A Note from Sam: Sorry for the hold-up guys! I've been really busy, and I hope you're still into the story 2 and a half months later! Thanks for all of your reviews, too!
"Headmaster Ambrose, is it true that a wraith lives on Unicorn Way? A…Lady Blackhope?"
"Lady Blackhope? Nobody should ever take foolish rumors started by students seriously."
-Duncan Snowshield and Merle Ambrose, 'Spiral Herald' Interview with Merle Ambrose.
Unicorn Way was a long, wide street that turned a few times before ending at a hedge maze where the fairies dwelled. There were dozens of towers and thousands of houses tucked tightly behind small stone fences next to the sidewalks of the street. The streets were packed with people bustling from a house to a tower and back again, out into the road, towards the commons, and back again.
After maneuvering through the crowded, criss-crossing streets, we got to an intersection of three roads where giant clumps of people moved this way and that. The people in the roads were on brooms and animals gliding at quicker speeds than the others on foot. A few students passed by too.
Suddenly, there was a great commotion. People began to surge in the opposite direction that we were walking. Screams of terror erupted from the crowds.
"It's the Fairy Queen!" somebody shouted.
A fairy wearing all purple and a pointed crown on her head buzzed into the intersection followed by three dark fairies, who had red wings instead and no crown.
In a high, obnoxious voice, the fairy queen spoke out, "You'll all perish under the might of Malistaire!" she raised her arms and three leprechauns skated down rainbows from above her and started chucking gold balls at the crowds. When the gold made contact, some would send them backwards, and others were like little firecrackers that made little explosions.
People were screaming and taking out their wands. With jabs here and there, beams of the different elements were being shot at the fairy queen and her posse. At nearly every one, the fairy queen or one of the dark fairies would catch it with their hands and dash it to the ground nonchalantly.
The three of us ducked behind one of the short stone fences.
"Shouldn't we do something?" Alexis asked.
"What can we do? We're just freshmen!" Colin said.
I looked at him.
"We can do what we did in dueleing," I said.
He looked at me and grinned. We nodded.
"Stay here, Alexis," he said sternly.
We hopped over the fence and landed, shooting an ice beam and a life beam at the fairies. Two more had joined them since we hid for cover. Colin's life beam hit one of the dark fairies who screeched and fell to the ground. She stood back up, shook and extended her hand in our direction.
Drool dripped onto Colin's shoulder. We both slowly looked up to see a blood bat foaming green at the mouth. It buzzed around us, getting us all shaken up and it flew away.
Other wizards had circled around the fairies, who were still deflecting all of the blasts with ease.
"This won't work," Colin mumbled.
"Just standing around them firing?" I asked
"Exactly. I got a lucky shot. But other than that, how else can we win?" he said.
As if in answer to his question, a light, playful woman's voice sounded from the far side of the intersection.
"Stop it. Right now," the voice called out. Beyond the intersection, a white-winged and white-robed woman with gleaming blond hair hovered above the ground.
The annoying voice of the fairy queen penetrated the air again.
"Lady Oriel. It's our pleasure,"
The fairy queen mocked her by curtseying awkwardly and twirled up into the air and after 4 twirls stopped and extended both of her hands outwards as if pushing the air towards Lady Oriel. A dark purple and black beam of smoke flew out towards her.
The seraph seemed unimpressed as she raised a silver sword glowing with green light and deflected the ray of smoke.
"Stay away from this place, 'queen,'" Lady Oriel screamed as she rushed forwards and sliced the fairy queen in two with a quick slash of her sword. The body of the fairy disappeared and all that were left were her purple wings which the seraph proceeded to pick up and stow away in a pocket. The other dark fairies flew away.
"I apologize to all of you. Hopefully, this won't happen again," Lady Oriel said calmly. Then she turned and glided back down Unicorn Way.
Colin and I returned to the fence and met back up with Alexis as the others on the street began to slowly move around again.
"Even on Unicorn Way we aren't safe," Alexis said.
"I know, it seems bad," Colin bit his lip.
"Lucas?" Alexis asked.
I realized I was preoccupied with the fact that nobody was going past the third or fourth house down the left road at the intersection.
"Sorry…it's just…what's down that road?" I pointed.
We moved to the street corner. At the end of the road, a crooked tower loomed above abandoned houses.
"That's gotta be it," Colin said.
Sure enough, Colin was right. An old sign in front of it told us that, sure enough, this was Blackhope Estate, otherwise known as Blackhope Tower. Architecturally, it was just like the other houses on Unicorn Way. However, this was a very tall tower. Also, due to increased wear and tear, it looked older than the rest of the buildings.
"So what now? We just go on in?" I asked.
"Well there wouldn't be any point in knocking…" Alexis added.
We approached the door and paused. After exchanging glances, Alexis stepped forwards and pushed open the door.
Inside, was a huge great foyer with an old glass chandelier covered in wax from the stubs of unlit candles hanging over it. A staircase to the right spiraled up to the ceiling. Doors lined the walls of the foyer. The walls themselves had pictures of an old woman with black hair and big eyes. In every picture she was sitting the same way, with the same, vacant expression on her face. She was just wearing different outfits.
Spiders had taken up residence all around, just adding to the haunted house theme.
"I expect a lost soul to pop out at any moment, haha," Colin laughed.
"Shut up," Alexis commented.
So, we decided to go around the room and inspect for anything suspicious. I went to the right towards the staircase, Alexis went straight ahead towards a couple of large doors, and Colin went to the left.
I was puzzled with the fact that the staircase went up the ceiling and stopped when it got there. I walked slowly up it, taking each step more cautiously than the previous one, going around four spirals before crouching down.
"This doesn't make any sesnse!" I yelled down as I hit the stone ceiling with my hand, "the staircase just stops."
"All these doors won't budge," Alexis added.
"Nothing here," Colin said.
I ran back down the steps and we all congregated under the chandelier again.
"What now?" I asked, but Colin became preoccupied with something.
"Colin?" Alexis poked him.
"Sorry," he began, still inquisitively staring into space, "this picture…" he began slowly stepping towards a picture on the wall.
"Yeah?" I inquired.
"She's different. She's facing to her left instead of to her right," Colin murmured.
"Colin, what…" Alexis started, but we looked around. In all of the pictures except this one, the woman was facing to her right. In the one that Colin saw, she was facing to her left. He reached out to touch it.
"Colin! Don't!" Alexis squeaked, running in front of the portrait, extending her arms to block him, "you don't know what could happen!"
"So you just want to leave? We're at a dead end, and we don't have anything else to work with," Colin reasoned.
After much coaxing, Alexis reluctantly stepped out of the way. Colin reached out and pulled the picture right off.
A distant ding sounded.
"What was that?" Alexis asked.
"Look! Up there!" Colin pointed.
Sure enough, one of the candles had lit itself on the great chandelier. However, our happiness and excitement died off quickly.
"So? One candle? What does that do for us?" I said.
The three of us paced the room, occasionally glancing up at the chandelier where the one candle was lit. I was retracing my steps silently in my head. It was obvious that the movement of the picture frame was the cause of the candle lighting itself. But why? What was the point of the candle? I thought about it. We came in…I went up the stairs. The stairs!
I quickly ran over to the long spiral staircase that extended from the ceiling to the floor, but it went nowhere. Not yet, anyway.
"I think we need to light all of the candles…" I mumbled. I turned my head to the other two who were bearing inquisitive looks on their faces.
"What…?" Alexis questioned.
"Just give it a shot. Please? What else have we got?" I said.
"True…" Alexis agreed.
Then once more, we were stuck.
"We have no fire," Colin reminded us. None of us were pyromancers. If you were born a pyromancer, it was easy to whip up fire from nowhere. If you were born something else, it was much harder. For instance, all of the students who choose fire as their second school find it especially challenging, since the essence of the magic type is not something that's easy to get. Sure, you can light a candle and work a fire cat off of that, but if you don't have a source, it will take some time to master making one. Meanwhile, the other elements are much easier to take on as a second school because of how accessible their essences are. The hardest of the others are storm and ice, but water is even in the air, so it's much easier to obtain then fire.
So we were stuck there again. But I didn't give up. There had to be a short cut to get past the fact that we didn't have fire to work with. We thought of going up and using the lit candle to spread the fires to the other candle, but we couldn't get up there, and even if we did, we would risk the chance of bringing down the chandelier. After thinking a lot, we became so desperate that we started to put the picture up on the wall and take it down again over and over. Nothing.
After hanging the picture up for the last time, I sighed.
"It's no use, that's not going to work," I grumbled.
"So what, we leave and bring back some fire?" Alexis suggested.
"No," Colin said, "Someone sees the candle lit and they'll get suspicious. What if they get past the foyer without us?"
"Colin, what if time runs out and we miss class?" Alexis pointed out.
She was right, we had to get this done soon, and we were encroaching on our lunch recess, which would mean we'd only have forty-five minutes until classes resumed. I sat down against a wall.
"Jeez, it's pretty cold in here," Alexis shivered.
"What I wouldn't give for a fire," Colin joked.
"Or a myth fire," I said quietly to myself. I remembered the fire back in the library…myth fire…myth…Alexis…ALEXIS!
"Alexis Mist!" I blurted out. The two jumped back.
"What!" She squealed.
"You're a myth student, right? That's your first school?" I asked.
"Yeah. Ice is my second. Didn't I tell you?" She asked, still puzzled.
"Never mind that. Have you learned myth fire?" I said excitedly.
I could see her eyes light up and a smile come across her face.
"Yes, yes, yes! I learned it from another student!" She completely understood where I was going.
She leapt up and pointed her dark red wand towards the chandelier. She closed her eyes, and suddenly opened them again, the irises of her eyes flashed a deep gold. A beam of a similar color danced out of her wand and charged at the chandelier.
The sound of stone sliding against stone was heard. Sure enough, all of the candles were lit, and a door above the staircase had been revealed. We high-fived in celebration of our victory.
The door was tall and looked like it was a smaller version of the doors back at the library. The staircase ended right at the door, so we were face to face with it when we finished climbing the spiral staircase.
Colin reached out for the large brass doorknob and gently turned it to the right. A loud clicking sound echoed about the huge foyer. Alexis's face was suddenly flushed of all color and her eyes widened as if she'd seen a ghost.
"Do you hear that?" she asked quietly.
"Hear what?" Colin said, eying her suspiciously.
"The whispers. They just keep going…" she said looking down at the ground nervously.
"Wh…what are they saying?" I said nervously.
"Lucas Lotusweave…Lucas Lotusweave…"