Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Iko

For the first time in her life, Iko was glad that she was at school. Finally, some action was happening around here! Centaur attacks? A plot by the teachers? An assault on a student? This was crazy! But also kind of awesome.

It took all of Iko's concentration to keep her hair from turning lemon yellow with excitement as Winter recounted what the centaurs had told her, a task made even harder when Cress (after much encouraging from Thorne) told everyone how Sybil had cut her hair.

"Why would the teachers endanger their own students?" Cinder, who was sitting next to Iko, muttered. "All that's going to do is make parents pull their kids out of the school, and that's not going to be good for business."

Iko shrugged. "The teachers aren't exactly right in the head. I mean, have you met Jael? The guy cares about safety as much as I care about History of Magic!"

"Didn't you fall asleep in the last class?" Cress asked.

"My point exactly."

Thorne leaned back in his chair grinning cockily. "This isn't really a surprise to me. When you've spent as many detentions with the teachers as I have, you realise at some point that they're all evil."

"For once I sort of agree with Captain Stupid." Jacin grumbled, looking not at all happy about it. "Though I'm pretty sure my dad's not evil."

"Wait, your dad's a teacher?" Cinder asked incredulously.

"You seriously never noticed that Professor Clay and I have the same last name?"

"Jacin's family aside…" Iko interrupted loudly. "what are we going to do about this?"

"We're doing something about this?" Thorne asked, looking surprised. "I mean, I'm all for revenge on Professor Mira after what she did to Cress, but I'm not in the mood to go talking to a bunch of angry centaurs."

"That makes one of us. I'm ready to kick some savage monster butt!" Iko cried enthusiastically.

Winter blinked at her, looking confused. "What if it doesn't have a butt?"

"It's a figure of speech Winter."

Cinder scowled at the table they were sitting around in frustration. "I hate to burst your bubble Iko, but if the centaurs could, I think they would have driven out these things already. And I kinda doubt a bunch of sixteen-year-old wizards will have much better luck."

"Seconded." Said Jacin dryly.

Winter grinned up at him, fluttering her eyelashes. "Oh, please Jacin! I want to help the centaurs! It's bad enough that the walls bleed human blood, I don't want to add theirs to the mix!"

Iko grinned and pressed her hands to the sides of her face. Winter and Jacin were so cute! If they didn't become a couple by the end of this year, Iko was going to literally shove them into a kiss.

Cress cocked her head to one side, studying Iko with confusion. "Iko, are you alright? You've gone all quiet all of a sudden."

Iko flicked her eyes to Winter and Jacin.

Cress's mouth formed a silent "oh" and a dreamy smile started to spread across her heart-shaped face. Yes, a fellow romantic!

Shaking off her dreamy stupor, Iko slammed her fist onto the tabletop. Everyone jumped at the noise and Iko constructed her face into a serious glare. "Come on guys, it's not hard! We just have to sneak out of the castle at night, into the Black Woods and track down these monsters that the centaurs are so annoyed about!"

Cinder smirked with amusement. "You make it sound so easy."

"Only because it is!"

"No, it really isn't." Jacin stated. "The teachers take the whole "No leaving the dorms after lights-out rule" super seriously. And did you forget that they are also the one's responsible for this whole thing? We can't exactly drag the monsters' corpses into the school."

"Take it from me Jacin, sneaking out at night isn't nearly as hard as you're making it out to be." Thorne assured him. "I've done it loads of times, and never gotten caught!"

"Great, you're in charge of that then!" Iko grinned.

Cinder raised an eyebrow at her. "Did you seriously just put Thorne in charge of something?"

Cress reached up, probably to fiddle with her hair, then dropped her hand limply as she remembered its new reduced length. Come to think of it, Iko really needed to even out those locks for her at some point. They looked so choppy and jagged right now!

"I-I might have a guess as to what the monsters might be." Cress mumbled. "And if I'm right, they'll only be in the forest at a certain time."

"What time is that?" Iko questioned eagerly.

"The full moon."

A silence settled over the group as what Cress just said sank in. There was only one creature she could be talking about. Iko didn't know about the others, but she felt like a total fool for not considering it already. Ravenous, senseless beasts? They fit the description perfectly.

Werewolves.

"There's no way I'm letting Winter into a werewolf-infested forest." Jacin was the one to break the silence, already edging closer to Winter protectively.

"But you let me go to a werewolf-infested school." Winter pointed out.

"It doesn't count if the werewolves are in human form!"

Cinder raised her hands for silence. Iko couldn't help but stare at the glove covering her left hand. She imagined seeing its soft glow from beneath the thick brown fabric (seriously, what was with Cinder's fashion sense? It's not like there isn't any nice gloves in the world!).

"Am I the only one who thinks we shouldn't be talking about the schools deepest darkest secret in the library?"

"She has a point."

Everyone's faces jerked up to stare at the person who had spoken. Kai shrugged, looking a bit embarrassed. "We've kinda been eavesdropping the whole time."

""We've"?" Jacin echoed suspiciously.

Scarlet came out from behind a nearby bookshelf, smirking with amusement. "You guys really should have met up in one of your dorm rooms."

"Told ya." Thorne muttered aside to Jacin.

"You were the one who suggested the library!"

Kai pulled up an empty chair and sat down. "So you guys think the school is keeping a group of werewolves in the school and unleashing them on the forest every full moon?"

"Well, it's just a guess, but…" Cress mumbled.

Scarlet raised an eyebrow at him. "You're honestly surprised?"

"No." Kai admitted.

"Did Kai just say something bad about faculty?" Thorne gasped dramatically. "The apocalypse is nigh!"

The next thing out of his mouth was a pained grunt as someone (presumably Jacin) kicked him.

Winter raised her hand as if she was in class and had a question. Grinning, Iko gestured imperiously to her. "Yes, Miss Hayle-Blackburn? Do you have something to say?"

Winter's hand fell back into her lap. "Yes Professor Violet. I was just wondering if we could perhaps enter the Black Woods when the wolves aren't wishing to bathe the moon in blood and ask the centaurs if they would be so kind as to leave us be while we solved this mystery?

Thorne leaned toward Cress and stage-whispered, "Did you understand any of that?"

Cress didn't answer, though her face did turn an interesting shade of red. Iko grinned. Looks like Crescent Moon has a crush on the Captain…

Kai frowned thoughtfully. "What Winter's saying does hold some merit. A diplomatic mission would be a good first step in smoothing over the conflict between centaurs and wizards, or at the very least convince them to target their offenses at those who deserve it instead of just innocent kids."

Cinder smirked at him. "I thought your dad was the Minister of Magic."

"Like father like son." Kai replied with a smirk of his own, though it looked a bit strained.

Thorne rubbed his hands together. "Alright then! Who wants to go into a forest full of angry centaurs and invite them for tea and cookies?"

Winter raised her hand. "I wish to go. I would also like to bake the tea and cookies."

"No way are you going!" Jacin said sternly.

"Actually I think she should go." Cinder interrupted. "And cool your glare Jacin, you know that she's the best option! I swear, even the stairs love her! They always swing to her whenever she wants to go somewhere!"

Jacin scowled. "Ugh, fine. But I'm coming!"

"I'll go too." Kai offered, "I've picked up a few diplomacy tips from my dad."

"Come on guys, there's no way you're getting out of this prison without my expertise!" Thorne said confidently.

Cinder raised her hand. "I'd like to go as well. I want to get an idea of why the centaurs here are so aggressive."

"Why don't we bring Wolf into this too?" Scarlet suggested. "He's good at offensive spells, and judging from that last centaur attack, you guys are gonna need that."

Cinder shook her head. "I see your point, but I think it's best if we keep our group small. Letting Wolf in on it would just put him in danger. Plus, he seems to be more of a "jinx first ask questions later" type of guy. Not exactly the best for a diplomatic mission."

"And I've been practicing my attack and defensive spells." Jacin added, "Might as well use them."

Iko grinned in satisfaction. "Nice! Now all we need to do is work out when we're going to carry this out! I move tonight!"

Cress gulped. "That soon?"
"Well, it is a weekend night." Thorne pointed out with a shrug. "It's generally easier to sneak around then. The teachers get a bit lax."

"And the longer we wait, the higher the chance the centaurs will attack again." Kai added.

"Then it's settled!" Winter decided with a delighted clap of her hands. "We're going on a midnight stroll tonight!"

A/N: Planning, planning, planning, but no action! After the last two chapters, that's probably really disappointing. Oh well! Can't have a fight scene all the time!

And Iko's the star of this chapter! I bet you guys thought I'd forgotten about her, huh? Not a chance! Iko is awesome! Though I'll confess she probably won't be the star very often in this story.

Will the plan work out? Is Cress's theory about the werewolves correct? Will Jacin manage to refrain from killing Thorne during the mission just to shut him up?

Please review!