Chapter two:

All through her classes the next day Raven's thoughts were focused on the person who had sent her the flowers yesterday. She kept a close eye on everyone around her, she was at all times looking out for some kind of hint as to who it was that was sending her the floral messages.

This focus on others actions had actually meant that Raven had gotten in trouble a few times for not concentrating in class. Raven wasn't actually bothered at all by this fact at this time, as she would much rather find out who was wooing her than listen to anything the professors were droning on and on about in their lessons.

In the end as a way to stop the members of the faculty from bothering her over her inattention in class Raven cast a spell on her quill so that it wrote down notes for the class for her.

When one of the teachers had argued with her that it wasn't good of Raven to do something like that in class. Raven had cheerfully reminded to professor that she is supposed to be evil and that the headmaster kept going on about her being evil. So why should he expect her to do as she was told in class? Raven then went on to point out that, using her magic to get the quill to make the notes for her in class should in fact be seen yet another act of infamy on her part.

After she had and won this argument with one professor and he had no comeback for her words, the news of what she was up to seemed to make it's way around the rest of the staff who all then left Raven alone over the situation.

As the day went on it appeared no one was acting out of place and it was in fact this which gave Raven her an idea of someone who could not be sending her the flowers. She recalled that when spring had come to Ever After High, that Cupid had been very allergic to all the flower pollen.

Raven reasoned that since Cupid was not sneezing a lot or openly taking her medication to deal with the symptoms of her allergy than she could not be the one sending her flowers.

Noticing this fact excited Raven probably a lot more than it should have, but still, she couldn't wait to be able to tell Apple all about her latest discovery.

Despite having this new and exciting piece of knowledge Raven had really hoped to be able to exclude Dexter from the list. If Raven were honest with herself she wanted him disqualified from the search for her floral admirer just so she wouldn't have to have the awkward discussion with him about her preferences not being to his gender.

At the moment though she had no grounds on which to disqualify Dexter from her search, all Raven could do at the moment was wait and hope that eventually she would be able to say it wasn't him. Dexter was such a sweet boy and Raven really didn't want to have to hurt him.

So it was that when Raven arrived back at her dorm room after the day's lessons, she was bursting to tell Apple her latest deduction and to be able to strike someone of their list of suspects. Raven was almost laughing to herself as she came into the room, she couldn't help but think that she was really starting to sound like she was some sort of detective from a mystery novel.

As Raven made her way into the main room of the door room was not at all surprised to find her roommate Apple was practically bouncing around the room. As soon as she noticed Raven had arrived, Apple charged across the room, grabbed Raven's hands and still bouncing asked her in an excited voice. "Guess what?! Guess what?"

"Um what?" Raven asked with absolute confusion.

"More flowers arrived for you today!" Apple gushed delightedly.

"They did?" Raven asked, in a voice which was a mixture of awe and delight. Apple nodded to her and so she asked. "Where are they?"

"I popped them in a new vase beside the other's and left the note on your desk. I promise that I haven't read it." Apple told Raven honestly as she led her over to where her desk was.

Raven looked over at the desk her eyes widened at the sight of red tulips and red hibiscus flowers settled in the vase side by side. "How beautiful…" Raven Whispered in an reverential voice.

"I thought so myself." Apple agreed as she sat on the edge of Raven's bed which was looking towards the flowers.

Raven stood at her desk for a little while just admiring the flowers, she wished she could touch them without making them wilt, but unfortunately for her, this was still something which occurred if she physically touched any flowers.

Apple watched Raven admire the flowers from her perch for a little while, before eventually unable to stand waiting any longer she asked Raven excitedly. "Well, are you going to read the note?"

These words broke the spell the beautiful blooms had placed on Raven and she picked up the note on her desk, before joining Apple on the bed.

"It's got the same drawing on the front as before and it's certainly the same hand writing as last time." Raven confirmed to Apple as she looked over the outside of the note card.

"But what does the note say?" Apple asked anxiously. She was absolutly desperate to know what the latest message was from Raven's mysterious admirer.

Carefully Raven opened the card and read it out to Apple. "Red Tulips are a declaration of love and Hibiscus means delicate beauty. My message to you Raven is this. I declare my love for you my delicate beauty. Your floral admirer."

A delighted sigh left Apple and she fanned her blushing cheeks. "That is so romantic!"

Raven was blushing deeply herself, she nodded in agreement to Apples words before saying to the other girl. "I agree completely. I've never been called a beauty before…I'll admit it feels good to know there is someone at this school who thinks I am beautiful."

Apple shot Raven a surprised look. "No one has ever said you are beautiful to you?"

"Apart from my father, no…People are usually to focused on calling me evil and running away to say nice things like that about me." Raven admitted to Apple in a sad voice.

These miserably spoken words were enough to dampen even Apple's usually buoyant spirit. "I see, I'm sorry to hear that…I wish it didn't happen to you Raven. Still, someone has clearly seen beyond all that and thinks you are wonderful! Did you come across any clues about who it might be today?"

These words helped to cheer Raven up and thinking about who might be sending her these flowers assisted in distracting her from the way other people acted around her. "Well, I did have one thought…Cupid is allergic to pollen…Remember that mess Hunter made with her arrows?" Seeing Apple nod to show she remembered when she asked this question Raven continued talking to her. "I couldn't help but think that even if she does know the language of flowers, she wouldn't be able to keep sending me flowers and not be sneezing all the time. What do you think?"

"That makes a lot of sense! And I've not seen her sneezing a lot lately." Apple enthused, before walking over to Raven's desk, grabbing the list and striking off Cupid's name with one of the pends out of Raven's pen pot.

"You know I just realised something…" Apple said slowly as she continued to look down at the list on Raven's desk.

"What is it?" Raven asked her curiously.

"I'm starting to think maybe I should be on this list." Apple told her seriously.

Raven shot Apple a confused look. "You should? Why?"

Apple looked over at Raven and answered this story still as sober as had been before. "Well I'll admit that I do know the language of flowers myself…So it could technically be me who is sending you these floral messages!"

As Raven tried to picture Apple sending her flowers, let alone ones with romantic meanings to them, giggles started to work their way out of Raven and she after giggling at this mental image for a short while, she said breathlessly to Apple. "Oh, come on Apple! There is no way it's you! I am sure that if you were in love with me and sending me flowers, I would have noticed it by now! Then there is the fact that you want your story from me, that means if I am to be your villain, which means that it is impossible for you to be wooing me…And if that isn't enough of an argument against it being you, then what about the fact that you always say that are friends or frenemies?"

Raven didn't notice the momentary look of hurt that made its way across Apple's face, before the princess skilfully hid it from her behind her perfectly practiced princess facade and giggled herself. "Your right! If it were me, you would have noticed by now! It was silly of me to think that I should be included on the list too."

Slowly Raven lay back on her bed and looked up at the ceiling. "Do you think there will be more flowers tomorrow?"

"I'd say that since they have come on two consecutive days now then it is extremely likely that there will be more tomorrow." Apple told Raven with a nod.

Raven let out a deep but happy sigh. "I wonder what they will say to me next…" When Apple said nothing in response to this, Raven spoke to her again. "I really wish I had some way to answer them…But I can't just start throwing notes for them out of the dorm room window and hope the right person finds them! Could you imagine the ruckus it would cause if there were a lot of love notes found thrown out of our window?"

This time Apple giggled before saying to Raven. "All of my admirers would think I was in love with them! Or worse that I was throwing their love notes to me away."

"Or people would think I was trying to lure them into my wicked clutches." Raven said before laughing in a false over the top evil way.

This caused Apple to giggle again and say over dramatically. "Oh no, all those poor defenceless people! What ever should I do now I know your evil plot!"

They both started to laugh at this point. When the laughter eventually died down, Raven placed the card with the first one before sliding them both into a draw in her desk, from where she could retrieve them and read them again later if she wanted to and Raven felt fairly sure she was going to want to read these messages again.

With this done Apple made her way over to her side of the room, and Raven went to her own desk. They both pulled out their homework and started to work at it on their desks in a companionable silence.

Little did Raven know that someone out there, someone who was close and yet far from her was studiously consulting an old leather bound book. This person was reading each page of the book slowly and carefully as they considered what flowers or flower would be used in their next message to the witch.

After a while they slowly put the book down, smiled to themselves, then tucked the book away in a hidden draw of their desk where it would be hard to find and then went out to precure what they would need for the next day.