A/N: Heya, finished next chapter faster than I had expected so here it is! :)


Chapter 29 - The Future Before the Storm


"Sooo… Malistaire wants his wife back?" The one to speak was none other than Kane, scratching his head with a puzzled expression.

"Seems like it. I mean… it makes sense," Shard replied arms crossed as he tried to process what just happened.

"Yes, even though necromancers should be the first ones to accept death," Added Rose from her spot on the chair.

None of the novices could quite believe what had just happened. The potion of History had actually shown them the past… and not just any past event either. They had seen the night during which Malistaire left Ravenwood and witnessed a battle between him and Bartleby. Furthermore, Shard had been attacked by a huge raven and if it weren't for Moira's help, he could have actually died from the blood loss. Yes, there definitely was much to process.

The novices hadn't lost time, and for the sake of an emergency meeting, they had rushed all the way to the dormitory, more specifically to Shard's room. The place hadn't changed much since the boy's arrival at Wizard City, with only a few personal touches, like an alarm clock on the bedside table and a pile of copybooks on the desk.

"Why do you think Darkkettle wanted to show it to us?"

"Who knows, that witch is nuts."

"I agree with Kane on this. She is just plain crazy. We asked for info on Malistaire and she let us see him going mad and stealing the eye, unfortunately it was also extremely dangerous."

"But… maybe there was a reason-"

"Shard, you were almost killed by a huge raven!"

"I know! That's why I want to make sense of it."

"Alright… Let's see…" Rose started, hugging her chest with her arms. "we saw how he tore the Death school from campus, and we saw him stealing the eye for someone."

"Who is it that would want the eye? Just… why would anyone want it?" Shard asked.

"Well, the eye of Bartleby is definitely something precious, many would want it, but I have no idea what they'd do with it."

Kane was way more interested in the entire ordeal now that danger had revealed itself, though his questions didn't become any brighter. "The Eye of History… Does it look in the past?"

"Apparently it does," Rose replied, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Shard's gaze lowered to the floor, a hand absentmindedly caressing the area where his wound should have been. "So… someone wants to look in the past with it?"

"It could be likely."

"And what about all that stuff about crossing the line? Any of you have any ideas?"

"Well, there is the line between Life and Death. Professor Wu said it is a line no wizard should ever cross. You know, bringing someone really back from death." Emer's words resonated calmly in the room, carrying with them a rather big weight. It was the first time she spoke at all during the conversation, her eyes lost in daydreams. It was almost as if the potion had yet to completely leave her system, leaving her in a reverie of her own.

"He wants to resurrect her?! Is that even possible for a wizard?"

"Shouldn't be, he's just delusional," Rose said, shaking her head.

"Anyhow, now that we have a clear picture of what Malistaire wants to do, shouldn't we tell the Headmaster?"

Rose bit her lip, as she thought about it for a few seconds. "We could, but then again, he would already know… he was there right after the incident, right? And it's not like we discovered how he plans to do it."

"Right, I'd say we focus more on our upcoming duel next. We already dabbled enough in Malistaire's life," Emer said absently.

"But-"

"No buts, Shard, you might end up to really give up on your studies if we lose. Half the school is aware of our bet by now."

"Oooh, but we were onto something!" Kane exclaimed in disappointment.

"No, Shard almost got killed for no reason at all. Emer is right, Malistaire... Black cats... old witches... let's leave it to the adults, we've done enough. Bartleby have mercy on us if we end up trusting another old hag like Darkkettle again."

"Fine…" Shard finally gave in under Kane's bewildered look. What Shard didn't say though, was that it wasn't fine at all.

Kane protested, shook his head, and tried to reason with them, but after ten minutes even he finally gave up. "Okay… well, then I guess it's time to show y'all a special place to train."


Fragment of a Wish


"One more time, Kane, your Firecat needs to hit the target!" Emer exclaimed, pointing at the training dummy, still standing despite the Pyromancer's best efforts.

Kane huffed and tried again. The pip materialized in front of him and he drew the Fire symbol.

"Firecat!" he shouted, something completely unnecessary to cast the spell, and according to Rose, a very stupid thing to do.

The magical feline materialized in front of the boy, its body radiating heat. Fire concentrated into a huge cat, that was the Fire Cat. A dull explanation to something that Emer found so beautiful.

The feline dashed around the room, completely ignoring the target and leaving in its wake a trail of flames. Kane himself seemed in awe at the power of his spell, his wand forgotten in his hand as he gawked.

In every other place, casting such a disruptive spell would have meant starting a wildfire, but luckily for Kane, they weren't in a risky place.

The room, paved in stone and devoid of furniture, was as big as a small football pitch. Training dummies stood upright on one side, leaving enough space to properly aim and summon spells. Sturdy-looking walls, charred in many points, were swarmed with many tiny torches livening up the place. Big holes in the ceiling, not much unlike those in fireplaces, made sure that there was a constant air-exchange with the outside.

All in all, the Fireblade's cellar, was a perfect place to practice potentially dangerous spells.

"Kane, stop fooling around and hit the target," said an exasperated Rose, lifting her nose up from a book on her lap. She was trying to keep herself out of the way, leaning to the wall and stiffening up whenever Kane's spell came too close to her.

The reason for her behavior was soon clear: the Firecat suddenly lost its shape and the flames expanded in all directions. The sound of the detonation was painfully loud, and Rose promptly had abandoned her book on her lap to cover her ears. A searing heat propagated into the room, only to be dispelled by the cooling charms set on the walls, a handy addition for a Fire wizard in training.

"But it's fun!"

"Maybe for you. Not for me!" Rose rebuked.

"How can you not like explosions?!"

"You're weird!"

"And you're stupid!"

"I'm not stupid… Your face is stupid!"

Much to Emer's dismay, their squabbling had been going on for a while. At first it was only a few remarks from Rose, when Kane ended up overcharging his spell, but after that, Kane seemed to have found an entire new world of amusement by exploding Firecats close to Rose just to see her reactions.

"We need to focus…" Emer couldn't really believe what she just said. Usually it was either Rose or Shard that kept everyone on the main objective, but with the first busy being angry, and the latter unavailable… It fell to her.

"Please, let's just try to get all along until the duel is over," she said. Her words went unheard and she huffed. It was time for a new strategy.

"Look! It's Doridori!" She shouted, pointing at empty space in front of her and hoping that it was enough of a distraction to make them finish assaulting each other.

Both, Rose and Kane turned to look at her with an angry scowl, their words, shouted in unison made her shrink. "Not now, Emer!"

"Okay, okay. Just what got into all of you..." Emer turned around and walked away as the argument resumed.

Heading to the other side of the room, she approached Shard. He was sitting cross-legged and still as a statue, and his regular, deep breaths were the only thing that gave away him even being alive. An irate twitching in his shut eyes was all it took to Emer to understand that he was having a hard time focusing.

"How is it going?" She asked, more to get him out if his unsuccessful exercise than to actually hear what was already evident.

Shard opened his eyes and shook his head."Not good. Are you sure this works for Pyromancers?"

"I'm sure. Even if pyromancers don't meditate, Professor Wu insists that it is the best way to stay in tune with magic, regardless of school. If you keep at it, you will manage to cast spells in no time."

"I see…"

"You'll get it eventually, I'm sure."

A self-deprecating huff escaped Shard's mouth and his eyes shifted to Kane and Rose, who were still animatedly arguing. "What's up with them?"

"Them? Oh, teasing each other as usual."

"But don't they usually get along?" Shard asked.

"In their own way... the duel has them more excited than usual." After a small pause, Emer added, "And the same applies to you… Come on, ease up a little, we're making some progress!"

Shard scoffed. "The three of you are. I'm still at square one, remember?"

Emer snapped her fingers right at Shard's face surprising him with the sudden movement. "Hey, no pessimism, we're gonna defeat them. You said so yourself, didn't you?"

"I guess you're right."

"No guessing here." She smirked, ruffling Shard's hair and earning a weak protest from the boy.

Before she could stand up again, head back to Kane and Rose, and maybe get some practice under her belt too, Shard stopped her by clutching her sleeve. "Have you… thought about it?"

Emer rolled her eyes, breaking free. "As if you haven't been asking me the same thing over and over for the past few days. Of course I thought about it, but my answer won't change. Malistaire's motivations aren't important. He is evil, that's all there is to it."

"How can you say that? He just wants to revive his wife…"

Emer stiffened, remembering all too well the visions brought forth by the potion of history. In truth, she didn't like how the necromancer hadn't turned out as being a classic evil villain: It made things all the more difficult for her.

It was true, Malistaire was just desperate. A desperate man with a desperate goal. On the other hand, Ambrose had told her the reason for her being summoned to Wizard City, and it was clear that she was the one destined to stop the man somehow.

Emer herself wasn't sure how it was even possible that a novice like her could do anything against a professor, but she knew that if she didn't, things were going to get ugly.

"The end doesn't justify the means, Shard," she said, her voice coming out uncharacteristically cold.

"But you heard him too! He asked Bartleby for help… and was turned down. He just wanted to change her fate..."

"Fate can't be changed…" Emer herself didn't know what she was talking about. She didn't really know anything about fate, prophecies, or Sylvia Drake. What she knew was that some things were just meant to happen, regardless of how horrible they were. Yes, that thought in itself made her feel like a terrible person.

It was a gut feeling, a feeling that had increased even further once she had drunk the potion. Headmaster Ambrose was right, she was meant to be in Wizard City, she was meant to learn magic too… The thought of what she had to do was still alien to her, almost as if it was someone else had tried hard to shove it into her head.

"Shard, there is something I never told you… the headmaster, well… he did actually tell me the reason for me being summoned here."

"When did he do that? We haven't seen the headmaster since-"

"He told me when I went to his office… you know, when you went to talk to Gloria Krendell."

Shard's eyes widened in surprise, a hint of betrayal flickering in his pale green eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

The simple fact that Shard had instantly focused on her hiding it instead of the actual reason felt akin to a punch. Emer knew that it was awfully unfair for her to lie, but back then it was different... Everything she wanted was to keep Shard in Wizard City, make him understand that wizards weren't evil.

"I wanted to avoid you getting angry," she finally replied.

"It isn't good then…"

"Not really… the headmaster told me that he cast a spell. He cast it to find the one Bartleby spoke about…"

"The one who will defeat Malistaire?!" Shard had widened his eyes in surprise, eyeing her as if she was now foreign to him.

"Yes… Eventually I have to defeat him. I am meant to be the heroine of this story."

"Heroine… what?! Don't talk nonsense, Emer, this isn't a story!"

She frantically shook her head. "Might not be a story, but It's true, I know for certain that I will have to fight Malistaire eventually."

"And how? It's not like you saw the future or anything…" Shard trailed off, looking at her with disbelief. "You were the last one to wake up... if we could see the past… what did you see?"

Now that she had said it, there was no turning back. It was true, when the others woke up from the effects of the potion she had tarried a bit more. She wasn't sure what she thought about it, and her gut feeling told her to not speak of it. That was why, when Rose, Shard, and Kane tried to make sense of what they had seen back at the dormitory, she had stayed silent.

Emer closed her eyes trying to remember just exactly what had happened. "There was the song."

"The song?"

"Yes."

A frown written all over his face, Shard didn't say anything, waiting for her to expand on what she had just said.

"After the memory faded… Someone talked to me. She told me that I shouldn't be afraid, for no harm comes to the children of light."

"Children of Light?"

Emer nodded. "Yes. I have no idea what she meant, and I didn't ask… I was distracted by what she showed me."

"And she showed you… the future."

"Pretty much."

"So… what was it like?"

"It's hard to explain. At one point, just like that… the song... I understood it! I can understand it even now! It paves a path for each of us. Notes are played one after the other, and everything comes together in perfect harmony. My own melody, and Malistaire's… they cross at one point, and his..."

"Stops?"Shard shuddered as if the sole thought of the song predicting the future disgusted him. Emer nodded.

"And you believe it?"

"Yes Shard, I do."

"And what do you want to do about it?"

"I don't know... "

"Tell Ambrose?"

"Maybe… but it's not like we discovered anything he doesn't know… The city wards are going down one after the other, Malistaire will be stopped, and he is evil. It's just that I may have a bigger role than what he thought at first..."

"Didn't you even stop for a second to think… that you will actually have to kill a person?" Shard asked.

Emer froze. It was true… If each living person had a melody in the song, stopping meant… No, there had to be an explanation. She wasn't a killer, maybe there was another reason for the necromancer's notes to come to a close. "I-I… don't think-"

Her tentative reply was interrupted by Shard,"We really should get to the bottom of this. Those undead might attack the city tomorrow for what little do we know, and we aren't doing anything!"

Emer shook her head. Straining her ears she could hear the reassuring melody of the future stronger than ever before. Notes weaved together, and everything came into place. The attack would come regardless, there was no reason for four novices to do anything. "They won't do anything yet… The Song… the Song tells me to wait. There will be an attack, but from what I can hear… the wizards will win easily, picking up the strongest undead one by one."

"Don't you hear yourself talking?! Your answer is to do nothing?"

"It is… it's the best way…"

"Not believing that for a second, Emer. Even if you told me you could somehow predict the future, it just feels too weird to do nothing!"

"But I can predict the future! I mean… scraps of it… the only thing we really shouldn't do now is talk to-"

"I'm going to take up Moira's offer and understand what the heckhound is going on. Everything is just too crazy lately.

"Yeah, that's the worst thing we could possibly do…"

"I'm serious."

"Why would you do that? She is… she is weird."

"How so?"

"Her role in the song… it's muddled. It's dangerous to interact too much with her."

Shard blinked. "So… I'd be going against what the Song says?"

Emer nodded. It had taken a while, but now even Shard had managed to understand that the Song was right. If there was no reason to change anything and have the best outcome, why risk people's lives over petty knowledge?

"I have to talk to her as soon as possible then, it's important!" Shard exclaimed, standing up and heading for the door.

"Are you crazy? Do you want people dying for your choices?!" Her tone of voice rose and echoed into the cellar. Even Rose and Kane had stopped their squabbling to look at them.

"I might be crazy… but at least I'm not relying on a shady song to fix everything in my life!"

"But… but it's the future… we can't change what is bound to happen!"

"Then tell me, Emer, what is my part in the Song?"

Emer was taken aback. She hadn't considered looking for his notes. Taking a deep breath and focusing on what she remembered of the notes, she tried to traduce them. It was difficult, with such an intertwining melody she had trouble to pinpoint one person in particular, and when she did, it was always vague.

The Song played in her mind giving birth to hazy images of a certain future. Towers slowly being rebuilt by magic, wizards breathing in relief for the averted saw the Headmaster giving a speech in front of Bartleby to all of the students who had helped in the endeavor. There was no sorrow, for the forces of light had easily triumphed.

Emer dug deeper, trying to make up the shortest notes. That girl she saw at Kane's house, Susie Gryphonbane, was walking down the snow-covered road during Christmas time. A necromancer walked beside her, a present wrapped in green peeking out from his pocket. She smiled at him and he awkwardly smiled back, a noticeable blush on his cheeks. His hand slowly moved for the gift...

Emer tuned out, uninterested in the future of the girl. She seemed happy, no reason to pry any further. She dived in the Song again, this time determined to find Shard's melody.

Marianne was consulting a big tome on the table, beside it, a small cage contained none other than the captured fairy queen. Daisy trashed on the bars yelling something which Emer couldn't make up. Marianne shook her head and prepared to cast the spell that would rid Daisy of her dark curse once and for all...

Once again, Emer's focus vanished and she opened her eyes. The entire room seemed to spin around her as she came back to reality. Sounds came deafened to her ears, and her stomach writhed in protest, threatening to throw its contents out. A couple of deep breaths were enough for her to attempt speaking again. "G-give me… a little bit o-of time."

Shard's expression switched from anger to utter worry as she slowly squatted down to sit on the floor. "Don't do that… listening to it makes to sick apparently! Theurgists shouldn't strain too much this time of the year…"

Emer's throat was rough and dry when she tried to reply. Instead of words, a fit of cough came out of her lips, but that didn't stop her as she cleared her throat and tried again. "N-no, I got to do this!"

She dived deep into the song, looking for the needle in the haystack that was Shard's melody. Shortly, the song accompanied images into her head like a movie on an old tape recorder.

Evelyn and Alex were on the ground, beside them a thaumaturge with overly-large squared glasses and hair tied up in a braid to the side. Kane's explosion had been decisive in the victory of their team and Emer turned around to celebrate with Rose and Kane. The three vs three had been lit.

Emer's focus faded as uneasiness crept up her spine. Shard… there wasn't Shard… Shard's melody wasn't anywhere in the future. She had to tell him about it, maybe they could piece out together why. It wasn't like she was unhappy… if Shard had truly been dead, then she would have probably been crying her heart out, certainly not celebrating a petty victory against Evelyn…

Then she remembered. She remembered that small detail that she thought wasn't something she should worry about anymore.

People forgot Shard easily.

Her eyelids felt heavy as she felt her head hitting the cold, stone floor. Shard's shouts came distant to her and soon enough, she blacked out.