Chapter Eleven

Sage

Training with Cain has been going well over the last few weeks, and we haven't had to use the spell that we spent ages trying to find yet, as the teachers haven't tried to attack us. Instead, they're just trying to instill fear of us into the students, and unfortunately, it's working. This means that they're not back to normal like we had hoped they would be after Magistrate Godfrey was killed and are instead trying to paint us as villains. The students have known the teachers for longer; they're trusted, so despite some being very confused and giving us unsure looks every now and then because we're not actually doing anything threatening, they're avoiding us even more than they were before.

I have to admit that I was in a strange way relieved that they didn't suddenly become friendly and good teachers again because that means that I'm not going to have to go back to the monotony of lessons and learning politics, which, while I admit have their place I'm simply not interested in. I want to be doing, actually, no, it's more than that I need to be doing. I'm very aware that we need to deal with the Order, somehow, even though we delivered them a massive blow when we rescued the Centres, they're already gaining traction again, and it's clear that they had a contingency plan, most likely multiple ones.

We can't stop the Order if we're stuck here; well, we can't if we're still stuck here after we've fixed the teachers and put everything back to normal. There is no point dwelling on it at the moment though, we have something that we need to focus on, and we're actually learning a lot from Cain. I'm getting a lot steadier fighting in the air, but rather than regular practice exhausting my magic it seems to be exciting it and making it grow. I consciously have to keep a lock on the Darkness, and that is exhausting me, although it's not making a dent in the exuberance of my magic, and now that I'm actually thinking about it, that's what it is. It's like an excitable puppy, almost like my magic knows something that I don't know, which is great and all, but if it could share it with me, that would be even better.

Another thing that has happened in the last few weeks is that my mother, or rather the woman that I thought was my mother but actually isn't, has been appointed as the headmistress of the Earth Realm Academy. For obvious reasons, anything to do with them is still a massive sore point for me, and although I know it's not healthy, I've pushed it to the far reaches of my mind, and I'm ignoring it. I don't have the capacity to deal with it right now, and I'd much rather focus on the Order and doing something about them.

Cain has carried on talking to the teacher that he mentioned before, but he is taking it much slower, planting small seeds of doubt rather than outright telling him that it's wrong and something is happening. He didn't want to cause any adverse effects for the guy. As far as I'm aware, it's going well, and he's gradually becoming more and more suspicious of what is going on around here and has actually even started to ask Cain questions. Cain said that he could begin to feel the hold of the magic fading; I did ask him how he knew that, but like most things, he didn't bother to answer.

We are all hopeful that the control will break completely soon, and then we will have another person who can help us with the other teachers and who can try to locate the main object that is being used to control them. That was something else that Cain had worked out; he managed to convince the guy to give him his bracelet, the one that has the unique stone in it from the Dragon Realm. It didn't change the level of magic that Cain could feel from the spell, which he said means that there's definitely a primary object, and the jewelry with the stones in just kicks into gear if they leave the grounds or go out of range of the object, whatever the fuck that is.

"What time are the others getting up here?" I ask Harry.

"In about ten minutes, I think," Harry replies.

His friends have been keeping an eye on the other students and actually the teachers for us as well, since the more eyes that we have the better. They are now officially the only other students that are completely okay with us, and I appreciate that massively. It's not very easy to be feared, in fact, it's downright fucking horrible. I'm used to being ignored; I'm not used to being treated like I'm the biggest villain in the damn place. I know that the treatment of us by the other students here is starting to wear on the others as well, and classes for the guys have become pretty miserable, I can see how its affecting everyone and if we don't sort it out soon I'm going to insist that we find a way for us to leave with minimal fuss so that we can regroup and then get to the bottom of this situation away from it.

Admittedly, that would make it slightly more challenging to deal with as we'd have to break into the school in order to get to the object that's controlling the teachers; that is obviously easier if we're here and can move around with slightly less suspicion, I say somewhat less because everyone watches us with suspicion now.

The couch bounces on either side of me as Kai and Jax sit down, and both turn to look at me with concern.

"You're thinking very hard over here," Jax comments.

While Kai gets straight to the point and says, "What 'cha thinking about Beautiful."

"All the stressful things," I reply somewhat vaguely but not at all untruthfully; there are a lot of stressful things that we're dealing with at the moment.

"We figured," Jax replies, as he grabs my hand and threads his fingers through mine, "any specifics that you'd like to share?"

I shrug, "I guess the main thing I'm worrying about is that we're all fucking miserable. If we don't fix this issue soon, I want us to get out and fix it from a distance. In our worst situations, we've still managed to keep up morale, and I feel like we're struggling now, all of us."

"I agree completely," Kysen replies and I had no idea he was listening, but as I look around it's clear that I have everyone's attention.

"So do I, but we have nowhere to go, and I'm not even sure that we can just leave," Levi says with a deep frown.

"Maybe we should talk to Cain and see how difficult it could be, we have the money; surely we could buy somewhere big enough for all of us?" Dash suggests.

"Yeah, okay, let's do that." Levi agrees.

"I hate to be the devil"s advocate," Asher starts, a book in his hand like usual, "but I really do think that we need to sort this issue out from here, it would be almost impossible to get back in here and break the control if we were to leave."

I sigh, and so does most of the room. We all know that he makes a good point, and we know that the most sensible thing to do would be to wait, but that doesn't mean that any of us like it.

"You're right," Levi agrees, his arms crossed over his broad chest and what seems like a permanent frown on his face.

Asher glances up from his book and looks around at us all, "I'm sorry guys. Why don't we think of this like a mission and not somewhere that we are stuck, we do this job, and then we can leave and find somewhere that we can call our base, away from everyone, and where we can properly plan how we're going to take the Order of Kronos."

His suggestion doesn't only make me smile but makes the others as well.

"Yeah, I like that," I agree, and sounds of agreement go all around the room.

Suddenly, it's like the atmosphere is lighter, like just knowing that we can leave after this, that we don't have to be stuck in a place that feels so wrong for all of us, is freeing, and I feel a hell of a lot happier about the situation.

There is a tinge of sadness, but I think that's because I had such high hopes for this place and what it was going to teach me, but even right from the beginning, when the teachers weren't that bad, it just didn't feel right to me, I put it down to nerves, but it's not gone away. I don't think it would change even if we get the teachers back to normal. I can't explain it, but I just know that we aren't supposed to be here, not for the long term, at least.

"If we can't leave," Erin starts, pulling me from my thoughts and gaining the attention of the whole room, "then I can always put a shield around us while we leave, and we can lay low."

"I think we'll call that a last resort," Maverick replies this time and then adds, "we're just going to be setting ourselves up for stress if we leave when we're not supposed to. Especially since we're going to need to buy a place, if the school put out missing or even wanted alerts for us, which I imagine they will do if we did for some reason leave before we broke the Order's control, then we wouldn't be able to be seen in public, we'd also become incredibly well known where as at the moment we're known of, not known by sight. It would also affect our ability to go after the Order because we would have to stay in the shadows to avoid getting caught ourselves."

"Yes, that actually makes a lot of sense," Erin replies, "but I just wanted everyone to know that it is an option that we can use as a last resort."

"Great, thanks, Erin," Levi replies.

Before anyone can say anything else, there's a knock at the door.

"That must be Dean and the others," Harry says as he hops up to get the door.

I hear Harry greet them all and then, he walks in with three students that I must admit I only just recognise.

"Okay, so just in case, and because it's been a while anyway, this is Dean, Marie and Yates," Harry introduces with a smile, as all three of them grin, no sign of any fear or hesitation. Harry then goes onto to introduce all of us which makes me smile because there are a lot of us. I know there are a lot of us, but it"s not until someone has to introduce us all at once that I realise that we make quite an imposing group, and if I were walking into a situation like this, then I would be nervous as hell, so I've got to give it to the three of them, they aren't showing any signs of being wary and just smile at us before taking seats.

"Do you guys want a drink?" I ask them since the rest of us all have our own drinks.

"Yes, please," Marie nods, "do you have coffee?"

"Absolutely," I reply and turn to look at the guys, "What about you two? Would you like a drink?"

"I'll have the same, please," Dean replies with an easy going smile.

"Me too," Yates says.

After double checking how they take their coffee, I start to make it as easy conversation picks up in the sitting area of the room. It doesn't take me very long at all to make the drinks and Kysen comes to help me take them back to the others and hand them out. Once I'm seated again the conversation turns to why they're here, or rather the more serious reason for why they're here. After that, we can just hang out. I think the general vote is to explore the grounds still.

Marie seems to take the lead, and she's so freaking bubbly that she has me smiling, "Okay, so we've done what Harry asked and kept an eye on everyone. The students are confused and scared, and they can all tell that something is going on and it's making them feel uneasy."

"That's understandable," Erin replies.

Marie nods, "Exactly, the teachers are telling us, and them that you aren't to be trusted and only out for yourselves, that if something happened you'd flee and not help. That your gifts are all dangerous and uncontrolled."

My anger rises; we knew that they were doing something like this, but having it confirmed just adds to the anger and feeling of injustice.

"That's ridiculous," Cole says with a deep frown.

"Yeah, it is," Dean replies, "which is why the students are struggling with the situation. They knew Cole and Erin and the guys before Sage and the others got here, and they were pretty well liked, so to now be told that they're dangerous and all of this other shit, is completely out of left field and confusing the shit out of them."

"But the teachers are in control, they do run the school and they are more knowledgeable, so even though it doesn't sit right with them, they're going with it and the main consensus is that they think the teachers must know something that they don't." Yates adds he's frowning and clearly doesn't like this situation either.

"Okay, so that's pretty much what we expected, and none of us blame them for following the teacher"s lead. At the end of the day the students expect the teachers to have their best interests at heart, so if they say that we're dangerous, then we must be." Maverick replies.

"Yeah," Marie agrees and then adds, "I have spoken to a couple of people and pointed out how ridiculous it is and how nice Cole and Erin are and that they wouldn't be friends with someone dangerous, so although we don't know Sage and the others very well, they're obviously nice too, and whilst most of them agreed with me they still said that they'd avoid the whole situation for now so that they don't get caught in the crosshairs."

I nod, "Yeah, if I'm being honest, I think I would do exactly the same thing. At the end of the day, they owe us absolutely no loyalty, and we wouldn't expect it from them either."

"What about the teachers? Did you find anything out about them?" Levi asks.

Dean nods, "Yeah, so they are all wearing those pieces of jewelry with that gemstone on them. Some of them have necklaces, some bracelets, and there are a couple of teachers with rings as well."

"That's pretty much what we thought from what we witnessed ourselves," Jax replies.

"As we said before, they're trying to paint you as villains, but something else that we've noticed is that they're doing a lot more lessons about the Order, and whereas it is obviously normally about the atrocities that they've caused and their agenda of trying to take over the Fae Realm and others, we have noticed that it's changed. Now, they are almost trying to paint them as victims and misunderstood."Dean explains.

"For obvious reasons, it"s adding to the unease for the students," Marie adds.

"They must only be doing that in the lessons we're not in, because we haven't heard anything about it at all," Jett says.

"Yeah, they seem to be avoiding speaking about the Order in any of your lessons, which suggests that they're getting regular orders that evolve rather than the spell just being one level, meaning that it's just the initial control," Yates explains.

"Could that mean that someone here is updating the orders, or can it be done from afar?" Dash asks.

"You know I hadn't thought about it, but if the control is in a main object and the jewelry is like an extender for the spell and doesn't contain the actual spell, then I would assume that there is someone here who is adding to it and it can't be someone that's under the control of it," Dean explains.

"Wow, okay. So, we all need to keep an eye on any teacher that isn't acting as brainwashed as the others," I say, and then add, "Well, you guys do. We're still being left in a classroom by ourselves."

"It will be hard to spot though, because they obviously agree with the Order so they'll be spouting all the crap that the other teachers are." Asher points out.

"Yeah, that's a good point," Erin replies. "Have any of you tried to call them out on it? I mean their return arguments, when challenged, might show the difference between them."

"That's an interesting theory," Yates agrees.

"I think you three need to be extremely careful, the last thing that any of us would want is for you to get hurt or find yourself in a dangerous situation." Cole states firmly.

"I agree, don't do anything that could put you at risk," I say.

All three of them share a look.

"What?" Harry asks, his eyes narrowing on his friends.

"Erm, we may have already done that," Marie replies, making her eyes as wide as possible in order to appear as innocent as possible and making me grin.

She catches my smile and winks at me, her lips tiliting up into a smirk.

"Explain?" Harry asks, trying not to look as amused as he really is.

"Well, we thought we'd see if we can find the object that's controlling them," Dean grins.

I raise my eyebrows. These three definitely aren't like the other students and are, in fact, a lot more like us.