A/N: The point of view has switched from omnipresent to Micah's. And thanks a bunch to RedRogue who kindly beta read the chapter, I wouldn't have found those mistakes on my own. Go read her stuff! Also big thanks to those who review, that's all we the authors on this site ask for – opinions to improve our writing!

Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Covenant Movie.

Step 1: Finding Your Husband-to-be

Word of the newly integrated marriage law spread like wildfire. It probably wouldn't have been half as bad had the makers of those laws not assumed that people were for interracial marriages. Within a few days, protests rose all over the "magical" community instigating more than one racially centered fight. As far as I knew the person whom I'd been ordered to marry was of the human variety. That should have made me happy, but I knew what human beings were capable of and I wasn't sure if I'd been offered the lesser evil.

My sister Lily, on the other hand, found out that her betrothed, Nicca, was one of the fey folk. There exist two branches of the fey, the Sidhe and the elves; my sister was engaged to a fairy. Though the terms Sidhe and fairy were considered interchangeable for most of history, thanks to Walt Disney, it had become an insult to be called "fairy," and it had nothing to do with a person's sexual orientation. It rather stemmed from the fact that many now associated the word with images of small winged creatures that were both petty and jealous in nature, even in the magical community.

Speak of the devil. "How did the meeting with the council go?"

"They refuse to even think about changing the law," she replied, throwing herself on my bed face forward. "They say that the community's birth rates are dangerously low and that the majority of the kids that are born are not 'magical.' As such, we're loosing our magic and they think that, and I quote, 'breeding' mixed raced children is the solution."

I couldn't help but frown. How was it that I was to marry a human if the Council believed that interracial marriages were the answer? I laid a kiss on my sister's forehead and tried to concentrate on my reading, but the question that had kept me awake for the past few days demanded an answer. I had no clue as to how this had come about, my parents were not influential in either the magical community or in that of the humans, which left me with only one direction in which to look; I had to find out exactly who my fiancé was, seeing how this seemed to be a strict case of "it's not me, it's you."

It was only three o'clock, which meant that the archives were still open. I moved to go when my sister asked: "Hey, did you ever find out who's the guys you're supposed to get hitched to?"

"Nope."

But I intended to.

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I closed yet another lineage book and sighed in frustration. Over the week, I'd gone through two centuries worth of descendants of multiple families and still had no answers. Worst of all, I did not even manage to find my fiancée. Who is this Reid Garwin I am supposed to be marrying? I was about to give up when a scroll caught my attention. Had I taken it out? It didn't matter. I unrolled it praying that it would hold the answer to my question.

An hour of reading later, I was back in my room, scroll in hand, and partial answers swimming in my head. According to the scroll, a war had broken out amongst the witches and warlocks of Western Europe around the time when America had only just been discovered, in part sparking the witch hunts that would occur a decade or so later. During that time some of the worst atrocities in the history of the magical community were committed, pushing the Council, which is made up of one of the most powerful individuals of each race, to act. They managed to stop the war, but it wasn't enough. The innocents that had suffered wanted justice, and so the real witch trials began. Those that had committed the acts were to be punished, only problem was, very few were innocent. To punish them would have been akin to destroying their community. Finally an agreement was reached between the leaders of the different factions of witches and the council, the five leaders and their families were to form a covenant and be sent to the Americas with no memory of the magical community. In essence they were taking the punishment for their people. Even though the magical community has spread out over the centuries, to be sent to America, at that time, was one of the worst punishments the council could have imposed on them. But those who had lost loved ones during that war were not satisfied and demanded more retribution, which prompted the council to add a clause to the treaty. Since the leaders were the ones who had allowed things to get so out of hand, they were cursed. The use of their powers would come with a price, their life.

What did all of that history have to do with me? Turns out that one of the cursed ones' surname was Garwin, and since it was the only Garwin line I hadn't checked out it seemed to conclude that I was to marry one of his descendants.

Just great, I needed more complication in my life.

The problems didn't stop there either, since they had no knowledge of the magical community I couldn't just show up on the guy's doorstep and say: "Hey, I'm Micah, your fiancé." Even then for me to do that much I would need to know where he was, since the Council stopped keeping records of those families after they were exiled.

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"Are you sure you have to go?" Lily asked for what seemed like the tenth time.

"Yes," I replied, sitting down next to her. Looking into a face that was practically a mirror of my own I continued, "You know the Council as well as I do and I'd rather not find out what sort of retribution they would dish out if I was to ignore the law. Besides, it's not like I'm going to be very far. Massachusetts is five to eight hours from Montreal; you can come and visit me anytime you want. I'll have my own apartment."

She suddenly threw her arms around me, almost knocking us over. "It won't be the same."

"I know."

She straightened, adding, "I'll do everything in my power to get the laws changed. We'll rally people and you'll see things will go back to the way they used to be."

Oh Lily, beautiful, idealistic, dependent Lily, what was I going to do with her? I knew my sister meant well, but things didn't usually end up the way she promised they would. "Don't do anything stupid; I don't want the council's wrath to come down on you either. Be safe."

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First stop on my list was Spenser Academy situated in Ipswich: the first town in which the five families settled. And as it turns out, the school is one those schools, one of the ones made especially for the affluent and the influential, needless to say, I stuck out like a sore thumb. My parents, though powerful when it came down to magical abilities, were not welcome by most of the magical community because they had dared to cross the racial line. The circumstances left us pretty close to destitute. On the bright side, being a half-breed mongrel also meant that I had awesome skin, maybe a little too translucent, but I'd learned to take what I could get.

I'd barely taken two steps inside the main building when I felt eyes looking me over from head to toe, and from the looks I was getting, I would bet that the students weren't too happy I was here. I'm not sure how they knew when all students are required to wear a uniform, but they did. It was as though a neon sign was pointing to me screaming: scholarship student. It would make finding my intended much harder than it needed to be.

"Reid, wait up, bro." Or maybe not.

I looked around trying to pinpoint the owner of the voice but it was too late, whoever it was, had found the person I was looking for and stopped shouting.

"Crap," I muttered just as the bell rung, adding to my problems, "double crap." Just great… now all the attention gets to be on me since I'm late.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door to my first class open, praying that the teacher would just let me get to my seat without saying anything.

"May I help you miss?" It had been too much to hope for.

"Hi, I'm sorry I'm late for class, but I got lost in trying to find my way." Someone snickered. "I'm Micah…Gentry, I just transferred in," I finished and stuck out my hand.

"Welcome miss Gentry, you may take a seat and see me after class." Instead of shaking my hand like most civilized people would, he turned his back and continued writing on the board.

Nice. I looked for a seat but the class looked like it was full. I was about to point this out to the professor when a blond girl in the fourth pointed to the chair next to her and said: "there's a seat here."

I internally sighed and took the place she had kindly pointed out to me. "Thanks," I whispered.

"No problem, transfer students need to stick together," she whispered back with a genuine smile.

A building so big it was impossible to find your way without a map, check. Snobby rich kids, check. Teachers who were indifferent to students without a trust fund, check. I felt at home here already. At least it was comforting to know that things hadn't changed just because I'd moved to another country and away from the magical community. The rest of the day went on as it should have, at least for a poor kid in a rich school.

Hearing his name called out in the hall earlier could have been a coincidence. Likely, not very, seeing how Reid wasn't a very common name, but I'd stopped questioning things that didn't make sense. If nothing turned up soon I'd need to move and switch schools again. And would need to continue doing so until I found the elusive Reid Garwin.

Even after seeing all of my professors to see what I'd missed, I didn't have much to do. Catching up would be no problem because I'd gone over the same material at my old school, which left me with plenty of time to explore. My first stop would be the library, I wasn't sure I was going to find anything in a school library but it never hurt to cover all of the bases.

Wait a minute, why do all this hard work when I could simply check the student roster in the admissions office? Of course, it was the middle of the day and there were sure to be lots of people mingling in that office, but you could never overestimate a person's ability to ignore anything that isn't of importance to them. Adding to that fact was my own ability to glamour, inherited from my fey father's side of the family, and I was practically invisible.

"Hey," a girly voice sounded behind me just as I was about to enter the office. "Micah, I'm Sarah I never got to introduce myself in class earlier."

The problem with glamour was that it didn't really make me invisible, just "unnoticeable" enough that I could walk into most places without being detected. If someone who knew what I looked like were to directly look at me, then the glamour was pretty much useless.

"Oh, hey. It's nice to meet you, sorry I didn't stay to chat; I didn't want to be late to my next class," I replied, hoping that she would leave soon so that I could get the information I needed.

"I understand, I still get lost sometimes. I transferred at the beginning of the year," she explained. "Want a crash tour?"

Okay, so it wasn't going to be happening today. "Sure, thanks."

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As it turned out, Sarah was a genuinely nice person whose company I actually enjoyed. I'm not too sure how it happened, but somewhere between the admissions office on the first floor and her dorm room on the fifth floor she managed convince me to go out with her and some of her friends that night. Which is how we ended up a half hour later making our way into a local bar called Nicky's.

I looked around and there were teenagers everywhere taking part in various activities. It was obviously the place to hang out after school.

"Sarah! Over here!" someone screamed through the noise.

"This way," Sarah directed me with a nod of her head to a corner of the bar. "Hey Kate, this is Micah, she just transferred in," she introduced me as we reached her friend.

The mocha skinned color girl, Kate, extended her hand with a warm smile. "Hey."

"Hey, nice to meet you," I replied shaking her hand.

"Where's everyone else?" Sarah asked.

"Caleb hasn't come in yet. Pogue and the other two are over by the pool table as always. You'd think he'd come here and stay with me, right?" Kate answered rolling her eyes, making Sarah laugh.

We made small talk for a while, the usual – where I had come from, why I'd transferred, etc. They were a funny pair.

I was glancing in the direction of the kitchen to see if our food would be coming soon when a waitress' skirt flew up revealing her underwear to many of bar's patrons. I stared; there was no wind in the room and no one had physically lifted the skirt. Someone was using magic in plain sight, but who?

"Hey Caleb." Kate's greeting brought me back to the people I was with.

"Kate. Sarah," he greeted the two girls before thoroughly kissing Sarah.

"Don't mind them, they're always like that, you get used to it," Kate explained, making me laugh in turn.

"Hey," Sarah finally greeted her boyfriend as the two of them took their seat. Seeing me she added with a smile, "Ah, this is Micah - sorry, I kinda got distracted."

Caleb was about to speak when a questioning voice sounded from behind me. "Who's this?"

"Finally the sons of Ipswich decide to honor us with their presence," Kate answered, pulling a long-haired boy down beside her.

"Don't be mad, we only borrowed Pogue for a little while. Besides you've got him so whipped we barely see him anymore," the same voice answered, getting a laugh out of everyone except the long-haired boy, whom I assumed was Pogue.

"I'll let it go this time," Kate replied snuggling under her boyfriend's arm.

I turned in my chair to face the speaker. "Micah," I introduced myself extending my hand.

"Reid Garwin."