This chapter has been updated from the previous work. After learning how the different schools cast spells, I tried to incorporate it like that. Enjoy reading the chapter.

[1st person, Emily]

I have to say, I've never met a seraph before. Meeting one was amazing; with all that grace, elegance and majesty. I don't know if I was awed because of magic or complete respect for the lady. When Lady Oriel asked me to do something for her, I happily obliged.

All we had to do was fight off a few dark fairies, how hard could that be? My sister mentioned they were tougher than the skeletons I fought. That could be expected, seeing as the skeletons were just a bunch of animated bones and these guys must be stronger with magic than the skeletons were.

We headed out to the street to see the fairies swarming like a hive. I gulped nervously.

"So, how many of these dark fairies do you think we have to defeat?" I asked Gen nervously.

"Well," she said. "If we want to do these fairies a favor, I suggest we clear this section of the street."

"Right," I said, and then I straightened up. "Should be easy, I mean there aren't that many fairies."

We rushed on to the street to fight the fairies. Gen and I would usually team up against a couple fairies at a time. When it came to Gen who was casting Thundersnakes and small lightning strikes at them, the fairies threw apple bombs, flew right into her, and cast Bloodbats, Scarabs, and Firecats at her. As for me, who cast Firecats and small bursts of flame at them, they only cast Scarabs, Firecats and threw apple bombs at me. They were probably attacking Genevieve more because they fought her before and she was more of a threat than I was.

Every time we defeated a fairy and it exploded into dust, we gathered up their remains into a bag Lady Oriel had given us. After every fight, we would regain our health and mana by gathering wisps. After we were done clearing that section of the street, I received a frost touched cap and Gen received a Bloodbat treasure card, which I didn't know was a treasure card at the time. Apparently, treasure cards are special spells that you remain in your deck until you properly cast them once, and then they dissolve.

Of course, once we had cleared that section of the street, we were exhausted.

"These fairies just seem to keep on coming," panted Genevieve, as we rested on the sidewalk.

"Question is," I panted. "Where are they coming from?"

"Well, maybe Lady Oriel will know once she finds out what is corrupting them."

"We should head back before more dark fairies get here. I have to say, you weren't kidding when you said they were tough."

"Yeah, even with you helping me it was still a hassle. Hey look, there are some wisps." Some red and blue wisps were floating along the sidewalk, ready for us to catch them so they could restore our health and mana. We went, caught them and no longer felt so exhausted. After that, we headed back to the hedge maze.

Once inside the hedge maze, we headed straight to Lady Oriel.

"Lady Oriel, we're back," I cried as we approached her.

"You have returned with the Fairy Dust! Please give it to me so that I can investigate the reason for their corruption." We handed her the bag of fairy dust we collected. She took some of it out and examined it in her hand. After a little bit, she looked visibly shaken.

"They have been enchanted by something that is undead!"

"Undead!? Again!? What is it with everything being all undead around here?"

"Well," said Genevieve. "This is a place of life magic; maybe if they undeadify the place it will lose its morale."

"This does not bode well," said Lady Oriel, still shaken. "How has evil become so brazen in this place? These are dark times indeed." After she was done talking, we got some gifts in the form of boots. I got some seared shoes while Genevieve got some storm-weave boots.

"I think this explains why the dark fairies can't reach this place. They've been enchanted by something undead, so the undead magic cannot cross onto the sidewalk. We should be safe, unless someone finds a way across the barrier."

"So what if the fairies can't reach us," I said. "We have to stop them from being corrupted. We saw it ourselves out there, more and more just keep showing up. I don't even know how the fairies keep getting corrupted. Do you know what's corrupting them Lady Oriel?"

"I hear that someone has hung bone cages along the street. I fear these are being used to trap my fairies and corrupt them."

"I guessing if fairies stay too close to dead things long enough they become corrupted," guessed Genevieve.

"Or the cages have dark magic in them," I guessed.

"I wonder why we didn't notice them."
"We were probably distracted with everything else we were doing," I answered nervously.

Okay, truth be told, I did maybe notice them out of the corner of my eye, and I may of saw tiny little fairies trapped inside. I knew it looked out of place and the fairies looked scared, but I thought they were captured just…cause, and I didn't know what would happen if I let them go. Now I felt a little guilty.

"How did the fairies even get trapped? Wouldn't they know to stay here in a time like this?"

Lady Oriel had a sad look on her face.

"My fairies don't like being cooped up. They started getting captured when the trouble first came to unicorn way. They didn't realize how dangerous it was for them yet, so they continued to fly freely through the streets, helping the students who were fighting off the danger here. When the dark fairies started to arrive, everyone was confused of why fairies had gone so dark. Some of my fairies went out to investigate, but they never returned the same. Now when the fairies go out to find their friends, I'm afraid they get caught as well."

"That's a sad story," said Genevieve.

"This dark fairy problem isn't helping the fairies," I said. "Every time a dark fairy is created we lose a good one. Soon there won't be any good fairies left. We need to stop this corruption!"

"Yes, please," said Lady Oriel. "You must free the captured fairies from those horrible bone cages before they become corrupted. Go quickly, my friends!" Genevieve and I smiled after hearing that; it felt nice, being friends with a Seraph.

"Don't worry, Lady Oriel," said Genevieve. "We'll save them." With that, we rushed out once again to complete our task.

"Okay, Gen," I said once we were outside. "This will get done faster if we split up. I'll take the left side of the street and you can take the right. We'll meet up somewhere in the middle."

I wanted to free the fairies before they became corrupted.

"Alright," said Genevieve. "I'll see you when I see you." With that she rushed off to free the fairies, and I did the same. I rushed up to the first cage on my side of the street. I saw the scared little fairy on the inside.

"Help me," it said in a high voice.

"I'm really, really sorry I didn't let you out before, but don't worry, I will now." I opened the cage door, and the little fairy flew out, crying out a thank you as it flew back towards the hedge maze. I continued down the street, opening the bone cages and freeing the fairies. I continued doing this until I met up with Genevieve around the front of Unicorn way.

"I'm done opening all the cages on my side," I said, tuckered out from running and opening all the cages.

"Same with me," said Genevieve, just as tuckered out.

"We should head back then," I said, catching my breath.

"Right," said Genevieve. We were just about to do that, but then I noticed something odd.

"Gen, I thought you said you emptied your cages." Genevieve turned around and let out a yelp. All the cages she had opened had fairies in them and were shut again. Genevieve turned back to face me, still panicked.

"I thought you said you emptied your cages."

"Gen, you were supposed to open those cages."

"Turn around, Em!" My eyes shot open wide; I turned around slowly, dreading what I would see behind me. When I finished turning around I let out a bigger yelp than Genevieve. My cages were just as if I had never touched them as well.

"How could they have been filled so fast?"

"I don't know," said Genevieve. "We'll have to open them again."

"And if they get filled again?" Genevieve pondered my question for a moment.

"You'll just have to escort the fairies back, and make sure they don't get captured again."

"Alright," I sighed. "You do your side, and I'll do mine." With that, we went to open the cages again. I hurried to the last one I had opened.

"Help me," said the fairy in a high pitched voice.

"How'd you get captured again?" I said as I started opening the door.

"It sucked me in," said the fairy.

"Well than," I said opening the door. "We can't leave this cage here." I flicked my wand at the cage, and a burst of fire engulfed the cage until it fell and shattered on the ground as my embers ate away at it.

"Thank you," said the fairy. Just before it flew away, I stopped it.

"I think I should escort you back, so you don't fly into any more trouble."

"Okay than," said the fairy. "Lead the way." I continued down the street, freeing trapped fairies and destroying cages. The fairies were happy to be reunited with each other and also happy with the fact that they didn't get corrupted. As I made it back to the hedge maze, I had a giant swarm of fairies behind me, almost enough to match the dark fairies that were on the street. I also noticed there a lot less dark fairies than before. When I made it back to the entrance to the hedge maze, I saw Genevieve had a swarm of fairies behind her as well.

"So, did everything go alright on your end?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I had to double back one time to destroy some extra cages; nice idea by the way."

"Thanks," I replied.

"Now, did you run into any trouble at all?"

"Almost did, but the monsters couldn't get past the sidewalk."

"They sure did try though."

"Yeah, they're not that happy with us doing this." Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.

"Hey Gen," I said.

"Yeah," she replied.

"Since the bone cages were on the sidewalk, you think the undead thing that's making them is already on the sidewalk?" Genevieve's eyes widened.

"This doesn't bode well."

"You think I'm right?"

"Well, I'm hoping you're wrong, but I have a lot of doubt."

"We should head inside," I said, gesturing to the doors. The fairies that fallowed us were so excited to have passed the danger they had headed inside as we were talking. I opened the doors so we could go tell Lady Oriel of what we had accomplished.

As we entered the maze we saw a lot more fairies flying around than before, and when we came inside, they turned, saw us and started applauding. I couldn't help but blush. We moved forward to approach Lady Oriel, but we stopped when we heard tiny voices calling out our names. We were approached by two fairies.

"Thank you for helping out the fairies," said the first one. "They did not mean to be evil, but the corruption made them do bad things."

"Wait, you're saying the evil fairies are back too?" I asked. The fairies nodded. "But how?" Genevieve perked up.

"It must have been the destruction of the cages that made them that turned them back. You turned the fairies back, Em."

"You did too," I said sheepishly.

"It was your idea; you did it first." Genevieve never gave herself that much credit. She picked up on my idea without me having to tell her, or maybe that's just because we're twins.

"Now there is hope again," said the second fairy. "And the fairies will be able to bring magic and cheer to wizard city once more. Thank you, Emily."

"And thank you, Genevieve," said the first fairy, "For all you two have done for us." With that, the fairies flew around us and we were surrounded by a green light. I wasn't exactly sure what had happened just then, but I felt really good. I couldn't stop smiling as we approached Lady Oriel.

"Lady Oriel," I said as we approached. "We've returned."

"We thank you, young wizards. The freed fairies have already told me of your heroism. Your deeds will be remembered here on unicorn way. And to show my appreciation, here are some healing spells. Remember to add them to your decks so they will aid you in future battles." Lady Oriel then waved her sword and two green cards floated down to us. We grabbed them. On the cards, they were both labeled pixie.

"Thank you," said Genevieve, as we put the cards in our bags. Lady Oriel then became serious.

"We must now find out who is behind the corruption."

"Lady Oriel," I said, raising my hand slightly.

"Yes," she replied.

"I have a theory of how the undead being was able to get to your fairies, and that's that they are on the sidewalk, past the barrier."

"That does not bode well," said Lady Oriel, shaken. "An undead being walking where people feel they are safe…it is very troublesome."

"Yeah," said Genevieve. "But what undead being was trapping the fairies."

"My fairies whispered of a monster whose bones made a clacking sound as it came for them." I immediately thought 'skeleton,' seeing as I thought them before and knew what she was talking about. Of course, I was also thinking of the idea that maybe this wasn't an ordinary skeletal pirate I was facing. What if it was a skeleton monster? Of course, skeleton monsters wouldn't be smart enough to build bone cages and capture fairies and plan that far. It was probably just a stronger, smarter skeleton; because all the skeletons I faced already were dumb.

"Ceren Nightchant knows Unicorn way. He will know if there is a sinister skeleton that now haunts my street."

"Of course," I said, coming to realization. "He should be the expert of this place and what goes on here because he spends a lot of time here."

"Let's just hope he knows who it is and that it's not just some new threat," said Genevieve.

"Okay, we'll go see what he knows. Take care, Lady Oriel," I called as we left.

"You two take care as well," said Lady Oriel. Once we were outside, we made sure our new healing spells were a part of our decks, and then we headed off to go talk to Ceren.

We rushed down the street, and relished at the fact that there were pretty much no more dark fairies. We ran until we made it back to the beginning of Unicorn Way.

"Ceren," panted Genevieve. "We're back."

"How'd it go," he asked. We explained to him what had happened.

"Lady Oriel sent you to investigate the corruption of the fairies? I'll gladly tell you what I know." We leant in to take in what he was going to say. "When the dark fairies began to show up, I had suspected Lady Blackhope. But even she has never tried to enchant fairies before." Lady Blackhope? Hmm, I had a feeling we would have to deal with her later. "Then the fairies gave report of a skeleton? Of course! Who else could it be but Rattlebones!"

"Who's Rattlebones?" I asked.

"He's a really tough skeleton general. He's been a little cranky ever since he became what he is."

"Still," said Genevieve. "It doesn't explain why he's doing it. 'Just cause' seems a little strange."

It did seem a little strange. The skeleton could be doing it because he's been extra cranky lately and he's doing it just to ruin everyone's lives a little bit more; but it doesn't explain all the other undead that have been showing up.

"Who knows why he's doing it," said Ceren. "Of course he can't be doing it on his own, that's for sure." I immediately thought back to this mourning. "Since I grew up here, I know a lot. I do not yet know what dark master has aided him, but Rattlebones has taken over my old friend Delia's tower."

"Sorry about that," I said.

"Don't be," said Ceren. "She's staying with friends until he's properly evicted."

"Well," said Genevieve. "I guess we should go inform him he's no longer welcome here."

"Yes, please do," said Ceren. "Find him in the tower and stop him from making any more cages. Please…do what you can to save the fairies."

"Don't worry, Ceren," I assured him. "We'll go stop him. When we fight together, nothing stands against us."

"Let's go," said Genevieve running off.

"Wait Gen!" I cried. She abruptly stopped

"What?" She called back.

"We don't know where this tower is." Genevieve gave herself a face-palm.

"Well, Em, do your thing." I waved my wand and said, "Delia's tower." An arrow appeared in my ruby along with the number of steps it would take to get there.

"It's the tower by the skeletons."

"In retrospect, it should have been obvious."

"Alright, now let's go." With that, we rushed off to Delia's tower to confront Rattlebones.

We stood outside Delia's tower. It didn't look that ominous on the outside, but we knew an undead skeleton lurked on the inside. We figured Rattlebones wouldn't be one to stop what he was doing without a fight.

"Ready to go fight a skeleton, Em?" asked Genevieve. Who was she kidding? Skeletons were the first thing I fought on this street; this was my area of expertise.

"As ready as I'll ever be." So, we entered the tower. As we entered, we heard a high pitched voice call out, "Who goes there?" Surely that can't be Rattlebones? I imagined his voice more menacing. Fully coming into the tower, I saw that there was a dark fairy with Rattlebones. That made more sense; he must have been making more.

"Who do we have here?" asked the skeleton, who was obviously Rattlebones, with his gravelly voice (that's more like it). "You must be the two wizards dispelling all the undead, freeing all the fairies and undoing all of my work!"

"Yeah, that's us," said Genevieve.

"You cannot stop us, Wizards! The corruption of the fairies is just the beginning of Malistere's plans."

"Malistere!" My sister and I both cried. My feeling from before had been correct, Malistere was involved in this.

"Yes," said Rattlebones. "Soon, Wizard City will fall and there isn't anything anybody can do about it. Mwahahahaha!" So, Malistere wanted to bring Wizard City to its knees, starting by taking out Unicorn way. Well, I guess if you take out Unicorn way, Wizard city would lose its base ground for healing magic, and then everything would get more dangerous, because there would be no healing magic! Of course, that still left the question of why Malistere wanted to take out Wizard City.

"Well," said Genevieve. "Sorry to burst your bubble, Rattle-britches, but my sister and I are here to kick your butt and stop your reign of mayhem."

"We'll see about that," said Rattlebones.

"Alright, Em," said Gen to me. "We'll just do what we're good at: I'll take out the fairy, and you can take out old ratty."

"Right," I quickly responded.

After breaking out of our little huddle, we rushed forward. The dueling circle formed. I took the position of the first circle, with the symbol of the sun, while Genevieve took the position of the second circle, with the symbol of the eye. Rattlebones took my opposite, the circle with the symbol of the dagger, while the fairy took the opposite circle of Genevieve, the circle with the symbol of the key.

We searched through our decks for the spells we wanted to use for the first round. I picked something simple. It was my move first. I threw out my card, and made a symbol of a flame as a burst of fire came from my wand and struck Rattlebones in the face. Genevieve did something similar except she made a symbol of a storm cloud and a burst of lightning struck the fairy, slightly electrocuting it.

Rattlebones laughed, as did the fairy.

"It's surprising of how you were defeating so many before," said Rattlebones.

"Is that really the best you can do?" snarked the Fairy. "It's pathetic." They continued to laugh.

I really wanted to attack them right then, but I knew it wasn't my turn. Meanwhile, looking at Genevieve, I saw her desperately trying to get a spell out. It was their turn. I'm not sure what Rattlebones hit me with, but I think it was something to make the next death spell hurt more. The fairy, through complicated motions, cast a scarab at Genevieve.

Searching through my deck again, I pulled out the first card I could find. Something came over me; it was like something ignited inside of me. I threw out my card, made a symbol of flame with my wand and cried, "From my words I doth ignite, a cat to bring within my sight, its foes and mine: entertwined; the battle's bought now burn through this fight!" in a fit of rage. A firecat appeared, and rushed at Rattlebones, causing him to collapse and break, but not like the last ones I thought.

"Em," said Gen, impressed. "What was that? You just spouted poetry of some sort, and you didn't even have to say what the spell was."

"I don't know, something came over me; it just felt right."

"Well then, I guess that this is right too," she said.

"What?" Genevieve threw her card forward, and made a symbol of a storm cloud all while saying, "Boom and quake, lightning shake, I call forth the thundersnake!"

A thundersnake appeared and breathed lightning at the fairy and the fairy exploded into dust. Genevieve blew on her wand like she was blowing smoke off of it.

"Impressive," I said, "albeit, the battle was little easy, not very challenging."

"Meh, works for me," said Genevieve. "I did tell old ratty that we would kick his butt."

The duel circle dispersed, and lights floated up from the remains and floated into each of our bags. We then saw our wands were glowing, which meant we had messages. Genevieve checked hers first. A small image of a zebra wearing a safari outfit appeared.

"I'm Sir Reginald Baxby; I'm a big game hunter" said the zebra. He sounded Australian, which was ironic, considering what he looked like. "I heard that you two went off to fight a big tough monster."

"Yeah," said Genevieve. "We just defeated him."

"Well done," said Reginald. "You should know that the really tough monster can drop unique treasure when you fight'em, so you might want to fight'em multiple times to see what you can get."

"You mean Rattlebones will just come back?" I asked, exasperated. "We defeated him for nothing?"

"Not for nothing, mate; it will take him some time to get back. Of course, he is kind of already dead; you can't get rid of him just like that, but now we know who to keep in check. Thanks again, girls." With that, he disappeared. I then decided to check my message. It was Mr. Lincoln.

"Hello again, girls," said Mr. Lincoln.

"Hello Mr. Lincoln," we said.

"I think I should mention reagents, you might come across many in your travels. Reagents can be used in crafting recipes, and you can find them all over the spiral. There's a list in your spellbooks of what you'll be able to find in each world. When you come across reagents, you can keep them in your spellbooks under the reagent tab." With that he disappeared. We took a look in our spellbooks.

"It says in here that bones can be reagents," I told Genevieve.

"You want to take Ratty's old bones?" asked Genevieve, a little disgusted.

"Just one," I informed her. "I don't need him reforming around me and getting revenge." I went over to the bone pile and plucked out one of his bones. It turned into a ball of light and went inside my spellbook. We also looked under the clothing tab and found out that we did have new clothes. Genevieve had got a new hat called the Rattlebones cowl which would protect her from death spells, and I got some new boots called the slippers of rites which would make me a little more durable to attack. We couldn't wear these until we were more experienced with magic.

Surprisingly, I was a little less patient than Genevieve; she was willing to wait for the clothes, meanwhile I wasn't. I figured I didn't need the slippers of rites, and if I couldn't have them at that moment then I wouldn't keep them. Maybe it's the fact I'm not very passionate about clothes that much, even if they would help my battle strategy. I decided I wouldn't keep them. I took out the boots from my spellbook, and whacked them with my wand, causing them to be enveloped in a ball of flame, while Genevieve looked at them with wide eyes.

"You know, you could've given them to-" started Genevieve.

"No," I said bluntly.

"You didn't let me finish."

"Whenever I see someone else with something that used to belong to me, even if I gave it away, I get jealous."

"You gave me your ring," Genevieve defended.

"That was a one-time thing," I said. "I don't think I'll do it again."

"So you'll destroy everything you don't want in a ball of fire?" said Genevieve blankly.

"Yes, or I'll sell it."

"We should get back and inform Ceren," said Genevieve.

"Right," I said, happy to change the subject.

We made it outside the tower, and I felt that the battle was very anti-climactic, which Genevieve was okay with. Genevieve probably did not want too much danger, and I'm thinking two things: on one hand, I'm thinking 'Okay, that's fine,' and on other hand I'm thinking, 'What's her problem?'

When we were outside, Genevieve went looking for wisps because she was attacked the most. While she did find enough wisps to bring her back to health, she also found some Mistwood, saying that was a better reagent than bones. Of course, I had to agree with her; dead things still creeped me out.

We made our way back to Ceren, and along the way we had found wisps to bring us back to our full strength. When we got back to Ceren we felt good as new.

"Hey Ceren," said Genevieve. "We're back."

"We defeated Rattlebones," I informed.

"He won't be causing any more trouble, we shown him not to mess with us," said Genevieve. Ceren got huge grin. "You did it! Now the Fairies will sing again! You bested that wretched skeleton Rattlebones!" Okay, that seemed a little…okay. He seemed really happy, but then he grew a more serious tone. "I wish that was the end of our troubles in Wizard City, but I'm afraid a more sinister evil is still out there." I kind of figured that, this seemed way too anti-climactic.

"Well," said Genevieve. "Rattlebones did say this was just the beginning." She had a look that said she wasn't looking forward to what was coming. Aww and she was just so confident before.

At that moment, we had received some balls of light that floated into our bags; probably the streets way of giving us gifts. We looked inside our spellbooks; we had both gotten some new boots, a new wand, and a broom. I thought the broom was pretty cool, but then I found out we couldn't go very high, due to flight regulations, so we were more like hovering above the ground; we also only got to keep the broom for a day, so that excitement would end fast. In the end, Genevieve and I decided we would not be using the brooms, but we were keeping our boots and our wands. The wands gave us more spells to use when dueling that weren't from our school, which was cool, so we were definitely keeping my branded wand and her charged wand. The boots put a little more punch into the spells related to our school of magic, so we were keeping my soot stained boots and her canvas covers. Of course, my clothes were a little pink, maybe I could get that fixed later to make them red.

Once we were done looking at our new clothes, Ceren grabbed our attention once more.

"Thanks to you, Emily and Genevieve, Unicorn Way is in less danger than it was. But we are still not out of the dark woods yet. You two should go report our progress to Headmaster Ambrose. The news about Rattlebones may help him determine what doom has come to Wizard City." Genevieve and I already knew what doom had come to Wizard City, and his name was Malistere. It was a good thing we didn't tell Ceren about him; it might just freak him out to know that it's him.

As we were leaving Unicorn Way, we started talking about what we had accomplished.

"Well," I said. "We just saved a street of life magic from being overrun by the undead and dark fairies."

"Well, it is a little impressive," said Genevieve. "The villain's plan and how we were able to stop them." That was when I realized something.

"Hey Gen, we made life magic out there."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, we drove the undead away, and to do that, you need life magic."

"Huh, I guess storm and fire is the key to driving away the undead."

"To think, all the things we've done, everything we've accomplished and uncovered…and it's only four in the afternoon!"

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