Icy looked in the grimy, cracked mirror on the wall and closely examined her makeup. Purple was starting to bleed through at the edges of her lip line. She uncapped her pale pink lipstick. She always kept her body temperature low to increase the potency of her ice attacks, despite the constant suffering that it caused her. The only sign of the stress she put her body through was the colour of her lips. They were permanently a hypothermic blue and Icy was determined to cover it up.
She took care to touch up the fraying edges of her lips as flawlessly as possible, and she exhaled hard once she had finished. Sometimes her hands got so cold that they wouldn't stop shaking and that made straight edges a challenge. But if she didn't wear a full face of makeup people often assumed that she was younger than she was and that led to her being chronically underestimated.
She hated that.
She hated being patronised by people only a few years older than her, so much so that she was willing to throw away any advantage her baby face might give her. The heavy eye makeup, the towering heels, the impossibly high ponytail, they made her feel powerful. And that feeling detached her from the scared little girl on Dyamond. She would never let herself be that vulnerable again.
The Dragon Fire belonged to her and her sisters now. Icy had worried that it might not merge well with her frosty powers but it had taken to her without a problem and now she had the greatest power in the universe fuelling her magic. She couldn't have done it without Darcy and Stormy. Stormy might be impulsive and reckless, and Darcy might be over-cautious and sadistic, but they had never let her down.
The only other relationship she had that even came close to her sisters was Darko, and that idiot had fled Magix weeks ago. He liked to lavish attention on her but he was as reckless as Stormy except without the benefit of her power. On top of that he often snapped and yelled at her. It was what he had learnt from his scumbag father so she couldn't hold it against him. But she also wasn't going to spare him much thought now that he wasn't around to help her out. Darko was probably somewhere on Dyamond again, wrecking his fifth car.
However, he did have his uses; Darko only knew one way of showing affection and that was through gift giving. He had procured Knut for Darcy and sourced them the troll they had needed to track Bloom, not to mention all of the money he had given them over the years. Perhaps once they secured Magix they could take Dyamond and she could keep Darko the way Darcy kept Riven.
It was time to confront Griffin and take the tower. The thought made her breath quicken in a mix of fear and anticipation. She gripped the sink in front of her tightly to release the anxiety, letting her knuckles go white. They needed nerves of steel to pull this off. They were going to walk straight in and if they didn't have control of the tower within thirty minutes they would fail.
Stella sat in the cafeteria of the private hospital on Magix and stared into her coffee as if the answers to how to save her friend were swimming in the dregs of the dark, bitter drink. It had been five days since she had found her, half frozen to death. Bloom still hadn't stirred. Stella hadn't left the ward since she and Faragonda had brought Bloom here, apart from one trip to collect a few essentials and to tell the rest of the Winx what had happened. Stella swirled her mug and let out a frustrated sigh.
Faragonda had been shocked when Stella had brought a dying Bloom into her office. Under any other circumstance Stella might have been scared of what the headmistress would do when she found out that she had run off to Earth, but in that moment she had been far too panicked about Bloom to care. There was probably some sort of disciplinary conversation in the works now, to be carried out after Bloom woke up but she didn't care. Stella wasn't going to waste any energy thinking about that now.
She prayed to all the deities she knew that her friend would wake up soon. Faragonda had been able to piece together roughly what had happened from a traumatised Mike and Vanessa, but they hadn't been able to understand what any of the Trix were saying. All they had seen was their daughter being beaten to a pulp, frozen and then some sort of fire pulled out of her. It was clear that they had taken her power but Stella had no idea why, and honestly, finding that out had created more questions than answers.
If only she hadn't missed that first call. If only she hadn't waited for so long in that clearing.
Footsteps came towards her and she looked up to see Flora walking over. Her friend looked tired and stressed as she sat down opposite. It was perfect timing, Stella needed a distraction from the guilt of not arriving in time to help. She wasn't going to turn down the opportunity to talk to someone.
"How are things?" Flora asked.
"She's not improving," Stella sighed. "But the doctors are still hopeful. How are you holding up?"
"I'm worried but I also have hope. It's Bloom; she's strong."
"And how is Mirta?" Stella winked, desperate to talk about anything else.
"She's still remembering how to walk properly now that she's no longer a type of winter squash but there's progress. She's very determined, I admire her so much. Wizghiz says I can submit my report of how I reversed the spell for my project, I'm really pleased." Flora's face brightened up as she spoke about her academic achievements and her new special someone.
"That's not the only thing you're pleased about," Stella nudged her leg against Flora's, making her ears go red. "I can't wait to tell Bloom that you have a girlfriend."
"I don't have a girlfriend, we're just sort of seeing how things go," she said. "She just broke up with Lucy a few weeks ago.."
"Yeah, yeah. As if there's any lesbian who wouldn't want to be in a relationship with you immediately." Stella rolled her eyes. How Flora didn't grasp how pretty she was was beyond Stella.
"Hmm, well. Are you keeping up with your schoolwork?" Flora changed the subject by indicating the stack of books by Stella's chair.
"About as much as I usually do. Faragonda's being very understanding but I really don't want to have to retake first year again. Not for a third time."
"I got you today's notes from Palladium's class if that's any help?"
"Thanks, you guys have been so incredibly helpful." Stella would have had a full-on tantrum if Alfea had been pressuring her about classes while her father was bugging her for sending Bloom to a private hospital and the Magix Council were complaining about Bloom being back on-planet before her suspension had been lifted. Stella had already spent a whole afternoon on the phone shoving doctors' reports down the throats of government officials so that they understood the severity of the situation and didn't just run to Eraklyon to get Erendor all riled up.
"We all want to help out as much as possible. Musa was wondering if she could bring her saxophone over and see if music helped."
"I'm sure that would thrill the nurses," Stella laughed humorlessly. "But sure, why not? Can't hurt."
She liked the idea of Musa playing her heart out on a brass instrument while confused medical professionals watched on, unsure if they should be stopping it or not. She was giggling at the mental image as her phone buzzed and she looked over to see who it was.
It was Brandon, getting back to her and offering a time later on that evening when they could talk. Stella looked guiltily between her phone screen and Flora who had seen the message. What exactly Brandon was to her now was wholly undefined, but he'd been so much a constant in her life up until the Red Fountain Exhibition that he was the first person she'd turned to for support after the Winx.
"You're talking to Brandon again?" Flora asked without judgment, her eyes crinkling in the corners with gentle concern. She wasn't asking for detailed clarifications that Tecna would demand, and she wasn't giving her an earful like Musa would either. Thank god for Flora.
"Not about our relationship, or lack thereof now, but I need to talk to someone about this," she gestured all around as if she was encompassing the whole world. "Especially someone who is not dealing with their own feelings about this."
Flora smiled sweetly and gave her a reassuring pat on the hand. She didn't say anything back but she didn't need to; Stella knew that if she needed her, Flora would be there.
Stella wanted Brandon around even if she hadn't forgiven him, and maybe never would. She carried all the time they had spent together as he lied about who he was heavy in her heart. But he did care about her, and he was still trying to support her. She'd let him while she figured out everything else.
Thin sheets of ice filled the main hall of Cloud Tower, climbing up the walls and covering the floor, as thunder echoed around the building and the room warped under Darcy's illusions. All around her, Icy's old schoolmates were being frozen into icicles or on the ground clutching their ears, but she only had eyes for the figure standing next to the teachers' table. She was so close to everything she had ever wanted. All that was standing in her way right now was Griffin.
Their old headmistress was still fighting, but it was clear that she knew she was running out of time to end the battle before she risked losing her students. As harsh and cold as Griffin was, she took her responsibility for her students seriously and the situation was rapidly spinning out of control.
"Griffin!" Icy called, deflecting a strike with ease. "Give yourself and the teachers up, and no one else has to get hurt."
"Foolish girls! What are you thinking!?" Griffin had focused her attention on Stormy as she careened overhead, deducing that of the three, she would be the weakest link. The headmistress knew the girls well. Stormy, for instance, was strong in offence but poor at defensive magic. Unfortunately for Griffin, Stormy didn't need to be good at constructing a shield when she could just pour the sheer power of the Dragon Flame into her lightning and flick away the headmistress' spell.
Icy started laughing and then she couldn't stop. This magic pulsing through her veins, it was like nothing she could ever have imagined. It had been wasted on that fairy. Her ice had never been sharper or colder, she was untouchable and drunk on power. Unstoppable. All the worries that she would fail within grasping distance of her dreams were melting away.
The students were staring at her in horror as she went into hysterics. Icy had never experienced joy like this before; she would never be weak again. No one would dare talk down to her, no one would stand against her and no one would question her authority. It was a small step from here to ruling the whole magical universe.
"You're insane!" Griffin was pulling a shield around herself and the witches next to her in a futile attempt at defence.
"Insane?" Icy asked, catching her breath long enough to speak. Spears of ice erupted from the walls and encircled Griffin where she stood. Icy's eyes narrowed and the smile died on her lips. "I dare you to say that again."
Stella sat on the bed next to Bloom's and switched between staring at her phone and staring at her friend. Bloom's skin was so cold, like she was still trapped in the ice, and she was deathly still. If Stella let her mind wander it felt like she was sitting with Bloom on a slab in the morgue rather than a hospital bed. She wanted to call Brandon now, but she had agreed to call at seven and it was six-fifty-eight now. She wasn't going to call him until at least five past because she did not want to come across as desperate, and she wanted to make him sweat a little.
Brandon didn't need to know how badly she missed him and how she was staring at the clock, waiting until she could justify it to herself. God, she was pathetic. If Bloom was awake, she'd ask Stella why it was so important that she play this game when he already knew how much she liked him. But Stella's pride was wounded. She would not, could not, let him know just how badly she was still hurting.
She glanced at the clock again. It was 7.03. She could justify calling. Stella took a deep breath and clicked on his number. There was a certain satisfaction in how quickly Brandon picked up. Maybe three rings, four at most.
"Hey," he said gently.
"Hey," she said back, closing her eyes. "How much have you heard?"
"Only what's been told to Sky. Bloom's in the hospital? Is it as serious as the messenger made it out to be?"
Stella paused, and then let it all flood out.
She told him everything. How she arrived on Earth to the scene of a dying Bloom and her frostbitten, hypothermic parents, how she had melted them all out of the ice in a blind panic before frantically getting Faragonda. It had been so cold, Bloom had been so cold, and she still was despite the heating in her room being cranked up all the way and with piles of blankets on top of her. She told him about how terrible she felt about not being able to do much for Mike and Vanessa - to save Bloom she'd had to leave them in the hands of the Earth doctors. She started crying towards the end as she remembered the look on Mike and Vanessa's faces.
"She's just lying there not moving, barely breathing, still cold and I… I don't know what to do," Stella said through her tears, and then she said the thing she had been scared of voicing since she'd brought Bloom to the hospital. "What if… what if she never wakes up again?"
Griffin's office had been heavily protected by the magic of the tower, Icy assumed it was because the school was still transitioning from under the thumb of the headmistress to them. No matter, Darcy had been able to break the spell on the door with ease and it wouldn't be long before Cloud Tower was under their total control.
Icy went to sit in the high-backed chair behind the desk and focused intently on one of the orb-like eyes that was encased in a green lid with several spidery legs. She stretched her hand over the wet pupil and focused her energy to bring it to her command. It blinked at her with a squelching noise.
"Keep watch on the dungeons," she instructed. "Do not let Griffin out of your sight."
The eye blinked again and scuttled away obediently. Darcy was already looking through the books in the office and scouring ledgers for any references to the spell that they needed or the book that it was in. Stormy, on the other hand, was messing around with the artefacts, already bored now that they had conquered the tower. Icy was glad that the war they would wage on this planet would be a diversion for her otherwise Stormy might destroy their stronghold just for shits and giggles.
"Darcy?" She said, sitting back in Griffin's chair and interlocking her fingers in front of her face.
"Yes?"
"It's time to tie up loose ends," Icy instructed. "Bring Riven here and either break him or kill him."
That boy might be in the palm of Darcy's hand and he had been incredibly useful to them, having relayed the news of Bloom being sent back to Earth and why, but he was still a well-trained soldier. If he decided to try and break free of Darcy, he would be a liability.
"I'll call him over then," she agreed. "I'll be in our old room if you need me."
Both Icy and Stormy watched her walk casually away, leaving the door to the office ajar. Stormy turned to her older sister with a wicked grin on her face.
"Do you think she will fuck him before or after she tells him that we're taking over the planet?" Stormy mocked.
Stella sat on the wall outside the hospital and waited for Brandon to arrive. She had made sure that she could still see Bloom's window from her chosen spot just in case something happened and Stella needed to run back up.
She ended up accepting Brandon's offer to come see her whether it was actually a good idea or not. She might have given him a false sense of hope and undone all the progress she had made putting distance between them, but she felt like she needed him.
He approached tentatively from the other side of the street, his hands thrust into the pockets of his sports jacket, and he stopped a meter or two away from her. He looked annoyingly good. Tousled hair, five o'clock shadow, tight white vest under that jacket she liked… it wasn't fair. Brandon gave her a sad smile when she finally met his eye and hopped onto the wall next to her.
"Are you staying here now?" He asked when she didn't say anything. Her silence must be unsettling given how he was used to her talking all the time.
"Pretty much…" she said. "The Solarian Crown paid for this whole thing to be built so they tolerate me taking up space so long as I don't make a nuisance of myself.." Stella didn't want to talk about this, but she didn't know what she did want to talk about. Something, just not this.
"Do you have your own room to sleep in?"
"No, I've been crashing on an air mattress in her room or a spare bed whenever there is one. I know, I know," she waved her hand at his worried face before he could cut in. "But I can't stand the thought of her waking up alone in there, all confused and scared."
Bloom had been alone in that ice for god knows how long, suffering, and slowly dying. All because of Stella. She didn't want Bloom to feel the failure of their friendship even more if she came to and no one was with her. Tears clouded Stella's vision and she looked at the ground to try and hide them from Brandon.
He reached out to put an arm around her and she melted against his shoulder, burying her face in his jacket. Its smell was still comforting and familiar, a mix of the Red Fountain detergent and his own aftershave. It didn't help Stella to keep from crying though.
"I'm sorry," he said, stroking her hair. "I wish I could be of more help. I haven't even got much time to spend with you."
"Because of Sky?" Stella's voice was muffled by the fabric of his jacket.
"Because of Sky," he confirmed. "Erendor has heard rumours that Bloom is back and is going crazy trying to prevent Sky from having any contact with her. It's not even about Diaspro's stupid fucking face anymore, it's to punish him for embarrassing the family."
"How much does Sky know?"
"I'm not sure, I'm not in charge of briefing the prince. Do you want me to tell him anything?" Brandon kissed the top of her head gently and Stella froze. There was a lot that she wanted to say to Sky but she knew that most of it wouldn't be acceptable to send through a messenger.
"I want him to know everything. I want him to know that she's in there, barely fucking alive, because he let them send her to a completely unguarded planet." She pulled back, muscles tensed in rage. "I want him to know that if he had stood up to his father even a little she could have stayed on Magix and not been vulnerable to witches that we knew were targeting her."
"Stella…" He looked at her pleadingly.
"What? You thought that I wasn't still mad at him?" She laughed at that. Anger was building and she was struggling to hold it back. "My best friend is in there and if, if… if she doesn't make it then the last thing she knew will be dying in ice without her friends, without her family, completely abandoned by someone who was supposed to be her friend.
"I want him to know just how badly he hurt her, and that he can't just wait for this to pass and for everything to go back to normal." She was furious but she couldn't stop crying. She hated not being able to be angry without also bursting into tears.
"Is this about me too?" Brandon asked, his face falling as he dropped his arm from her shoulders.
"Probably," she said, laughing without humour. Stella couldn't contemplate talking about her relationship with Brandon when Bloom was inside fighting for her life. "But I'm not talking about that with you now." She got up from the wall, she'd been away from Bloom too long now.
"I'm sorry."
"You've said. It doesn't change anything."
Darcy came back after over an hour. It looked like she had redressed herself quickly and she was still fiddling with her gloves as she walked through the door. Icy ignored Stormy's muffled laughter and got up from the desk to approach their sister.
They had spent that hour well. Icy and Stormy had been attuning themselves with Cloud Tower wrestling it away from Griffin's control. Once they were done Stormy continued inspecting all of the magical antiques in the room while Icy picked up trawling through the records where Darcy had left off. Icy soon realised that all the papers were in code to make them look innocuous and mundane, but she knew there were secrets there and she wouldn't give up until she uncovered them.
"How are things?" Icy asked, monitoring Darcy's face for anything she should be concerned about, but her sister's face was smooth and controlled. Darcy was a cunning bitch and Icy loved her for it. Whatever was planned for Riven, he didn't stand a chance.
"He's fast asleep in bed."
"I hope, for your sake, that it was a good idea to leave him alive." Darcy flinched a little and Icy smiled. "I have decoded some interesting instructions. I think I have located the right book in the archive. It's time, ladies, to summon our army."
It was strange to walk the tower's halls when they were this silent, but Icy wasn't complaining. With the teachers locked up in the dungeon and the students either crammed in there too or locked in their rooms, it was like the school was her castle now, and it almost was. Once she had an army to defend it, Cloud Tower would truly become her seat of power.
The archive on the third floor was messy but that didn't mean that it was disorganised. Icy stalked through the rows of bookshelves, Darcy and Stormy behind her, until she found the right place and pulled out one of the dark coloured books there. She held her hands on each side of it and commanded the shelf to reveal its secrets.
The books parted and they now stood in front of a full length, oval mirror. It was a red herring, designed to look like this was itself the secret being hidden. All it took was to mutter another incantation and a tunnel opened up through the surface of the mirror.
"The crypt should be down these stairs. It's where Griffin stores the books that contain the darkest, most difficult spells, and the most likely place we can find the summoning spell for the Army of Decay," Icy explained and she took a step forward to descend the stairs.
Stella had found that she absorbed more information from her textbooks when she read them out loud, and Bloom was her long-suffering audience as she paced about the room with the passage she needed to read for Palladium's class.
"I really hope that you can't actually hear me," she laughed, addressing her friend's unmoving form. "Or at least, if you can, you don't mind me repeating this dull book until I get it. Hey, if that's the case then maybe you won't be too far behind on your schoolwork."
Stella stared for a moment longer at Bloom's blank face before she brought the book back up to her face. But as she was about to continue her monologue, the monitor attached to her friend's chest and finger started to beep furiously.
A beat later and nurses started pouring in. Stella was pushed to one side so that they could surround the hospital bed, she was careful not to get in the way but she wanted to hear what was happening. All she could gather was that Bloom's heart beat had dropped below some sort of critical level and her blood didn't have enough oxygen in it. She pressed herself up against the far wall and held her hand over her mouth to stop any sound coming out as she started to cry. This was it, this was when she saw her best friend die and she was unable to do anything to save her.
The doctor arrived and she was putting some horrific looking mechanism down Bloom's throat and strapping a mask over the girl's face. Nurses were injecting drugs into her arms in the hopes of pushing her body to keep her alive.
It looked to Stella like they were mutilating her. She knew they had to, she knew that this was all in an effort to save Bloom, but she wanted to throw them all to the side and stop them from hurting her any further. Stella closed her eyes so the medical staff could work to save her friend without any interference, but even without her sight she could still hear the beeping from Bloom's heart monitor that told her that nothing was working.
The spell was difficult. It was harder than anything Icy had ever attempted before and she was sure that if they'd tried this without the Dragon Flame it would have killed them within seconds. Once the summoning was complete the three of them would need to rest and recover for a while before they could cast any more spells.
Icy, of course, had thought of how to keep them all protected while they were vulnerable. She had Knut patrolling the corridors in case any of the students decided to risk the consequences of breaking their vow of loyalty, and she had the spying eyes watching Griffin every minute of the day to make sure she didn't try anything. Icy doubted that anyone would make a move so soon after the annexation though.
Clouds gathered above the tower and the sky outside went black as the sun was blotted out. Stormy was tired, the most exhausted out of all of them because of her tendency to go all-out, but she was grinning, overjoyed by the effects of the weather. Soon the rain would begin and their army would emerge.
Icy let herself flop onto the ground once they were done. She was panting hard, like she had run a marathon, and her limbs had turned to jelly. There were two other thuds as her sisters followed her lead and lay a groan, she rolled onto her side to look at Darcy, who was also on the floor.
"Check on Riven," she instructed. "I don't want him wandering around on his own."
"Five more minutes," Darcy begged. She would be feeling wrecked too, but the bitch had responsibilities when it came to her pet Specialist. What was the saying, 'No rest for the wicked'? Icy laughed.
"I mean it, Darcy. Get Knut to carry you if you can't tackle the stairs."
Her sister groaned and rocked herself upright. Darcy cursed at the effort it took to stand upright, and leant on the wall until she could reach the door and yell for her ogre to come help her.
"Stormy," Icy asked quietly after their sister left. Stormy was facing away from her, lying still and silent. For a moment Icy's heart dropped as she considered that Stormy had died, but she shook herself and reached out to jab a long acrylic into her sister's back.
"Ow," Stormy complained. "What?"
"How are you doing?"
"You don't have to worry about me, Icy," she said. "I'm just a bit tired. I'll be back on my feet just as soon as you will be and I won't hold the two of you back."
"That's not what I meant." Sure it was always a worry that Stormy would burn herself out, but Icy didn't want to lose her sister. Maybe it was possible to do this just herself and Darcy, but she didn't want to.
"What did you mean then?"
"We're fucking queens now. If you need anything we can get it."
"Then I want food. Get the school chef to make me a meat and cheese platter, I'm fucking starving."
Icy started laughing. Of course that was the first thing on Stormy's mind. She always knew what she needed to fuel her power. She didn't get in her own head like Darcy or Icy did, she never questioned herself, so she was able to take the best and most straightforward path to her goals. And now that meant re-energising quickly however she could.
"Sure," said Icy, still laughing. "I'll twist the arm of that old hag Mac into feeding us. I could do with some dinner too."
They ate in Griffin's office, not bothering to use the desk and just putting their plates on the floor, while they watched the rain through the large windows. The drops were getting fatter and darker as they fell, to the point where they were the size of golf balls and the colour of pitch.
"It's happening," Stormy said. "We've succeeded."
"It's just a waiting game now," the doctor told Stella, tucking the pen she had used to write on the chart back into the breast pocket of her white coat. "We've done everything we can for now, and if she dips like that again then we'll revive her, but you should prepare yourself for the worst. It may be that her body has just been under too much stress."
Stella thanked her before she went to sit next to Bloom again, repressing the urge to tell the doctor that she had got the wrong idea about her patient. Bloom was stronger than they gave her credit for. She wasn't going to just fade away. She couldn't. She had to come back to Stella, she had to come back to Alfea. She had to smile again.
A nurse came in half an hour later with a saline bag to change Bloom's drip. She was a cheery older woman with pens thrust into her bun and a chunky necklace on top of her scrubs, her badge said that her name was Nurse Wellington. She made small talk with Stella, somehow managing to get her to crack a smile, before she took another look at Bloom.
"Oh dear, love," Wellington said to her patient. "Let me sort out your gown, it's been all bunched up from when they were tending to you." She leaned over to retie the string around Bloom's shoulders only to recoil as the girl bolted upright.
"No!" Bloom screamed, her right hand making a fist that she slammed straight into the nurse's chest.