Chapter Three

"Good point," Cole replies and mimes, zipping his mouth shut.

Once we all actually fall silent, do what the Goddesses ordered, and listen, I hear them, it's like a low chanting, and it's super fucking freaky and sends a shiver down my spine that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end as my magic stirs.

We all share a wide-eyed look before I say, "We should probably go and check that out."

"What, why?" Cole asks, the panic making his voice go up an octave.

"Because the Goddess didn't bring us here to run in the opposite direction," Erin retorts, as quietly as she can but still giving as much sass as she usually does.

"She's right, and if we're here, then there's something that she thinks we all need to know," I add.

Cole sighs heavily, "Fine. You know I hate it when you guys use logic against me."

"I know," I smile, "we stick together and don't separate no matter what."

"Oh, I'm going to be stuck to you like glue," Cole states, stepping closer as if to prove his point, "or Velcro? Is Velcro stickier?"

"Alright, you nervous Nelly, we get it." Erin smiles and takes his hand.

"Ready?" I ask them.

They both nod, and we start to move forward slowly. I have to admit that it's kind of nice to have them with me; they certainly provide a sense of comedic relief, at least.

We stick close to the wall, not that it will make any difference if someone does come along because we're in a freaking tunnel, there's nowhere to hide at all, so if someone comes and they're hostile, which at this point, I just assume they are, then we're going to have to fight and hope that we're strong enough to do so.

With this in mind, I pause, making the others stop with me. They both look at me curiously, and I explain quietly, "I just want to make sure that our magic is working properly since we can't get through to the guys."

"Shit," Cole says and starts to summon his magic.

"You need to do a tiny show of magic; we don't want to bring any attention to ourselves," I warn him.

He nods as he pulls back some of his magic, and then both Erin and he start to thread small spells. Since my fire is the easiest for me to call, although it"s not necessarily the easiest to control, that's the one that I call, my fingertips spark, and a small flame appears on the tip of one before I snuff it out, satisfied that even though I can't get hold of my men, my magic is still working like it should, which means if we do run into trouble, between the three of us, we should definitely be able to handle it. It's then that I realise that Ghost and Knot aren't with us, and they were soaring above the shelves in the library, so I can only assume that the Goddess didn't pull them in with us. If they were here, I could've sent them ahead and looked through their eyes like before, and we could've stayed out of the danger zone completely.

"We're good," Erin says.

"Let's go then," I add.

We walk only a few steps further when I hear footsteps heading in our direction; I share panicked looks with Erin and Cole as we press our backs tightly against the wall; quicker than I thought she was able to, I feel Erin's magic spark and wash over me, and when I glance over at her, she nods, confirming that she's put a shield over us, and just in time too as, we see two robed figures with their hoods up approaching us, from the direction that we just came from and heading toward the chanting. They walk straight past us, they don't even acknowledge our existence, and I thank our lucky stars that Erin is so good at what she does and also had the benefit of some training at least, before the school went to shit.

We all start to follow, trusting that Erin's shield is going to hold and not reveal us to whoever is down here. As we move through the tunnel, the chanting gets louder until we round the corner and come to a massive cavern filled with more of the robed figures. As they stop chanting, they all remove their hoods. We stay at the entrance to the cavern, which is raised slightly and gives us a good view over the fifty or so people in the room, who are all facing the front.

"It's the Order," Cole whispers.

"Don't worry, it's soundproofed," Erin adds, her voice still quiet.

"Why are their faces all blurry?" I ask, frowning as I look over them, and all I can see is a blur. It's creating a really creepy effect, being surrounded by a sea of faceless members of the Order.

"I guess because we're not supposed to know their identities yet, or maybe the Goddess doesn't know them?" Cole replies thoughtfully.

"They would have to have some insanely powerful magic to be able to block the Goddess," I say, scrunching my nose with distaste.

"Or, some seriously powerful connections, like God-level connections." Erin points out.

"Well, shit," I reply, and then add, "I think we're going to have to get closer if we want to be able to hear what's being said."

"Try not to touch anyone," Erin states, "as far as I'm aware, we can't be seen or heard, but they could still walk into us, and then they'll know that we're here. If I expand the shield so it's not shaped to us and is instead like a bubble around, then there will be even more chance for someone to walk into it."

"You know your gift is amazing," I tell her honestly, "you kick ass."

"Thanks," she grins proudly.

"Alright, how about we stick to the wall and see if we can overhear some conversations?" I suggest.

"Good, idea," Cole replies.

Very slowly and being cautious of anyone that gets close to us, we move from the entrance down into the large chamber and then start to follow the wall until we get to a group of people. Even though we all know that we can't be heard here, none of us are willing to try and test it, so instead, we stay silent and listen.

"Magistrate Godfrey," a woman states, getting a portly man"s attention. I may not be able to see his face or anything really about him, but I can tell that there is something inherently wrong and evil with this man; I dislike him a disproportionate amount since I don't actually know the man, "What are you planning to do about those new Centres that have just appeared at Blood Moon academy?"

"We can't allow them to gain any knowledge or power," another person states.

They're talking about us.

"I have it under control," he replies firmly.

"Do you though, we heard that the assassin you like to use is not operating anymore," a man sneers.

Magistrate Godfrey's voice snaps out, and along with it, some dark sludge like magic that makes me want to recoil. It's not natural, and it's evil. It strikes the person who questioned him in the throat, slitting it open and making him clutch at it uselessly before he drops to the floor, spasms once and then dies. I expect there to be an outroar, but it"s quite the opposite; everyone looks terrified but does nothing, and I begin to think that this man is someone high up in the Order.

"I have it under control, they won't be an issue for much longer. The teachers are doing as they should," he repeats calmly like he didn't just end someone's life.

"Very well," the woman who asked first replies and then adds somewhat cautiously, "if I may, I know that some of those teachers are fiercely against anything to do with the Order of Kronos, so how have you got them to be compliant?"

I have never heard of the Order being referred to as that before, but a memory ping from a class back before all of this, from when I was human and alone. I am reasonably confident that he was a God, but I need to do some more research to be sure.

"Simple, my dear," he replies smarmily, making all three of us grimace in disgust, "they don't have a choice."

Well, at least we know that they didn't all suddenly turn into assholes, that's a bonus. Before we can hear anything else, someone trips and bounces off the shield that Erin has around.

"Fuck," I curse.

"There's something there," the person exclaims, as he points in our direction.

We all move as one, sticking close to the wall as we try to escape the reaching hands, someone manages to find the edge of the shield again and then we find ourselves under a barrage of magic.

"Are you okay?" I ask Erin worriedly as we make it to the entrance, magic still bouncing off the shield.

"I'm not going to be able to hold it for much longer, they're throwing too much at me, and I've already held it up for ages. It's draining my magic too quickly," she replies through gritted teeth.

"Cole, grab Erin's hand and focus on lending her some of your magic, not all of it, just enough to strengthen her, and I'll do the same. If her shield fails, we're in big trouble. We may not be able to see their faces, but something tells me that they'll be able to see ours." I order, and Cole immediately does what I say.

I do the same, focusing on my magic and steadily feeding her a small amount. Almost instantly, her shoulders drop, and you can see the relief cross her features as our magic strengthens her. We're still running under a barrage of attacks from the Order.

"How are we going to escape?" Cole yells over the sounds of the shouting and exploding magic; they may not be able to hear us, but we can certainly hear them for obvious reasons. We would be pretty shit spies if we couldn't hear anything. Although we have been caught so, we're not exactly great spies as it is. Thankfully, as soon as they started shooting magic at us, Erin expanded the shield outwards so now it"s like a dome and having the blasts further away from us is definitely more comforting. The issue is that Erin's shield is rebounding the explosions of magic, and it"s not just the magic that's exploding but the tunnel and some of the people too. I have to assume that these people aren't that fucking bright because, they keep fucking shooting magic blasts and, in a minute, the whole fucking tunnel is going to come down on top of us.

"Sage!" Erin exclaims, pulling me from my thoughts and stopping me from tripping over a fallen brick.

"Thanks," I reply as we rush forward. They're gaining on us, and I share a scared and anxious look with them both.

"Sage, we don't even know where we are if we ever do make it out of the tunnel. What the fuck are we going to do?" Cole says, an edge of panic threading through his tone.

I don't know what to tell him. The problem is, I don't fucking know. There are no pings of intuition, and the Goddess isn't talking to me; Cole isn't the only one panicking; I am too. As we round a corner, I can just make out a dead end up ahead, fuck.

There's only one thing for it.

"Nyx!" I yell, "A little help please, I have no idea how to get out of this one!"

"Anything?" Cole says, as we rapidly approach the wall.

I shake my head, "Nope. Nyx, please?"

"Jump!"the Goddess suddenly shouts, and without any hesitation, we all jump.

We land in a heap on the floor, in the front room of my dorm and all of us stay down, dazed and unsure of what the fuck just happened.

"Where the fuck have you been!?" Jett asks, the panic evident in his voice.

I pop my head up off the floor and look around, sure enough, we're surrounded by all of our men, and they all look worried. Which is understandable; we've been missing in action, and they couldn't even get hold of us through the Bond Lines. I"m actually surprised that the academy is still standing.

"I am so fucking glad to see you," I say as Levi picks me up of the floor, his head immediately goes to my neck as he takes a deep inhale.

"You fucking scared me," he says, his demon growl evident in his voice. None of us have our human glamours on here and that's actually something that I really like about this place, we're not made to keep them on. I feel his magic and open my eyes to see his shadows pulling around us, cloaking us in comforting, smoky darkness. They gently stroke my cheek, and even I can pick up on the worry that they feel.

"I'm sorry, trust me, I didn't do it intentionally," I reply.

Levi holds me for a few more moments before he sighs heavily, "Kai's been tapping my back for the last two minutes."

My smile is huge as I'm passed to Kai whose smile can't hide the fear in his eyes, and I squeeze him tightly. One by one I'm passed among them, hugging them all tightly, and sharing kisses and special words, and I know that Erin and Cole are getting exactly the same treatment from their Bonded, so I'm in absolutely no rush to stop this.

Eventually, everyone's nerves have settled enough that we all let go of each other and take seats on our, thankfully, large couch.

"Alright, start from the beginning and explain what the hell happened and why we couldn't get hold of you?" Kysen practically demands his arms crossed over his chest.

"The last we heard, there was no teacher," Nate adds.

The three of us take turns in explaining what happened and what we found out.

"Magistrate Godfrey?" Asher asks, his eyebrows furrowed, "I never fucking liked him. By all outward appearances you would think that he"s a nice and upstanding citizen, but something always felt off about him."

"I know what you mean. I met him once when he had his daughter with him; there are certain things that you can recognise in someone else when you've been through it yourself. She was broken," Kysen adds with a deep frown.

My gut churns, "That evil man has a daughter?"

Kysen nods, "Yeah, but there's a rumor going around that she's gotten into Black Onyx Academy and is on an all-male team."

"Seriously, that's unheard of, isn't it?" Dash asks.

Harry nods, "Oh yeah, it's never happened before. I imagine it's caused an uproar."

I smile, something in me settling at the thought that she's away from that monster and safe. I kind of want to meet her, the first woman on an all-male warrior team; she sounds like a badass.

"That's pretty awesome," Kyle replies.

"Good for her," Erin smiles.

"So, the teachers are under the influence of something then?" Jax asks, getting us back on track.

"To be honest it would explain their complete change in behaviour. The problem is that we have no idea how they're being controlled. All Godfrey said was that he had it handled and that they didn't have a choice," Cole explains.

"Okay, so we need to try and figure out a way that we can find out then," Damon says with a frown.

"Isn't there some kind of spell that we can do that could tell us if there is something controlling them?" Kai asks.

"Oh, are you thinking that there's like an object or something?" Dash asks curiously.

Kai nods, "Well, it would be easier than having a person who had to continuously use their magic in order to stop them from realising themselves that they're being controlled."

"We could check in the library to see if there's some kind of spell?" Cole suggests.

"No!" Practically the whole room shouts.

"I think we'll be avoiding the library for a while; I don't think any of us can go through losing you again," Maverick says.

"Fair enough," I reply.

"We'll figure it out, but none of you will be going to the library, at least not without all of us too," Asher adds firmly.

Cole pats his chest as he says, "Alright, gorgeous, we get it, no library."

I smirk at the look that he receives from Asher, and I'm pretty sure if we weren't in the room he would've kissed him thoroughly by now.

"I'm guessing you guys don't want to spar and do some exercises with your magic tonight?" Jax asks.

"Oh no, I need to do it even more. We've got a threat surrounding us. My magic senses it and needs out. I'm actually worried about it doing something I didn't ask it to," I reply as honestly as I can. I'm not going to bring up the Darkness because it's such an unknown, and it scares me.

It's getting stronger by the day and I'm hoping that practicing control over my other magic will help me to control this Darkness, and I'll be able to keep it in check. There is a part of me that wonders what would happen if I just let it free; at least then I'd know what it was. The thing is that it's vast, incredibly vast, and what happens if I set it free and then I can't control it? I instinctively know that it would be catastrophic if I couldn't control it and that's what scares me and why I won't set it free.

I can't risk it.

"That's okay, Sage," Jax replies, watching me closely like he can sense that there's something else going on, "where are we going to practice? Does anyone have any ideas?"