Updated July 2016.
CHAPTER 3.
Her fist was aimed for his side, a nerve she knew all too well would definitely impair him, and just in time he dodged out of the way and extended his leg, meaning to trip her but she jumped over it and threw another weak-willed punch, this time aiming for his head. He caught her hand in his with strength Musa hadn't expected, drawing them both to a complete stop.
"You're not even trying, are you?"
Musa straightened and crossed her arms in a manner that clearly showed how right he was. He followed immediately after, his arms falling to his sides slowly.
"You aren't either." And he made no move to argue the matter—he was a pacifist, after all. He was only doing this because she'd shown an interest and after some convincing from his girlfriend (and a few tugs at the part of his heart that was always soft for the blue-haired fairy), he'd succumbed to her begging to teach her hand-to-hand combat.
He knew all the basics of it, the maneuvers, he just didn't like or feel for it. Musa rocked back and forth on her heels. "Just out of curiosity, why did you volunteer?"
He smiled softly. "Musa, I know you—and you being you, I knew that you'd end up finding a way to learn it sooner or later with or without me. I'd rather you learn from me than from some cocky kid in the gym who might actually hurt you."
"Actually hurt me?" Musa rolled her eyes so hard it almost hurt. "That's kind of the idea, bro. I need to learn the real stuff here. You're a pacifist. How are you supposed to teach me when you feel nothing but disdain for what you're teaching?" And he could deny it if he liked, but she could literally feel it, feel the aversion of the actions he was performing. Every time he raised a hand or pinned her down, she felt the way his chest would constrict against his every belief.
"As your cousin—"
"You're practically my brother."
"Fine. As your brother-cousin, I don't want you hurt. And if that means putting myself out for a couple hours a week and doing something I don't like, I'll do it." Helia flexed his gloved hand, not having anticipated the resounding shock her punch would cause. "Besides, do you have someone else you'd rather teach you?"
Musa shrugged. "I don't know…Brandon? Maybe even Sky… Timmy probably wouldn't be that much of a challenge, he's better with that disk gun than anything. But either of the prince-clones would be more into a fight than you." She threw him an apologetic look. "No offense."
Helia smiled. "None taken." The long-haired specialist cocked his head to the side and studied his cousin's expression, then smirked—which he didn't often do. "Although, you know, it's almost funny how the only one you didn't mention was Riven."
She groaned. "Why would I?" She turned away and pulled her oversized hoodie over her head huffily. "Really, what is it with you people mentioning that jerk?"
Her cousin didn't even bother to try to hide his amusement—though it only ran so deep before such said amusement because an annoyance. "We've all noticed it. Especially with the way you get so worked up whenever anyone mentions him."
"That's because he pisses me off!" She seethed, her fists tightening with each word. He had a problem with her not taking the fight seriously—well, in no time at all, she'd be able to harness enough anger that that wouldn't be a problem. "He's an arrogant and rude and inconsiderate and he's selfish and I swear he never considers how what he does will affect anyone other than him—and did you know he's dating Darcy again?!"
If she'd been thinking clearly, she would have stopped herself before she spun around and slammed her fist into the wall, leaving a fair indent. However, the wall sustained much less damage than she received. But she couldn't be bothered to notice.
Musa ran her hurt hand through her hair, pulling the rest of it that hadn't fallen out during the sparring to come loose of the braid. "Shit, he just…" She began to rebraid her hair with quick, deft fingers and turned to Helia, talking to him as if he wasn't even there (having grown up with her, it wasn't a new experience). "He betrayed us not once but twice already for her. How could he do it again—"
Helia's brows crinkled pensively. "I think—"
"—and after we all finally learned to trust him again!? I mean, we trusted him! And he just…" Her sentence died on her lips and she bit her lip, her jaw straining as she glared at the ceiling.
The taller man placed a calming hand on her shoulder; at the contact, she turned her dark, angry eyes towards his own. His expression remained calm while he looked into her eyes, imploring her to find understanding he knew she struggled with—especially when it came to Riven. "Has it occurred to you that it might be bothering him too?"
"No." She glared. "What do you mean?"
His hand remained on her arm, warm and reassuring like a blanket. "Musa, Riven might not say too much about what goes on with him, but I can tell you that he still feels guilt for betraying you." You specifically.
With a scoff, she shrugged his hand away. "Right." She took a long swig from her strangled water bottle and wiped away the trickle that escaped her mouth. "And how would you know—like you said, he doesn't talk about anything remotely personal."
"I'm a light sleeper—you should know that with all the times you snuck out and I caught you when we spent the summers together." Helia sighed and slipped his hands into his pockets as he watched her gather together her things from the floor. "He's been having nightmares and…" Helia paused—he didn't want to betray his friend's trust, but at the same time he didn't want to leave her without an explanation, especially since she was so hung up on the subject. And if she'd just take a closer look, she'd see that he wasn't the bad guy she wanted to believe she was. "He talks sometimes."
She shook her head and rolled her eyes at him, as though to say, 'who cares'.
"People can't lie in their sleep, Musa."
Musa was still on edge. She didn't care what he was saying—she only cared about what she saw. And she saw red whenever Riven was mentioned.
"You'd be surprised how adept some people are at lying, Helia."
He shook it off because he didn't see how arguing with her longer was going to come to any results—she could be so stubborn sometimes. If only she could see how hypocritical her criticizing Riven was when she was acting the exact same way.
But that was an argument that he'd happily reserve for another day.
Crouching down beside her, he took her hand and inspected it and drew attention to the injury for the first time since she'd wounded it. It was bleeding—though only superficially- and the milky white of her third knuckle shone through in gruesome contrast. Musa winced.
"Come on," he rose to his feet and helped pull her up in tow, "We're gonna go get you ice. And I'll see if we can snag a skin patch from the bay." She nodded sullenly, biting her lip against the headache she could feel settling into her temple. With all the weird energy flying around, she must have thrown more power into the punch than she'd realized…
Musa sighed. "Helia…I've been sneaking out again."
He waved his hand past the door panel, rewarding them with a loud hiss as it pushed open. He tailored his footsteps to hers. "I know."
She shook her head. "I need to tell you why…"
°·
"You really think we'd let you go out to a power club when you did that just from hitting a wall?"
"That's not fair; I didn't—" Musa stopped. She looked at Brandon who was looking at her hand, covered in a fresh, lightly glowing blue skin patch, and she crossed her arms in a vague attempt to hide it from his adjudging eyes. "That was my own choice. I didn't even get this in a fight."
"That's exactly my point," Brandon continued. "If you did this to yourself, I don't want to imagine what those beefy club guys are going to do. They don't pull punches like that wall did." Helia chuckled softly (too soft to hear) and patted her back.
"It's not the first time I've gone, Brandon. I held my own just fine."
"Sure you did." His brown eyes danced in unmasked humour. Sky shook his head and flipped the page of the bike magazine and chuckled. Brandon, much like a big brother, wouldn't pass up the opportunity to tease her for her irrational actions. "So then what brought on today's temper tantrum? We wouldn't want to let a loose cannon like you free in the ring."
She held up her balled fists in a playful display of rivalry. "If you wanna see a loose cannon we can fight right here right now. I've got plenty more where this—" she shook her bandaged hand "—came from."
Brandon laughed outright and bumped his knuckles against her own and Musa flinched back in pain. He raised an eyebrow. "That's what I thought." The brunette specialist plopped down onto the couch by his charge and swung his feet up onto the table leisurely. "You wouldn't make it one round against me."
Cockily, she placed her good hand to her hip. "You think so? Then get me into the club and we'll see."
Brandon and Sky exchanged looks and the former shook his head. "You're going to have to find another ticket in, kiddo. I'm not going to open up that can of worms with Stella."
The princess groaned in exasperation—"The entire point I'm making is that she'd never have to know!"
He rolled his eyes. "She would." Coincidentally, his phone chimed the familiar sound that they all knew meant a message from the sun fairy. Musa's eyes rolled full-circle.
"You guys are so whipped!"
Helia muttered something sounding vaguely like 'and you're not?' She turned to slug him but his hand on her shoulder rooted her in place. Nudging her, her cousin leaned in to inspect the back of her neck, and when he drew back, his face was dark with what her heightened emotional sensors told her was anger—which was not a common emotion for him to display. "What the hell happened?"
Reaching behind her neck, her fingers probed her skin and drew away with a hiss at the tender spot. She furrowed her brow, her memory running to remember how it had gotten there—oh, right.
"It's just a bruise," she dismissed. She pushed him away and shrugged. "It's not that bad."
"What are you talking about—it's as dark as the clouds outside." He pulled the collar of the shirt down farther and balked—it just kept going. "Your whole back! Is that from sparring?" He looked queasy. Musa shook her head immediately.
"No, I got it—" she stopped short and cleared her throat. "It was during one of our field tests."
Further across the room, Sky chortled incredulously. "Maybe don't pause so long next time and it'll sound more like the truth."
Helia grit his teeth. "Musa."
"Okay, fine. You know how Flo likes to plant those trees outside our windows?" She looked from Sky to Timmy, to Brandon then to Helia. Her cousin glared but nodded. Musa stressed a laugh. "Turns out…they don't like being fallen on? They get a little temperamental."
It wasn't often that Helia's patience was tested—in fact, the last time Musa had caused him to lash out in anger had been the time she'd broken his mother's favorite picture and blamed him for it as a child, to be precise.
He pressed his fist against his mouth. "When you were sneaking out."
She shrugged sheepishly. "They don't like being woken up, and in my defense, climbing up the wall is harder than it appears with flat soled shoes."
He nodded, tongue in cheek. "Or you could just try—oh I don't know—not sneaking out. And maybe especially not sneaking out to try to find an in to Magix's worst fighting circuit that you have no business getting involved in in the first place because you are still in high school."
The girl snorted. "Calm down dad."
Helia still looked mad. "Musa, I really don't care if you think I sound like your dad right now. All this acting out is getting ridiculous and it's completely irresponsible!"
The door slammed open, crashing against the wall behind. Riven kicked it shut moodily, his hands in his pocket, hair drenched to the side of his face. He kicked his shoes off and didn't even seem to notice the argument he'd walked into.
"I'm not hurting anyone!" Musa yelled right back. "So stop yelling at me like I'm doing something wrong!"
"It's not like you've listened to anyone else so, yes, I'm going to yell! You're breaking curfew—do you know how hard your father had to fight to get Faroganda to let you stay after last year? You almost got expelled!"
"All I did was broadcast Apollo-G's show over the PA—everyone wanted to hear it, and according to Techna's stats, it prevented a fifty-eight percent school-wide absence rate. I was just doing my part to keep my classmates in school."
Helia crossed his arms. "Don't try justifying all the things you did; you know that's not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about the four classes you never attended—"
"What, was I supposed to not help fight Darkar?"
Finally seeming to take an interest, Riven scoffed. "Yeah, you sure helped a lot." He bumped into her as he passed to continue towards the kitchen in the far side of the common room.
Musa clenched her fists at her side and turned her head with a seething glare. "You're not part of this conversation, Riven, so butt out!"
He leant cooly against the counter and set his glass of water down. "You're in my apartment. If you don't want my input, don't have your conversations here."
Her face flushed red with anger. "I'll have my conversations wherever I please. You're not the only one who lives here—and I sure as hell wouldn't come here to talk to you."
"Whatever saves me from the sound of your voice."
This time Musa spun completely around and stomped over to the redhead. "Do we have a problem, Riven?" Recognizing that his argument with his cousin had reached its untimely end, Helia sighed and retreated to the couch with his other roommates—all of whom were listening attentively the way one does when expecting the situation to take a turn for the worst.
Riven smirked—it was the small victories, like getting under her skin without much effort on his part that gave him the most pleasure. "You're still talking. That's one problem."
"One? Let's hear it, then; don't hold back on my account."
His smirk spread into a full on malicious grin when he took a large step towards her, bringing them close enough that a book could have been held between their bodies. "Oh, babe, where do I start?
An announcement began to sound over the school's communication lines, shutting out the music Timmy had playing throughout the flat—"Attention students," the mechanical and clipped voice broadcasted. "A level seven weather warning is in effect. This is an emergency broadcast; all students are required to remain indoors until the threat has passed. All visiting personnel are asked to evacuate the building and return to your homes as quickly as possible. Red Fountain personnel will be standing by for your safety and assistance."
A high pitched chime declared the end of the message.
The arguing duo inhaled a deep breath in unison and their eyes met in a prolonged awkward moment of silence.
Out of their line of sight, Helia stood from the couch he'd just settled into and made his way over towards his cousin, stopping to grab her backpack along the way. He placed his hand on her shoulder and Musa's attention was finally pulled away from Riven.
"Let's get you home," he said softly. Musa nodded and the pair started for the door.
°·
Musa held tightly to his waist, not wanting to admit to herself or anyone else how nice the feel of his strong muscles beneath her fingertips was, how she enjoyed being flush up against the warmth of his skin, or how she loved how he tensed whenever she'd move her hands for better grip. She figured it was because of the strange rain that was soaking both of them that she was thinking this way—after all, he was able to sit there for the entire ride as cool as a cucumber.
Riven, however, was as far from cool as he could be.
The black clouds didn't let in any light and the rapid falling of night wasn't making the visibility any clearer. He had to rely on his busted headlights (broken thanks to the petty wrath of a certain witch) and the frequent ambient flashes from the storm that left him temporarily blinded and seeing spots. That mixed with the powerful onslaught of rain and something that resembled hail did not make for a pleasant drive.
Then there was the fact that Musa kept touching him. Her cold hands raked up and down his chest, fingers tracing the lines of his abs, and it was driving him mad. 'I'm just warming up my hands,' she'd say. Her lightly clothed thighs pressed against the outside of his legs, clenching when they hit a bump here or there—and at first, he'd been hitting them on purpose, taking delight in the way she'd squawk and moan about his driving—but now every minute or so she'd shift closer to him, tensing the muscles in her arms and legs as she did.
In the time it took him to sort through his thoughts, she pressed her cheek into the crook of his neck he tensed as her warm, sweet breath fanned across his face and her scent lingered on his shirt. She smelled like vanilla and cinnamon.
Why had he agreed to this again?
Oh, wait—he hadn't.
He'd volunteered.
°·
The tall witch paced the floor anxiously, her feet moving at a pace completely disconnected from her mind. Her mind tumbled on without her permission, replaying moments from the days passed and torturing her with reminders of the mess she'd found herself in. She was the queen of being in charge and the fact that each and every factor in her life up to that moment had slipped from within her grasp did not sit well with her at all. Riven, Cloud Tower, that pixie, even her sisters—all wild cards in the deck she'd tailored so specifically to do her bidding.
After all they'd been through, it seemed that this might be it. Icy had finally sunk below the surface, Stormy no longer believed in their mission and because of that, she was a traitor and definitely no sister. And Darcy…
Darcy was in a rut.
Her boyfriend was obviously in love with that damn pixie. That wasn't the worst part, though. She honestly didn't care for his romantic whims; she didn't care if he was seeing someone behind her back. She didn't care about him, to be completely honest.
What she did care about was that he wasn't seeing her behind her back. He wasn't romantic towards the tuneless yodeling brat—at least, not out loud. He refused to acknowledge that he was attracted to the princess, and Darcy had been inside his mind; she knew why. It was because his feelings for her ran deep. He would rather never be with her than risk losing her completely to the chain he knew Darcy still held around his neck, yanking at whenever she saw fit. He wanted more for her. That fairy was worth more to him than a few late night rendezvous and the occasional fuck against a pool table in a dimly lit bar. He loved her too much to use her as a cheap thrill.
But he'd never loved Darcy like that.
She'd done everything for him. She'd kept him away from the Army of Decay, no matter how Icy commanded her over and over again to let him go; to sacrifice him like the pawn he was, just like the others. She'd held him when he, being the weak nothing that he was, sunk into a depression and grappled with his conscience seeking to find himself. She'd been the only one he turned to when his friends had shunned him, for however short that lasted. She didn't hurt him when they were looking for the codex. She didn't hurt him in the resort realm—much. She wanted to, though. And she so easily could have. Each and every time it caused her physical pain to keep from showing her distaste for the specialist's instincts.
She'd thought she could change him. He had so much potential for darkness, his mind the perfect, beautiful blank canvas that she was all-too-eager to turn into her masterpiece.
In the end, he changed her. He changed them. And he'd soiled her pride—which to Darcy was a crime worse than any betrayal.
And so she paced, working through her grievances one piece at a time. And Riven was the first piece.
Their dreams were easy enough to manipulate.
She supposed it helped that they seemed to always be dreaming about each other anyways. It was sickening, really—invading their minds was hardly any fun when they already had the stage set for her to work her dark spells. And they dreamed about everything, from the most innocent of shared glances to the filthiest fantasies (nothing Darcy would take any shock at, but the sight of her paramour writhing and groping with the louse was more than enough to turn the stomach of a witch half her splendor). She'd once stepped into Riven's dream to find the pair, barely recognizable in their old age, sitting hand-in-hand in creaking rocking chairs on a porch overlooking the Indigo Sea and they just talked.
She'd taken entirely too much pleasure in setting flames to that cottage and laughed when he woke up in a panic, sweat streaming down his back in rivulets.
She used his own fears against him—he'd never be good enough, he'd never be strong enough, he'd never be safe enough, he'd never be loving enough. A thousand words could fill a thousand dreams of promises he wanted to fulfill, but she was there making sure he always remembered the truth he'd gotten imprinted on his very heart; he'd never be enough. All she ever had to do was plant a seed and the nightmares grew like wildfire in him.
Musa was harder to pin down.
Her dreams were sporadic—sometimes crossing the line into downright trippy. Her artistic mind lent itself so beautifully to the imagery Darcy crafted, but the fairy's flighty impulses made them harder to control. She had to struggle against her wild will and was often cornered into manipulating the small details around Musa rather than her actions, which tasted sour and like defeat to the illusionist. Most recently, the Opera house she'd so immaculately embellished with the bleeding, dismembered bodies of the weak girl's friends hadn't even been explored to its full potential—the dark wing she'd painted in blood had only been touched at the last second and Darcy had been forced to flip like a coin to even make it in time to spoil the memory of the night.
It could be exhausting, even for a witch as strong as she was. She'd put so much time and so much effort into ruining their happiness, though, that she couldn't just walk away.
Icy accused her of betraying them—Icy accused her of that a lot. She saw Darcy's obsession with the high school students downright sickening; it was a waste of valuable time and energy. She'd screamed at Darcy when she found out she was invading their dreams again, but Darcy paid her no mind. She wasn't the same girl that she'd looked up to so greatly in school. The Omega Dimension had taken a particular toll on Icy—It'd taken no more than a month following their escape for the white witch to begin her unending spiral into complete insanity. Now, Darcy was well aware that she held no claim to sanity or moral standing, but Icy…
Darcy looked down upon her sister. Icy sat in the corner muttering unintelligible words to no one, as though there was another in the room besides herself and Darcy. Her pale eyes glowed wide and bright like the moon, darting back and forth, catching irregularly on empty spots in the room as she rocked herself, her knees drawn tightly to her chest. Her formerly clawed fingernails had been broken multiple times, and though they were not long or sharpened to perfection as she'd always been so particular about before her descent, Darcy had learned that they cut even better than before.
Her gaunt hands shook as she held her freshly cut hair as tightly as she could between them, gripping it as though it were a powerful talisman.
Darcy loomed over the whimpering girl.
She hated her now, hated her deeper than she hated Musa or her own parents, because Darcy's hatred for Icy had once been strong admiration and her idol had fallen from the sky like a falling star—only to find a stump of lead in its place on the ground. Still, a part of her couldn't let go of the fierce leader she'd known. Being a pessimistic woman, she'd never put stock into the idea of hope—but for Icy, she clung to it, breathing life and willing it to be.
So far, she'd been met only with bitter disappointment.
She plucked the long tendrils from her sister's clenched fingers. She sighed. Darcy gripped her face and searched her eyes for a sign, for a shadow, a whisper of her body's previous occupant and found nothing.
Her chest burned with fury.
She lowered herself to the floor, casting the shorn locks aside. The slender woman she had once called sister leant into her warmth. "Why did you cut all your pretty hair?" Darcy stroked her short, silky hair, smoothing it away from the girl's fierce face.
She sat there holding the shaking, confused girl who wore anger like a mask she no longer understood and Darcy was empty. There was nothing genuine behind Darcy's concern. She was selfish, vain, dangerous, and didn't care one way or another about her sister's latest outbreak.
Icy was weak. She let her search for power end her.
She'd be damned before she let the same thing happen to her.
°·
She didn't know how it happened. She didn't know why it happened. As she made her way through the East entrance and up the winding stairs, she wondered vaguely if perhaps her mind had made it up as a way of torturing her—because having a pathetic crush on the specialist who was so chronically involved with the queen of darkness wasn't bad enough without her own mind playing games with her, it seemed.
Her swollen lips tingled at the touch from the truth burned into her very skin.
There hadn't been a build-up—but then, in all her dreams and daydreams (which she'd still deny with her dying breath) there never really was, so she wasn't surprised one way or the other.
She had been climbing off his bike and turned to thank him, grudgingly, for driving her back in the storm. She was going to make a comment about his hair or maybe his shirt, something about how the rain made him look like a soggy radish—really anything petty and superficial to keep the banter burning between them.
Before she could get a word out, he was already off the bike—she hadn't even seen him climb down—and his hands were on her shoulders and by the time she caught up with what was happening, he had her back slammed against the stone wall and his mouth closed over hers, eager and prying and just the right balance of tender and aggressive. She didn't know who initiated anything beyond the first move he made, but by the time she stopped to take a breath, his face was buried in her neck and she honestly didn't care.
The one kiss they'd shared in the Underrealm had definitely not prepared her for that.
It was a collision of lips and tongues, teeth playing at skin, hands reaching for whatever opening they could find. He hoisted her up as their mouths locked and their limbs battled and her legs found their way around his waist, giving her the perfect angle as his fingers pulled at the hem of her shirt and wandered up with a mission. His fingers slid beneath the band of her bra and hers slid through his rain-slicked messy hair, pulling his head back and he bit down onto the nape of her neck and his tongue slid out to taste the mark; to soothe it. She moaned in response and he hummed against her neck, raising a hand to her mouth to quiet her as he continued down, pulling the collar of her shirt out of his way.
It wasn't until a particularly boisterous clap of hideous thunder shook the very ground that they separated—and though it took them a long moment to do so, their movements came to a still, limbs caught in the entangled mess they'd formed.
Musa was only just catching her breath when he pulled away, quickly as though he'd been shocked by the energy that pulsed in the clouds, and she scrambled to catch herself on her feet before she sprawled gracelessly to the ground. A beat passed before Riven stepped away and Musa bent at the waist and ran her hands over her face—why did she do that? She groaned.
She wasn't one for rules; she preferred to break them. But Musa had one rule that she stuck to adamantly and one only—
Riven was not to be trusted.
Which meant she definitely wasn't supposed to make out with him in the courtyard, and she especially wasn't supposed to make out with him in the courtyard after she'd used the fifteen minute ride as an excuse to feel him up. Those were definitely things that were out of the picture.
His bike roaring to life snapped her out of her thoughts and Musa lifted her head just in time to see his bike peel out down the entrance in a cloud of billowing dust. She stood there wordlessly for a moment, her fingers light against her swollen lips, trying to come to terms with his speedy exit and her feelings as a whole.
Five minutes and three flights of stairs later, she'd decided how she felt about it.
She decided she didn't care if he made it back to Red Fountain in one piece or not.
But her time to reminisce was short. She'd hardly made it through the door to their dormitory, her clothes dripping off-colour rain water all over the tile and Bloom's welcome mat, before Stella got to her in a flurry of emotions and yelling.
"Where were you?!" the blonde yelled, her magazine fluttering to the ground with the force she'd discarded it to rush towards the musical fairy. Her pointed shoe tapped expectantly against the floor.
"Hello to you too," Musa drawled with a chuckle in her voice. She started to wring the water from her hair, but Stella swatted her hand away
"You don't get to dry off—and don't 'hello' me, Musa!" Stella looked very much like she was ready to lash out but Musa figured her dramatic tendancies were getting the better of her. (Musa also wondered off-hand if the sky blue face mask Stella was sporting was part of her usual skincare regimine or if she'd put it on in preparation to scream in her face.) The blonde's hazel eyes narrowed and she hissed, "Where. Were. You?"
Musa brushed past her. She pulled a towel off one of the chairs and began pressing her hair. "Red Fountain. I was visiting Helia."
"You were visiting Helia? Oh, well that's just great!" Stella threw her hands up and stomped her foot, but her blue covered face remained unmoved. "That's wonderful; fantastic even! While you were off visiting Helia, we were here sitting in Ms. Faragonda's office hearing all about how irresponsible you've been." Stella crossed her arms. She tilted her head, as though looking to see if Musa was paying attention—she was almost sure she wasn't. "I've already done my time, Musa. So explain to me why we had to listen to your behavioral lecture?"
Musa looked about at the varied faces of her friends and finally met Stella's gaze. "You didn't have to listen to it; you could have just left. I did."
If Stella could blow steam from her ears, she would have done it.
"That's. My. Point!" The sun fairy approached her small friend and pushed her back so that she fell into the plush chair behind her. She towered over her with a scowl. "I'm not making jokes right now—you leaving your disciplinary hearing is exactly what got us into this mess."
The blue-haired girl turned to Layla, sitting nearest her on the couch. "What is she talking about?"
Layla merely shook her wrist in answer and Musa shook her head in confusion at the bulky chrome circlet encasing it.
She shrugged. "What is it?"
Bloom just barely looked up from the book she was reading, using her thumb to hold her place. "We're on probation."
Techna spun around in her desk chair. "All of us are." Flora and Stella waved their arms in unison, and even Flora looked put out and miserable.
"What does that mean?" she questioned, still feeling confused and more than slightly smothered by the irritation and blame that filled the room like a fog. "We're in an emergency lockdown anyway—what good is putting us on house arrest going to do?" Musa glanced out the window—Flora had since drawn the sheer curtains, claiming the negative aura from the mysterious weather was upsetting her plants.
Stella laughed. "No, we're not on house arrest. They shut our powers off."
Musa's eyes widened in a burst of understanding. "How long?"
The blonde shrugged. "Until Deputy Headmistress Gloom and Doom feels like you've learned your lesson. The exact words she used were, 'If she thinks she can kick it in the real world and doesn't need our teaching, then we'll give her the full experience and all of its consequences.'" She finished the reenactment with air quotes and a flamboyant tip of her imaginary glasses.
Musa's head hit the back of her chair and her eyes screwed shut. "I'm afraid to ask what that means."
"The good news is that we get out of Palladium's class," Bloom offered.
Stella groaned. "The bad news? He and Professor Avalon are taking us to Magix to use the university's reality chamber to test our survival skills without our wings. And if we fail, we fail the whole semester and have to retake it."
The fairy of music huffed and sunk deeper into the chair. "You guys didn't even try to haggle, did you?"
Layla leaned over across the arm of the couch and before she could flinch away, Musa felt the cold metal clasp around her wrist.
"Welcome to the got-no-Winx Club."