Trigger warning for:
Blood

Chapter 10: The Battle of Unicorn Way

Destiny

"Destiny, are you awake?"

"Shhhh," I whispered, rolling over and squinting in the darkness to find my roommate doing the same thing. "Are we clear?"

The seventeen-year old nodded and climbed out of bed, slowly rocking onto her heels to keep the floor from creaking. She reached over to her nightstand to grab her glasses, and I swung my feet down, dropping onto my knees so I could get my boots from under the bed.

It was eleven thirty, and the professors had just come through, briefly opening our doors to make sure we were in bed. Now we just had to get our things together and get downstairs to meet Bianca and Alex without getting caught. We'd gone to bed in our clothes so that all we had to do was grab our wands and our decks, and carry our boots down so that the heavy stomping noises wouldn't give us away.

"Okay, so when I burn the gates everyone needs to step out of the tunnel," Sarah whispered, grabbing her ruby-embedded wand off of the hook on the wall and slipping it into her belt. I opened my nightstand drawer, cringing at each creak the old wood made, and pulled out my card deck. I only had a few cards, but I'd also memorized some of the incantations, so in theory I could use each spell at least twice. And the creatures stayed around in informal battles until we dismissed them, as I'd seen yesterday, so they could help us too.

I was nervous, and my heart was beating hard against my ribs. This was the most rebellious thing I'd ever done, and the most dangerous too when it came down to it. And if we got caught, there was a good chance we could get suspended, or expelled, or something along that line. I was a little scared, to be honest, but I knew that we had to do this. Knew that it was the right thing to do.

"And if Alex could set up some kind of perimeter of icy winds so that the fire stays contained, that'd be great," Sarah added as she leaned down and picked up her boots, holding them by the laces. I swung my pair over my back and tucked my card deck under my arm.

"Okay. We'll ask him when we get down there." I inched towards the door and eased it open, freezing with every creak, until it was open all the way. I slowly poked my head out as Sarah came to stand behind me, and when I saw that the professors were gone and the dimly lit halls were empty, I opened the door and stood back, letting her go through first. I padded slowly after her, my heart starting to beat even faster than it had been as we speed-walked down the hallway.

"The stairs are awful," Sarah whispered, moving over to the side so she was pressed against the wall as she descended. "Stay against the wall, they don't creak that much when you're over there."

We got to the bottom of the stairs and into the lobby area without any problems. After stopping for a moment to hide in the shadows and get our boots on, we stepped outside.

Ravenwood at nighttime was truly beautiful. The moon shone down through Bartebly's leaves, lighting up the cobblestone paths and the various sleeping school trees. Where moonlight wasn't a very bright thing back home, and even then it was usually canceled out by streetlights, there was an abundance of the light here. It looked like someone had taken a paintbrush, dipped it in silver, and painted everything they could with it.

But before I could take a few moments to marvel at the beauty of the Spiral at night, someone grabbed my wrist and pulled me down to the ground. I knocked my head against someone else's and I grunted, and I heard a male voice hiss, "Bartebly, your skull is thick!"

I rubbed my head and sat back on my heels, looking straight into Alex's bloodshot, tired eyes.

"Sorry," I whispered, before looking around. The four of us were crouched down behind a couple of the benches, Sarah over with Bianca and me with Alex.

"What are we hiding from?" I whispered, squinting between the slats of the benches to see if anyone was there. There was no one…except…

"Bartebly's still awake," Bianca whisper-called over to me.

I hadn't thought of Bartebly when I was figuring out how to go about doing this. I hadn't expected the god-tree to be awake or watching at all.

"Do we wait for him to go to sleep or do we make a break for it and hope that we can get into Unicorn Way before they come after us?" Sarah whispered. All three of them turned to stare at me, and I swallowed. I was the leader of the operation, so I had to make the final decision.

Just as I opened my mouth to tell them that we'd make a run for it, the cobblestones gently rumbled and Bartebly whispered something to us.

"I can see you."

Now that's something straight out of Lord of the Rings. I thought.

Slowly, the four of us stood up from behind the benches, and Bartebly blinked one giant eye at us.

"I suspect that the four of you are attempting to sneak out and attempt to save the people left inside of Unicorn Way?"

I licked suddenly dry lips and answered, in a slightly squeaky voice, "Yes, sir." I glanced sideways at Alex to make sure that was the correct way to address the tree that was pretty much the Spiral's god, and the seventeen-year-old bobbed his head once in answer.

Bartebly blinked again, and the cobblestones rumbled and bounced slightly as the great tree sighed. I held my breath. In just a couple moments, he'd alert the professors and we'd be herded back to bed or expelled, and then the people on Unicorn Way wouldn't have a chance in the world. But then the tree spoke again, "Go on then. I will keep your secret safe."

The other three released the breaths they'd been holding and began whispering their thanks to Bartebly before taking off down the tunnel. But I stayed, my mouth hanging open slightly. Why was Bartebly letting us do this, when we were obviously breaking all the rules and putting ourselves in danger on top of it?

"Miss Starshard, I suggest that you follow your friends," Bartebly admonished quietly. "They will assuredly need your help before the night is out."

Deciding that now wasn't the time to wonder and worry, I nodded and jogged down the tunnel after my friends.

I met up with the three in our rendezvous place inside the Pet Pavilion tunnel. Alex quickly explained that there were two guards standing at the Unicorn Way tunnel, but that was it; the others would be patrolling the rest of the city. But we still had to work quickly before someone realized what was going on and raised the alarm.

"Alright," I whispered, sliding open my card box and pulling out the torn out pages of the plan and spreading it out on the ground. I squinted in the moonlight to see, and then looked up at my friends as they knelt around me.

"Bianca, Alex, you two need to distract the guards and get them away. Do you have a plan for that?"

The two glanced at each other, a silent conversation passing between them, and then they nodded. I gave a thumbs up and then added, "Alex, once you have the guards out of that general area, can you set up a perimeter of cold winds so that if the fire funnels out the wind keeps it inside the tunnel?"

Alex bit his lip and stared off into space for a moment, before he turned to Bianca and whispered something that I couldn't catch. She nodded, affirming whatever he'd told her.

"Yeah," Alex answered. "We can get them away and Bianca can keep them moving while I run back and cast a wind spell. It shouldn't take me long to set it up. Then I'll meet her and we'll make sure they're busy before we come back."

"Great." I turned to Sarah and opened my mouth to ask her if she was ready to burn through the tunnel, but before I could say anything she held up her hand and simply nodded.

"But everyone should be behind the winds, in case the fire funnels out," she added, pushing her glasses up onto her nose and reaching back to pull her hair into a ponytail.

"Wait…" Bianca whispered, her eyes widening slightly. "If the fire funnels out…won't you be inside the tunnel, Sarah?"

"Oh no, don't worry," the Pyromancer shook her head and explained, "I'm going to have as many Fire shields as I can up. If it funnels out, I should be relatively safe."

"Great," I repeated, smoothing down the pages and looking around at my friends. "And we're all clear on what happens next?"

"I get in and clear us a safe zone, since I'm the most powerful," Bianca began.

"I get everyone onto the rooftops so we can get to the Hedge Maze without too much hassle," Alex continued.

"And then once we regroup there and see who's safe, Alex and I run back and you and Bianca stay there, and we work from the outside in," Sarah finished, drawing her wand. I nodded, grinning, and drew mine as well.

"Kay, B, Alex, you're up, Sarah, with me. Good luck." The three nodded and we gave brief, quiet high-fives before Bianca and Alex ran back down the tunnel and disappeared. After a few moments, Sarah and I slowly crept out and ducked behind the bridge so we could see what happened.

Bianca darted towards the Shopping District tunnel while Alex crossed the circle in front of the library and padded behind the buildings between it and Unicorn Way. For a few minutes it was silent, and then I saw a light glow form a little down the street, in front of the guards. A fire.

"Alex knows Fire spells?" Sarah whispered, surprised as she saw the fire take hold. I shrugged and turned back to watch. The guards were immediately around the fire, stamping out the small blaze with their boots. But the moment it was out, another one appeared, a little ways down the street. The guards swore and both scurried towards this one, already leaving the tunnel unguarded.

They're not very smart, I thought to myself as they continued chasing the fires without even thinking about where they were coming from, or even leaving someone by the tunnel.

The fires continued down the road, with the guards continuing to follow and put them out. At some point Bianca took over, keeping them chasing the fire down the Shopping District tunnel while Alex probably got the winds in place.

Alex appeared from behind the buildings and waved, and Sarah and I jogged down the street to where he stood, waving his wand and setting up the perimeter. At some point the air grew colder and goosebumps stood up on my arms, and I rubbed them instinctively as Sarah immediately darted to the silver door, rapping it with her knuckles. Alex turned, winked, and walked towards the Shopping District to meet up with Bianca.

"Right," Sarah set her wand down on the ground and rolled up her sleeves. "We need to get these doors apart, I don't think I can melt this one without causing a huge fire, even with the winds. There's some wear and tear on them, probably from tumblers bumping together before sliding into place, so we have some handholds to pull them open." She turned to me and smirked playfully. "You strong?"

"Probably," I answered. Sarah nodded and fit her fingers into the handholds I could see, and I matched my hands to the ones on the opposite door.

"And…pull!"

I braced my feet and got a good handhold on the door, and pulled. The door was surprisingly lighter and easier to pull apart than I would have thought. After pulling for a few moments, there was a good sized gap between the two silver doors that Sarah could probably fit through if the tumblers and rods used to lock it in place weren't in the way.

"Keep pulling," Sarah snapped, taking a step back and continuing to pull. I glanced towards the Shopping District tunnel, expecting to see the guards coming back any moment, and gave the door one good yank.

Suddenly the silver doors slid apart on their own, the tumblers and rods slipping back inside of them as the doors receded into the stone tunnel walls. Sarah gasped as the doors started moving on their own and stepped back.

"Well…that's convenient," I whispered. Sarah nodded, smiled, and knelt to pick up her wand.

"Out of the way, please." Sarah gestured me towards where she assumed the perimeter was, and then marched into the tunnel towards the first door-portcullis gate. I backed away until goosebumps rose on my arms again, and then ducked behind a building in case the guards returned.

A bright glow emanated from the tunnel, and I watched, holding my breath and hoping that the tunnel wouldn't suddenly funnel a blast of fire out into the Commons. But the glow only remained for a few moments, and Sarah called, "First gate's down!"

So the fire hadn't funneled out. That was good.

"Hey!" Bianca and Alex appeared next to me, grinning wildly.

"Hi! Did you get the guards to stay wherever you led them?"

"Yeah," Bianca twirled her wand in her hand while Sarah called out the second gate's demise. "We led them down to Mr. Darkwood's, and earlier I went down and asked him if he could keep them occupied for a while when we brought them in. He has some new designs for the guard uniforms, and when he gets talking he won't stop and you can't interject until he's done. He'll be able to hold them for at least ten minutes before they realize they're being led on."

"Or someone raises the alarms," Alex put in. "Judging by how they left the gates unguarded and didn't stop to think about where the fires were coming from, they're not smart enough to realize they're being tricked till it's too late."

"Third portico's down!" The last glow disappeared and Sarah came careening out of the tunnel, her hair askew and her glasses starting to slip down her nose. "Bianca, I left the actual door standing, try to close it behind you once you're in so that we don't get swamped by monsters."

"Alright," Bianca twirled her wand and shifted her card deck into her other hand. "Wish me luck."

"Are you sure you don't want back up in there?" Sarah asked. "There were a lot of monsters when I opened the door to melt the portcullis."

"Hey, I'm a Master in two schools and a Magus in another," Bianca answered, smiling. "I think I can hold my own in there, at least for a couple minutes."

"Alright then," I whispered. "Knock on the door when you're clear, and then Alex, you take over from there to the Hedge Maze. Good luck, B."

The fifteen-year-old nodded, twirled her wand one more time in what I suspected was a nervous habit, and stepped into the tunnel. After we heard the door open and shut, we drew our wands and pulled out our card decks (Alex and Sarah pulled out one for now, leaving the other in a pouch on their belts), and walked into the tunnel. Now we just had to wait for Bianca's signal, and then we would save Unicorn Way.

Bianca

The door was surprisingly easier to open than it had been yesterday. I assumed that Sarah had weakened the locks somehow, enough that I could easily open it but not enough that a new swarm of evil creatures would be able to break it down.

I pulled open one door enough that I could see into Unicorn Way, and was quick to nudge it shut again. There was a huge group of lost souls and skeletal pirates just inside, milling around aimlessly inside the Arena square. I'd have to be quick, and I had to use a spell that could wipe all of them or at least most of them out quickly. I flipped open my card box and cast a quick light charm so I could see, and smiled as I saw just the spell for the job on the very top. I took it out, closed my card box and replaced it, and turned back towards the slightly open door.

Alright, now or never.

I took a deep breath, twirled my wand one more time to calm my nerves, and pushed open the door with my shoulder. The door flew open and I quickly darted inside Unicorn Way, grabbed the door's handle, and slammed it shut behind me. Automatically, every monster head in the Arena square turned towards me.

I gulped once as the monsters and I all stared at each other, before one pale blue lost soul started drifting forwards towards me.

"Oh no you don't!" I called out, half to ward them off, half to bolster myself. I stepped forward, put one foot forward and one foot back, and raised my other hand. I'd never combined spells like this before, but granted I'd also never faced this many enemies either. But hopefully I was strong enough to do this right.

With my wand, I drew the triangle and eye symbol for Myth, the symbol turning yellow, while I summoned a pyrokinetic energy blast with my free hand. The lost souls and skeletal pirates were still slowly moving forwards, but as they saw the bright yellow light suddenly contributing to the minor lamplight in the square, they murmured and took a few steps back.

I smiled slightly, hoping that this combination would do what I wanted, and slashed through the rune, shouting the incantation as I did, while throwing my energy blast with the other. The lost souls gave an earsplitting shriek and the skeletal pirates all yelled something that sounded suspiciously like 'Yarrrr!'

Immediately the ground began shaking and long cracks formed, each setting off tinier cracks towards each of the monsters. The energy blast, somehow knowing that it was being combined, dropped neatly into one of the cracks and filled all of the tiny crevices with fire. The ground continued to shake and the ground continued to crack before finally the energy and the fire got to the monsters. The lost souls gave another shriek as the fire reached out tendrils that looked like hands and dragged them into the crevices, and the shaking grew intense enough that the skeletons were promptly shaken apart, their bones falling into the cracks. In just a few moments, the square was completely clear.

I had fallen back against the closed door when the earthquake began, and I rocked forward onto my feet, holding my wand out in front of me in case there were other creatures hiding around the corners. But there weren't any, and I smiled, dismissed the spell with the Spiral rune (the cracks began closing up and the fire went out), and reached back to knock on the door.

Alex came in first, looking around to make sure the coast was clear, before he opened the door completely and let the other two in.

"Nice job," he complimented, grinning as Sarah and Destiny took in the completely clear square. I smiled, bowing my head and reaching back to mess with my hair.

"It was pretty easy…just an earthquake spell and an energy blast and it took them all out."

"All?" Sarah spun on her heel. "How many were there?"

I frowned, thinking back to when I'd first stepped inside, and answered, "Maybe two hundred lost souls and skeletal pirates in all?"

"Two hundred," Sarah wheezed, mockingly clasping her hands over her heart. "Geez, do you need to lie down? Do you need an aspirin?"

"That's insane, Bianca," Destiny said, turning around with a grin in place. "I would love to have been a fly on the wall to see you take out two hundred monsters."

I smiled again and hid my face in my hair, before Alex called us back to the topic at hand.

"Right, over here there's an old gutter that I use to climb up onto the roofs a lot. I'll boost you guys up and then climb up, and then we'll run for the Hedge Maze. They're mostly flat, so don't worry about falling off. Make sure you get up to a good speed when we start running, we might have to make a few jumps. And keep your wands out, we might have to blast a few creatures before they get to us."

Alex led us over to a small corner between the wall separating the street from the Commons and the first house on the street, and made a stirrup with his hands. "Sarah, you go first."

Sarah nodded and stowed her wand back into her belt, before stepping into Alex's hands and reaching up to grab the roof as he hoisted her up. She clambered up and slowly pushed herself to her feet before giving an 'okay' sign with her fingers. As Alex nodded and stirrupped his hands for Destiny, I saw her take off her glasses and start nervously chewing on the ear rests.

"Alex, I'm not exactly light…" Destiny whispered, glancing at Alex and at his hands. Alex shook his head and whispered, "Don't worry about that, you're fine. Now come on, we don't know how long it'll take before other monsters come around."

Destiny nodded and stepped onto Alex's hands, grabbing the roof and pulling herself up as well. Sarah offered a hand and helped her stand, and the two crouched and waited for me and Alex to climb up.

"Okay B, now you," Alex gestured me over and stirrupped his hands. I nodded and put one hand on his shoulder and another hand on the wall, and accepted Sarah and Destiny's hands to help pull me up.

Once I was up and balanced, Alex walked over to the gutter he'd talked about and climbed up, as quick and agile as a monkey. He clambered onto the roof and expertly stood up straight, looking around for creatures as us three girls shakily stood to our feet.

"Again, you've got to get a good clip going in case we have to jump, and we might have to take the long way around a couple times to avoid having to go in the street. I'll cover us until you guys get the hang of it, but keep your wands on hand just in case. Are you ready?"

We nodded, and Alex started walking across the rooftops, glancing back at us as we followed him, slowly getting used to walking on the stone rooftops. After a few minutes, we'd made it about a block and had gotten mostly used to walking, and we practiced running for a couple more blocks. We still hadn't seen any monsters, but Alex warned that there were ones ahead, and we would have to definitely run this time.

"Alright then," Alex summoned an energy blast, probably so he had it ready if he needed to use it, and we began to run.

The four of us running across the rooftops must've been an interesting sight. Alex was in the lead, with me taking up the back. The moon was high in the sky, and despite the monsters swarming the street below us (no sign of any humans yet), it was almost beautiful.

Destiny was whipping her head back and forth as she ran (while keeping an eye on where she was putting her feet), and she looked completely entranced as she looked around Unicorn Way and the rest of the city in the distance. Even after the last week, she still acted like everything she saw was something brand new to her. Even though that confused me, seeing the joy of someone discovering something new firsthand made me similarly happy.

Sarah kept her eyes on the roof underneath and the ground a little ways away, but every few moments she'd raise her head and take a deep breath, and smile. Looks like she was enjoying this midnight run too.

Alex did jump sometimes, though it wasn't really necessary; it just looked like he enjoyed this, running across the rooftops, jumping, having fun…It was a joy just watching him. He turned onto the next block, and for a moment he was completely silhouetted by the moon. It made him look…quite impressive.

"We're almost to the Hedge Maze," Alex whispered, breaking my focus on…him. We'd gotten this far without any of the creatures noticing us or attacking us, so now the only thing left was to get down, get inside, and figure out where to go from there.

Alex skidded to a stop at the last house before it gave away to the Hedge Maze's own square, and crouched, checking for any hiding monsters. The girls and I slowed to a stop and crouched as well, putting a hand on our wands and looking all around for the creatures. After a moment, Alex flashed the 'ok' sign and executed a flip off of the roof, landing neatly on his feet on the ground. He reached up and extended his hand towards Sarah. She slid down to the edge of the roof, took it, and jumped down. Alex steadied her for a moment before Sarah looked around and crossed the street to stand next to the Hedge Maze door.

Destiny copied Sarah, sliding down and grabbing Alex's hand, and dropped neatly to the ground. She looked around the corner to make sure that there weren't any monsters coming, and then crossed the street to stand next to Sarah.

Alex turned around and I crouched and slid down to the edge of the roof, reaching out to take his hand. Alex took it (being very gentle, I noticed) and helped me to the ground, and we crossed the street together.

"Lady Oriel might have hexed it," Sarah warned as Destiny reached for the doorknob. "Especially if there are people inside. Be careful."

"How do I tell?" Destiny asked. Sarah knelt and squinted at the doorknob, probably checking for the telltale shimmer around it that signaled a hex. It wasn't always corporeal, but nine out of ten times you could see it. Alex turned to watch the street while Sarah explained this and checked all around the door for hexes with Destiny, and I watched the rooftops.

"Uh, guys?" Alex said suddenly. "Finish checking for hexes. We've got company." I turned and saw that he was staring down the street, and at the end of the street…

"That's a lot more than two hundred," I said, holding out my wand as a mix of dark fairies and skeletal pirates turned the corner and began slowly moving down the street towards the Hedge Maze. I couldn't tell whether they'd seen us yet or not, but chances were that they would see us in just a moment.

"There aren't any hexes!" Sarah yelled as the dark fairies began chattering in that odd, otherworldly language, drew their swords, and flew forward as they saw us. "Open the door!"

Destiny grabbed the doorknob and threw it open, holding it there as the rest of us backpedaled through it. Then she ran in and slammed it shut just as the first fairy picked up speed and flew straight at her, and I could hear something hitting the door on the other side.

"Does anyone know any hexes?" Sarah gasped, staring at the door and holding out her wand as it shuddered in the frame, probably the result of more fairies throwing themselves against it. In response, Alex held out his wand and muttered an incantation, and the door began shimmering with a light-almost-white-blue sheen.

"Okay, that should ward them off," Alex slid his wand back into his belt and looked around. "Is the Hedge Maze usually this dark?"

The Hedge Maze was dim, rendered dark without the natural light that sprites gave off brightening it. Alex's hex gave off a slight blue light, enough that I could make out the outline of my friends' faces in the shine. But besides that, the Hedge Maze was pitch black.

Usually Lady Oriel also emitted some of her own light, even when maze-goers occasionally caught her taking a nap, but even that light was gone.

"Hello?" Destiny called out, waving her hands in front of her and finding my shoulder. "Anyone here?"

Suddenly a match was struck, and a lantern was lit a few feet from our faces. Standing in its light was a black unicorn in duelist's regalia.

"Diego!" the four of cried gleefully as the horse gave us a toothy smile.

"Friends!" the horse responded, throwing his hooves out. Then he turned back to the darkness and called, "Light the lanterns! These are friends!"

One by one, matches were struck and lanterns were lit all around the circumference of the Hedge Maze.

"Whoa," Alex whispered as at least two hundred faces were revealed, all huddled together inside the Hedge Maze, staring at us. There were some makeshift beds made out of vines and grass lying around, as well as a pile of apples and oranges from the trees around the edges of the Maze. As we watched, a few tiny heads popped out of the hedges and then floated into the air. Regular sprites. Not dark fairies, like all the others had become. It was calming to see regular ones, even if there were just a few of them left.

"Is this everyone on the street, Diego?" Alex asked. The horse nodded, and we all exhaled. Everyone was okay. Now all that was left to do was to get them out.

"What are you doing here, little ones?" Diego asked, handing his lantern off to another person (one of the dueling wizards who'd been locked inside, judging by her brightly colored robes). "It can't possibly be safe getting through, and surely the guards would not have allowed this."

"We snuck inside," Destiny explained, "to get everyone back to the Commons."

Diego gaped at us for a moment, before he turned to the crowd and called, "Ladies and gentlemen! Rescue has come!"

Immediately the entire Hedge Maze applauded and began to cheer, standing to their feet and excitedly clapping. For us. Diego raised his arms to silence them and turned to us again.

"Now, what exactly is your plan? How are you going to get everyone out?"

"We're going to fight through the monsters, and try to destroy as many of them as we can to clear a path through," Alex explained. "When we've made a path, we'll come back and get everyone, and we'll go back to the Commons. We already burned down all the gates, they can't shut us in again. And even if they do, Sarah can just burn us out again."

"Destroying the monsters that plague this street is a noble cause," a lilting voice rose out of the back of the crowd, and a hall opened down the middle as a woman with white wings began floating forwards towards us. "But I must ask that you listen to my advice before you go out to do so."

"Lady Oriel, always a pleasure to see you," Sarah announced, politely nodding her head at the seraph. I nodded my head as well and then glanced over at Destiny, getting the inkling that this was also new for her. Sure enough, Destiny was staring at the winged woman with her jaw slack, and Lady Oriel politely smiled.

"Hello," she greeted. "I don't think I've ever met you before. I am Lady Oriel, the caretaker of this maze and the sprites. At least, the few that are left." Lady Oriel looked around the Hedge Maze sadly, and the few sprites left flew forward and perched on her outstretched wings. Then she shook her head and turned back to us. "And you are?"

"Destiny Starshard, ma'am," Destiny answered, nodding politely like we had. Lady Oriel nodded, and then her face turned grave and her tone turned serious.

"While I condone your crusade to destroy the evil beings on the street," she began, "I must ask that you not destroy the dark fairies. As you likely know, the fairies are sprites that have been corrupted and transformed into the evil creatures they currently are." The seraph cleared her throat and continued, "I am powerful enough to revert them to their original forms, so I would appreciate it if you do not destroy the fairies, but instead briefly incapacitate them with low-level spells and by using the creatures you summon to your advantage."

"Wait a moment," Sarah put in, narrowing her eyes. "If you can revert the fairies, why are there still dark fairies flitting around?"

Lady Oriel narrowed her eyes at Sarah and answered, "I was able to save a few of them when this first began, but the pirates and ghosts found out and chased me back to the Hedge Maze. Every time I tried to leave afterwards, they have chased me back. Eventually, I had to stop trying." Lady Oriel shook her head again, and flapped her wings once, sending the sprites perched on them wheeling off into the hedges, and continued.

"Anyway, the sprites that I have saved have told me that, when they were trapped, a monster that gave off the sound of rattling bones came to retrieve them. After that, everything went black until I was able to save them. So, along with leaving the fairies alive, if unconscious, I also ask that you find out what kind of monster this is, and defeat it if you can."

"We'll do our best," Destiny answered.

"Then I wish you luck, my friends," Lady Oriel responded before drifting back into the crowd.

The four of us turned inwards, forming a circle.

"Alright, we all know what happens next," Destiny said. "Fight from the outside in and try to clear the street, only incapacitate the fairies, and also listen for the sound of rattling bones. We'll meet in the middle, and if we have time and we haven't done it yet, we find the rattling bones guy."

We all nodded and Destiny and I slipped our card decks into our hands. I twirled my wand nervously, like I always did to calm down, as Alex walked up the steps to the door. Alex dismissed his hex, and reached out to take the handle.

"Young friends!"

Alex stepped back and we all turned as Diego trotted up the steps to us.

"If you require help at any time, just Whisper to me, and I will be there within moments."

"Of course, thank you, Diego," Destiny thanked the unicorn, and we all turned back to the door as the duelmaster clopped back down the steps to join the other people. When we turned around, she whispered in my ear, "What does he mean, 'Whisper to him'?"

"I'll explain later on," I answered with a smile, watching Alex.

"Okay, when I open this door, I'll duck. Sarah, you send a blast at anything in our way, and then you and I run over and get on the roofs. Destiny and B, you guys cover us?"

I gave a thumbs up and twirled my wand one more time as Alex twisted the doorknob and Sarah summoned a pyrokinetic blast, holding it in place at the tip of her wand.

"One, two, three!"

Alex threw the door open and nimbly dropped to one knee, and Sarah flicked the energy blast at the dark fairies standing right outside the door. They screeched and scattered, and quickly we all ran outside. Alex slammed the door and I spun to cast a hex on it, just in case, while Sarah and Alex summoned energy blasts and ran for the roofs. Destiny stood by me, and when the hexing was done, we both spun on the street. The dark fairies had regrouped and were angrily chattering, point at Alex and Sarah as they scaled a gutter and climbed onto the roof.

"Destiny, Imp, now!" I called to my friend. Immediately Destiny shouted the incantation and drew the leaf rune, and it exploded outwards in a burst of green light. Immediately the green creature appeared and fluttered towards the fairies, raising its hands to its ears and blowing a raspberry to get their attention. Then it flew forward and began mischievously pulling at the fairies wings, pulling out their little hair ties keeping their buns in place, and just outright being obnoxious. This pulled the fairies' attention away from Sarah and Alex as they began running back towards the beginning of the street, silhouetted by the moonlight.

"The creatures we summon stay around and on our side for a while, right?" Destiny asked as we descended the steps and took our battle stances, in sync as if we'd been doing this for years.

"Yes. They kinda do their own thing though, so we need to take care of the fairies ourselves and let them go for the pirates and souls."

"Got it."

"Okay," I turned back towards the fairies (still being pestered by the Imp), and drew my first card. "Then here we go."

Destiny

The battle began with a giant explosion.

I summoned Lightning Bats at the same time that Bianca summoned a pyrokinetic energy blast (looked like I had more to study), and the resulting spell was a sight to behold. Lightning struck every which way inside a suddenly bright orange cloud, and finally the bats appeared. They weren't purple like they were on the card, and instead were orange, the same color as the cloud.

"Oh dear," Bianca muttered as the bats got into a tight triangle formation and prepared to aim at the fairies. Only the charge they were giving off looked a lot more unstable than the first time I had cast it... "Get down!"

Immediately I dropped to my stomach just as the fire bats attacked. A combination of lightning and fire radiated out in all directions, knocking the dark fairies back and also causing a huge explosion just above our heads. When the fire died down and the fire bats found a lamppost to hang from, Bianca and I stood again. The dark fairies were down, but thankfully not destroyed.

"Great," Bianca said, darting forward to check on the fairies and make sure they were indeed alive. "Now how do we keep them down?"

"Well, we are Life wizards," I responded, looking around for any other creatures. "Can we grow some plants to tie them up?"

Bianca nodded and stood, flicking her wand at a plain patch of grass. Immediately the ground broke as several long vines forced their way through. With a gesture of her wand and her free hand, Bianca guided the vines over to the fairies. The vines picked the fairies up and coiled themselves around them, and Bianca pushed them back towards the wall with the fairies now trapped in them. As an extra precaution, she then grew a wall of thorns around the unconscious creatures.

"Great," I said, turning back towards the street. There were no other fairies on this block, and the Fire-Lightning Bats were now dosing, hanging upside down from a street lamp.

"They do their own thing," Bianca repeated, pointing at the bats. "We can't direct them or anything. They'll stay around, they may wake up and go hunting for some food, they may follow us and attack other creatures. But don't hold your breath. Onto the next block?"

I nodded, and Bianca and I slowly crept down the street, swinging our eyes from side to side to keep an eye out for creatures. For a few minutes and another block, there were no monsters. But when we turned the next corner, there was a huge horde of skeletal pirates standing in the streetlamp lights. As we stepped onto the street, they all turned towards us, like in a bad zombie movie.

"Hoo boy," Bianca slid open her card box and grabbed the top few, holding them between her fingers and putting the box back in her belt.

"Yarrrr!" one of the pirates yelled, raising its bony hand and its cutlass, and dashed forward.

"Yipe!" I shrieked, grabbing the first card out of my card box and throwing it, hastily drawing the Storm rune as I saw the purple and gold swirled backing. Immediately a storm cloud formed above us and the mob, and a bolt of lightning arced down and struck the skeleton. It 'yarred' again before the skeleton disintegrated into a pile of whitish-tan dust and a cutlass.

Breathing hard at the sudden attack, I turned to see how Bianca was doing. She was fighting tooth and nail, casting red-orange blasts (energy blasts, I assumed) and the occasional card left and right. At the moment, there was a Fire Cat prowling around the group, setting fire to various skeletons and knocking them apart. The storm above us had gotten larger and more electrical, with lightning flashing around inside the cloud, but none of it had actually arced down yet.

I turned around to find myself face to face with another skeleton, which was missing one eye and had several gold castings in place of teeth. It opened its mouth and 'yarred' at me again (apparently that was all that they said), and swung its cutlass at me. Before it could hit though, I ducked with agility I didn't even know I had, grabbed its left femur, and yanked. Immediately the bone came loose in my hand, and the skeleton stumbled, pinwheeling its arms backward as it suddenly lost a leg. The cutlass had fallen from its hand, and I picked that up as well, throwing the bone aside in favor of the sword.

The skeleton finally fell backwards and broke apart, bones scattering every which way. The remaining eye bounced out of its socket and rolled for a moment before another skeleton accidentally stepped on it with its boot. Swallowing down bile at the burst of blood that appeared on the street where the eye had been, I swung on this skeleton, holding my wand in my right hand and the dropped cutlass in my left. Then, figuring that the cutlass wouldn't have much weight in this battle since the skeletons were, in fact, skeletons, I dropped it and ran straight at the pirate. It turned with a surprised 'yar' as I ran full tilt into it, shouting the incantation for the Leprechaun as I did.

Immediately the little bearded man in green appeared balanced on top of the skeleton's head, holding a pot of gold. The skeleton swiped at it, but the Leprechaun upended his pot onto the skeleton's skull. The tiny pieces were imbued with some magic that accelerated them, so whenever they hit it was like being hit full on by a rubber bullet. The skeleton 'yarred' as the Leprechaun shook the gold loose and made dents in the creature's skull, and then leapt off, quickly collecting the gold pieces and darting off to find another pirate to attack. The skeleton yelled, dropped the cutlass, and grasped at its skull (now severely dented in several places, enough that if the brain had still been intact it was probably dented as well), and scrambled backwards. Before it could get away from me though, I grabbed one bony hand and swung the creature, sending it bowling into the remaining crowd. It promptly fell apart as it impacted, sending bones flying everywhere. Some other skeletons were blown apart as they were hit, and the flying projectiles knocked cutlasses and the occasional hand out of reach.

"Destiny, help!" Bianca yelled. I spun on Bianca to see that she was starting to get overwhelmed. One of the skeletons had taken care of the Fire Cat, so Bianca had no backup at the moment.

Thunder rumbled above us, and I lifted my head to look at the storm above me. Then I glanced down at my wand again. There wasn't any lightning flashing down now, but maybe I could somehow direct it.

Focusing on what I wanted to happen like the other day when I gave my letter wings for the first time, I pointed my wand at the dark cloud and then whipped it down to point at one of the skeletons advancing on Bianca. Immediately a bolt appeared and zigzagged its way down, striking the skeleton's cutlass as it raised it to attack my friend. It yarred yet again as the lightning conducted through the metal and down into the bone, and immediately the entire skeleton disintegrated.

Seeing that, the skeletons turned on me except for the one too occupied with Bianca. My Leprechaun chose this one as its next victim and scaled its rib cage like a ladder to take care of it, and Bianca scrambled backwards as gold began flying everywhere.

Now having my own mob to take care of, I copied my movements from before, moving faster to compensate for the large number. Five skeletons were down in about ten seconds from lightning strikes, and the ones that quickly replaced them skidded wildly on the dust that they left and began to fall. Seeing this, I refocused the energy on the next line of skeletons, then the next, then the next. The storm didn't reach to the back ones though, and it looked like they'd taken out my Leprechaun. But they hadn't taken out my friend.

Bianca, standing just to the side of the back half of the skeletons, swung her wand down to point at the ground and cast a fire energy blast. Immediately she was propelled through the air by the small explosion, and she twisted so that she was flying feet first at the skeleton farthest to the right. Her boots collided with the monster's sternum, and it fell backwards, flying apart and knocking the next skeleton's feet from underneath it. That one fell backwards as well, catching and wedging its cutlass into the next one's ribs and dragging that one down on top of it, and just like that, three skeletons were taken out. Bianca landed awkwardly, with just one foot securely on the ground, and fell backwards onto her arm, crying out in pain. But her wand arm was still good, so she grabbed the next card out of her box and cast the Myth rune. The creature it summoned was a Troll, and it began clubbing the last few skeletons left and right, cutting a path through them like a combine working through a wheat field.

I'd finished with my lightning storm, so I drew the Spiral rune to dismiss it and ran over to Bianca's side.

"You okay?" I asked as I helped her up, pulling us away from the Troll as it finished up the last few skeletons.

"Yeah, I think so," the fifteen-year-old answered, twisting her arm to get a look at it. The back of it was scraped up and bleeding, but it wasn't serious.

"Save your healing spells," Bianca told me as I went to pull out my Sprite card. "We might need them for bigger things than a scrape."

"Okay." We turned to the Troll just as it hit the last skeleton with its club. The street was now covered in dust, bone parts, and cutlasses, and the next block looked pretty clear. The Troll turned to look at us with its sickly yellow eyes and then lumbered past us, starting down the street.

"Okay, if there are dark fairies next, we take care of them and dismiss him," Bianca decided. "If any others, we leave him be."

I gave a thumbs up and we hurried down the next block, holding our wands in front of us. Bianca held a green-gold energy blast in place at the tip of her wand, and I kept my Thunder Snake card out in front of me. The next two blocks were indeed empty, and the third block only had another skeleton, which the Troll beat us to.

"Dismiss him," I whispered as I looked around the corner to the next block. "There's a bunch of dark fairies next, I can't see any souls or pirates."

"Kay." Bianca drew the black Spiral rune and the Troll disappeared, and we turned the corner to stand at the end of the block. The fairies were all patrolling the street in idle circles, paying special attention to the weird bone cages hanging on the lampposts.

"Okay, energy blasts are the best way to take them out without destroying them, try not to use any Storm cards or anything that's going to seriously hurt them." Bianca prepared her pyrokinetic blast and raised her wand just as the fairies noticed us. Immediately all the fairies flew into formation, abandoning their posts at the bone cages, and raised their needle-like swords, preparing to attack. In response, Bianca sent her energy blast rolling down the street towards them. Some fairies shrieked and took to the sky, but the others were immediately knocked down like bowling pins.

"Take them all down and we'll tie them up once we've beat them all?" Bianca asked as the fairies darted back down to the street. I gave a thumbs up and switched to my Imp card, and together we ran forward to attack.

I threw my Imp card into the fairies and drew the leaf symbol, ducking a swing from one of the fairies swords as the green creature flew at her, tackled her, and began to mercilessly…tickle her.

"That's one way to do it," I muttered to myself before I heard the cry.

"Help!"

I swung my head towards Bianca, assuming that she was the one calling for me, but the Theurgist was currently taking on about ten dark fairies with a Nature's Wrath (wielding a much smaller rock than it usually used) at her back. She looked fine, so where was the call coming from?

"Help, please!"

Ducking another swing from a fairy's sword, I swiveled side to side, listening for the cries. Finally I pinpointed it, over by one of the bone cages hanging from the lamppost. I could see something moving around inside…

Suddenly there was a sharp pain in my arm and I yelped, turning to see that one of the fairies had jabbed me with her needle-sword. She now stood by, grinning smugly. But, since it was pretty much just a needle, I pulled the tiny thing out and tossed it away. The fairy's smile disappeared, and, without thinking, I reached out, grabbed her arm, and swung her into a group of fairies beginning to converge on me. The fairy screamed as I spun, knocking out a converging circle of her friends and also effectively knocking her out. Pausing to make sure this group was out but not dead, I cast a quick Life shield on myself and weaved through the throng of fairies towards the bone cage.

Sitting trapped inside the bone cage was…a sprite. A regular one, by the looks of it. She was curled up on herself, holding her knees to her chest, her wings curled around her body.

"Hello?" I called to her. The sprite opened her eyes and raised her head, and a smile burst across her face.

"Friend!" she cried joyfully. "Help! Rescue!"

This is how they're being captured. I realized.

"Okay," I said to the fairy, "We're going to get you out of here, and when you're out you need to fly back to the Hedge Maze as quickly as you can and get to Lady Oriel, okay?"

"Okay!" she cheerfully replied, sitting back and waiting patiently for me to open the cage.

Spinning on Bianca and calling out the Lightning Bats incantation to clear a path, I yelled over the crackling storm they brought, "B! The bone cages! We have to destroy them, it's how the sprites are being captured!"

"The bone cages?" Bianca yelled back, deftly jumping over the next fairy's swing and letting her slice through the opposite fairy's wings before starting to fight her way through to me. When she saw the sprite trapped inside, she gasped.

"Can you hit it with an energy blast and break it open without hurting her?" I asked, stepping back. Bianca nodded and flicked her wrist, and a green-gold energy blast appeared at the tip of her wand. She flicked her wrist again, releasing the sphere of energy, and immediately the bone cage turned lime green and disintegrated. The sprite caught herself before she could fall, snapping out her wings to catch herself before she hit the ground.

"Freedom!" she tittered, flying up to our faces. "Thank you thank you thank you!" The tiny little thing planted a tiny kiss on Bianca's nose, and then on my cheek, before she fluttered between us, setting her feet on our shoulders and putting her hands on her hips.

"Have these ladies been bothering you?" she asked, looking around as the still conscious dark fairies got back into their formation in front of us, starting to chatter worriedly as they saw our new friend.

"Uh," I glanced over at Bianca, mouthing, "Are they usually this…flighty?"

"Oh yeah," she mouthed back before answering, "Yes, they have."

"Well, that's just not right!" Immediately the sprite took to the sky, moving up higher and higher and higher until she was just a speck in the dark night sky. Bianca and I craned our heads backwards to watch her ascending.

"Um," I repeated, staring up at the sky and squinting, trying to see her in the dark night. "Is she going to…"

"Not sure," Bianca answered, throwing herself into me so we went flying to the side, just as a black and purple blast roughly the size of a car flew at the spot we'd just been occupying.

"That would've hurt," I muttered, before I stood up straight, grabbed the bone cage hanging from the next lamppost, and smashed it on the ground. There was no one inside, but the sickly green ball of light that had been occupying it automatically went out as the cage shattered around it.

"So we need to break all the others?" Bianca called, running to the next lamppost, barely avoiding the next fairy that flew at her. The Nature's Wrath was still drifting around and hurled a small pebble at this fairy, knocking her to the ground. Bianca pulled the next bone cage off of the lamppost and raised it over her head, throwing it against the ground and kicking in one of the walls when it didn't break completely. The green light went out, and we both looked around for the next cage.

"There weren't any on the other blocks, they start here," I noted. "So we just need to go forward and break the ones that we see from here on."

"Oka—awww snap."

I looked over just as a horde of fairies descended on the Nature's Wrath, chopping off its legs with their tiny (but apparently insanely sharp) swords.

I sifted through my card deck, but I was starting to run low. I had some cards that I could use, but would probably hurt the fairies. I still had treasure cards that I'd bought from the library, but a lot of them were higher-level spells and I wasn't sure what would stun and what would hurt. The ones that I had already used had reappeared at the bottom, with that same weird 'recharging' glow surrounding them.

Without a word, Bianca passed me a small stack of low level treasure card spells. I smiled thankfully at her and took a stance mirroring hers.

"Okay, ready, set…"

"Run!"

The two of us ran down the street, me going to one side, her going to the other, weaving through fairies and casting some quick spells to cover our backs. I yanked one bone cage off of the next lamp, broke it enough so the green light inside disappeared but it was still generally in one piece, and threw it overhand at a cluster of fairies putting their swords together to summon the purple-black masses. Not waiting to see the result, I turned and ran to the next bone cage, throwing it at the ground and jumping on it. Then I turned and threw an Ice Beetle treasure card at the encroaching horde of dark fairies. At the same time, a Goat Monk appeared just down the street. After the women subdued my Ice Beetle, they turned on the goat man, quickly moving to surround him.

The old creature looked around curiously before drawing his staff, swinging it four times in quick fashion, taking out one fairy with each attack. Then he leapt into the air and swung the staff downwards to strike the ground, sending out a shock wave that made the fairy's wings lock and sent them flying into the surrounding buildings.

"That's this block!" Bianca called, swinging the bone cage in her hand to knock the fairy hovering next to her into the wall. "Onto the next one!"

The Goat Monk followed us to the next block, running ahead of us and already spinning in a continuous circle, swinging his staff above his head. Bianca and I split to either side of the street again after casting a couple more spells, letting the creatures fight while we took care of the cages.

A strangled scream hit my ears, and I turned in time to see the Goat Monk disappear as a swarm of fairies flowed over the rooftops of the next couple of blocks and began beating him down. A Blood Bat's wings were ripped into and the poor thing laid in the street, and the fairies tricked a Scarab into ramming itself into a stone wall.

"The ones I have left'll hurt them!" I called, turning towards my friend just as a fairy latched onto her shoulder and dragged her sword up Bianca's side. Bianca screamed, using the metal wall of a cage she'd just broken to beat the thing off of her shoulder. There was a dark stain starting to grow on the red, yellow, and green fabric, and I started running across the street, fumbling for a healing spell as Bianca set off a series of energy blasts in all directions to keep the fairies away from her.

Halfway across, another fairy shot at me, slicing my wand arm as she flew by. I bit my lip to keep from screaming, despite the fact that there was also a red stain appearing on the sleeve.

"Okay, I've got a Unicorn right here," I muttered, skidding to a stop next to Bianca. She was holding her side with one hand and casting energy spells with the other, and kept them going as I tossed the Unicorn spell in the air and cast the leaf rune. Immediately the majestic creature appeared on the sidewalk a little ways away from us and knelt to one knee, waving its horn around for a moment. The blood stopped spreading on both of our wounds, but my arm was still stinging and sore.

"In informal battles they can't heal them completely if they're put on the spot," Bianca explained as the Unicorn disappeared. "So the wounds are just closed and cleaned out, but not healed. We have to be careful or we'll just split them open again."

I turned towards the next block to see another, large horde of fairies coming in from around the corner. Combined with that and the dark fairies still left on this block, we were surrounded.

"Uh…" Bianca raised her wand arm and tried to summon another energy blast, but the only thing that came out of her wand was a series of sparks. "Ugh."

I stood halfway and turned towards the fairies, holding out my wand. "Right, so then we need to…" What? Bianca's wound was all up her side, and running would just tear it open again. And while I could fight still, we'd promised Lady Oriel not to hurt the fairies so she could change them back…

"Oh Bartebly," Bianca muttered. "We're gonna d—"

"Incoooomingggggg!"

A golden meteor came speeding down from the heavens, gaining speed and getting brighter as it got closer to the ground. Just before I thought it was going to hit the ground, the meteor pulled up, at the same time releasing all the light it had surrounding it. The world became extraordinarily bright for five seconds, and when we could see again all the dark fairies were lying on the ground, apparently knocked out. And hovering in the middle of them all was the sprite that we'd freed just a few minutes ago.

"Hello again!" she called, waving as Bianca and I stood up and stared at her. "The girls shouldn't bother you anymore!"

"I didn't know they could do that," Bianca whispered.

"Not complaining though," I finished before smiling at the fairy. "Thank you."

The sprite did a little spin in the air, clapping her hands excitedly. "And you're very welcome! It's the best I could do to repay you." The tiny girl flitted over to us and hovered, putting one hand on her hip and pointing behind us with the other. "I think your friends need help."

Briefly glancing at each other, Bianca and I turned around. There was a very large storm cloud rising into the sky, with what looked like flaming hail falling from it.

"Yep, they probably need back up," Bianca replied, pulling her wand and smacking it against her hand a couple times, probably trying to get it working after it fizzled a couple moments ago. I turned to our new friend as Bianca started making her way down the street.

"Okay, you need to get back to the Hedge Maze, and tell Lady Oriel that we're making headway and that there are tons of fairies passed out on the streets."

"Okay!" The sprite corkscrewed into the air and then immediately zipped back down. "Good luck!" And she was gone.

"Destiny!" Bianca called from down the street. "It looks like at least the next two blocks are clear. I can jog without opening this, I think."

I gave a thumbs up and the two of us began to jog down the street, making our way towards the huge snow-fire storm in the distance. On the way, we met up with another pirate, which Bianca quickly took down with a green-gold blast. We took some time walking down the streets to keep our wounds closed, only stopping to pull down bone cages and breaking them apart.

"Their storm ended," I muttered, squinting over the rooftops as the storm cloud became a funnel and then disappeared. We were just a couple blocks away, and I pulled out my wand in case there were creatures on the other side.

"They probably didn't need it anym—Agh!"

Bianca ran straight into a dark mass, and I knocked heads with another one running next to them. Bianca shrieked again before a burst of light revealed Alex's smiling (if scratched up) face.

"Ow ow ow," the mass I'd hit muttered, kneeling on the ground and holding her head.

"Sarah!" I exclaimed excitedly, reaching down and pulling my roommate to her feet. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Sarah answered, summoning what I assumed was a light spell and holding it under our chins so we could see each other. "A lost soul attacked by going straight through me and it was freezing and now my head ow—" Sarah pressed her knuckles against her forehead, "Hurts. And your thick skull didn't exactly help with this head—ow—ache."

"Sorry," I replied. "Press your hand against your eye on the side that hurts, that helps a lot." As Sarah moved her glasses up to her forehead and did just that, I turned to Alex. His robes looked a bit charred, probably from the hail-fire a few moments ago, and he had some scratches on his face, but otherwise he looked fine. "So what's going on?"

"We've cleared the street on our side," Alex told us. "Lost souls and dark fairies. We took out most of the souls with a fire and hail storm, knocked out the fairies with energy blasts. You?"

"Pirates and fairies," Bianca responded. "We cleared them out too, got some help from a sprite we saved from the bone cages. And oh yeah, we've been breaking the cages as we go. Tell me you guys have too."

"Yeah we started breaking them as soon as we got back to the front is that blood?" Sarah grabbed my sleeve and pulled it up to eye level, holding her lighted wand over it so she could see clearly.

"Oh Bartebly, what happened?" Alex repeated Sarah's panicked response as he saw the worryingly large red stain on Bianca's side.

"Some fairies got us," Bianca told him as Alex began digging through his card box for a healing spell. "Destiny summoned a Unicorn and it was able to close the wounds, but it was on the spot so it couldn't heal us all the way."

"Geez," Sarah breathed, letting my arm fall back to my side.

"So is that it?" Bianca pulled the conversation away from our wounds towards the matter at hand. "Have we defeated all the monsters? Do we just call out Lady Oriel so she can bring the sprites back and then triumphantly lead everyone back to the Commons?"

"No no," Alex whispered, still shuffling through his card deck for a healing spell. "We've still got that rattling bones monster to take care of—did it just get really cold around here?"

It had. It had been relatively warm a few moments ago when we first met up with them, but now my teeth were starting to chatter from the cold.

"Um, guys?" Sarah raised her arm and pointed behind me, at the same time pulling out her card deck. Opening it and finding it empty (probably her back up treasure card box), she swore something under her breath and pulled out the other one. "I don't think we're going to have to go looking for the rattling bones monster."

At that moment, a sound not unlike a baby's rattle hit my ears. Only it was lower, more sinister, and sent a shiver down my back. I turned, slowly, and lo and behold, there was a skeleton standing at the end of the street. He was wearing a black helmet with a spike on top, black armor, and heavy looking black boots. He carried a black shield with a skeleton with a spike coming out of its head on it in one hand. In the other was a much longer sword than the other skeletons had been carrying, and he was holding a huge black and white blast at the tip of it.

"Oh dear Bartebly," I heard Bianca swear behind me. I turned, and there was a pale blue ghost floating down the street towards her and Alex. She had black hair with a daisy crown sitting on top of it, and there were black streaks running down her cheeks as if she'd been crying and ruined her makeup. A similar black and white blast was hovering between her outstretched hands.

"Keep your eyes on it," Sarah whispered, "And start backing up towards them."

I nodded and we began taking slow steps backward, drawing our wands and a card just in case.

Just when I was sure that I was about to back into my friends, suddenly I was yanked forward and to the side, and slammed against something hard. But it didn't feel like a stone wall, it was smooth and slippery…

"Great," Alex declared, from a few feet away. "Just great." There was a burst of light in front of me, and suddenly there was a black spell field standing between me and my friends and the two creatures.

"Ugh, I can't stand formal battles!" Sarah complained from just to the left of me, slumping against the force field keeping her in her casting circle and pressing her knuckles to her forehead again. On her other side, Bianca was holding her side and wincing, trying to juggle her card box and her wand with her other hand. Alex was in the casting circle farthest to the left, sighing and idly shuffling his card deck, and it looked like I was in the one farthest to the right.

"Well well well, look what we have here, my Lady Blackhope."

This voice came from the skeleton standing across from me in his own casting circle. His jaw was open in a disconcerting grin, and he looked to the four of us in turn, his grin seeming to widen as he saw the blood on our robes.

"They have destroyed all of the lost souls and the skeletal pirates," the ghost rasped, narrowing her eyes at us and hovering a few feet off the ground. "And your dark fairies have been rendered unconscious, Rattlebones."

"No worries, Lady Blackhope," Rattlebones responded, waving his hand. "We'll gladly return the favor."

"So you're the creator of the bone cages," Bianca courageously called out.

"Oh yes," the skeleton called back. "And the corruption of the fairies is just the beginning of the end."

"What end?" Alex yelled back across the space.

"The end of Wizard City," Lady Blackhope answered, lowering herself a little closer to the ground. "Soon, Wizard City will fall to Malistaire and there isn't anything that anyone can do about it."

An icy cold shot down my spine. Malistaire. So he was behind this. The sprites, the ghosts, and the pirates, and he probably had a hand in the corruption on the other streets. For some reason, he wanted to bring down Wizard City. But why, exactly?

"Enough chatter!" Rattlebones yelled, raising his sword and drawing the skull profile symbol for Death in front of him. "Perish now, wizards!"

Bianca

I agreed wholeheartedly with Sarah: I couldn't stand formal battles either. Though it was the honorable way of doing things, and duels were formal battles, the formal way of doing things was restricting. And you had to go by turns, and you couldn't dodge when the enemy sent a Storm spell flying your way (well, you could, but it'd hit somehow), so formal battles were actually pretty dangerous when it came down to it. But ancient rules were ancient rules, and when we got dragged into formal battles we had to abide.

Rattlebones muttered an incantation under his breath, and the Death symbol exploded outwards in a blast of black light. Immediately the spell field was covered in grass, with three gravestones and a freshly-moved plot of earth in the center. After a moment, the ground shook, and a green-skinned man in a top hat and a worn tuxedo shot out of the plot. He looked around for a moment before pulling a shovel from the ground besides the grave, and lunged forward towards Alex, swinging the blade of it as if to hit him over the head. Alex instinctively raised his hands to cover his head, but it didn't help him as the ghoul stole some of his energy and transferred it to Rattlebones.

While Lady Blackhope cast an Ice Beetle that missed Sarah as it scrabbled towards her, just catching a tearing a small hole at the bottom of her pant leg, I glanced down at my card deck. I had mostly used energy blasts while we were clearing the streets, so I had a good amount of cards left. Taking another glance at the pips at my feet (only one at the moment), I chose a Death shield and waited my turn to cast it.

Destiny, realizing that she was the first to cast after the creatures, looked through her treasure cards and then picked out a Life shield. Sarah passed after her, leaving me to cast my Death shield. Alex also passed before the turn went back around to our enemies.

Rattlebones passed, waving his arm offhandedly and squinting with one good eye at the pip that currently stood at his feet.

Lady Blackhope cast a dark sprite, one that was summoned through spells and not through dark magic, and it flew forward and flew in circles around Destiny, lifting her slightly off the ground while sending dark energy to attack her. The fairy disappeared and Destiny dropped back to the ground, kneeling and gasping in pain. It looked like the energy and the levitating had ripped open the wound on her arm again, and the red stain was starting to grow again.

One-handedly, Destiny sifted through her card deck, now composed almost completely of treasure cards, and selected a Life Trap, sending it towards Rattlebones. Sarah picked out a Firebird, letting it attack Lady Blackhope, and I passed, glancing down at the Helephant at the top of my stack and then down at the pips at my feet. Alex also passed, and the battle continued on.

Rattlebones cast yet another Ghoul, and it looked around for a few moments, swinging the shovel over its shoulder, before it lumbered towards me and swung the shovel towards my head. I quickly ducked, hoping to keep the Undead creature from stealing some of my energy, but the shovel still nicked my shoulder, taking some of it and transferring it back to Rattlebones.

Lady Blackhope glanced between the four of us before her gaze zeroed in on Sarah. Smiling wickedly, the ghost woman drew the Life rune. Immediately a field of grass took over the spell field, with a pot of gold sitting in the center. A rainbow flew out of the pot, forming a slide that a small bearded man in green slid down. It tipped over the pot, turned towards Sarah, and smiled mischievously. Sarah went pale, and my mind immediately flashed back to the effect that the Leprechaun's gold had had on the skeletons. And Sarah wasn't exactly Undead…

Sarah's screaming interrupted my thoughts as the Leprechaun scooped the white-hot gold into his hands and began lobbing them at Sarah. Sarah raised her hands to protect her face and head, leaving her arms to take most of the hits and letting large bruises and burns form up and down them. Unfortunately, all I could do to help her was wince sympathetically and dig through my deck for a Unicorn spell. The barrage ended and Sarah slowly dropped her arms again while the turn came back around to Destiny.

Apparently Destiny had the same idea, to heal Sarah, and she picked out a Sprite card and cast it. The regular fairy fluttered into the air before executing a maneuver much like the summoned Dark Sprite had, spinning around Sarah and lifting her into the air. But before the healing magic could get to our friend…a dark mass flew straight into the Sprite, knocking her away from Sarah, canceling the spell, and hurling the good fairy into the spell field. The Sprite shrieked, high and loud, as the spell field dragged her down, dismissing her before she could finish what she'd been summoned to do.

"Hey!" Alex yelled as the dark fairy hovered back out of the duel circle, playfully saluting to Sarah before she disappeared into the dark sky. "What gives?"

"Wizards are so cute," Lady Blackhope rasped. "Just because there are rules when it comes to formal battles doesn't necessarily mean they need to be obeyed."

I looked around just as the block around us began to fill with dark fairies, some of them bearing bruises or teetering slightly to the side. Obviously, they were the fairies that we'd already dealt with, but were now conscious again.

"There are ancient rules that bind us to honor and respect when were are involved in formal battles," Alex snapped, his voice sounding dangerously calm and especially ticked. "You can't just…disregard them!"

"We can," Rattlebones responded as a dark fairy swung down and grabbed Destiny's sleeve, pulling it and scratching at her arm, ripping the wound open farther. "And we will."

The battle continued.

It was something that nightmares were made of. We'd been taught from the moment we started going to Ravenwood that formal battles were safer for us, that even though we could get hurt, there were rules that had, absolutely had, to be obeyed. But now, Lady Blackhope and Rattlebones were breaking ancient rules limiting the battle to those in the casting circles. The dark fairies were ruthless, ripping cards out of our hands as we tried to use them, knocking shields and traps away the moment they were cast, and valiantly throwing themselves between energy blasts and their bosses.

Fire Cats, Thunder Snakes, Scarabs, Imps, Frost Beetles, and Blood Bats were sent our way, along with the occasional attack from Rattlebones and Lady Blackhope themselves. Though we could get an attack in every once in a while, the dark fairies stopped the rest of them, breaking shields and traps, disabling creatures, and taking spells out of our hands and dropping them into the field before we could use them. I wasn't sure how exactly our enemies were doing this, getting through the force fields and into the dueling circle itself, but I knew that if we could get out of this alive, Professor Ambrose and Bartebly would need to know immediately so that they could make sure that this chink in the armor was sealed up.

My side was torn open again, Destiny's arm was bleeding heavily, Sarah was bruised all over and her headache had started up again as Lady Blackhope attacked by flying straight through her, and Alex had scorch marks on his robes and blisters all along the backs of his hands and palms. But we were still fighting, as hard as we could.

I glanced down at my pips, juggling my wand and card deck in one hand and holding my side with the other. It stung and ached, and the blood was starting to soak through my robe, but I could still fight. And I finally had enough pips for my Helephant, the last card in my box that hadn't been stolen or wasn't recharging. If I could time this right, maybe I could get it through the dark fairies…

I lifted my wand and rapidly drew the Fire symbol, throwing the card and hoping that the fairies wouldn't jump on it like dogs. But I didn't have a reason to worry, as several energy blasts from both Sarah and Alex immediately went flying at the fairies, knocking them back and giving the spell time to get through and summon my Helephant. I grinned at my two friends on either side as the ground began to rumble.

The huge orange armored elephant appeared and trumpeted, and ducked its head to see Lady Blackhope and Rattlebones. I couldn't see around it, but judging by the yell (which still sounded like 'yarr'), the Helephant had attacked the skeletal pirate.

The sound of bones hitting ground met my ears just as the Helephant disappeared, and we could immediately see that Rattlebones had fallen apart. We'd beaten him.

But our victory was short-lived as Lady Blackhope shrieked again.

"You think that just because you have defeated the skeleton that you have won!" she roared, raising her arms. Immediately the fairies surrounded her and us, and they quickly darted through the force fields (I still had absolutely no idea how they were doing that) and ripped our card boxes out of our hands. Destiny put up quite a fight, grabbing one of their wings and hurling the owner at the ground, but the fairies were still able to wrestle the box away from her.

"Let me assure you, little wizards, that this is not the case. Malistaire's spells are already working, and he will prevail. Wizard City will fall!"

The dark fairies raised their swords, the black and purple masses forming at the tips of them, and I instinctively pressed myself against the force field. This was bad. This was very, very bad…

"Haaagh!"

The sudden battle cry made all of us turn to look, even the dark fairies. And what we saw was a black unicorn slicing his way through the dark fairies, holding an improvised wooden club in one hoof and his rapier in the other.

"Diego!" the four of us yelled.

"And Lady Oriel!" We looked to the sky as the winged woman appeared, her white dress replaced by gray and golden armor. With a wave of her arm, the dark fairies that came to surround her were immediately hurled back at the ground.

"My Lady Oriel!" Diego yelled at the quickly-brightening sky, narrowly ducking another dark fairy's swing and clubbing her over the head with the basket of his rapier. "Disable the spell field, if you would!"

Lady Oriel nodded and spun high into the air, her wings forming some sort of cocoon around her as she ascended, before she extended them to stop her ascent. The peaceful seraph appraised the situation with bright green eyes and a disapproving frown before drawing a wicked looking sword, serrated down both edges and glowing with righteous green energy, from a baldric at her side.

"Shield yourself, little ones!" she called out before she folded her wings, pointed her sword straight downwards, holding the hilt in both hands, and began a rapid corkscrewing descent. Instinctively, I dropped to my knees and curled into a ball, covering the back of my neck and my head with my arms.

Lady Oriel dropped into the spell field and drove her glowing sword right into the center, kneeling and hanging on for dear life to the hilt.

Hot air spilled over me and I felt the force field keeping us in the casting circles falling around us. I could hear Lady Blackhope shriek again.

"B, this way!" Suddenly there were hands underneath my armpits and I was being dragged backwards out of the casting circle as the rest of the formal duel disintegrated around us. Noticing Lady Blackhope drawing a sword and using it to narrowly block an attack from Lady Oriel (the hot air spun outwards from them as the swords connected), I took the hint and scrabbled to my feet, accepting the arm being swung around my shoulders and limping along after a fleeing Sarah and Destiny. Diego was clubbing his way through dark fairies, knocking them over the head, and Alex used his free hand to summon a pyrokinetic energy blast and send it towards the fairies moving to converge on us.

"Come on, none of us are in shape to keep fighting," Alex muttered, half leading me, half carrying me across the street into a fenced-in porch that Sarah had blown open. We ducked inside, quickly shutting the wrought-iron gate and moving to stand alongside Sarah and Destiny. The red blossom on Destiny's sleeve had grown, and the bruises on Sarah's forehead and arms had grown into ugly blue and purple paint splotch look-a-likes.

"Gah, forget it," Destiny sighed, pulling off her robe (wincing as it rubbed against the wound on her arm) and slinging it over her good arm. "Is there a dry cleaners somewhere?"

The iron bars around us shook as Lady Oriel was pushed back towards us. Her sword smacked against the metal, and more hot air and energy flooded out onto us, blowing our hair back. Shaking her head, the seraph pushed off the gate and took to the sky, chasing the rapidly-fleeing Lady Blackhope towards the stars as they began winking out in preparation for the dawn.

"Anyone need some card boxes?" Our little sprite friend from before appeared, holding all of our card boxes under her arms like luggage. She slipped through the bars and dropped them at our feet, and Sarah quickly knelt and handed the boxes back to their owners.

"You're wonderful," Destiny complimented the sprite as she found that all of our cards were back (though the treasure cards were definitely lost), and they were nearly done recharging. The sky was quickly lightening: it looked like we'd been sneaking and fighting all night long. If they hadn't noticed it by now, the professors would definitely know we were gone in an hour or so.

"Thank you!" the sprite responded before she pulled out a Unicorn spell and tossed it at the ground, drawing a small leaf rune with her finger before she slipped through the bars again and disappeared into the battle boiling just outside of them. The Unicorn formed a moment later, and though it was a bit cramped with four of us and a horse in a small fenced in porch, it managed to heal the four of us of our more painful injuries.

"Right!" Alex flicked his wand and a blue-gray-white ball of energy appeared at the tip of it. "Let's finish this."

We plunged through the gates into the crowd then, Destiny making a beeline for Diego while Sarah darted to where the fairies were thickest. Alex made a sharp turn and used the iron fence to climb onto the roofs, probably to attack from there. Summoning a Life blast (not harmful, just concussive) and bowling a path through the fairies for myself, I charged into battle, wand held high.

We fought tooth and nail against the fairies, working to knock them unconscious or at least keep them away from the two ethereal beings fighting above us, silhouetted against the red-blue sky of dawn. The sun would be up soon, and hopefully everything would be over by then.

Swinging my wand above and behind my head and keeping energy blasts flying around me as I waved my wand in a continuous circle, I craned my neck to look for my friends in the crowd. Seeing a brief shot of blue against black near the back, I ducked a fairy's sword and twirled my wand, letting a particularly large fire blast flow from my fingers into the old wood as I looked for Alex.

Another slice of blue against black caught my eye as Alex vaulted the peak of a roof, stretched his wand out in front of him, and pulled his free hand back, a blue and gray sphere beginning to form in it. Keeping his wand arm straight and squinting one eye shut to better sight along it, Alex briefly twirled his fingers to bring the half-sphere of blue and gray smoke into a full sphere. Then, still keeping his wand arm straight, Alex snapped his free hand up and over, the ball of frozen energy arcing through the air, following the general line of his sighting arm as the energy blast fell back down into the crowd, the height it fell from making the impact that much stronger and sending fairies tumbling into each other all around. And then Alex crouched, swung himself back over the peak of the roof to provide some cover, and continued onto the next point in his mind.

Letting the handle of my wand slip back down into my hand, I stood up straight and pointed my wand straight up, releasing the red-orange sphere of energy into the sky. After flying upwards for a few brief seconds, the blast began falling again, faster than it had flown, and I quickly dropped and tumbled out of the way. The blast fell where I had been standing, knocking unconscious the fairy that had clamored for my place and locking the wings of the ones surrounding her.

"Woooohoooo!"

I looked over towards the source of the cry just as Sarah Bluesong shot into the air, the ground beneath her glowing orange as she used an explosive blast to propel herself into the air. As she shot into the air, Sarah kicked her legs skyward while throwing her torso backwards so that her head was pointing towards the ground. At the same time, Sarah slid her wand back into her belt, shoved her hands downward, and summoned two red energy blasts into her hands. Just as her body began to flip over again with momentum, Sarah hurled the blasts at the ground, at the fairies who had the misfortune of hovering below her. A crater appeared a moment later, stone bricks shooting into the air and in all directions, and the fairies Sarah had hit lay inside, unconscious and twitching.

Sarah began falling towards the ground then, but compensated for the fall by summoning a Fire Elf. As a tree trunk split the ground below her and a Fire Elf speedily bounded out of a nook in the tree, bow already nocked, Sarah caught the tree trunk with both hands, locked her legs around it, and slid down the tree to the ground moments before it disappeared. Drawing her wand again, Sarah spun, clubbing a flaming, shrieking fairy flying blindly at her back and away with the ruby-encrusted wood. And then she was off again.

Unfortunately, the fairy she'd struck back was now flying, shrieking, flaming towards me. My eyes grew and I dropped onto my stomach so that she sailed over my head and into a few of her sisters who had been preparing to jump me from behind. I stood again, cast a spell to dismiss the flames and then quickly began to spin, whipping my wand above and behind me in a continuous circle. An energy blast remained at the tip of my wand, smacking into any fairies who got too close to me.

A yell tore through the crowd and I turned in time to see Destiny narrowly leap-frogging over the Thunder Snake she had summoned. Before she even hit the ground, she had summoned some Lightning Bats, and a Leprechaun hung precariously onto her shoulder, lobbing gold pieces at any fairies who got too close. Destiny stopped short in the middle of the crowd, looked around, and then quickly raised her arm to the sky. Immediately her Lightning Bats had coagulated around it, and when Destiny whipped her arm back down, pointing at a group of fairies starting to converge on Diego, the Lightning Bats followed her lead and flew, screeching, across the street. A few moments, screams, and white hot balls of electricity later, the fairies around Diego were lying on the ground, twitching from the excess energy that was whipping through them. Satisfied, Destiny's face broke into a smirk before she turned, grabbed a fairy's arm as she flew past, and began to spin, swinging the fairy around her into the other fairies nearby. The Leprechaun still sat on Destiny's shoulder, holding his hat with one hand and clinging to Destiny's collar with the other, hanging on for dear life before Destiny finally released the screaming, bruised fairy, sending her tumbling across the square into some more of her sisters. And then Destiny was off again, sprinting towards Diego and her Lightning Bats.

Suddenly a blood-curdling scream rang through the air, loud enough that the fairies stopped dead and looked around for the source of sound and my friends and I raised our hands to cover our ears. Alex was startled enough that he slipped off the roof, but Sarah was quick and conjured a cyclops, who quickly caught Alec and delicately set him on the ground before turning and casually slamming a group of fairies across the square with his war hammer. Destiny was squinting up at the sky, and I followed her gaze to see…Ah.

High above us, as the sun began to rise and paint the sky orange, Lady Oriel had speared Lady Blackhope straight through where the ghost woman's heart used to be. Though with any other sword defeating her should have been impossible, Lady Oriel's broadsword was not 'any other sword'. As we watched, the glowing sword burst into similarly green flames, and Lady Blackhope screamed as the fire began to burn the ghost woman away. Lady Oriel hovered a few feet away at the end of her sword, her usually bright and smiling face set somewhere between a disapproving frown and a smug smirk. In just a few moments, the fire had consumed Lady Blackhope almost completely, leaving just her still-screaming face, which was quickly burned up. The screaming abruptly cut off, and for a minute the world was deathly quiet, just the sound of the fairies hovering around us and our breathing to break the silence.

Then Lady Oriel laughed, and spun high into the air again, raising her sword above her head and stretching her wings wide. She raised her arms to the sky as the sun finally broke the horizon, and then she began to chant. Or rather, sing.

It was in a language as old as her, I would expect. I didn't understand a word of it, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

As the seraph hit a high note, the sun exploded. I yelped and shielded my eyes, but I wanted to see what was happening, what the seraph had summoned, so I opened them, turning slightly so I didn't have to look at the sun and the righteous figure silhouetted by it, and watched.

The dark fairies, one by one, rose up into the sky. They didn't appear to be flying, but rather they were being pulled up by the sun and the seraph's song. Their wings curled in on themselves, all the way to their spines, so they couldn't be seen. Their hair came loose from the buns, the soulless black slowly bleeding away into a thousand shades of brown and blonde and gold. Their purple and pink clothes immediately changed to golden tunics and skirts, and their boots curled upwards and turned gold as well. Their sharp needle-like swords lengthened, curved, and sharpened, glowing with the green energy that Lady Oriel's exuded. Finally, as we watched, the fairies' wings burst out from their spines, no longer the dark black and pink and purple but light gold and silver and brown.

And all at once, it was over. Fairies…no, sprites again…fell a ways before catching themselves. The tiny creatures stretched out their hands, staring at them, before looking back and fluttering their healed wings appreciatively. They spun, examining their golden clothes, and, when they realized they were all back to normal, began to cheer in high, melodious voices. Hugs and kisses were exchanged in midair, sprites clutching each other as they returned to their former states. Lady Oriel slowly descended from the sky, sheathing her sword and gliding over to meet her charges.

"B?"

I looked over as Destiny slowly approached, walking past an awestruck Sarah. Alex was leaning against one of the houses, craning his head back to watch the sprites, and Diego had sat down and was dutifully cleaning his sword.

"We did it," Destiny whispered. I swallowed, looked up at the thousands of sprites above us, and all at once my face burst into a smile and I laughed happily. Then, turning back to Destiny, I bounded forward and threw my arms around my best friend, hugging her tightly as she reciprocated.

"We did it!" Destiny repeated, louder, more joyfully.

Sarah started, and turned to look at us. Immediately a smile burst to her face and she barreled over to us, slamming into Destiny's back and throwing her arms around her roommate and me.

I peeked under Sarah's arm to see Alex standing a little apart from the group, smiling widely but not making any move to join the three of us.

"Get in here you numbskull!" Destiny yelled, pulling her arm out from where Sarah had pinned it to pull Alex into the group hug. He nearly fell, but righted himself and tentatively looped his arms around Sarah's and my shoulders.

A great cheer went up and I barely had time to process it before the four of us were lifted away from each other and into the air. I yelped before I looked around and saw all the people who had been hiding in the Hedge Maze, all the people that we'd come here to save. A couple of men and women had lifted me up onto their shoulders, and on either side of me my friends were also lifted into the air. People were cheering and laughing, clapping and hugging. The two duelists that had been trapped inside when the guards closed down the street were hugging each other tightly, and when they caught my eyes they reached up and grabbed my hands. I fought back the instant urge to pull away as my hands started stinging and tilted my head to listen to them.

"Thank you!" they called out through the raucous crowd. I smiled and called back down, "You're very welcome!" Around me other people were reaching up and thanking Destiny, Sarah, and Alex, and a couple more groups made their way through to thank me as well.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" I looked up as Diego walked to the front of the crowd, where Lady Oriel was hovering, surrounded once again by her sprites as they crowded around her and began playing in her outstretched wings. "To the Commons!"

The crowd cheered again, louder, and we all began moving towards the tunnel to the Commons, still carrying me and my friends on their shoulders. When we got to the tunnel, we immediately saw all the guards standing inside, though in front of them stood Professor Ambrose, Professor Drake, Professor Falmea, and Dworgyn. Probably to keep the guards from going ballistic again if there wasn't a threat. When I saw the professors I couldn't help but feel a shred of worry that they were going to expel us for sneaking out and endangering ourselves, but when there was a gentle hand on mine, which I looked over and saw was Destiny's, I knew that we'd be okay whatever happened.

"Can you put me down?" I asked to the two people holding me. They nodded and set me down gently on the ground, and my friends followed my lead and dropped to their feet on either side of me. Immediately Destiny reached out and gently held my hand, and on my other side Alex did the same. On Destiny's other side Sarah completed the human chain, and together the four of us walked purposefully towards the tunnel, surrounded by the people we had come to save.

As Diego and Lady Oriel entered the tunnel, the guards and professors turned away and moved back into the Commons, clearing the tunnel for the duelist and the seraph, and the crowd. A slew of sprites followed us, though the majority abandoned our little party and flew back into the street, beginning to sing and dance and reunite with each other in the air.

When we were all through the tunnel, I saw that the Commons was packed. The guards had taken up posts on either side of the Unicorn Way tunnel, and down the way I could see them standing at the Ravenwood tunnel as well, although they weren't doing a very good job at keeping the hundreds of students who had been awakened by the commotion inside. Hundreds of people stood around, some in pajamas, although some, like Mr. Darkwood, were still wearing work clothes. Night workers, probably. Most of the people from Unicorn Way dispersed, running to their families, and the two wizard duelists immediately cried out a multitude of names and nicknames and darted towards families and friends, who embraced them. But the four of us stayed together, finding ourselves being herded forward by Professor Wu and Professor Greyrose. I chanced a look back at the two ladies and saw that they both wore frowns, although Professor Greyrose smiled at me when she saw me looking.

Finally we stood in front of Professor Ambrose's office building. Professor Ambrose stood there, flanked by Professor Drake and Professor Falmea, and Dworgyn stood at the top of the steps, arms crossed.

Professor Greyrose gently moved us all into place in front of the four professors, and I pressed a little closer into Destiny's side and held Alex's hand a little tighter. There were still a lot of talking around us, and when I looked I saw that almost everyone had followed us. There was an enormous crowd standing behind and around the four of us and the professors, a mix of sprites, wizards, shopkeepers, guards, people, seraphs, and unicorns. When Professor Ambrose raised his arms for silence, it fell like an axe. Then the old man turned to look at us.

"Bartebly took the liberty of informing us that four students had absconded from their rooms, despite the curfew, at approximately two o' clock this morning. Why he didn't let us know immediately, I will never understand. But it is not my place to question a being as old as time itself." Professor Ambrose took a breath and glanced over at Professor Falmea. The flame-haired woman stepped forward, her dress making it look like she was floating, and began walking up and down the line of the four of us.

"You four have broken numerous rules not only by sneaking out after curfew, but also by destroying the gates in the tunnel and of course breaking into Unicorn Way itself. You endangered yourselves, and endangered the entire city with your recklessness. What if a fairy or a soul or a pirate saw that the gates were gone and came through? The rest of the city could've have been overrun! This is completely unacceptable behavior!" I flinched as Professor Falmea yelled the last few words, but she wasn't done yet. The woman sighed and looked at each of us in turn, making sure we made eye contact. "I expect better from the four of you."

"Dalia," Professor Drake muttered. "I believe it's my turn?"

Professor Falmea nodded and stepped back as Professor Drake stepped forward to speak to us next. "However, upon a cursory inspection, we've realized that the four of you have completely cleared the street of lost souls and skeletal pirates. The dark fairies have been reverted to their original forms as sprites by Lady Oriel. And the entire population on the street plus our own Diego and the two wizards inside have been returned to us unscathed. Despite the rule-breaking and the personal and population endangerment, you four have expressed the virtues of selflessness, bravery, and justice. And you have, of course, liberated Unicorn Way and all the people inside."

Realizing that, though we were definitely in trouble, we weren't going to be expelled, I let loose the breath I'd been unintentionally holding and smiled widely.

"Who was the orchestrator of this rescue mission?" Professor Ambrose asked. Immediately I nudged Destiny, and she stepped forward, bowing her head to look at the ground, not out of shame but rather shyness that I suddenly realized my friend had.

"Miss Starshard, I knew that you would go on to do great things when you enrolled in my school," Professor Ambrose stated, smiled kindly as Destiny looked up and grinned sheepishly. Then he raised his voice and called out, "On behalf of the saviors of Unicorn Way, I hereby decree that today will be a day of celebration! All classes for the day are canceled!"

A raucous cheer went up as all the wizards around us began to celebrate the unexpected vacation day, and then suddenly all four of were being pulled one way or another by grateful people from Unicorn Way or wizards thanking us for the vacation day we were unexpectedly responsible for. For a second I thought Rachel, Mercedes, and Lauren were going to grab me, but I quickly moved away from them towards Sarah, who was relaying how she and Alex had summoned the storm of flaming hail to take out the ghosts. Despite the popularity I had had when I was friends with those three girls, I didn't have any emotional connection to them anymore. I had a much better, stronger one with my new friends.

As Sarah's group turned to me and asked what I had been doing while she had been summoning hailstorms, I saw Destiny walking up to Professor Ambrose and leaning up to whisper something into the old man's ear. I lifted an eyebrow, briefly wondering what my best friend had to say to the headmaster, but I didn't have time to walk over and ask. Suddenly someone was holding my wrist and swinging me towards them, and I got a quick glimpse of Alex's smiling face as he pulled me close.

"Do you dance?" Alex asked as I saw a group of sprites summoning wooden instruments, flutes and lutes and harps, from midair and bringing them to their lips or on their shoulders or over their laps over his shoulder. I laughed, nodding briefly, and set one hand on Alex's shoulder as the sprites began a rousing folk tune and dozens of other couples began swinging each other in time to the beat. Alex was quick to copy them and I followed his lead, moving my feet quickly to my favorite sprite-song.

Destiny could wait. Right now there was a celebration in order, and I was more than glad to do some celebrating.

Destiny

I've never been one for parties.

Well, I did enjoy school dances back on earth, but usually at some point during the evening the crowd became too much and I had to take a step back and reorient myself. One would think, with all that had happened to me within the last week or so, that I'd be more than ready to deal with a celebration that was being half-held in my and my friend's honor. But no.

I enjoyed dancing, and listening to the sprites play their vaguely-Celtic like music, and talking with people who wanted to know how the battle for Unicorn Way had gone, and of course hanging out with my friends. But at some point in the too-early morning my brain decided that it was done and hit the off switch. I quickly ended the current conversation I was in, found Sarah and Alex and Bianca (who were once again holding hands; they had been dancing all morning long), and told them that I was going to go try to sleep for a few hours. It had been a long night, after all.

I started back towards the Ravenwood tunnel, but halfway down I saw that there were a group of wizards standing there. I stopped short for a split second, and in that split second they caught sight of me and called, "Destiny!"

Not wanting to be rude but at the same time not wanting to talk anymore, I waved politely, then quickly turned on my heel and walked back out of the tunnel. Also not wanting to walk straight back into the celebration after I said I was leaving, I instead walked purposefully towards the tower just outside Professor Ambrose's offices. The door was unlocked and there were no signs telling me not to, so I opened door and slipped inside, quickly but quietly easing the door shut behind me. Then I turned around and gasped.

Inside of the tower was a darkened room with numerous darkly-colored curtains decorating the wall. There were no lights, no sconces or anything, in the tower, but it didn't need any due to the spectacle in the center of the room. Spinning idly, with several orbs filled with different structures twirling around it, was a floating, moving map. Cooly-colored stardust made the shape of a spiral, which the orbs were following the path of. Remembering that this new world I'd been transported to was called 'the Spiral', I realized that this was a map of the entire universe.

I stepped forward, bending slightly to look more closely at one of the orbs on the map. Inside was the symbol of a clock tower that looked suspiciously like Big Ben, surrounded by several Victorian-looking houses and structures. Another orb not too far away from it held a statue of a cow sitting in lotus position, and above it was a shape that looked vaguely like a fishbowl with pieces of coral inside of it. And those three orbs didn't even account for a fourth of the worlds floating around the map of the Spiral.

In the center of the Spiral floated an orb with what I assumed was Wizard City inside, complete with a miniature Bartebly and brightly colored house roofs surrounding him. For a second I let myself wonder if this was just an arrogant situation, placing Wizard City at the center of the map, like how everyone believed earth was at the center of the galaxy all those centuries ago. But maybe there was some plausibility to Wizard City's placement: after all, one of the Spiral's gods was less than a hundred steps from where I was standing right now.

"I really need to pick up a mythology book," I said to myself. Then, looking at all the other orbs, which I assumed were nations just like Wizard City, added to my own conversation, "And an atlas."

"She's going to get those three kids hurt." The sentence rang throughout the small round room, and I jumped, instinctively looking around for the source of the voice. Then, realizing that it was coming from another door, directly across from the one I'd come in through, one that I expected lead to Professor Ambrose's study, I turned to go.

Stop. Listen.

I stopped short as something in the back of my mind told me to stay and listen to what was going on in the office. I knew that I shouldn't, but that something made me want to stay and find out what the professors were talking about. The speaker had been Professor Drake judging by the deep, slightly pompous voice, and I wondered if it was just him in there with another professor or just him and Professor Ambrose.

I turned on my heel, skirted the sides of the Spiral map, and knelt down next to the door leading to the office so I could listen in.

"Be optimistic, Cyrus," a high, elderly voice chastised. Professor Greyrose, the Ice school teacher. "She didn't get them hurt, they all knew what they were walking into. And they only have some minor scrapes and bruises. And if there were any major injuries, they had the presence of mind to immediately heal them." I heard the Myth teacher snort and mumble something in response, but he didn't contradict the fairy.

'She's going to get those three kids hurt.' Were they talking about...me?

A part of me wanted to get out of there immediately before I heard something I shouldn't have, but I wanted to know why they would possibly think that I would get my friends hurt. My plan was to get in and get out with as few injuries as possible. None of my friends were hurt. Badly. The worst wound was Bianca's side, and we had healed that as soon as possible with two Unicorns.

"She's excelling in all of our classes," said Professor Baelstrom, "And though she hasn't taken arithmancy yet, from what Alex told me she had strategized and prepared for any situation they all faced. None of those kids were supposed to get hurt beyond the small wounds they have sustained, and Miss Starshard assured that it would work out that way. Don't think so lowly of her, Cyrus." So they were talking about me. Discussing the rescue and the plan I had made.

"Despite what you may think, Cyrus, Destiny is an excellent student in the short two weeks that she has been enrolled in the school." Professor Falmea, the Fire teacher. "She's already five spells in with Moolinda, and has two spells from me and three from Halston. Most students would just be mastering their first spell at this time. She has an aptitude for magic and for the incantation language, one I haven't seen since one of my students was able to properly recite the incantation for a fire cat when he was eight. It's almost uncanny."

There was the sound of a creaking chair, and then the old headmaster spoke. "You are correct, Dalia. It is uncanny. And there's a reason for that. But I don't know for absolutely certainty what it is."

I was confused, sitting there in the dark and listening to this discussion. I was good with words, and I did like learning, and I was smart. There was also the simple fact that magic and incantations and all the things I was being taught about were so much more interesting than regular old math and science and English. Who wouldn't get into it enough to learn as fast as I was? Why would they think that that was something special about it?

The headmaster was speaking again and I tilted my head to listen better. "Now, I have not been completely open with all of you."

"What do you mean?" Dworgyn, the Death teacher. There were a few beats of silence, and then Professor Ambrose sighed.

"Forty years ago, when Professor van Helven passed, he told his Phoenix, Michael, of something Bartebly had seen from the future. He said—" The next words were quieter than all the others, and I couldn't make out what was being said. What had the 'Professor van Helven' said before he died? What did Bartebly tell him? And why was this being included in a discussion about me?

"Our wait is over," a new voice entered the conversation, and I realized that it was Michael, the fiery bird that I'd met when I'd first come to the Spiral. And who was apparently the last headmaster's pet. Interesting.

"The Shard has indeed come."

Get out.

Whatever the professors were talking about, even if it did involve me for at least half of the conversation, I suddenly got the feeling I wasn't supposed to be listening. I'd stayed, I'd satisfied my own curiosity, and now I was done. The conversation had taken a turn away from whatever they'd been discussing beforehand and I didn't need to listen anymore. Wasn't supposed to listen anymore. Whatever it was, it was something religious or military-based or something else bigger than me judging by the grave yet hopeful tone of Michael's voice. If the citizens were supposed to know we would know soon, but for now I needed to pretend that I didn't.

"But what is the Shard?!" I heard Professor Wu exclaim just as I began to stand.

I stood up, making sure that I was quiet, and turned to go when suddenly there was a flash in the corner of my eye. I instinctively froze, my heart tightening as I realized that there was someone else in the room, but I slowly turned to see what it was. Kneeling in the corner, just out of the light of the map, was a shape clothed in darkly-colored clothing. There were two lightly colored bands around the wrists of the robe though, and those reflected the light off of the map, betraying the shape's position. When the shape shifted, silver-colored hair, almost the same color of the bands, fell over one shoulder. Immediately I knew who it was as I saw the hair: it was the weird girl I'd met at the end of the duel. What was her name again?

Sibyl. Sibyl Nightpool.

What was she doing here? I squinted, trying to get a better look, and took a single step forward. Unintentionally, the floor creaked beneath me. Immediately Sibyl jumped and turned, her freakishly blue eyes catching mine for a split second before she bounded to her feet and ran out the door. I lunged forward to catch the door before it could slam shut and leaned out of the tower, looking for the strange light-haired girl, but she was off and gone into the crowd. I was about to give chase before I stopped and forced myself to think. She probably wasn't there for anything malicious, and had probably just slipped away from the crowd, like I had. There really was no reason for me to chase her. She'd overheard the conversation as well, of course, but it didn't really matter. The professors weren't discussing anything too clandestine. At least, I hoped so.

I stepped out of the tower and let the door drift shut behind me, pausing briefly to make sure it latched before I walked back to the Ravenwood tunnel. The people who had been standing at the end of the tunnel were now gone, and I was free to head down and hopefully go to bed for a few hours. Or the entire day. But I found myself walking past the Ravenwood tunnel, walking behind the buildings in order to avoid the crowd, towards the library. The lights inside were on and the door was unlocked, so I opened the door and slipped inside.

The library was mostly empty, save for the anthropomorphic schnauzer who acted as the librarian. Mr. Argleston looked up from his desk surrounded by magically floating books, scrolls, and card catalogs, and nodded briefly at me before going back to his work. I looked around, turned, and walked down one of the seemingly endless hallways filled with books. I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for, or what I should be looking for, or if I was technically allowed to be looking for it. But the professors conversation had stuck with me. Whatever the Shard was, I was curious. Was it a weapon? A god? Some kind of entity that was neither and both at the same time? Even if we weren't supposed to know, I myself was curious about what it was.

And on top of that, I wanted to pick up an atlas.

I went up and down the history section for about ten minutes, then the section on military history, strategy, and weaponry, and finally the sections on the gods of the Spiral. There were a lot of books there about Bartebly and his elder sister, Grandmother Raven, and plenty about their first children, the Titans (Tritons, Giants, and Dragons). There were also books on other religions around the Spiral, particularly religions that sounded vaguely like Buddhism and Christianity. That last one was mainly practiced by monkeys (which I tried not to find offensive) and seemed to be mostly Catholic-based over the Protestant branch I was used to, so I skipped past it and continued looking for anything about the Shard.

After maybe twenty minutes walking aimlessly up and down the bookshelves with only a very thick atlas (which not only included maps of most of the worlds in the Spiral, but also short the-dummy's-guide-to forewords of each nation) tucked under one arm, I was about to give up. But then it clicked in my brain, and I turned and walked to the very back wall of the library, where the scrolls were kept. What I'd been looking at were mostly modern books, but what if the Shard was something older than what they had written down so far? What if it was written on something older than a book?

The back wall was actually a series of cubbyholes separated by diagonal planks of smooth wood arranged in a lattice pattern. Each cubbyhole held a scroll or a series of scrolls, with the subject matter inscribed on a golden plate beneath each individual cubby. The scrolls were ancient, I was sure, but some kind of charm kept them in near perfect condition, with the ink still dark and clear and the papyrus not even curling at the edges. Part of Alex's work, he told me when I came to the library for the first time, was to transcribe the writing in the scrolls into manuscripts that would then be bound into books and shelved in their proper places. There were thousands of them, so it would take him quite a while, but my friend enjoyed it, so it was good that it would last him a long time.

I checked to make sure that the scrolls were alphabetized, and then walked down to the 'S' section, letting my fingers trail against the lattice and the scrolls as I walked.

When I got to the S section, I set down my atlas and bent down to see the golden plates, scanning them until I got to the 'Sha' scrolls. Sure enough, there was a cubby for the Shard, but there was something off about it: the golden plate was worn, the words barely legible as the right letters, as if it had been rubbed over and over again, or had simply been there for a long time. But it definitely said Shard. And there was a scroll inside, so I pulled it out and unfurled it.

Unfortunately, the scroll was short, with only a few lines of writing. And on top of that, it looked like it was another language. Rather, several languages. I could see some words that looked vaguely Spanish (or Italian), some that sounded French, a few which looked German, and even a few that were in some Asian language with characters made of numerous tally and brush marks. What was worse is that apparently they had forgotten to charm this particular scroll (which was understandable, since it was barely the size of my palm and was shoved pretty far back into its cubby), so it was curling at the edges, and the black ink had faded to a reddish-orange that I had to squint to see against the yellowed paper.

Fan-freakin'-tastic.

Regardless of the fact that the scroll was in about ten different languages (none of which I spoke) used in only a few lines of print and it was ready to fall apart at a too-firm touch, I was optimistic. This was something, and surely I could find someone who spoke all those languages. Surely. There was no reason for these languages to be used if they weren't used somewhere around the Spiral, after all. And Mr. Argleston would probably notice the scroll's delicate traits when I brought it up and would charm it before I checked it out. This would work out.

Leaning down, I picked up my atlas and tucked it under one arm, holding the scroll with both hands, as gently as I could. Then I made my way to the front desk, dropped my atlas with an unceremonious thunk (the thing was heavy!) and then set down the scroll with the utmost care where Mr. Argleston could see the state of it.

"Will that be all?" Mr. Argleston asked as the card catalogues for the scrolls and the books floated in front of him and he effortlessly pulled out the correct cards. I tilted my head to one side, glanced down at the scroll, and then looked back up at the librarian.

"The scroll, I don't think that it was charmed. It's ready to fall apart."

Mr. Argleston glanced down at the scroll, and then back up at me. "No, it has been charmed. It was simply that old when it was enchanted. Most of our scrolls come from the Krokotopian libraries, and they meticulously assured that each scroll was enchanted before we received them here. Where the rest of the scrolls were enchanted before time and the elements could damage them, this one was not so lucky. It is as impervious to destruction as all the others now though, I assure you."

"Alright," I replied, staring down at the scroll as Mr. Argleston opened my atlas and stamped the due date into the front cover. So either this scroll had just recently been discovered, before the exchange of scrolls between the Krokotopian and Wizard City libraries, or, this scroll was something a lot older than the other scrolls in the library.

Mr. Argleston cleared his throat, a sound that vaguely sounded like a growl, and I looked up to see him holding out the atlas, raising his eyebrows and waiting for me to take it.

"The due date sheet for the scroll is tucked into the inside of the atlas. It's sooner than the book, since scrolls are more delicate and precious than books even with the enchantment, so please assure that you return both documents on time."

"Thank you, Mr. Argleston," I responded, taking the atlas and picking up the scroll. As I turned to leave, I flipped open the atlas to check the due dates for both books. The atlas was in two weeks, like any regular library book back home, and the scroll was this Monday. I shut the book and tucked it under my arm, still holding the scroll in my free hand now that I knew that it wouldn't disintegrate if I held it too tightly, but then I stopped as something registered in my brain and brought the atlas back out, flipping the cover open and glancing at the scrolls due date card.

My name was the first on the card. The card was old and yellow with time and from being squashed between hundreds of other sheets, so it hadn't been replaced recently. So no one had opened this scroll in years. And, judging by how the plate denoting its subject matter was so worn down, no one had even gone looking for anything about the Shard in the first place.

Trying not to let the instinctive chill running down my back as I registered all this information get to me, I pushed against the door with my back and finally started down the tunnel to Ravenwood. The party was still in full swing, and the smell of bread, breakfast meats, and smoke was on the air. The celebration had turned into a breakfast bonfire. If I squinted I could see Alex, Bianca, and Sarah standing in line for breakfast and laughing, and the former two were still holding hands. I smiled as I saw my friends all together, and immediately decided that napping could wait until later. The day was now free, after all, and I could catch up on sleep later on. Right now I wanted to spend the morning with my friends.

I darted up to my and Sarah's dorm, dropped the book on my bed and set the scroll on my nightstand, and then jogged back down the tunnel and over to the three laughing wizards. Bianca immediately turned and dragged me into a hug, and Sarah commented that she was glad that I decided to skip the nap and come eat. I smiled, and responded, "Well, I couldn't exactly pass up freshly made breakfast, now could I?"

"Impressed by the scrolls?" Alex asked as he moved ahead in line, gently tugging Bianca after him as we all joined the breakfast line. "I saw you checked one out."

"Yeah, they're really interesting," I answered, grabbing a plate for myself and handing another one to Sarah behind me.

"And you were carrying an enormous book too," Bianca added, heaping her plate full of breakfast potatoes and grabbing a buttered roll, which she immediately stuck in her mouth.

"Yeah," I answered, thinking back to the map I'd seen in the tower just off the headmaster's office, of the enormous universe that I was now in, of all the worlds and the new life that I had to explore.

"I wanted to pick up an atlas."

*sucks on teeth* So yeah, this is twenty-eight pages long. This is probably the longest single chapter I've ever written…for anything. And we're not even a little bit into the story!

I'm also with Sarah and Bianca on this one: I'm not a big fan of formal battles. Much less room to write and experiment.

Sometimes I really don't like when things are canonized when I have them differently… Just so we are all clear, things are going to be played a bit differently in my world here than they are in the game. In the game I'm still in Mooshu, so beyond there I don't know the rest of the 'canon' story. So therefore, I'm making the rest of it my own creation and fit in what I can, as you do.

I'm making all the streets a lot larger than they actually are in-game, because as small as the streets are it wouldn't really make sense for everyone to run five feet to get from that little bridge there to the Unicorn Way tunnel. And it also wouldn't make sense for them to split up to fight through just five blocks (that's literally the number on the game, I checked). So yeah, basically everything's bigger than in the game, so don't use the game as your 'map' unless you're mentally enlarging everything as well.

Also, trigger warnings: if I feel the need I'll put them at the beginning of the chapter, like I did for the wounds everyone sustained. And if any of you lovely readers see anything else triggering that I did not put a trigger warning for, please let me know so that I can put the warning and I can keep this story safe and fun for everyone to read.

Finally, I know that this has been a long time coming, and I need to stop doing that. But I swear on my life that I'm not going to give up on this story. There's too much I want to do with it and potential sequels, and despite what you may think I will finish this story and there will be at least two sequels. It's going to take time, and it may take a few years before I get to the end of this one. With me being a junior now and college being not too far off, as well as my own eventual autonomy and the need to soon find a job, it's going to have to take time. But it will get done, and I will not abandon this story. I just hope that everyone who reads it, even if it's one or two or three people still with me, don't abandon it either.

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As usual:

Alex Raventhorn is the property of Starlight in the Sky.

Bianca Glassheart is the property of Velvet Masquerade.

Sarah Bluesong is the property of Bluepatch (she changed her name, but the site won't let me put it in).

Destiny Starshard and Sibyl Nightpool (last name courtesy of Jessica RavenGlade) are the property of yours truly.

Thank you for reading and review!