible legs, drawing a curved sword from the folds of its cloak. The driver charged it with a yell, swinging his ax. The Reaver didn’t even slow as it spun in a circle, cutting clean through the driver’s waist. The force of the blow sent the top half of the driver’s body back to them, the battle ax landing a few feet outside the bus. She was dimly aware of the others screaming, but her own scream stopped. She couldn’t breathe. She could see its red eyes, glowing underneath the hood. She could feel it staring at her.

                August tumbled out of the bus and grabbed the battle ax. Candace tried to scream at her, but the air wouldn’t come. Her lungs burning, Candace watched in horror as her kid sister charged an immortal monster. She could feel its glee as another pulse of green energy bloomed from its hand. The ball knocked the ax from August’s grip, making it fall too far away from her. The Reaver raised its empty hand, not even looking at August anymore and now turning its attention back to Candace.

                August yelled and tried to tackle it with her bare hands. She yanked on its sword arm, spinning it back towards her. The Reaver snarled, shaking her off. It raised its sword, and Candace could feel its killing intent as it glared down at her kid sister.

                “NO!” she screamed, raising her hands uselessly. Magic didn’t work on Reavers.

              

Saviour

  August screamed as she stared up at the monster. The world seemed to slow down as the monster began the killing stroke. She couldn’t move, couldn’t dodge it. She was going to die.

                The monster shrieked, and August stared at the sword that protruded from the monster’s chest. The sword withdrew from the folds of the monster’s clothes and the monster keeled to the side, writhing in agony as it shrieked again. Behind it stood the strange girl, her sword unsheathed and covered in black blood. Some had sprayed onto the girl’s blazer, and August watched as the blood chewed a larger hole into it.

                “I just missed your heart.” The accented voice was quiet, and August became acutely aware that she had her eyes closed. She raised the sword with two hands and slammed it home into the monster’s chest. It gave one final, long shrill shriek before it collapsed, its body dissipating into the air, funneled away by the wind. The clothes stayed behind, as a reminder of what had just happened.

                The girl opened her eyes and stared down at August, her head cocked to one side. “Hey, you okay?” August could only nod, her heart racing. “You didn’t get any of that thing’s blood on you, did you? That stuff is toxic like you wouldn’t believe. Can eat holes through-“ She glanced down at herself as she spoke. She spotted the growing hole. “Graemons!” she released her hold on the sword and ripped the blazer off, tossing it on top of the monster’s clothes. They both watched as both the blazer and the clothes crumbled into dust.

                “That was my only blazer too. The school’s gonna kill me when they find out that I managed to lose it already.” She took her sword from where it was stabbed in the dirt and returned it to its sheath. She offered a hand to August. “What’s your name?”

                August managed to find her voice. “August Julian. I’m a-a first year.”

                Her rescuer tipped her head to one side as she studied her. August shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny. At last, she seemed to come to herself and gave August a smile.

                “Get back inside the bus,” she said. “There should be someone by to pick us up. Until then, stay inside, just in case this one wasn’t alone.”

                There were more of them? The girl helped her to the bus. Candace raced out and snatched August up in a big hug. “Oh my god, are you okay August?”

                “You’re squishing me,” August managed to gasp out.

                Candace didn’t let go. “Get inside the bus,” the girl repeated, “There could be more of them. These ones don’t normally travel alone.”

                Candace helped her back into the bus, still on its side. They sat on the arm rests of two chairs that faced each other. August studied the seemingly empty forest with new eyes, watching every shadow for signs of movement.

                “What was that?” she asked.

                “A Reaver. It’s a strong Grimwore that normally doesn’t leave northern Canada.”

                “What was it doing out here?”

                Candace, beside her, shook her head. “I don’t know.” she stared out into the forest too. The new girl clambered up onto the top of the bus. She could hear her walk along the roof, the dull thump of her boots a steady beat.

                “Who is she?” Candace asked.

                August shook her head, rubbing her arms as she tried to stay warm. Candace retrieved her blanket from where it had fallen during the chaos and draped it around her sister. “I don’t know. Isn’t she from school?”

                The boots stopped above them, and both heard the quiet slither of steel on leather as the girl drew her sword. Then they heard the more comforting thawk-thawk of a helicopter as it neared them. Slowly, the five students emerged from the bus as the girl hopped down from the roof to greet the carrier that had arrived. Candace studied the girl again. She was dressed immaculately in the school uniform, following it to a T except for the knee-high boots and the sheath strapped to her back. Odd, it looked like it was meant for two swords, but the right loop hung limply, empty. The sword on the girl’s left side looked ancient, with scrapes in the leather grip. Must be a family heir-loom. Even as she stared, the girl turned and flashed her a quick grin.

                A man stepped out of the carrier as the propellers slowed. His jacket declared him to be from the M.O.D, the Ministry of Defense. He raised a hand at the bus, his lips moving. The bus tipped back up so that it rested on four wheels. “I’m Nicholas Wright,” he said, “You kids are going to have to come with us for now. We’ll make sure that you get to school in time.”

                He helped them get their luggage out from the compartment under the bus. The girl with the sword only had a small duffel and a backpack. Candace turned to help August with her bags, but August dragged her stuff over to Swordgirl and smiled up at her. Swordgirl grinned at her and grabbed August’s largest bag, hoisting it over her shoulder as if it weighed a mere ten pounds. Candace huffed, grabbed her own bags, and headed after them.

               

Arrival

 Mr. Wright had them sit towards the back of the carrier, strapped in with their bags carefully lined in the middle, kept in place by magic. He stood at the head of the plane, near the cockpit.

                “Alright, we’re going to have to take your statements regarding what happened just now at the Ministry. It’ll be about an hour’s delay, just so that we get all the facts straight.” He thumbed through the bus’s itinerary. “First, let’s make sure that you’re all here. Mark Wells. Brian Kamphuis.”

The two boys dutifully raised their hands.

“August Julian.”

                August mimicked the guys.

                “Brielle Lancaster.”

                “Here,” the second year said from between the two boys. They were probably all in the same year.

                “Candace Julian.” Candace raised her hand. That left only Swordgirl.

                “And who are you?” Wright asked her.

                “Oh, I know I’m not on the roster, but I am supposed to be going to Belladonna. Late addition to the school, see. You can radio your boss if you want, just drop the name Zen and we should be good to go.”

                He huffed as he entered the cockpit. He muttered something into the radio even as the pilot shut the door so that they couldn’t hear what was being said.

                Ten minutes later, Mr. Wright came back out and strapped himself into a seat far away from them. The carrier took off. Swordgirl, Zen, closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, her fingers clutching the armrests with a white-knuckled grip. Badass battle student was afraid of flying, Candace couldn’t resist noting.

                August was sitting right next to her, staring up at Zen with what was dangerously close to hero-worship. Candace huffed, closed her eyes and went over the seven different ways to determine age of a dragon. Length of talon, length of wolf tooth, size of tail scales, heat of fire breath, time spent sleeping, appetite, and-

                The carrier tipped as it began to descend, startling Candace. They were at the Ministry already? She wasn’t the only one surprised. The two boys were craning their necks over their shoulders, as if they could somehow see through the metal walls as to where they actually were. The ministry was in Washington State, after all, and there was no way that they had been going at the carrier’s top speed. They would have felt something if it had accelerated that much.

                With a thump that rattled her teeth, the carrier landed. The door slowly dropped, letting in the light as Mr. Wright freed himself. The others followed suit. Candace’s brow furrowed as she took in the pristine white buildings off in the distance, a laneway leading to it. Several jeeps were parked close to the carrier, obviously waiting for arrivals. But what really tipped her off to where they were was the forest, its dark green foliage swaying in the breeze, white trees smattered amongst them like paint flicked at a canvas.

                Belladonna Academy, the only all-female wizarding school on the continent, sparkled in the afternoon sun like a marble statue fresh from the studio. She turned to Wright. “I thought we were going to the Ministry.”

                If she hadn’t been looking at him, she would have missed the quick glance that he gave Zen, busy trying to free her bags from the magic weave while keeping her skirt cover as much skin as possible, before he replied. “New orders. We don’t need your statements for the record as it turns out.” He released the weave, and the other students quickly grabbed their things.

                As soon as the last one stepped off the carrier, the door immediately began to close. Without so much as a goodbye, it roared back to life and shot back up into the air, causing Candace’s hair to fly about in the sudden updraft.

                The two boys headed immediately to one of the jeeps marked with the white raven of St. Malcom’s Institute, shouting a goodbye to Brielle. August followed Candace to one of the jeeps marked with the black blossom that was supposed to mean Belladonna. Zen and Brielle joined them, and the four of them piled into the back of the vehicle. No one sat in the driver’s seat. It was more a superstition than anything else, Candace had concluded a long time ago. It didn’t seem right to sit behind the wheel when the car did all the driving.

                August ended up between her and Zen, with Brielle taking shotgun. The jeep roared to life and began to trundle down the lane towards the school.

                It was Zen who spoke first. “So what’s the school like?”

                “Are you a transfer?” August asked.

                Zen shrugged, “I guess you could say that. Seriously, what’s the school like? Where do we sleep?”

                “You would have gotten a package in the mail from the school about three weeks ago, explaining that. What year are you in?” Candace asked.

                “Five, same as you.” Zen gave her a smirk. “And let’s pretend that I didn’t get this package in the mail.”

                “Okay, so fifth year is when teams are made for study and projects and such. Groups of four, and you room with them. Teams have to be made by the end of the week, and the students that haven’t formed a team by that point are lumped together to make up the remaining teams. The top five teams of each year get to enter in the school tournament hosted between Belladonna, St. Malcom, and Jillian’s. That’s the wizardry school in northern Canada.”

                “Sounds like a giant pain in the ass,” Zen scoffed, turning away to stare out the window at the Forest of Mysteries that now framed the lane.

“It has worked for centuries, and no one has ever complained about it.” Candace knew why she was being so prissy. It had to do with the fact that they were getting closer and closer to where Fitz and Jason had died.

“What I want to know,” Brielle piped up from the front seat, turning to face her, “Is if the rumors are true. Are you responsible for what happened to the Trinity?”

Candace’s face turned beet red even as she felt whatever strength she had left whoosh out of her. She opened her mouth to try to answer, to try to defend herself, but Zen beat her to it.

“What’s a mage got to do with gods?” she asked blandly.

Brielle looked confused. “No, the Trinity. Sylvia and Fitz Knight and Jason Stern, the most powerful wizards that our schools have ever had. And she’s the one who destroyed them.” She jabbed an accusing finger at Candace.

Zen reached out and twisted her finger. Brielle shrieked in pain as she ripped her finger back. It was purple. “What did you do?” she demanded.

Zen gave her a look of such scorn that Candace almost felt sorry for the little weasel. Almost. “Just a mild spell. Every time you gossip, one of your fingers turns purple. And every time you lie about someone, your tongue swells a little bigger. I suggest you be careful. Gossip more than ten times, and the purple becomes permanent. Tell enough lies and you’ll choke on your own tongue. Now wouldn’t that be just tragic, hm? A little snark like you dying because she couldn’t leave people be.”

“Get rid of it!” Brielle’s eyes were huge now as she clutched at the plum finger.

Zen shook her head slowly, crossing her arms. “Can’t. Don’t know the reversal. But don’t worry. It only lasts a week, then you can go right on with your meddling. Now, you were saying something about Candace destroying this Trinity?”

Brielle’s mouth shut and, after giving Zen a long dark glare, she whipped back to face the front.

“Thought so,” Zen said, returning to her examination of the forest.

“Magic is so cool!” August crowed, making the awkward silence worse.

 

 

Jamie Parker

The laneway joined the main drive to the school, and the jeep trundled up the hill to the vast welcoming circle. The school was made of white bricks, with two side buildings that connected to the main by covered tunnels on the second and fourth floors, as well as by corridors on the very edges of the building, forming a giant square horseshoe. The entrance was dominated by a massive fountain carved of black marble in the form of the three famous hunters- Sparrow, Jade Spellbinder, and Hiro Mayuri- standing with their backs to each other in open defiance. The three sisters were the ones responsible for beginning the first battle school over three centuries ago.

Other jeeps were parked along the front steps of the western building where the dorms were, with students in various stages of unloading their things from the back. Candace immediately picked out the bleached orange scene hair cut that could only belong to one person in a crowd of students proudly wearing Jillian jackets. As soon as the jeep pulled into an empty spot in the courtyard outside the main entrance to the dorms, she burst from the vehicle and grabbed her friend.

“Hey,” the short Jamie said, “Missed you too.”

Someone cleared their throat behind her. Candace looked up to see Zen, standing with her thumbs hooked into the waist of her skirt. “Where’s the main office?”

Jamie pointed towards the fountain. “You go in that building over there, and the office will be on your left.” Zen acknowledged the help with a quick lift of her eyebrows before walking away, duffel and backpack slung over the shoulder opposite her sword.

“Weren’t you coming on the bus?” Jamie asked, glancing back to where August was emerging from the jeep.

“Car trouble. We got a lift from the Defense Ministry.” Candace opened her mouth to tell her more, but the words got stuck.

Jamie grinned, “More than a little bit of car trouble if they spelled you guys to keep quiet about it.”

“A Reaver attacked us,” Candace managed to get out, though it felt like she was being strangled.

Jamie’s eyes grew large. “Seriously? Are you okay? Sweet Sparrow, your sister’s starting school this year. Is she okay?”

They both looked over to where August stood awkwardly, one bag slung over her shoulder as she gazed around, looking completely lost. “I don’t think the events really sank in for her yet,” Candace replied as they watched one of the Professors walk over to her. Professor Montery, one of the three dorm marms for the First and Second Years, helped her take her bag and lead her to where a group around August’s age were sitting. A chill ran up her spine as the image of the Reaver standing over August with a sword held high, aiming for the kill flashed in front of her eyes.

“I didn’t even say thankyou to Zen,” Candace realized out loud.

“Who? Why?”

“Zen, she’s that girl who was looking for the main office. She-“ Candace’s words were choked off as the Vow of Silence spell took over. She swore under her breath. “Can’t tell you,” she said at last.

“Honestly, there are times when I hate that spell,” Jamie said. She dragged Candace back to her jeep. “Come on, grab your stuff and let’s see if we can get a room with a view of the Seraph statue this year.”

 

 

Zen vs the Headmaster

The interior was dark and foreboding compared to the brilliant sunshine outside. The ten foot statue of a woman wielding two hand and a half Lodricari blades being the first thing that an arriving person saw when they entered the building most certainly didn’t help with that. She narrowed her eyes in annoyance at it, studying the small curve of the nose. They never got that part right, no matter who it was who carved it. Graemons, they were all a nuisance.

She glanced around the rest of the building as her eyes adjusted. She was in the foyer of the massive building, the ceiling here going all the way up to the roof, with the different floors all having balconies that opened up on the room. The walls were covered in different types of wood, a pattern that seemed familiar starting to make itself known. The floor made a similar pattern, except it was tiled green and white, the rows stopping at different spots, almost at random intervals. Zen grimaced at the thought of what she was supposed to do, and fingered Curveen in his sheath. “Just until we find her,” she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to the sword.

“Miss Pakto,” a voice cheerily called from her left. It took her a moment to realize that he was calling to her.

She plastered a smile on her face as she turned to him. “That would be me,” she said, allowing a gay lilt to enter her voice. Teenage girls were supposed to be perky, right? She should have studied up on that more before coming here where she was about to be submerged in the feminine culture. Too late now.

“I’m Clarke Hilroy, Headmaster of Belladonna Academy.” He made his way towards her, walking only on the green tiles, a book tucked under his arm. He was dressed in the customary robes of a…diviner. That was the word. In the modern times, the Diviner’s robes was merely a colourful jacket that fell to the knees, like a house coat. His receding hairline was still blond, but she knew that it was only a matter of time before that started greying. He looked to be about old enough to be the uncle of most of the students. Maybe he was related to someone.

“Cool,” she said, remembering that the word seemed to be integral to the average teen’s vocabulary.

“If you’ll just follow me, we can go over a final few things in order to get you settled in. Mind you don’t step on the white tiles in here. It’s a maze at times, and no one seems to be able to tell when the spell’s actually working and when it’s cut out. Remember that. More than one student has ended up missing entire classes because they couldn’t solve the maze and get to where they wanted to go in the first place.”

Because he said it, she lightly touched one of the white tiles with the tip of her toes. Nothing happened. She shrugged and began to follow him down the hall into the depths of the building. She had taken no more than a dozen steps when she felt it and froze in her tracks. It felt like déjà vu, complete with the sense that something was missing, a little vortex in the school, behind them, back the way that Headmaster Hilroy had come. And she knew what that something was. She turned back as her body visibly relaxed. So she was here after all. That was good. This whole charade hadn’t been for nothing. Her hand dipped behind her to touch the sword for reassurance.

“Something wrong?” Headmaster Hilroy’s voice disrupted the moment, causing Zen to jerk her head back around. He had stopped with his hand on a doorknob, curious as to what had stopped her.

Zen splashed a smile on her face, it coming easier this time now that her objective was clear. “No. Just thought I heard something is all.”

He nodded, “You’ll get used to that. This building is old, and likes to settle down every so often. Come in.”

They entered the room, which turned out to be his office. Zen hesitated at the door just long enough to assess the room for threats, and to take in the décor. There was little for either count. There were no dark corners, no assassins hanging from the simple chandelier that looked in good need of a cleaning, no murder holes from which darts might be shot. The bookcases might hide a secret passageway… no, that was under the Headmaster’s desk, and seemed to get very little use. She doubted that he even knew about it. There were cobwebs on the stairs.

She blinked to shake away the vision. Idiot, she chastised, of all the abilities to take the forefront, that one should never be exercised in public. She took the seat that he had indicated even as he rounded the large, neat desk and sat in his chair. She let her bags drop to the floor.

“I assume you had no trouble in getting here?”

She decided to get the pleasantries over and done with. “Yeah, it was a hell of a good time. A Reaver attacked us.”

His eyebrows shot up at the news, but that was his only reaction. “And how did that go?”

“Well, the world is short one Reaver and one bus driver, and there’s a kid who’s got more guts than brains. She’s fine though. Not so much as a scratch.” Zen stretched her neck to the left to let it crack, her head brushing against the hilt of her sword.

“I’m surprised that you’re capable of saying that much, considering that a Vow of Silence was cast on the incident.”

Zen shrugged. “Yeah well, I am a Repeller. It’d be kind of embarrassing if I couldn’t manage to slip out of that sorry excuse for an entrapment.”

“I suppose that I have to ask you to keep this between just us?”

“Which ‘this’ are we referring to?”

He smiled at that. “The incident, of course. It doesn’t do to let children or their parents worry unnecessarily about something that was completely under control.”

She shook her head at him. “If I hadn’t chosen that route, that thing would have killed three people.”

“There was only one? What makes you so sure that it would only kill three?”

“The bus driver was an oopsies. The gutsy-no-brains kid would have been body number two, but the Reaver was still intent on someone else in the bus. It was weird. And that’s all I have to say about it.”

He nodded. “I suppose we can look forward to your swordsmanship this year in the battle class?”

She shook her head, a thin smile pressed on her lips. “Nope. I drew my sword today because a kid was going to die. Reavers aren’t affected by magic. I’m not going to spar with kids for the heck of it. I chose school over prison. I didn’t sign up for some stupid extra-curricular.”

“Each student is required to participate in three extra-curricular activities, one of which has to be a sport. Battle Club counts as one of those.”

“Spare me the pitch and tell me where I have to sign.”

The headmaster had several waivers for her. Zen took her time reading them, scanning each of the documents for attempts at someone exploiting her. There was none, but she committed them to memory anyways before signing them. The last one was a copy of the school rules, including basics like “no leaving the dorm room after lights out” and more magically-inclined like “no alchemy is to be performed without the supervision of an instructor.” Zen signed on the dotted line and handed the stacks back to him.

As he turned to file the papers away, she ducked down to dig through her backpack. At last, she came up with the thing she wanted. When Hilroy turned back around, a smudged paper covered in nearly illegible scrawl sat neatly on his desk. Zen smiled at him.

“What’s this?”

She leaned forward. “It’s just something that you need to sign. It states that you recognize why I need to keep my magic a secret and that you will not tell the others about my past.”

He squinted at it, but gave up and muttered “Grakos”. The ink on the page rearranged itself, letters straightening out to the point where it looked like the document had been typed on a typewriter. He pulled out some glasses and studied the page for a little bit. “There’s nothing on here about Repelling.”

She shrugged, “Never the less, it does mention that action will be taken against you if you speak of my abilities or heritage to anyone. And we’re not talking about taking you to court. We Repellers have our own methods of dishing out the law. With all that I’m giving up here, it only seems logical that I have something like this as insurance that you will keep your word.”

He leaned back in his chair, the paper still not signed. “You seem to think that you’re in a position to make demands. May I remind you about the circumstances as to why you are here?”

“Nah, that’s alright, I think my memory’s alright on that score.”

“Attending this academy is a privilege for you, a privilege that I can revoke at any time if I deem you unsafe for the other students.”

“You’re seriously saying that after I just saved three of your precious students? You’re welcome for that, by the way. Not that I expect you to say thank-you or something, but just cutting me a little slack would be greatly appreciated. See, where I come from, what one does is what others judge them by. I didn’t murder anyone, so just let it lie.”

“Yes, thank you for keeping my students safe. I’m sure that if their parents ever found out, they would be extremely grateful. However, just because you are good with a sword does not make you harmless. So it is my duty to be your guardian during your time at this school. If I consider you to be a danger to society, I will not hesitate to have you arrested. And as you may recall from your trial, you won’t be held in some juvenile detention center like humans have. You will be sent to the real jail, to Styx, and you will live the rest of your life there.”

Zen didn’t voice her thoughts, which were running along the lines of ‘yeah, that would be bad. Good thing I’m not sticking around as long as you think I am’. Instead she shrugged. “Just sign it. I don’t think you want to risk the chance that there still is another Repeller settlement out there. And I will behave a lot nicer if that thing is signed.”

He sighed even as he drew out his pen and scribbled a signature at the bottom of the page. Zen memorized every stroke of his pen. That could come in handy. He took an envelope from a stack on his desk and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“It was supposed to be mailed to you weeks ago, but there was no 67 Hwrevitt Drive to be found. It just tells you what you’ll need, which in your case isn’t much, considering that the Ministry has already supplied us with your basic necessities, paper and quill, uniform. Good to see you have it already, although you are supposed to be wearing the blazer with it.”

Zen’s lips pressed together in slight annoyance. “Yeah, about that. Know that Reaver that attacked the bus?”

“Don’t tell me that it needed a makeover so you gave the blazer to it because the black cotton went good with its rags.”

“Actually, no. I managed to get some blood on it from the Reaver, so rather than have that decay strip the flesh from my bones, I took the stupid thing off. I mean, it would be a shame if a new student was the first one to die this year. That just wouldn’t seem right.”

“I suggest you refrain from those sorts of comments,” he warned, “Last year, several students were in an accident and two boys were killed while the girl is still trapped in a coma. Students won’t take too kindly to graveyard humor this year. If you want to somehow make it in a school that is so obviously ill-fitting for you, you are going to have to mind yourself.”

Zen nodded as she grabbed the paper off his desk and stuffed it carelessly back in her bag. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she promised, not even bothering to hide her crossed fingers as she slung her backpack back on and picked up her duffel. She ducked her head in goodbye as she scooped up the envelope and beat a hasty retreat.

Hilroy leaned back in his chair as the door closed behind her. This was not going to be a good year. He didn’t need to be a diviner to know that. The air just wasn’t right. He sighed, straightened, and turned his attention to the inbox on his desk, banishing thoughts of Zen from his mind.

 

 

 

Welcome Back

Until teams were made, fifth year students would sleep in the common room that was located in the center of the floor, with the hallways to the different dorms forming a barrier similar in shape to the school. Candace unrolled her academy- issued sleeping bag, for the only time that year she assumed. Her bags were placed neatly to the left. The common bathrooms were accessible to the sixth years as well, but they wouldn’t be arriving until the following day.

Rather than attract attention, she had bunked down with Jamie and the rest of the students freshly returned from their exchange program. Jillian’s was different from Belladonna and St. Malcolm’s because it had an extra semester, optional of course, that involved the more practical side of magic used specifically in Canada. Things like growth magics were frequently a part of that semester, Jamie had explained to her, since the summers were so short.

She noticed the sidelong glances that were sent her way and shrank back into herself. At least no one spoke to her, like it had been before she had started dating Fitz. It did feel strange though, going from being part of the “in-crowd” back to the fringes. People were making a point of not looking at her. As if it were her fault.

Most of the girls had already staked out their territory on the floor, and most had given her a wide berth. A few of the other fringe students were close by, but except for the occasional glance her way, they too ignored her. Most were too busy catching up with their friends anyways, talking in the way girls had the habbit of doing, conversations about vacations turned to groans about not being in the same classes anymore, to hopes raised about possible staff replacements. The volume reached a crescendo as people tried to talk over each other, trying to get their story across to their friend.

The hush started at the front of the common room first and slowly spread to the rest of the room as all eyes turned to a latecomer standing in the door. Candace actually had to stand up to see, Jamie too immersed in a book to notice. Zen stood in the door, her two small bags in hand and the sleeping bag tucked under her arm, sword still slung over her shoulder. Upon spotting Candace, Zen wended her way through the crowd to her. Halfway across the room, she stopped as if noticing for the first time that all eyes were on her. She sighed dramatically. “Yes, I’m new. Transfer from Burmesh Institute in Thailand if you must know. Been hopping a lot of schools, and this one was next on the list.” She waved her free hand airily, “You can go about your business now.”

Then she shot a dark look at Angela McGaffrey for no apparent reason[1] before resuming her journey. Slowly, conversation started back up again, although at a whisper. Zen smiled at Candace before pointedly glancing at the empty spot beside her. “Mind?”

Candace shrugged, unsure of what else to say. Zen plopped the sleeping bag on the ground and it sprung free immediately, unfurling itself in a neat row parallel to hers. Zen let her two bags slide in the gap between them, next to Candace’s things. Jamie glanced up at the shadow that was blocking out the light, a frown on her face that morphed into a friendly smile when she saw who it was.

She tucked the bookmark between the pages and closed her book before sliding onto Candace’s sleeping bag. “Hi, I’m Jamie.” She proffered Zen a hand, which Zen quickly shook before beginning to unbuckle her halberd. The action wasn’t missed by Jamie, and her eyebrows shot up.

“Yeah, thanks for pointing me in the right direction earlier,” Zen said as she sat down, curling her legs to one side. “My name’s Zen.”

“So you were on Candace’s bus,” Jamie prompted.

“Yeah, but apparently we’re not allowed to talk about that.”

Jamie laughed. “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant. I meant to ask what brings you to Belladonna.”

Zen shrugged, cradling her sword in her hands. She pulled the hilt away from the scabbard, inspecting the gleaming steel for a moment before slamming it home. “Desire for a good education,” she said at last, her lips twisting up a little bit.

A shadow fell over the three of them. Candace glanced up to see Rhilla Martin towering over them, flanked by two of her goons from the Battle Club, the students that participated in the monthly tournaments with other schools in the country. Rhilla was officially the strongest fighter in the school since Karla had graduated last year. And she had a reputation for ‘weeding out the weaklings’ as she liked to call it. She had taken it upon herself to test students to see if they were worthy candidates for the school team, even when they didn’t necessarily try out.

Rhilla’s current target was still fingering her sword, not looking up at all. Rhilla cleared her throat.

Zen glanced up with her eyes, saw who was trying to get her attention, and returned to her inspection of her sword. Rhilla’s lips curled into the perpetual sneer that was always plastered on her face. “Hello?”

Zen sighed and leaned back onto her heels and raised an eyebrow by means of a prompt. “Yes, can I help you with something?”

“You have a weird accent. I’ve spent time in Thailand, and no one sounded like that.”

Zen shrugged, but said nothing. Rhilla waved her hand. “That’s not why I bothered to come over to the loser’s corner though.” As she said it, she slid a glance at Candace. It might have been meant for Jamie, who had buried her face in a thick tome titled “Alchemy for the Youth- Abridged”.

“Oh, is that where I am? Or is the loser’s corner wherever you decide to sit down?”

Andrea, on Rhilla’s left, took a step forward, but Rhilla’s hand stopped her. She graced Zen with a twisted smile. “See, I’ll chalk that up to you being new. I’m Rhilla Martin, Captain of the Battle Club. I see you have a sword. Will I be seeing you at the try-outs this year?”

Zen smiled self-deprecatingly. “I’m afraid not. Not much use with the sword really, but this used to belong to my dad. He died in a car accident a few years back, and he used to love this old thing. Been in my family a while now.”

Rhilla’s eyes narrowed as she got a closer look at the sword. “What make is it?”

“No idea. He didn’t either. But I’m fairly certain that it wouldn’t be of much use in any sort of fight.” Zen’s face twitched, as if she had just been poked with something hot[2], but Candace was the only who saw.

Rhilla rolled her eyes as it became apparent to her that she had just wasted her time talking to an idiot. To Rhilla, an idiot was anyone who wasn’t on the team. “Well, just so you know,” she said, “Only Battle Club members are allowed to walk around school grounds with their weapons.”

“In case we get attacked by Grimwore?” Zen joked lightly.

Rhilla hmphed and walked away, message delivered. Her minions followed her. Zen’s left hand was on the hilt, her expression thoughtful as she studied Rhilla’s back.                 “I don’t recommend you try,” Candace said, attempting to dissuade her from what was obviously going through her mind. “Rhilla’s the best battle wizard in our year.”

Zen’s grip on her sword loosened and she flashed Candace a quick grin. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Far too stuck up for me to fight. Anyways, how does this Vow of Silence spell work?”

“Well, no one is going to find out anything about what happened on the bus except that there were engine troubles.”

Zen barked a laugh. “Engine troubles. That’s a good one. I’ll have to try to remember that for the future.” She turned thoughtful. “So no one knows that I killed a Reaver, and no one’s going to find out?”

Jamie dropped her book and stared at her in surprise. So did Candace, minus the book dropping since she wasn’t holding one to begin with. “How do you do that?”

“Simple. Actually, I don’t know, which is why I’m asking you.”

Candace shook her head. “Yeah, it works like that. Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with us.”

“The spell’s a nuisance really, considering how easy it would be to get around it. I mean, it’s like playing Pictionary, where people already have a basic idea of what happened. A couple guesses and you know the majority of the story.”

Jamie noticed Candace constantly glancing towards the door. “Hey, we’ve got an hour before lights out,” she said, elbowing her friend. “We can go visit if you want.”

Candace glanced around them, saw that people were settling in, grabbing tooth brushes and headed for the bathroom. She took a deep breath and nodded. She had been simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the visit. Sylvia might have taken a turn for the better, or she might have spiraled further into her coma. Either way, having Jamie there would make it a little easier.

The two were almost out the door when Zen vaulted up and caught up to them, her long strides covering the distance in very little time. “Where we going?” she asked cheerfully.

“There’s a student in the infirmary. We were just going to check up on her,” Jamie answered.

Zen nodded. “I’ll join you.”

Before Candace could dissuade her, Jamie grinned and said “Sure”. Candace’s shoulders slumped as the three of them left the room.

The infirmary was quiet, empty except for its one patient and Madame Kirena, the nurse on staff. Doctors who treated wizards were a rarity. Sylvia’s father was constantly traveling, dealing with the most horrific of illnesses and wounds. Unsurprisingly, the majority of his patients were victims of Grimwore attacks, with wounds so obviously not normal that they weren’t allowed anywhere near a human hospital, even if a wizard specialist worked there.

The infirmary was smallish. One side held windows that looked out at the Seraph statue, which stood directly between the infirmary and the dorms. Beds lined the sides, fifty to a side. At times, hunters from the frontlines would be sent here to recover if the medic tents that they normally went to were overcrowded. Most of the medical instruments were hidden from view. This was the recovery room afterall, not the surgical theater.

Sylvia was in a bed that had been turned different from the rest so that her back wasn’t to the window but was now on her left side. Zen blanched at the door, and had settled with sitting beside it, saying that she probably shouldn’t come in. Her eyes had flicked over the room, resting for the briefest of moments on Sylvia’s comatose body before coming to that declaration.

Candace and Jamie approached Sylvia’s bed quietly, the way one always does when a person is sleeping. After all, that’s what Sylvia made it look like. Her blonde hair was immaculate, as if she had just decided to take a nap after getting ready for classes. Of course, Sylvia would be mortified if she found out that her hair was out of its standard short pig tails that poked out from her head like horns that had been set a little too far back. Her chest rose and fell steadily, her lips parted slightly as she slept. Sylvia never snored, which Candace had been grateful for when they were roommates but now wished Sylvia was a loud sleeper. Even snoring was better than nothing. Her eyelids flickered, but didn’t open as Candace pulled up the chair beside her.

“You know it’s not your fault, right?” Jamie said quietly behind her.

But it was. Not for the reasons that everyone assumed though. It had been her fault. They never would have figured out that last clue if it hadn’t been for her. Heck, they wouldn’t have figured out half those clues if she hadn’t let her head get filled with air at the idea that she was talking with the most popular boy in their year.

Because of her stupidity, Fitz was dead and his sister was in a coma, oblivious to that fact. And no one knew what was wrong with her. What would Candace do when she woke up? If she woke up? She simply sat there, unsure of the answers. The same questions that had haunted her all summer swirling around in her mind as she tried to make sense of it. Even Jamie’s presence didn’t seem to help. Candace felt completely alone. What had the three of them found down there?

After an hour, Madame Kirena came over and told them that it was time to go. Despite being short, Madame Kirena had a no-nonsense attitude about her that even the most brazen of hunters obeyed. Zen was still outside the door, her eyes closed as her head leaned back against the doorframe. Candace kicked her lightly with a boot. Zen’s eyes snapped open and she hauled herself to her feet.

It was ten minutes past lights out by the time they made it back to the common room, but they didn’t run into any of the teachers who were supposed to be making their rounds. The few lights still on in the room were kept as dim as possible, and the noise level had settled down to a whisper. But something was definitely wrong.

Her first clue was the smirk that played on Rhilla’s lips when she saw them enter, along with the other satisfied, knowing looks that her two minions had. The way that the others looked at her as she walked past them only added to the sinking feeling in her stomach. Then she saw her bags.

Someone had dumped all of her things on the floor, laying out for the whole world to see what she had packed, including the stuffed bear that Fitz had won for her at the carnival last year. What was left of it. She stared at the shredded fur, a bit of stuffing coming loose and falling to the floor where other pieces lay. One of its eyes was missing. After seeing Sylvia, she felt nothing.

Beside her, Zen swore loudly and turned on the rest of the room. “Where is it!” she roared even as she stormed back to the center of the room.

Rhilla played innocent. “Where’s what?” Candace could see in her eyes though that she knew exactly what Zen wanted.

Zen glared at her, her rage glowing about her with a faint red hue. It swirled around her like smoke, and Candace couldn’t help but stare. Since when had she been able to see people actually call on their magic?

Zen lowered her voice back to normal. “I will give you three seconds to give it back.” Her voice sounded calm, but the red around her glowed brighter.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rhilla said, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder.

“If you make me find it myself, it will be on your own head.”

There was absolute silence in the room for a moment. “Curveen dach,” Zen hissed, her eyes never leaving Rhilla’s as her hand struck out to the side. Her sheathed sword shot towards her from where it lay under Andrea’s things and slapped into her open palm, the gem in the hilt glowing bright blue. Zen drew it free of its scabbard with her right hand, inspecting the blade.

“What? Are you going to fight me now?”

Zen stared at her, the aura still palpable, but dimming. After letting the silence drag on for a while longer, she straightened and sheathed the sword. “You are not worthy,” she said dismissively, turning her back on the rest of the students and walking to the door. She hesitated in the doorway, as if a thought had just struck her. She turned and looked to where Candace and Jamie were. She raised her free hand and muttered something, her palm glowing blue with the spell. Everyone watched as Candace’s things were whisked neatly back into her bags and the bags zipped themselves shut. The stuffed bear re-stuffed itself and became whole once more, minus the one button.

Zen gave her a quick smile while everyone was distracted. “I strongly suggest that you all ask Brielle, that snooty little second year about the consequences of the spell I cast on her. That same spell is now guarding Candace and Jamie’s things as well as my own so that only we may touch them and not activate the latent spell.”

“Those are illegal,” Andrea sputtered.

Zen tipped her head at her, a thoughtful look crossing her face as she considered Andrea’s words. She nodded as if she understood the meaning of what Andrea had just said, a crestfallen look falling on her features. She sighed loudly. “I suppose you’re right. Latent spells would be illegal here, wouldn’t they?” Candace saw more than felt the latent spell be lifted from her bags.

Zen snapped her fingers. “Latent spells are illegal, but apparently pranks aren’t.” With a wolfish smile, she flung her hands out to both sides and a giant gust of wind swept into the room, catching anything that was remotely light and tossing it about, whipping into walls. Girls screamed as they ducked. None of it came near Candace or Jamie, and their things were the only things untouched.

When the spell finally disintegrated, the room was absolute chaos, with girls huddled behind anything solid that might protect them. Candace and Jamie were left standing. Zen was gone.

Jamie laughed and dangled an arm from Candace’s shoulder. “You sure know how to pick ‘em.”

 

 

Offer of Help

Zen still wasn’t back the next morning, but her things were gone when Candace woke up. Something told her that no one in the room would have dared to touch it after last night’s excitement. Nobody looked her in the eye as she and Jamie headed for the showers. No one stole her towel either, and their things were exactly where they had left them when they got back to the common room. They took their time while the rest of the girls escaped as soon as they could. Already, teams were being formed. And after last night, there was no way that she was going to be able to convince even one other person to join their team.

The week was a lazy one, with more and more of the girls claiming teams, and the rest of the students arriving, including the sixth years who had spent the last three days in the Forest of Mysteries, checking traps and doing all the fun stuff that senior students do. The first years had their initial evaluation for their magic abilities. August was in the bottom third of the class. But she was a lot more cheerful about it than Candace had expected her to be. Not that she saw her much.

Jamie and Candace had confined themselves to the library, going over Candace’s notes from last year as they prepared for the semester ahead. They helped each other fill in the gaps where there was something they didn’t understand. Except for battle class, where the two of them were absolutely hopeless and had no ambition to improve, even after the events on the bus. Why bother when there were so many other careers out there that they could choose from.

Nobody saw much of Zen that week, but every so often Candace thought she saw someone around Zen’s build go into the Damaged Books section, even though only teachers were allowed to go in there.

Thursday night had Candace feeling dread. The next day, she and Jamie would be shuffled with the others who hadn’t managed to form teams yet. And that wasn’t what was bothering her. There were 143 fifth year students if you didn’t count Sylvia. That meant thirty five teams of four with three extra students. She could already guess two of the three students. Jamie still had a shot at being asked to be on someone’s team. And Candace had insisted that if a decent team asked her to join, she should. Jamie was the smartest girl in their class. The others could compensate easily for her lack of battle prowess.

Finally, Candace got sick of sitting in the common room with all the other girls who obviously didn’t want her there, and she left, careful not to step on anyone as she escaped the room. She told the dorm marm that she just needed to go to the bathroom. Since Candace was known to be a goody two-shoes, the teacher bought the lie easy enough and gave her a hall pass.

Candace walked straight past the bathrooms and headed downstairs. She just needed some air. She passed dozens of classrooms on her way to the doors that lead to the back garden, where there was a small, simple fountain that was beautiful at night. She was just passing the last one before the exit when hands shot out and yanked her into the darkness, a cloth stuffed into her mouth to choke off the cry of alarm that she had been about to scream.

“Shh,” the person whispered, their voice too low for her to tell if it was male for female. “Don’t scream.”

Candace breathed heavily into the cloth, but didn’t make a sound.

“I’m going to take the gag out,” the voice whispered. “Please don’t scream.”

The instant the cloth was out of her mouth, Candace summoned the strength to yell. She could feel herself yelling, but no sound escaped her lips.

“Seriously?” the person mocked, and Candace immediately recognized the voice.

She whipped around, the movement catching her captor off guard enough that she managed to twist free. “Zen?” she gasped out, but the word never reached the air.

Zen grinned, her hair cropped short into a pixie cut except for the three braids in her hair. Her fingers twitched and the spell dissipated. “What are you doing here? Where have you been and what have you done to your hair?” Candace demanded in a low whisper.

“Looking for you, reading up on a few things before I committed myself to something, and it’s a disguise.”

“What?”

“That girl in the infirmary, she’s a friend of yours right?”

“Yeah, I gue-“

“Tell me what happened to her to make her wink out like that. And not the story that everyone else is repeating about you triggering some death spell that found them instead of you because that is so blatantly wrong I can’t even find a decent starting point to explain why.”

A death spell? That’s what people were saying? Candace glanced around them, suddenly aware of how exposed they were. “It… I can’t talk about it here.”

“What, it’s not like you would be caught up in something majorly illegal.”

“Shh!” Candace hissed, casting a glance over her shoulder as if expecting a teacher to come around the corner at any moment.

Zen raised an eyebrow in appraisal at her for a long moment before consentingly opening the door to the classroom that they were huddled in front of. She slipped in behind Candace and let the door ease shut. She flicked on the light, but the sudden illumination caused Candace to flinch. She quickly flicked it off. “Are you crazy?” she hissed, “What if one of the teachers walks by and sees the light under the door?”

“And being caught together in a dark, empty room would certainly generate less rumours at an all-girls’ school than being caught with the lights on,” Zen replied smoothly.

“What do you want?”

“What really happened here last year?”

Candace sighed. “Basically, Sylvia, her boyfriend and her brother discovered that there was a magic artifact hidden somewhere in the school. A powerful one, a remnant from before even the Guild Wars. I was dating Fitz, Sylvia’s brother at the time, and I helped them figure out parts of “the Hunt” as they called it. We were really close to finding it, I know we were. We could all tell. That night, they were supposed to explore the dungeons, looking for something called the Essence. Fitz knew I didn’t like it down there, so he asked me to research a tangent that had come up a bunch of times about the Flowers of Price.” She felt Zen shiver as she said the name. It was cold in here.

“That night, they must have found something, maybe they even found the artifact itself. But they triggered a latent spell that must have been cast over twenty years ago, before they were outlawed. The spell triggered the school’s anti-magic system, and teachers were upon the scene within seconds. Fitz and Jason were killed on the spot, and Sylvia was severely burned, already unconscious by the time they got there. She’s been in the coma ever since.”

“Have any doctors looked at her?” Zen wanted to know.

“Her father’s the best in the field, and even he couldn’t make sense of it. He took whatever time he could scrape up in the first few weeks as he tried to figure out what was wrong, calling in favours from anyone who might have even the remotest chance to help. He even called in a Repeller, but he couldn’t do anything for her. Whatever it is, it’s not a spell.”

They stood there in silence for a little bit. Candace could almost hear the gears turning in Zen’s head. Zen shifted her weight, then sighed loudly. “She’s a good friend of yours, isn’t she.”

It wasn’t really a question. “Yeah. I mean, when we were first years, she hated me as much as the others did, but she didn’t pick on me for it, or forbid her brother from dating me. She can be a bit of a control freak, but she’s a great friend. The kind that sticks up for you in a fight that she barely just learned about.”

“Alright,” Zen said at last. “I’m going to do something tonight, but you are not allowed to talk about it, at all, to anyone. And we’re not talking about casting some sort of stupid Vow of Silence on ourselves. This is serious. You cannot breathe a word of this to a single soul, or even write it in your diary in code or anything like that. And no thinking about it around mind-readers either, because that’s the same as telling them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How good are you at distracting people? I’d need you to keep it up for at least five minutes, probably closer to ten. It’s not like I’m experienced at this sort of thing.”

“I’m pretty decent, I guess. What thing?”

“Your friend Sylvia, that coma she’s in? It’s slowly killing her.”

“I know. Her father’s been working on a cure for months now, but he’s not getting any closer.”

“And I sincerely doubt that he ever will, especially if he’s treating this like it’s medical. It’s not. It’s hardly even magical. I can’t say more than that, thanks to those damn promises of silence that we always seem to be making, but there it is. Sylvia is dying, and I’m not even sure what I’m planning to do will help in any way, but it’s her best shot at recovery. If she’s in that state for much longer, it will become completely irreversible.”

What she was talking about finally sunk in. “You can wake her up?” Candace whispered. “H-how?”

Zen sighed. “Better you don’t know, besides my explanations aren’t always viewed as being the best way to put things. But I need to know. Are you with me? Can you do keep Madame Kirena off my back for ten minutes?”

Candace nodded and grabbed Zen’s outstretched hand. Zen flashed her a grin, seeing in the dim lighting Candace’s determination. “Excellent,” she whispered. “Now let’s go raise the dead.”

 

 

 

Zen vs The Coma

Distracting Madame Kirena was a lot easier than anticipated, thanks in no small part to the fact that Madame Kirena wasn’t very alert after her customary evening cup of hemlock tea. A mild concentration, but it still left her woozy. So when Candace wobbled into the infirmary, moaning with the most grotesque of painful whimpers, Madame Kirena immediately dashed to her side as quickly as her poisoned body could move. Candace collapsed on a bed on the opposite side of the room from Sylvia, so that Madame Kirena had her back to both her other patient and the ajar door, through which Zen quickly slipped and slithered into the visitor’s chair beside Sylvia.

“What seems to be the problem child?” Madame Kirena cooed.

“I was just getting up to go to the bathroom,” Candace moaned, “When my head suddenly felt completely light, as if I had nothing in there at all. I felt so dizzy and I couldn’t seem to get air to go in my lungs. I was breathing still, but nothing was going in and all of it was going out and I couldn’t move.”

Zen was bent over Sylvia, an ear pressed to her chest, her hands glowing a faint blue.

Madame Kirena’s hands were pressing down on her stomach. “There dear, does that hurt?” her hands moved to another spot and Candace gasped out in sudden faked pain.

Now Zen was sitting cross-legged at Sylvia’s feet, massaging her toes. Her lips were moving, but Candace couldn’t hear the words.

Madame Kirena tutted to herself. “My dear, it appears that you may be experiencing sub-acute renal hemorrhage.”

“Is it serious?” Candace asked as she watched Zen out of the corner of her eye. Now Zen leaned forward and flicked Sylvia on the right hand and leaned to the side to do it to the left as well. What in the world was she doing?

“Not at all, my dear. It’s nothing a bit of Barmarian elixir won’t fix.”

She turned towards Zen, since the medicines were all stored on that side. Before she could turn enough to spot Zen, now standing on the bed and towering over Sylvia with her arms raised as if she were pretending to be a monster or something else equally as silly-scary, Candace snatched at her wrist and yanked her back. “What’s that?” she asked, allowing fear to creep into her voice.

“Oh, it’s nothing bad my dear. It just has a bit of foxglove, yarrow root, the underside of the leaves of a coffee plant, and a pinch of hemlock.”

“Hemlock?” Candace gasped loudly, the panic real. Kirena was going to poison her?

“Just the tinniest pinch, my dear. Nothing to fret about. It will just help numb the spot for a while as the rest of the elixir kicks in.”

Candace risked a glance as Zen, who was quickly making her escape out the window by Sylvia’s bed. Balanced on the ledge, she glanced back over her shoulder to Candace and gave a merry little wave.

“Actually, Madame Kirena,” Candace said, resuming her normal voice as she sat up abruptly. “I’m feeling much better now. Must have been a fainting spell of some sort. Thank you so much for your help though.”

The window banged shut, causing Madame Kirena to jump and turn to see the cause of the ruckus. Candace quickly released her arm and sprinted for the door before Madame Kirena could imagine something else toxic that might help with the imagined ailment.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take the elixir as a precaution?” Kirena called after her. “I know that it tastes really bad, but it does work.”

Candace shuddered at the thought of swallowing hemlock as she escaped the wing of the school, making her way back to the dormitories. She didn’t see Zen at all, and the marm was asleep when she got back, making it easy for Candace to slip back to her sleeping bag unnoticed.

 

 

 

Dragons, Drinks, and Salamanders

It was well after midnight when his visitor finally arrived. Headmaster Hilroy had given up on him showing, and had settled in to try to finish off a few reports before retiring to bed himself. His door, always propped open by a knickknack that an exchange student had given him eleven years ago, slowly slid shut. The lock clicked and he looked up to greet the darkness.

“Didn’t think you were coming, old friend.”

The shadow had no face, but he could hear the grin intended as the man replied. “Dragons have been getting cranky lately. Got any students that have been misbehaving ?”

“Careful how you say that, Griswold. Some might think you were intending on feeding students to the dragons to appease their hunger.”

Griswold became visible as he laughed. The man was over sixty, yet still looked spry enough to lead a one-man attack against a horde of Grimwore. In fact, Hilroy had always wondered what the gameskeeper had done before applying for the vacancy here at Belladonna, but the topic had never really seemed to come up. His gray hair was roughly cut, but kept in place by a cap that hid his blue eyes. He sank into the seat opposite Hilroy and rolled his neck. There was an audible crack.

“Ah, that’s better. Come on, there must have been something going on around here lately. I just saw a girl escape from the infirmary by climbing out a window.”

“Not that big of a feat, considering that it is on the first floor,” Hilroy replied. “Tea?”

Griswold took his cap off and ran a hand through his hair. “Actually, considering the hour, I probably shouldn’t have something weak.” He produced a flask from his jacket and took a quick swig.

“You know, when the inspector comes, seeing the gameskeeper drinking while on duty may not endear us to the Ministry. You might even lose your job.”

“Bah, the Ministry’s a bunch of coots and they know it. I’m harmless to you young’uns. But seriously, that girl that escaped from the infirmary, she’s the reason why I wanted to talk to you.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know her name, would you?”

“Nawp, and I don’t plan to. The kid’s up at all hours and I run into her in the dandiest places. Aranea be saved, just the other night she holed up in the greenhouse and went to bed right there. I know most of those kids on that Battle Club you all love so much, but I honestly expected more from them than pretending to be homeless.”

“What makes you think she’s a member of the battle club?” Hilroy wanted to know.

Griswold took another sip before replying. “She’s got a sword with her all the time. And if I’m not mistaken, there’s that durn school rule that says only Battle Club members can carry weapons. Although why they would need them on them at all times is beyond me.”

“That rule was instituted before I even started teaching here, and any attempt I make to shut it down is met with the most ungodly of protests. You’re lucky, Gris. You only have to encounter the occasional female teenaged wizardling if she breaks the rules. I have to deal with any student harbouring even the slightest of complaints. In fact, this week alone I’ve gotten several concerning the same student that you have an issue with. Seems some of the girls in her year want her to be expelled.”

“Well why don’t you?”

Hilroy sighed. “It’s not like it used to be, Gris. Parents are no longer allowed to teach their children themselves, not after what happened in the seventies. Sure, there are other schools in the country that teach magic, but not with the diversity that it is here. She’s unique.”

“You meet one wizardling, you’ve met them all, I always said. What makes her so different?”

“Repeller.”

The look on Griswold’s face was the most satisfaction Hilroy had had all day, and it had been a very long one. “Re-repeller? You’re serious?” Hilroy nodded. Griswold leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “I thought they all went underground since the Civil War. I mean, you hear about the occasional adult making a name for themselves in the fight against the Grimwore, but a kid outside of the clans? Are you sure?”

“They caught her lifting money from one of the banks. She had nearly made it out, I was told when a rogue spell caught her by surprise.”

“Ha, those banks deserve to be robbed every once in a while. All that gold stashed in one place, I don’t care if you’ve got a hundred goblins or dragons or even if you’ve got a Salamander guarding that horde. Someone’s bound to figure out a way to get it out of there alive.”

Sometimes Griswold made references to things Hilroy didn’t understand. “Salamander?”

“It’s a two foot critter, kind of like a dragon the way a tiger is like a kitten. Sure, it’s a bit on the small side, but those things are fast, let me tell you, and smart too. I’ve actually got one coming to stay here. Thought you knew that.”

Hilroy shook his head. “It’s news to me. Where did you get the approval for that?”

“Didn’t. But don’t worry, it’s just a young’un, maybe twenty years old. And he’s injured. Reavers attacked his home a few weeks ago. He’s just getting released from the ward tomorrow, but he’s still in no condition to be on his own quite yet. Blademaster Krystal asked if I could look after him for the term, or at least until he’s well enough to fly. Shouldn’t see much more of him after that.”

“What makes him a tiger to a dragon’s kitten?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it Clarke. He’s dangerous to the Reavers, and anything else he believes to be a threat. But I’ll treat him right good, and he won’t be a bother to the kids. I’ll keep him isolated. He’ll probably take to the Forest the way most of the others do anyways. Besides, he’s not one for socializing with our kind, Blademaster Krystal said.”

“And you said the request came from her, correct?”

Griswold nodded before taking another swig from his flask. His face contorted with disappointment as he peered into the narrow neck. “Damn, could have sworn I topped this one up before I started my shift.”

“You really should not be saying those sorts of things in my presence, Gris.”

“You’ve always been a real stickler, you know that, right? Don’t fret, I always pack a spare.” He tucked the flask away and produced a silver one from his other jacket pocket. “You never know when them critters are in mating season, let me tell you. Some of them just ain’t used to living out here. Plus, I have to go capture a Hilden tonight.”

“For Blademaster Zefron?”

“Yeah, he’s gotta do that lesson for the third years before winter sets in and the Hildens become a worse problem than the Reavers.” Griswold huffed as he hauled himself to his feet. “That Repeller kid, just how good is she at undoing spells?”

“I don’t know, but if she couldn’t complete a bank heist, I don’t think she’s quite a graduate yet from their education system.”

Griswold laughed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I was jest thinking is all, about that girl laid up in the infirmary all year. I know we already had a Repeller down, but let me tell you, Tyson’s not the best at what he does. His grand-daddy was kicked out of the clans, and the blood’s really thinned from there. I’m surprised Tyson could Repel his way out of a paper bag. But wouldn’t it be something if she could somehow figure out what’s ailing poor Knight?”

He vanished into the air, which wasn’t at all unexpected. The door clicked open and the little statue of a gargoyle was placed once more as a doorstop. The air shimmered in the form of a man for a moment, and then the footsteps retreated down the hallway.

 

 

 

Tunnels and Tears

Jamie, Candace and Zen were on their way to breakfast when the news reached them. Zen’s hair was somehow back to its original long length after last night, a fourth braid added to the collection, with red beads capping it. She still carried her sword with her. Jamie was the first to notice something odd when she saw several students race into the corridor that led to the infirmary. Then a third year almost bumped into them as she escaped the same hallway. Jamie caught her before she could fall. “What’s going on?” she asked.

The girl stared up at her, her face flushed. “Sylvia Knight’s missing.”

Candace looked at Zen, stunned. Zen had her back to them, studying a painting of the Guild War. But that didn’t matter, Zen didn’t matter. Candace burst into a run, racing through the halls towards the infirmary. Had Zen done it?

There was a crowd of students clustered around the entrance to the infirmary, and the three forced their way through, Candace leading the way and knocking aside first and sixth years alike. None of them mattered either. At last, she emerged victorious at the van of the group, Zen and Jamie right behind her.

The infirmary was unusually crowded. Headmaster Hilroy and Madame Kirena, who looked positively ill, though whether because of the events happening or because of her hemlock obsession was anyone’s guess, were standing talking to one side as other professors were busy scouring the room, looking for clues. Sylvia’s bed was empty, the blankets rumpled and the sweater that Candace had forgotten there the other day was gone. The window was completely open.

Madame Kirena spotted her and pointed her out to the headmaster. Candace stiffened as he waved her over. Zen nudged her forward. “Come on, get it over with. Hesitating will look suspicious,” she whispered.

Jamie followed them in. “Yes sir?” Candace asked, trying to calm her rapid heart rate.

“Madame Kirena tells me that you came down with something last night, but didn’t want to take anything for it. Are you alright?” he asked.

Candace nodded a little too eagerly. “Oh yes, quite alright now sir, thank you for asking. Where’s Sylvia?”

“She was missing when I came in this morning,” Kirena wailed, burying her face in her hands.

Hilroy gave her a reassuring pat on the back, “There, now, it’s quite alright, Matilde. This isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known that Sylvia would simply wake up one night after having been comatose for so long.” He raised his voice to address the students in the hall. “A grounds-wide search will be conducted immediately. Students are to remain in the Great Hall until further notice.”

“What about me?” Candace asked. “I can help lo-“

“You will be joining your fellow students in the Great Hall, Miss Julian. You would simply be in the way rather than of benefit. Don’t worry, we’ll find her soon.” He fixed Zen with a long hard stare, who simply rocked back onto her heels and crossed her arms. After a moment, he dropped the look and turned to address one of the professors, making it clear that they were dismissed.

Another one of the professors began herding the students away from the infirmary. Jamie took Candace’s arm. “Come on, Candy,” she said, “They’ll find her sooner than we can anyways. We’ll save her some of those jelly-filled scones she likes so much.”

They joined the gaggle of students headed for breakfast. “Sparrow, can you believe it?” Jamie asked as they walked, “Sylvia’s awake! I mean, just bam, up and walking again as if nothing had happened.”

Candace slipped a glance at Zen, but she didn’t meet her gaze. “Oh crud,” she cursed as the realization hit her. She stopped in her tracks.

“What’s wrong?” Jamie asked.

“They’re not going to find her. Sh-we,” Candace corrected herself, “Know more about the school grounds than the teachers do.”

August popped free of the crowd and joined them.

“What do you mean?” Zen asked, suspicion creeping into her voice.

Candace sighed and glanced around them to see if they were being watched. She spotted August. “Beat it, scamp.”

August thrust her chin out. “Make me. If you guys are going to look for Sylvia, either I come with or I’m gonna tell the headmaster.”

Candace shook her head and waved it off, already moving past that. “There’s miles of secret passageways in this place. Fitz and Jason were always sneaking over here, and me and Sylvia would sneak over to their school sometimes. It’s like an underground city down there. Sylvia told me that she felt safer down there where no one knew where she was then up here amongst all the hassle. I think I know where she is.”

“You know how to get down there?” Zen asked.

“Yeah. Follow me.” They split from the main hallway into one of the darker passageways, deeper into areas that were hardly ever used. Jamie looked around them with interest, taking in the statues spaced at even intervals on either side.

“Is this the hall of the Immortal witch?” she asked at last.

Candace glanced up to notice that every statue depicted the same person, dressed in different clothes and in a different pose. “I guess. You know I’m not really into that sort of thing.”

“Well, neither am I, but just think of what we could learn from someone like that. Someone who was actually a part of the guilds before the War. Who saw magic when it still had all that diversity to it. Imagine what knowledge we could recover from her.”

“That knowledge is what led to the Guild War in the first place,” Zen said behind her. “Just remember that fact if you ever do meet this person.”

“Who’s the Immortal Witch?” August asked.

“No one knows,” Jamie replied. “Around fifty years ago, an archeological dig uncovered a book that had been stored in a sealed jar. The technique itself dated the journal to be around three hundred years old, around four hundred years after the Guild War. They’ve manged to translate enough of it to recognize it to be much older than that though. The journal talked about life in the guilds, and the guild war, and the aftermath as if the writer had lived through it all. And they’re certain that it was all one writer, and not just many over a long period of time.”

“If you’re done the history lesson, princess,” Zen interrupted, “Maybe we can get back to looking for the deranged student that’s been set loose on the school.

“Hey, no reason to be peeved. You may not like history, but that doesn’t mean that you should g-“

“Both of you shut up. We’re at the entrance,” Candace said. The four stood in front of a partifularly small statue for the hall, small enough that it stood on an oaken end table. A fine layer of dust had collected on it, completely overlooked as the staff went about the cleaning. The walls to either side of it plain panels of mahogany and walnut, the different colourings giving a consistent pattern that strectching into forever in either direction.

Candace put her palm on the frozen warrior’s head and said “Klamen”.

Several panels of the wall vanished, revealing a secret passageway. Cold, stale air rushed out of the tunnel and blasted their faces with the scent of mouldy decay.

“Wow,” August said, amazed.

“What? Surprised that there’s secret tunnels in the school?” Candace asked smugly.

“No. I’m surprised that my sister’s rebellious enough to even know that there are tunnels, much more how to actually get in to them.” She ducked Candace’s swat.

“We’re wasting daylight,” Zen said, “Save it for when we find Sylvia back.”

“I forgot. We need flashlights.”

“Seriously, Candace? We’re at a magic school, and you mean to tell me that they haven’t taught you guys a single spell about illuminating your path in the four years that you’ve been here?”

“Not here they don’t,” Jamie said. She lifted her palm, which was glowing. “At Jillian’s, everyone who was in astrogation class needed to know this spell. You focus on your palm and think of it lighting up. With that thought in mind, you say “Mylla”.”

Candace and Zen did as she said, and their hands lit up, Candace’s glowing brighter than Zen’s.

“Look at me,” August said, spreading her arms wide. “Mylla.” Her whole body flared with light, including her clothes. “I’m the human torch. If we were in Britain that would be a play on words.” She laughed.

“Pardon the nutcase of the family,” Candace said as she stepped into the tunnel. “We’re pretty sure we took the wrong kid home from the hospital.”

“Hey!” August protested loudly, storming after her sister.

Jamie and Zen hesitated. Zen gestured towards the tunnel with a grand flourish and a deep bow. “After you.”

Jamie raised her hands. “Nuh-uh. Age before beauty.”

Zen flashed her a quizzical smile, which morphed into a wolfish grin. “Alright, good. Keep an eye out behind you. I’m pretty sure that some of the monsters from the Forest of Mysteries have managed to trap themselves down here, especially if it’s an underground city like Candace claims. Graemons, some have probably been down there for years. Can you imagine how hungry they must be after a diet of nothing but rats?”

Jamie blanched and jumped into the tunnel, leaving Zen to take up the rear. “You’ve got the sword after all,” she said by way of explanation. “It only seems right that you take the rear.”

Candace set a fast pace, leading them down into the dungeons, going deeper than Jamie would have thought possible. August had let her lights dim so that she simply looked like she had rubbed glow-in-the-dark fluid all over herself. Even Zen started to become disoriented as they went further. They had only been walking for ten minutes, but in the close confines of the tunnels, it felt like it had been much longer.

“So when does the city start?” August asked.

“We’re not going through it. Sylvia has this spot in the Forest that she likes to go to. This tunnel takes us straight there.” The tunnel began to slop up again, steeply, turning into broad, flat steps as the tunnel widened.

The tunnel led to a dead end. A ladder was propped up against one wall. Candace clambered up no problem, her leggings covering anything that she might have deemed embarrassing to be seen. At the top, she pushed open the cover, allowing filtered daylight into the tunnel.

“She never wore leggings for our first three years,” Jamie muttered to Zen. Then, louder she said, “No peeking.” And climbed up after her friend.

August was next, and Zen took up the rear. They emerged in a small clearing in the forest, with white trees forming a perfect circle along the perimeter. They were standing in the ruins of what must have been a _________ at one point, made of white marble that matched the school. A few columns still stood, and there were several benches in relatively good condition. Bits of rubble poked out in various spots in the tall grasses. Wild summer flowers grew from the cracks in the floor. Zen let the flagstone that covered the tunnel fall back into place.

A girl with disheveled blonde hair was standing on a bench, her back to them as she stood with her face angled towards the sun. “Sylvia?” Candace ventured, taking care not to spook her friend.

Sylvia turned to face them, her eyes unfocused for the most awful of moments before they settled on Candace. They focused on her and Sylvia grinned. “Candace!” she hopped off the bench and tackled Candace to the ground, hugging her friend. “I’m so glad you’re okay. When I woke up, you weren’t in the infirmary. I was so worried, and I didn’t know what to do. I knew you would find me if I went here, so here I am. How are Jason and Fitz? They’re in the infirmary at St. Malcolm’s right? Do you think that they’ll let us in? How ridiculous, of course they will. We’re their girlfriends after all.”

Tears welled up in Candace’s eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong?” she glanced up and took in the other faces. “Hey, Jamie, you’re back early. It’s exam week, you know. Why would you bother coming here? Does Jillian’s end earlier than Belladonna? Oh my goodness, Candace is this your sister? What is she doing here? I thought that she wasn’t old enough yet.” Sylvia’s weight disappeared from on top of her. Candace sat up to see Sylvia lifting August off the ground in a massive hug. “Oh my goodness, she’s like a mini you.” Sylvia squealed before she set her down and tipped her head as she studied Zen curiously. “You look familiar. Have we met? Are you in the class below us? I don’t think that St. Malcolm’s will let you guys in too. I mean, during this time, it would be a stretch even for me and Candace, but after what happened, they’ll have no choice but to let us in, right Candace?”

She turned to face her friend again, looking for agreement. What she saw instead were tears coursing down her friend’s face. “Hey, what’s wrong?” She blinked. “Wait, St. Malcolm’s doesn’t even have an infirmary. And Fitz would have been at my side. He would have made them bring the exam to him. Besides that, he should have been excused from the exams period considering what happened. Candace?” Sylvia’s tone became worried, “What exactly did happen?”

Candace forced the lump down her throat. “You don’t remember?” she asked tentatively.

Sylvia shook her head, suddenly uncertain and exhausted. She slumped, aiming for the bench beside her but missing it and collapsing into a sitting position on the grass. Candace knelt beside her, heartbroken. “I-I think I remember being in the tunnels. We were looking for th- it,” she stressed after glancing pointedly at the others. “And then there was this bright flash of white light and then I woke up in the infirmary. The Seraph was singing.”

“Oh great, sis, your friend’s crazy.”

“Shut up or leave, snot,” Candace snapped over her shoulder.

“Candace?” Sylvia ventured.

Candace knelt beside her friend in the grass. “Sylvia… Fitz and Jason- they didn’t make it.”

Sylvia stared at the ground. She started shaking. “No. No, they can’t- they can’t be.” She looked up at Candace, her expression mirroring Candace’s own feelings. “Oh my god,” she said, grabbing her friend and clinging to her as the sobs started to come. “Oh my god.”

Tears started to trickle down Candace’s cheeks. The two lung to each other as they mourned their loss, oblivious to the rest of the world, not caring that Grimwore hunted negative emotions. Jamie sat on the other side of Sylvia, wrapping an arm around the girl’s shoulders. August sat beside Candace and took hold of her sister’s hand, rubbing the back of it. Zen remained standing and turned her back on the group, drawing her sword as she stood guard for the mourners. The five of them stayed in that clearing for a long time.

Zen vs. the Headmaster- Round Two

Lunch was being served by the time they got back to the school, entering via the Immortal Witch hallway. Sylvia leaned heavily on Candace and Jamie, what frugal energy she had started out with spent in the woods. Since most students were in the Great Hall, they hardly saw anyone. Those that they did come across gaped at the sight- Sylvia being supported by Candace and Jamie, with August leading the way and Zen, minus a blazer that she had had that morning, taking up the rear. Students’ heads poked out of classrooms where they had holed up to study- third year potions class was having their first test that afternoon- to watch the procession.

They crossed the main entrance foyer, the maze inactivated for the time as they stepped on both brown and white tiles at will. They made it to the infirmary before they finally came across a teacher. “I don’t want to go in there,” Sylvia whispered weakly.

Candace patted her hand reassuringly. “I’m not going to leave you alone. You’ll be fine.”

Sylvia was settled back into bed when Headmaster Hilroy finally burst into the room. Spying the five of them, relief washed over his face before being replaced with annoyance. He crossed the room in long strides. “Where were you?” he demanded in a soft tone.

Sylvia managed a cocky little smile at him. “Sup boss? How’s the school these days. Must have been pretty boring without me around.”

Hilroy’s gaze flicked from her to Candace as he raised an eyebrow. She looked away. “Candace, a word please?”

Sylvia clung to Candace’s hand. Candace hesitated. “Don’t bother,” Zen said, “I’ll go. He’s gonna want to talk to me next anyways.”

She followed Hilroy out into the hall, out of sight of the others. Students who had been creeping close to see if the rumors were true were scared away by his seething glare. Note to self, Zen thought, don’t push him too far or he’ll go right over the cliff.

“I asked for Candace,” he said quietly.

Zen leaned casually against the wall, her left hand gripping the edge of her sleeve. “Yeah, well, Sylvia’s been through a lot, so has Candace. They need to be together right now. I’m sure if you have any questions, I’ll be able to provide the answers to them.”

“Alright then, where was she?”

She shrugged. “Can’t tell you. Try another one.”

“We know she wasn’t outside. We have staff watching the doors.”

“As if no one’s ever used a window to escape or sneak back in before.”

“So she was outside?”

“Didn’t say that, did I? I was simply pointing out that you guys had a one in twenty chance of catching her if you were only watching the doors. That’s about the ratio of first floor windows to doors leading outside, I’m guessing.”

“Does she know about her friends?”

“Yeah. Candace told her. Sylvia was devastated. Might I suggest letting Candace skip classes for the day?”

“Are you asking me for permission for the four of you skipping classes when you’ve already missed most of them?”

Zen raised a hand defensively. “Hey, it was for a good cause. Candace worried is so not the Candace that you want on your hands, trust me.”

“Alright, maybe you can provide an answer to a question that has plagued me since the five of you are here.”

“If you’re asking me about what happened to my new blazer, it was seriously not my fault. There’s a perfectly logical explanation for it.“

“That’s not was I was going to ask, although now you’ve piqued my interest. We’ll get back to that one. Let me finish. Before Madame Kirena left at midnight, the groundskeeper saw someone flee the infirmary at around eleven. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Zen shook her head. “Nawp, but I don’t blame whoever it was for trying to escape Madame Kirena’s concoctions. Candace said that she was almost fed hemlock last night.”

“It’s only mildly toxic in low doses.”

Zen raised an eyebrow at him. “You know, there’s gonna be a time when a parent is going to walk by without you knowing it. And they are so not going to want to hear you talking about how hemlock is a common enough ingredient in medicines. You know that hemlock kills people, right?”

“What exactly did happen to your blazer?”

“We got attacked by another Reaver.”

“inside the school?”

“I never said we found Sylvia inside the school. She was out in the Forest, wandering around, completely confused. It was sheer luck we found her before a Grimwore did. Anyways, I tried harder this time not to get any of the damn blood on my clothes- I even took off my blazer and hung it on a tree branch, but wouldn’t you know it? That Reaver just simply had to go and knock it over during our encounter and fall right on top of it. Suffice it to say that it disappeared even faster than the last one. I get it if the school can’t spring for a new one. More’s the pity though, I was actually getting used to it.”

“Oh good, then you can get used to the idea that any clothes that you manage to somehow destroy will be replaced with articles located in the lost and found. I expect you to have another blazer by dinner.”

“Lovely. I always consider used things to be much easier to deal with. They don’t get all stiff and starchy on you. Let me tell you, this place is not at all like home.”

“And how is that?” he asked mildly.

She opened her mouth, about to answer, but thought about it and grinned. “Nice try. I know the Ministry has you watching me and that you’re supposed to report back to them. Sorry, but I’m not going to make it that easy for you. There are rules, even to banishment.”

“So you were banished then? The records weren’t clear.”

“In a manner of speaking, yeah. I have no clan to return to now. I’m a first generation Clanless.” She rubbed her left arm as she said it, jutting her chin out stubbornly. “And I think Sylvia’s in a similar boat, so why don’t you just back off for now and give her some room, alright? She doesn’t remember anything about what happened, or why they were down there in the first place. Heck, I’ll bet that she doesn’t remember anything at all that’s related to why they were there.”

She turned to go back into the infirmary. “Oh, and one more thing,” she said over her shoulder. She turned around to face him. “If you want a Repeller to try to fix something, don’t go and hire the loser who couldn’t repel a jinx to save his life. Aranean incantations deserve a little more respect than that.”

Fumes, Faeries, and Forgotten History

Hilroy sat in his study, fingering his medallion thoughtfully as the Sight overcame him. Whirls, he saw, whirls upon whirls upon circles. That’s what he saw when he thought of Zen. The next closest person who compared to her aura was Griswold.

The door closed and half the lamps in his study flickered out. “Griswold,” he said to the darkness. “You’re up early.”

“Never really went to bed, to be frank,” the old man replied as he sat down and produced the ever faithful flask from his coat. “No luck catching one of them Grimwores, but the traps are set. Now I’m just playing the waiting game. So the girl woke up, eh?”

“Yes, and I believe she had help on that score.”

“Your Repeller student,” he declared. Hilroy nodded. “Told yer she’d be useful.”

“She said something interesting to me today…” Hilroy trailed off

“Aranea be saved,” Griswold swore after waiting several seconds, “You gonna spit it out?”

“Why do you always say that?”

“Because you always take your sweet time talking and I’m normally running on fumes.” He shook the flask. “Haven’t been able to top up yet, and that tends to get me in a sulky mood.”

“No, I meant, why do you always say Aranea be saved?”

“Oh, that,” Griswold said, turning pensive. He sighed heavily. “Well, you know about my condition and all that, right?” Hilroy nodded. “Well, way back when, Aranea used to be a kingdom of sorts, ruled by a higher class. Don’t ask me what class. The person who told me this story got real mad when I asked. You’d think I had asked her if she was a faker Wanderer. You know what a Wanderer is, right?”

“They were a sect of people who traveled from town to town before the Guild Wars, gathering the history of places before a universal language developed.”

“Yeah, and they get respect mostly everywhere they go. Anyways, Aranea was protected by a magical spell called the Barrier, kept foreigners out and kept the kingdom hidden from view. Although she called it a Queendom, not a kingdom.”

“Gris, get to the point.”

“I am. Something caused the spell to fall apart. The ruling class was wiped out by rebels in a Civil war that was more like a civil one-sided slaughter. There was a tenuous peace for about twenty years and then they got ravaged by the empire that surrounded them. Aranea was completely destroyed.”

He took a long, slow draught of his flask. “Anyways, what makes you so interested suddenly in bringing up the past?”

“Something the girl said. Called Sylvia’s coma an Aranean incantation. Any idea what she meant?”

“Nawp, but those Repellers have always been their own kind for most things. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Wanderer were their ancestors. Most Repellers are illiterate, so they have an oral account of history. Maybe the same Wanderer I knew ended up joining them. Anyways, I’m gonna snap up these last few hours of daylight and take a nap.”

“Gris, how old are you?”

Griswold turned to look at him and laughed. “I lost count after my two hundereth birthday. Didn’t seem worth keeping track anymore. Have a good sleeping night, Clarke. You look like you’re not getting any younger here.”

“Ah, rub it in, why don’t you? Have a good working night, Gris.”

The door opened and the door-jam slid back into place as Gris dematerialized. Hilroy waited for a full minute before rising from his seat. Waving a hand at the door, he murmured an incantation and it slammed shut, the gargoyle pushed out of the way. He strode over to the bookshelf and trailed a finger along the volumes. Finding the one he wanted, a blue leather-bound book with no title or other markings aside from a cresent moon embossed in the corner. He returned to his desk and flipped it open, mindful of the worn pages. Tight handwriting filled the unlined pages, written in ink that had begun to fade over time. It was a journal of sorts, though it was filled with more than mere thoughts. Inventions, events of significance, all sorts of goodies were stored in it.

And the Minsitry didn’t know about it, which made it that much more priceless. He thumbed through the book to where it fell open naturally- several pages had been ripped out. He had tried everything to restore them, but without the actual pieces, there wasn’t anything that he could do about it.

The unnamed author had seemed to have come to some sort of moral issue. Before the missing pages, all the journal talked about was life in a small village filled with what was referred to as Vigils. Perhaps they had been the makers of the famed Vigil blades, of which only a small dozen remained. One of them was even on display in the school, outside the Blademaster Zeref’s office.

The topics after the missing pages seemed to have taken place years later, the location also changed. It was here that the writer spoke of Aranea. After what Griswold had told him, this seemed to happen after the ruling class had been wiped out. The book ended with the person being a healer in a small village, with detailed notes on different plants that the writer had experimented with. There was no mention of the ruling class.

The language itself was nothing fancy, nothing to hint at it being written by a male for a female. Maybe it had belonged to the Immortal Witch. Maybe it had simply belonged to someone who had grown up during that time. The incantation he had placed on himself, the one that enabled him to read it in the first place, was a rare one and hardly understood by those like him who knew about it.

He studied the remnants of the torn pages for a moment longer. What had caused the writer to rip them out? What secrets did they contain? And why had entire sections before the missing pages been blotted out? They spoke of something he hadn’t thought possible. They spoke of Faeries, and not too kindly of them either.

Other than the book he held in his hands, there were no other written mention of the race. The writer had spoken of them with contempt, but familiarity as if there had been many of them. He sighed. Perhaps there were other books like his, held in secret by others, protected from the world. But why had the writer tried to blot out the Faeries?

He studied the passages that he had Cleaned again, but the Faeries were only mentioned in passing, with comments like “blood-sucking”, “Good-for-nothing”, “Parasitic”, and “Vile” preceding them. When he looked at those particular passages without his incantation, he could tell that the language carried more colourful metaphors that simply could not be translated into English. What about the Faeries had made the writer hate them so, to the point of trying to completely erase them from history?

He sighed. Always more questions. Always no answers for them. The writer had introduced themself as the Banished One. Perhaps a former member of a Repeller clan. If Repellers had existed for so long. That was the real reason why he was so interested in Zen- to find out more about her clan history. How long had the clans been around, what was their version of history? He had her for two years, he wasn’t going to give that up easily.

He closed the book and returned the spell bindings around it, preserving it until he would read it again. The spell was nothing unusual. He had it on all of his books simply to keep from drawing another Diviner’s attention to this one. He returned it to the shelf and removed the spell from his office, unsheilding it.

He turned his thoughts to more present matters. Sylvia was awake now. No doubt her father would be coming sometime in the next year, but no earlier than in a month’s time. The man was busy, but his coming was inevitable. Perhaps she would be able to answer a few of the questions that had been buzzing around in his mind. How had the three of them known to look down there in the first place. Candace had been absolutely useless on that count. He knew that the four had somehow gotten involved in something, but she was tight-lipped about nearly everything. Sylvia rambled for hours about the most mundane of topics, he was sure that he could guide her far looser lips in the direction of the Stone.

The Society wanted answers. They had even threatened to remove the Stone from its hiding place, to relocate it to a more secure facility. But as Zen had proven just this past summer, even the banks weren’t safe from being cracked. Better to keep it close at hand to one of the Wings. Sylvia would definitely have answers for them all.

Zen vs. the Detention

September was probably the longest month that Zen had ever lived through. Potions sucked, charms sucked, anti-magic sucked, battle tactics sucked to the power of infinity. The bed was uncomfortable and the Forest of Mysteries was in fact, off limits. Who knew?

Of course, she seemed to be attracting detentions like a fire attracted moths. It wasn’t anything she did really. Showing up late for class had not been by design- she had been ambushed by a pack of lesser Grimwore. It had been harder than she had expected- there had only been five of them, but escaping the forest without killing them had been difficult. She was out of practice, and paid for it with a detention with Professor Atworth, professor of charms, which was also one of her less favourite classes.

Detention was actually where she was now. Stuffed in a classroom during extracurricular time with several other students ranging from first years to fourths. Apparently, fifth and sixth years absolutely refused to do anything fun. And there was only one first year.

Ever since she had found out that Zen was being served detention on an almost daily basis, August had somehow managed to become the first year’s trouble maker. Just the other day, she had “accidentally” blown up a small, worthless statue in the hall of the immortal witch, a statue that had turned out to be an utter fake. It had been Zen’s favourite- the nose had been only a tad bit off, and it had been more on the complimentary side. Most of the statues weren’t even historically accurate, but far be it from her to correct the centuries of artists who carved what they imagined.

She fingered the textbook that she was supposed to be reading. Professor Atworth expected an essay on the history of charms-casting, focusing particularly pre-Guild Wars era. And the textbook was ridiculous, speaking of wizards and mages and guilds that she hadn’t even heard of.

August, sitting beside her, was supposed to be perfecting her technique of charms-casting in general. “Los nacht et tabulem,” she declared, waving her hands at the feather in front of her. It moved slightly, but Zen felt the small draught that trickled through from the window that was open just the barest of cracks.

Zen slammed the book shut, pulled free a sheet of paper and began to write, careful to maintain her handwriting. It took years to perfect a unique style, and at this early stage, she still stood the risk of dropping back into an old habbit. It probably didn’t help that she still used her old writing style for her journal, but old habits died hard, and that was the way that Boromir had taught her to write. At the thought of the man, a chill swept through her body, like a ghost had just walked through her.

She finished the essay in about half an hour, leaving another half before detention finally let out and she could return to her den. August was still working on the stupid spell.

August groaned and dropped her head onto her desk with a loud thunk. “I hate this stuff,” she declared loudly.

Professor Atworth flicked her a silencing glare before returning his attention to his book. From where she sat, Zen couldn’t make out the title, which meant it was probably something boring. She turned her attention back to August. “What spell are you trying to cast?”

“I’m trying to make the thing float. Light objects are supposed to be easy, but I can’t get it to work. How come the flashlight hands spell was easier?”

“Because that one required very little magic. Manipulating yourself is nowhere near as difficult as manipulating something else. Everything is in groups of three for magic, if you think about it, even if eight is supposed to be the magic number. There are three types of casting- spells for inanimate objects, incantations as preset instructions for a specifc effect, normally on a person, and jinxes, which are forbidden anyways so we don’t really learn about them.”

August groaned. “You know, if the whole Grimwore hunter thing doesn’t work out, you’d be an excellent teacher here. I can just picture myself dozing off as you start talking about all the magics there are in the world.”

Zen cuffed her none too gently across the back of the head.

“Ow!”

“shut up and listen. This is your life now. You are at a school that teaches magic so that wizards are not caught off guard. Wipe that surprised look off your face. There’s a reason for everything, and just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t exist. Other studetns in your calss may not have been able to practice magic, the same limitation that you have, but they also have a distinct advantage over you- they all know what their magic is.”

“isn’t there only one? Casting? That’s all that everyone uses.”

Zen sighed. “That’s like saying there’s only one planet in the solar system, because there’s only one that is inhabited by intelligent life. There are other magics, although they are obscure. This school is unique because for the most part, they have the tools you need in order to get to your highest level of achievement. You will only ever be mediocre at Casting, I can tell that much. You’ve got an odd magic. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s probably the reason why that Reaver tried to kill you when you proved to be annoying.”

“I was not annoying it! I was attacking it!”

Zen barked a laugh. “Yeah. The way a mosquito attacks an elephant. Which, by the way, is pointless.”

“Well you cast the stupid spell,” August huffed, shoving the feather away.

“I’ve got even less of a talent for Casting than you do, but I’ll do my best,” Zen said as the feather slowly floated to the ground. She pointed a finger at it. “Los Necht et tabulum.” The feather rose several feet into the air and dropped back to its original position in front of August.

She mimicked Zen’s accent. “Los Necht et tabulum.” The feather remained still.

“Roll your ‘m’ a little bit longer,” Zen suggested.

“Los Necht et tabulummmmm.”

“Hilarious. Mock the suggestions again, and I will never help you with a single one of your classes ever again.”

August’s mouth opened and closed several times like a dying fish. “But you said that you would help me with Battle calss. You promised.”

“I did not promise you a single thing. But if this is how you are going to treat my suggestions, then forget it. I don’t explain things to half-baked students.”

“I’m not half-baked!”

Professor Atworth shot them another glare at the sudden outburst. Several other students were looking at them now. August slumped. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly.

Zen waited until the others had gone back to their own work. “Again.”

“Los Necht et tabulum.” The feather rose an inch off the table before falling again. There had been no breeze. August whooped.

“Miss Julian,” Professor Atwater said, “If I hear another word out of you during this time, another demerit will be tacked on to your already sterling record.”

August pulled a face once his attention was diverted once more. She spotted Zen’s paper and snatched it before Zen could react. Her eyes grew huge as she began to read it. At one point, her head jerked up to stare at Zen, who had slumped in her seat and was reasting her forehead on the table.

“Dude, there is no way that this is history!”

“History is written by those that are left, not the ones that were right,” Zen muttered.

August saw that it was how Zen had finished the essay. “Wow. You are going to get in so much trouble for this. I don’t think that I’ll be able to keep up with you for detention.”

“You never should have tried in the first place,” Zen replied, her voice low. “wasn’t my idea for you to start following me around after hours. You need to start doing some extracuriculars.”

“I wonder if detention would count as one.”

Zen snorted. “Yeah, we could call ourselves the breakfast club, and cause all sorts of ruckus when the teacher leaves. I’m sure one of us in here it crazy.”

“Miss Pakto,” Professor Atwaterr said, enunciating every syllable. “Since you seem to be so chatty, I presume that your essay is done?”

“As a matter of fact, sir, it is,” Zen replied readily. “Does that mean that I get to leave early?”

He smiled. “No, it means that you can now read it to the class.” He waved her up.

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Then you’ll possibly be given more detentions. But since that doesn’t seem to be working, the disciplinary committee may become involved to determine the proper repercussions.”

She sighed loudly and took the sheet from august’s hands and wended her way to the front of the room. She turned to face the rest of the classroom, all five of them. “I was assigned to write about magics before the Guild Wars. So that means I had to write about magics that no one knows about, but pretends that they do. So here it is.”

She looked at her page and began to read.

“Most of what we assume to know about the time before the Guild Wars is flat out false. The truth about past magics has been lost or destroyed, either by accident or design. The fact is, there used to be seven types of magic, as opposed to the so-called three magics of today. News flash: spells, incantations, and jinxes all fall under the same magic, called Casting. You are a Caster. You cannot be anything else if you are a wizard. The other magics do not exist anymore.

“Nothing is really known for certain about these seven magics, other than the fact that Casting was the weakest of them. Some mages did not even consider it to be a type of magic, as it required very little investment on a wizard’s part. That is why those who use casting magic are actually called wizards, whereas users of the other six magics were called mages or sorcerers.

“Society has since forgotten about those other, more powerful, six magics. And that’s good. That’s what the victors of the Guild Wars had been after, their ultimate goal.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Professor Atwater cut in. “Seven magics? Don’t you think that someone, somewhere, would have recorded them if they had actually existed?”

“Yes, well, my essay does go on to explain that, in generalizations of course.”

“Zen, it seems that you want to spend the rest of semester in detention.”

Zen smirked at him, leaning against the board. “Yeah, well, it’s more of a ‘have to’ than a ‘want to’ at this point, if you know what I’m saying.”

August’s head thumped loudly on her desk. Atwater’s face was actually turning red. Good cappilaries, Zen thought to herself. He’d bleed out faster than anyone else in this room if they were suddenly attacked.

“How about expulsion? Hm? I gave you a serious assignment to do and this rubbish is what you come up with? Hand it over now.”

She yanked it away from him. “Nuh-uh. No way. This is mine. You can write your own essays, I’m sure you can make up your own version of what life was like befreo the Guild Wars, when there were actual guilds that carried the seven magics. And did you know that even categorizing them into seven categories is a stretch?” She glaned at the clock. “And now, it is officially five o’clock, which means that we are liberated from your presence so that we may go and sup with the common people who do not have the good fortune of spending two extra hours a day with you.”

She gave him a graceful bow, still keeping the essay out of his reach. The other students quickly stuffed their things into manageable piels and whisked themselves out of the room. August had grabbed Zen’s textbook and bag and dragged them after her. Soon, it was only the three of them in the room.

“Give me the paper, Miss Pakto.”

“This was a bogus assignment and you know it. That textbook is useless for everything but as a paperweight. There is nothing that speaks of the time before the Guild Wars. I bet you that we haven’t even recovered a journal of that stupid Immortal Witch’s that’s pre-Guild War, now have we? The victors of the Guild Wars made sure that there was nothing that spoke of before. No one was there to stop them.”

“There was no victor in the Guild Wars. Both sides fought long and hard before they realized that magic was disappearing. They formed a treaty then, a treaty that holds to this day. Are you contesting the existence of that treaty?”

“Oh, I know that the treaty was signed. Funny how there’s nine names to it, am I right? There were more than nine guilds.”

“Four representatives from each side and a witness.”

She shook her head. “No, see, that’s not true at all. That is what we have assumed, and slowly that assumption has turned itself into fact as the ages get denser and denser. There were more than two sides to that war, and no one was neutral. And there was a victor. A guild that was made up of only nine members. I actually talk about it in my last paragraph, as my conclusion. Would you like to hear it?”

She stared straight at him, her paper clenched in her hand. She didn’t glacne at it once.

“Many things were lost to the Guild War- truth being the most prominent example. While the mage guilds of the world busied themselves with in-fighting, murder guilds against light guilds, a different type of guild emerged. It sonsisted of nine memebers. They called themselves the Seraph’s Hand, a bastardization of a noble idea. They believed that those born with raw magic, the source of the six stonger types of magic, were unfairly advantaged. In the effort to create true equality amongst mankind, they decided that raw magic must be cast out and cut down, to the point where only magic that anyone could learn would exist, the magic that we now have today. The reason why we don’t know anything about raw magic is because, ultimately, the Seraph’s Hand won- the guilds were wiped out, the strongest mages killed by the Hand’s own dark magic. There was no one left to argue with their account of magic.

“After all,” she finished, crumpling the paper in her hand into a ball with one fist, “History is not written by the ones who were right, but by those who were left.”

The paper in her hand ignited into a ball of flame. Zen tossed it into the air, where it burst apart, ashes slowly drifting down to settle on the floor. She curtsied to him. “Thankyou.”

Then she turned and left, August trailing behind her, her eyes wide. She glanced back at the professor, but he wasn;t watching the two of them leave. He was studying the ash on the wooden floor.

Secrets

Clarke placed a tray on the small coffee table in the sitting room attached to his office before taking a seat across from his guest. “You said you wanted to see me?”

Ben Atwater spooned the tinniest amount of sugar into his cup, the spoon doing a single rotation around the edge of the cup. “Of course.” He took a sip. “Ah, it tastes as fine as ever.”

“The sugar spoils the taste,” Clarke replied.

“Bah, as long as it doesn’t spoil the desired effect, I always say.”

“Yes, you always do. What is this about, Ben? I know you didn’t simply come here for a top-up.”

“Why isn’t Pakto expelled yet?”

“What has she done this time?”

“That’s not the point, Clarke, and you know it. This school is forced to turn away applicants from prominent wizard families because we don’t have the room. And don’t feed me the line about that it’s because we take in students from non-magical families because I know she’s a Repeller.”

“And that’s why she’s here.”

“And that’s why she shouldn’t be. She’s is nothing but a nuisance to the other students, and refuses to participate in nearly all of her classes. I don’t care if she’s the former Chancellor of the Repellers. They kicked her out, and I can’t say that I blame them.”

“They didn’t kick her out,” Clarke replied quietly.

“What do you mean? Of course they did. The only Repellers that we ever come across are the ones that have been banished.”

“Or have had their entire clan wiped out.”

Ben’s mouth snapped shut at that. He sat back and took a long sip of his cup. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice quieter. “It’s been confirmed?”

Clarke nodded. “Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“Why wouldn’t another clan have taken her in? Repellers consider life amongst us to be the cruelest of punishments, worse than death itself. Why hasn’t she been adopted into another clan?”

“I don’t know. we know nothing about Repellers. Anyone who is banished gives a solemn, Unbreakable vow that they will not tell anyone anything about their former clan. A pure Unbreakable vow can never be revoked, not even by a Repeller.”

“Still, even with those circumstances, her behaviour is inexcusable. She doesn’t belong here.”

“Fortuneately, that’s not your call.”

“I think that too much faith has been placed in you, Clarke. Sometimes I wonder what the higher-ups are thinking, allowing you the latitude they do.”

Clarke carefully set his cup back on its saucer with a small ‘clink’, and placed it on the tray. Then he pried the cup out of Ben’s with a thought, sending it tumbling to the carpet where it shattered into four large pieces. “It is not your place to question, nor mine,” he said calmly.

Ben noticed that his hand was still open and in the air. He closed it and brought it to rest on his lap. Clarke picked up his own cup and took a delicate sip, hardly swallowing. “So, did you have her do the assignment?”

“Of course. She destroyed it, but I remember every word of it if you’ve a mind.”

“Give me the high-lights.”

“She spoke of a third side to the war, a guild called the Seraph’s Hand. She colourfully explained her view of them, which was less than complimentary. She said that they were the ones who truly won a war that had no victor. She mentioned something about seven different types of magic, but rolled her eyes when she said it, as if she didn’t believe it.”

“She rolls her eyes at nearly everything.”

“Maybe it’s a magical disorder.”

“It’s a disorder alright, but there’s nothing magical about it. It’s called teenageritis, and it lasts for about seven years. We get stuck with them during the first five years of the infection.”

“This isn’t the time to be cute, Clarke. If we won’t expel her, then at least advance her past preliminary detention. She and first year Miss Julian were actually joking about including detention as an extracurricular. The fact is that neither of them are actually involved in any. At least secondary detention would teach them something.”

Clarke shook his head. “I can’t allow Zen to meet Griswold. It’s one of my orders. I don’t know the details, but someone higher up has a fear that something might happen if the two of them met.”

“So her wandering the school at night is probably going to be an issue.”

“Nah, during the night she keeps to her hideaway in the Forest.”

“Oh, because that so much safer for her than if she met Griswold.”

‘She can take care of herself. Griswold’s desire for privacy will keep the two from meeting. He cares for her section of the Forest during the day. He stays awake longer, but aside from the occasional complaint I don’t hear much about it. And her status as a Repeller seems to be a deterrent as well.”

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Clarke. Don’t forget what’s at stake.”

Clarke lifted an eyebrow. “I never do.”

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 23.11.2014

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