The water at the bottom of the well still managed to sparkle despite being entirely cast in shadow. Bloom couldn't work out how that was possible but decided it was best just to chalk it up to magic in the vaguest of ways.

Musa was all healed up from her run in with the Trix (they'd decided to keep the name the other witches used since it was easier than rattling off their names) and didn't even have a scar. The doctor at Magix' General Hospital had been a bit disapproving of the careless use of magic that had caused the injury. They had Stella seen to as well, and Tecna's hunch had been right: it was the hex.

She'd been wrong about them not contacting the school though. Apparently it was a type of dark magic that required mandatory reporting. Amaryl had been in serious trouble, much to Stella's delight, and Bloom had got to see what the Magix police looked liked when they came to the school to give out their warning to Amaryl.

They had conducted very brief interviews with Amaryl, Stella, and the rest of the Winx and took statements but since they were only giving out a caution rather than making an arrest, Bloom guessed it was mostly for show.

Faragonda stood by, chaperoning each interview with a stony face, although she tried to soothe her students when she saw how anxious Bloom was getting from being around the police. The Headmistress shot her a small smile in a reassuring way that made her feel less like this was somehow all her fault. Griselda, however, practiced no such niceties.

She had paced the hallway where all the girls were waiting to be interviewed, giving out stern lectures on the misuse of magic as if all of them had been hexing each other left, right, and centre. Bloom had been sinking into a depression until Stella nudged her and pointed to the Deputy Head's left shoe. It was a lot harder to be shamed and scolded by someone with a scrap of toilet paper stuck to their heel.

Bloom stopped her revery and resumed her inspection of the impossible well, reaching into her pocket for a coin. She didn't know if wishing wells were a thing in the magical dimensions, but at this point she was willing to try anything for good luck: the end of term tests were fast approaching and Bloom was constantly living with her heart in her throat.

She had conflicting advice about how to deal with these exams; according to Flora they affected how you would be split into classes for the next term and what options you could take next year based on your scores. But Stella had a much more laid back approach - they weren't the end of year assessments so they didn't determine whether you could move on to second year. All they did was make sure the students didn't fall asleep in class before winter break.

So Bloom was constantly nervous while also telling herself off for being so stressed. It was the worst of both worlds. She dropped a euro (one of the last pieces of Earth currency she had) as surreptitiously as she could into the water and listened for the splash as it hit the surface. She screwed up her eyes and made her wish before rearranging her face back to normal and acting like nothing had happened and fiddling with her phone.

She opened her messages and saw the last thing Brandon had said, an agreement over some funny observation she had made, sent a few days ago. She had wanted to reply but hadn't been able to think of anything to say in response and so had just left it. She should say something now though.

As far as she knew they both had some free time coming up and she could use some company from outside of Alfea. Carefully, Bloom crafted a message to him that had a degree of plausible deniability in case he reacted poorly to it for some reason. It took her a minute or so to write it and another couple to work up the courage to press send. If Stella could see her now she'd be yelling at her to grow up and just send it like a big girl, maybe just even jump straight to asking him out.

But she didn't want anyone else's input on this, she was enjoying her little crush in private and she would do something about it when she felt the time was right. And if it never was, that wouldn't matter.

He replied quickly, enthusiastic to meet up and suggesting that she come to Red Fountain since they were having a few dragon displays while they were practicing for some big show later on in the year. There was a decent student cafe at the boys' school and it was very common for the students there to have visitors over when they had free time. The schools of the magic dimension were much happier to allow their pupils a greater degree of freedom than any institution on Earth that Bloom had ever heard of.

She packed a bag with a few essentials, wrestled Kiko onto his lead, and let Flora know where she was going before heading out to catch a bus to Red Fountain. Kiko sat nicely on her lap, wagging his tail whenever she teased him by saying Lady's name, and trying to lick her face whenever she let her guard down.

Stella texted her about fifteen minutes into her journey, excited to have heard that Bloom was going to see Brandon and demanding to know if it was a date or not. She let her down gently. Despite Stella being adamant that Brandon was so into her, Bloom was not totally convinced that he saw her as more than a friend. The closest they'd come to discussing relationship stuff was when she'd told him about Andy and why he'd ended it, he'd nodded, been supportive, and then they'd never mentioned boyfriends again. He made her feel comfortable doing stuff outside of Alfea and she didn't think she'd forgive herself if she asked him out and made it too weird for them to keep being friends.

The shuttle pulled to a stop outside the gates of Red Fountain and she got off, nearly being pulled over by Kiko as he picked up on the smell of Lady not too far away. Brandon had been walking to meet her, not bothering to put the prince's dog on a lead since she was well-behaved enough to dutifully stick close to his heels.

He smiled and waved when he saw her, staying still so Kiko could chase Lady around his feet until the little dog was satisfied that he had sniffed her enough. Bloom grinned and tried to reel Kiko back in. Her friend was in his uniform, the lycra-like material stretching over the muscles of his chest in a very flattering way, and Bloom shook herself so that she didn't look like a drooling idiot.

"You said there would be dragons?" She asked abruptly, reminding herself how her knees were supposed to bend so that she could walk normally with him. Brandon smiled and gestured back the way he had come.

"They're in the arena right now, I'll take you to the viewing area so you can watch them."

"This is so awesome!"

"You've never seen a dragon before, have you?" He asked as he helped her through an unmanned turnstile.

"No, we don't have them on Earth. I mean, we have legends of them and everything but they don't live there." Bloom wondered if they had at any point. The myths had to come from somewhere right? Humans on her home planet couldn't have just imagined up a creature that existed in other dimensions without seeing it somehow.

"Well, you're in for a treat," he was grinning now, and led her up the flights of stairs to the safe seating of the amphitheatre.

Bloom took a moment to adjust from the dark of the indoor corridors to the bright light of the outside arena. Below her, moving fluidly through the air and dancing through the sand, were five huge reptiles. They were all pale coloured apart from the comb of spines running from their head to their tail and the frill under their jaws. They weren't how she imagined them, they looked less like creatures from myth and more like humongous lizards. The noise they made though; it sent shivers down her spine to hear them as they took off and alighted back down again.

Brandon gently touched her upper arm to persuade her to sit down rather than just stand and stare in awe.

"They're amazing, aren't they?" He looked very pleased to see her so enraptured. Bloom nodded mutely. "We all have to work with them, and they're often bastards if they decide they don't like you, but I'll never get tired of watching them."

Bloom watched as one, tinted blue, soared upwards. Brandon gave her a running commentary on a little of the history of specialists working with dragons; apparently it was mostly a formal thing now since there wasn't much military advantage to bringing giant beasts into battle, but it was important culturally (especially for Princes) so it was taught throughout the years.

They were also only one particular type of dragon; it turns out that there were many and almost all had originated from Pyros - a dimension known as the Isle of Dragons - but had been brought over several thousand years ago. Bloom missed the actual name of the ones they were watching but did pick up that they were usually referred to as just Battle Dragons.

"Sorry," Brandon said. "I've just been talking at you all this time. What's been going on with you? We haven't spoken that much lately."
Bloom felt heat go to her face - he had noticed how awkward she'd been lately. She scrambled to think of an excuse that didn't boil down to 'I like you but I don't know if you like me that way and even if you do, I don't know what I want'. She cleared her throat a little.

"I've been studying for the tests coming up, it's mostly just written but there's a massive practical in the Simulation Chamber that I do not feel prepared for." That bit was true. She should have known that there would be more than just exam papers but somehow she just hadn't been expecting it.

"Yeah, I've heard about them. Can't imagine the idea of being watched while you do it makes it any easier."

"It does not." Bloom shook her head. "I just feel like I have a massive handicap with it since I'm so new to the whole thing; just a few months ago I didn't even know any of this existed." She waved her hand vaguely out towards the arena and the faint outline of the city in the distance, indicating everything that she meant by 'this'.

"I don't think they'd put you up for it if they didn't think that you were ready. You've got a choice for what you do for it, right? That way you can choose what to prepare for."

"Yeah, I can either work one reversing hexes in a chaotic environment or I can try and make a positive change on a barren planet. I have more knowledge about hexes, I think, but if this wasn't a test I'd much rather work on the planet." She'd been going back and forth on her decision since her conversation with Faragonda. Sure, she felt a pang on longing in her chest whenever she thought about reviving a dead planet but it would make much more sense to take the assignment she had more experience with.

"You should do that one, it'll make it less stressful if you actually get into what you're studying for, Plus, I bet you'll get credit for being enthusiastic too."

"Well, we are being graded by Palladium…"

"There you go, you don't have anything to worry about," Brandon smiled, stretching out his arms so that they rested on the tops of the chairs either side of him. Bloom tensed a little as he brushed against her back but didn't move forward to break contact.

"Thanks. Flora is going to choose that option too, obviously, so I'm going to study with her and I'll do it enough that I get confident with it…" She sort of trailed off when she heard someone in the rows behind her standup sharply. Turning around, she saw that Riven had been sat on his own and was now marching to the walkway. He met her eye and she was met with a face of scorn, causing her to sink back down in her seat.

"What? Oh…" Brandon glanced over and sighed. "Yeah, he's been pretty insufferable to everyone recently so I wouldn't take it personally. It's definitely Darcy's influence since she's always hanging around here now making everything miserable."

"She scares me," Bloom admitted. "Her and the other two, every time I see them, they're doing something awful and someone gets hurt."

"That'll be her interpretation of the Witches' Code then."

"The what?"

"You know there's a Fairy Code, right?"

"There is?!"

"Yeah, with the values of compassion, confidence, justice…"

"Justice, companionship and truth. I have seen the poem with those things up on one of the walls in the dining room at Alfea." It was embossed on a giant slab of bronze that hung behind the staff table at the far end. She'd read it every day since she'd joined the school but no one had told her that was some kind of special set of rules for fairies.

"Well witches have a different one. I can't remember exactly how it goes but if extols ambition and self-reliance and cunning. Witches aren't some different species to us, they just study a different school of magic to you."

Bloom didn't know how to respond to that. She hadn't thought that witches were a different race or anything, although she supposed that everyone here was an alien to her technically, but she hadn't thought that she shared much in common with them. Did that mean she could have chosen to be a witch and go to Cloud Tower rather than join Stella at Alfea? She couldn't comprehend what it would have been like to be thrown into Magix through that lens.

"I don't think I would have made a good witch," she said, eventually.

"No," Brandon shook his head. "I think being a fairy suits you much better."

He walked her out of the school and to the bus stop at the end of the road. They passed the hover bike sheds where Riven was with Darcy and Stormy. The couple were aggressively making out, hands all over each other while the other witch was trying not to look. Bloom wasn't sure where to put her gaze either.

They weren't alone waiting for the shuttle; two other witches were waiting there too, although it looked like they'd come from the nature reserve opposite the road from Red Fountain rather than from the school itself since they were in hiking gear and splattered with mud. Bloom recognised one; the pumpkin girl from the parade and from when Musa had been attacked. If she'd been on her own, she might have tried to talk to her; she didn't seem cruel or vindictive, she'd been genuinely worried about Musa when they'd run into her. But she was holding hands with the dour, hook-nosed girl who was whispering earnestly to her.

Brandon elected to wait with her so she wasn't on her own with them, and since Bloom was uncertain about the other girl she didn't push him to go back to his dorm. They stood a little way away from the bench where the other two girls sat, fussing the dogs to pass the time.

"You don't understand," the not-pumpkin girl said. "This is the first time they've asked me for help and I don't want to turn them down, they're being friendly to me!"

"Lucy, babe, they want something from you. This isn't some random request, they're using you!"

"I don't care. I want to get in their good books and if that means writing a little bit of magical code for them then I'm going to do it."

"It's not just a little bit of magical code though, is it? What they actually want is for you…" She stopped short when a walking boot stamped on her foot. Lucy gestured with her head towards Bloom and Brandon firmly and ended the conversation. Neither girl let go of the others' hand but they didn't talk to each other again before the bus arrived.

Brandon offered to ride with her to Alfea but Bloom politely declined; she had already taken up enough of his time and she needed to message Flora about the practical exam as soon as possible so it wasn't like she'd be good company anyway.

She gave him an awkward hug goodbye and boarded after the witches, relieved to see that the shuttle was empty enough that she could sit a good distance away from them. Neither her nor them seemed very comfortable to be in such close proximity.

Having her decision validated by Brandon made it much easier for her to get into studying. She thought she probably should be embarrassed that his approval had a tangible effect on her revision but she was finding it too useful to bother addressing that part of her brain.

Flora was more than happy for them both to prepare their plans for reviving environments together and Bloom was able to put in a request for the tools and equipment she wanted to bring with her well in advance of the deadline which made her feel much happier about taking the exam, and even a little proud of herself.

She was able to comfortably take most of the written exams. She was nowhere near the grades that Flora, Musa and Tecna would get but she would be comfortably in the middle. Unlike Stella. Stella had barely flicked through a textbook during the revision sessions and only ever seemed mildly bothered that she might not get a passing grade after they'd finished the exams. She had been drawn almost last to go into the Simulation Chamber so she wasn't stressing over that either.

The Chamber could only handle being used about two to three times a day so it took a long time to get everyone through it. Bloom had been drawn to go in second so she had to be ready for the first day it was operational, which she didn't think was very fair but Palladium had ensured the class that the draw had been random and it was the only way to do it given the frequency the Chamber could be run.

When the day came around, Bloom waited outside the control room for her slot packing and unpacking her bag to make sure that she had everything that she needed. Kiko whined occasionally when he sensed her stress. She'd begged Faragonda to let her take her dog with her since it wasn't like he could actually help in any way other than keeping her calm, and the Headmistress had given her special dispensation to bring Kiko as a therapy animal.

"Bloom?" Palladium poked his head out of the control room. "You're up next. Now, we've had a little trouble with the computer playing up so just be cautious since there might be a delay. Nothing that will actually affect your overall grade though. Good luck!"