I felt myself tense up. I couldn’t fight him, not there. Not with all of the other students around. We needed to find a way for everyone to get out, preferably even myself. “You have half an hour to decide.” Elijah announced. “After that, we’ll have to start… incentivising you…” I think everyone in the room knew what that meant. The noise in the room grew again as people started talking about what had happened. Everyone was staring at me, at least that’s how it felt. I sat down on a nearby chair.
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” I asked Raven. “I can’t give him the stone… But I can’t let anyone else get hurt trying to help me…” I could feel the tears in my eyes, but I pushed them back. I had to stay strong. I had to think of a plan.
The next ten minutes or so passed very, very slowly. I kept suggesting ways to get out without anyone getting hurt and without having to give the Syndicate the Arch Stone, but there were too many issues with it. My own head was, of course, not being particularly useful, each of them suggesting a different solution, and most of them deciding to jeer at me when I tried to ignore them. I knew it was just the stress that was making them so loud, but it didn’t help much. Elijah was still pacing up and down the stage, checking his watch, making his presence obvious. He was trying to make me flinch, trying to psyche me out. I needed a distraction, really. I needed to find a way to draw his attention away from the room. That way I could try and fight him one-on-one, without worrying about anyone else.
“Just give him what he wants!” A first-year who I didn’t recognise shouted at me.
“I can’t do that…” I choked. “You have no idea what he wants, or what he’s going to do with it…”
“If it gets us all out of here, why not just give it to him!” He lunged at me, but Raven grabbed his arm.
“Don’t touch her.” The kid took one look at her and crawled back. “Coward…” Raven grumbled as she walked back over to me. “They don’t know anything…”
“Can you really blame them? With what they actually know, I probably wouldn’t do anything differently…” I admitted. “But we still need to think of a way to get out of this…”
“We don’t have long to decided. We only have twenty minutes before Elijah starts acting…”
“And that’s if no one decides to do anything stupid before then…” Of course, just with my luck, that was exactly the moment someone did do something stupid.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?!” An overconfident third-year decided to shout across the room. He bent the fingers on his right hand back and pushed them closed, starting to construct a spell. He flicked his hand forward and a cloud of dust formed in front of his hand and fired forward. Elijah flicked his wrist, and a wave of shadow shot from the wall and knocked the dust away.
“I think I’m someone infinitely more powerful than you.” He smiled as he flicked his hand down. Another shadow dropped down from the ceiling and slashed across the boy’s back. The boy’s eyes widened as he dropped to the floor. Silence. For about five seconds. And then the room exploded. People were screaming, running. Some of them tried to attack Elijah, but he swatted them away like flies. I kicked my heels off and sprinted over to Matt and August.
“Fuck…” Matt grunted as he pushed past another ten students to get to me and Raven. “This is bad…”
“No shit…” I panted. Screams came from outside as Syndicate agents fought their way into the building.
“You need to get out of here,” August decided. “You and Raven get out of the building and find the professor. We’ll try and calm things down here…”
“I can’t just leave you guys!” I shook my head furiously. “No way.”
“You’re the person they’re after, Emilie. Everyone is in more danger if they know where you are,” Matt argued.
“They’re going to try and make someone tell them where I am.”
“Let us handle it!”
“I can make another opening…” Mary suddenly appeared from behind us. I froze as I saw blood on her dress.
“Mary…” I tried to speak. “Where’s…”
“I said I can get you an opening to leave.” Her voice was shaky. “Stop worrying about everyone else and worry about what’s going to happen if that guy gets what he wants!”
Raven tugged at my dress.
“They’re right. We need to go, Emilie.”
I clenched my fist. The Syndicate had blocked off the doors. I couldn’t get out without another distraction. I sighed.
“Fine. But don’t get yourself hurt. I’m not losing any more friends…” I trailed off. “Promise me!”
“We’ll be fine.” August assured me. “Just go!”
I nodded and ran towards the back of the crowd of people clambering at the doors. I looked back, to see Mary crouching down on the floor. She pressed her hands together and locked her fingers together. She flattened her hands out, palms down, fingers still connected, and turned them so that they were facing forward. I saw her mutter something under her breath, as she fanned her fingers out, moving her hands so that the fists were pressed together, and then fanned them out so only her thumbs were touching. Finally, she crossed her middle fingers over her ring fingers and placed her index fingers between the gaps. A blast of energy erupted from the floor, and a huge creature, like some kind of dinosaur, was standing in the middle of the room. Elijah stepped back in shock, and some of the Syndicate members ran to fight the ‘monster’, leaving the doorways open. Me and Raven pushed to the front and got out of the building. I looked back into the auditorium and felt the guilt of leaving my friends behind like a bullet.
“Be safe…” I pushed my feelings down as I sprinted with Raven away from the building.
We ran until we reached the courtyard, a good ten minutes away from the building. Given it was the fire-assembly point, we weren’t the only ones. I looked around to see if I could find anyone I recognised, when I saw Charlie running towards us.
“Holy shit, Emilie!” they shouted as they reached where we had collapsed onto the wall. “You made it out…”
“Yeah, just about…” I sighed. “Are you okay?”
“Physically, I’m fine…” they replied. “But I can’t say I’m not seriously freaking out… What’s going on?”
“I… I can’t explain everything right now… But essentially the school’s under attack. The same people who attacked a few months ago…” I explained. “I can’t really say anything else… I’m sorry…” I picked myself up.
My dress was tattered at the bottom from getting caught on the way down.
“I can’t move in this thing…” I turned to Raven. “Can we get into your room? We need to work out what we’re going to do next…”
Raven nodded, and I started running towards Umbra. I turned to Charlie. “You can stay here, if you want. I don’t want to get you involved…” I tried to persuade them. Charlie opened their mouth to speak. “Please… I don’t want to put anyone else in danger…”
Charlie sighed and nodded.
“Okay…” they agreed. “Just… Just be safe, okay?”
I smiled, but I honestly couldn’t tell them that I would be. I had no idea what was going to happen. I knew I was going to fight, and I knew that I was stronger than the last time we’d fought Elijah, but I was all too aware that it might not be enough.
“I’ll try,” I eventually replied. “And I’m sorry that this whole night didn’t go so well… If I make it out of this alive, I’ll make sure to make it up to you,” I promised.
I turned and ran after Raven into the Umbra dorm, not looking back at Charlie.
47
When we got up to Raven’s room, there wasn’t time to get changed. I dug out a scarf from Mary’s drawer and used it to tie my dress up, to keep it away from my feet. I didn’t have a chance of keeping up with anyone with it getting in my way, and honestly, I didn’t want to ruin it any more than I already had.
“So, what’s our plan?” Raven asked. “We can’t ju
st storm back in and attack, surely?”
“No, definitely not.” I agreed. “It’s way too dangerous to go back straight away. We need to find reinforcements, support. We need to be able to regroup, at least with who we’ve got on the outside, and work out exactly how we’re supposed to stop the Syndicate.”
“I think I know what you’re thinking.”
I nodded.
“We need to find Professor Greyford.”
“So, where do we start looking?”
“I mean, the office is the obvious choice… But… I don’t know, that seems too obvious…”
“The Professor’s office is surrounded by Fortification enchantments. It’s one of the safest places in the school.”
“I know, but the thing is… The Syndicate almost definitely have someone on the inside here, giving them information. They’re going to know that Professor Greyford’s going to go to his office, and they’re going to have something that’ll break through the enchantments.” I pointed out. “So, the question is…”
“…Where is he…?” Raven nodded. “Could he have left the school grounds?”
“I doubt it. He’s not going to have just abandoned us.” Actually, I wasn’t completely sure about that. The fact he’d disappeared in the first place did put a few doubts in my mind, much as I didn’t want to think about them.
“So, where’s he going to be?” Raven asked. “Where’s the place they’re least likely to look?”
“The dorms?” I suggested. “If anyone’s broken in, they’ll probably hit lockdown soon. There’s no chance of them getting in after that happens.”
“It could be worth considering, but that’s an awful lot of ground to search. Who says the Syndicate won’t have come for us by then… We probably have time to get to one place to look… So where is that… Where are the Syndicate least likely to look…?”
Just then there was a knock on Raven’s door. I activated my ice and slowly opened the door a crack.
“You’re shitting me…” I breathed as I opened the door.
“Language, Miss George…” Professor Greyford remarked as he walked into the room. Miss Artemis followed close behind, looking behind her before closing the door.
“Professor? What are you doing here?” Raven questioned as she let herself relax.
“Looking for you two,” Artemis replied. “Where’s everyone else? Did anyone get hurt?”
“I… I don’t really know…” I replied. “But I don’t think everyone made it out…”
“What happened in there?” Greyford asked.
“After Elijah appeared, he gave us half an hour to hand over the Arch Stone…” I explained. “But about ten minutes in, some Third-year decided to stand up to him… Elijah… He…” I trailed off. “Then everything went crazy, people tried to get out… But the Syndicate… They fought back… I don’t know if anyone was…” I didn’t want to say the word. Thankfully Raven didn’t let me.
“We created another distraction and managed to slip out in the commotion.”
“Mr Silvemist, Miss Flamel?” Greyford questioned.
“They’re still in there. I don’t know if they’re safe or not,” Raven explained. “So, how did you get out?”
“I teleported us out,” Greyford explained. “The second the Syndicate appeared, Miss Artemis Nina hurried me away, and we got out of the building. We hid in my office briefly, then came here.”
“So…” I took a deep breath, pulling myself together. “What’s the plan here?”
*
“So, what’s the plan here?” Matt and August were stood in the corner of the room, waiting to see what would happen next. Mary’s illusion had thrown the Syndicate off enough to get the others out of the building, but it hadn’t taken long for Elijah Blake to work out who was responsible and punish them accordingly. Matt was scrambling to find a way to get everyone else out. “How’s she doing?”
August checked the unconscious girl’s pulse. The Illusion Magic she used had already taken a lot out of her beforehand. Then Elijah’s attack opened up her side, so it had to be closed somehow. Matt had managed to put together a makeshift dressing from a tablecloth, but it wasn’t thick enough and it definitely wasn’t sterile. They’d done everything they could, but they had no idea whether or not it was going to last...
“She’s alive… but we need to get out of here…”
“I know… But without another distraction, we’re going to have to fight out way out, and I don’t see that ending too well…” Matt pointed out. “We already lost a couple of people, and if we’re looking out for Mary as well…”
“We’re not going to get far…” August agreed. “So, what do we do? Wait for reinforcements?”
“That’s if Emilie and Raven managed to actually get out…”
“Talking like that isn’t going to help anything!” August snapped. “They’re going to be fine. They got out, they’ve found Greyford, and they’re working out how to get us out of here,” she assured him, though it felt more like she was trying to convince herself. “We just need to work out how to keep Blake distracted until they get here…”
“I mean, that’s not hard to do… But we’ve seen what he does to people who do…” Matt reminded her. August looked up at the man strolling up and down the stage. No one really knew what he was planning. There were still about a thousand students left in the building, but he had to know that Emilie had gotten out, so his original ultimatum was probably gone, but he hadn’t issued any other threats since then. He was just pacing up and down the stage, looking around the room. Matt stared at him and leaned against the wall.
“Hurry up, Emilie…”
*
I sighed as I leaned against the wall.
“We need to hurry up…” I tapped my foot anxiously on the floor.
“We need to work out a plan before we do anything,” Greyford replied. “You’re not going to be able to help anyone if you go rushing in without a carefully thought out strategy.”
“We don’t have time for a strategy! There are people hurt in there! Maybe worse! We need to get in there and help them!”
“And what’s getting yourself killed going to do?” Raven questioned. I opened my mouth to reply, but she cut me off. “You know I’m right, Emilie. It’s not like you haven’t said the same thing before… You can’t just rush in, emotions first, and hope that something good will happen. All that’s going to do is get people hurt.”
I kicked the wall and sighed.
“I know…” I tried to calm myself down. “So, how are we going to stop them?”
Greyford looked at Raven, who just looked down at the floor.
“I… I don’t think it’s ready…” she mumbled.
“What isn’t ready?” I questioned. “That spell you’ve been working on?”
Raven nodded.
“It’s called the Meridian Phoenix.”
Artemis turned to Greyford.
“The Meridian Phoenix? You’re teaching a spell like that to a Second-year?”
“What’s so special about it?”
“It’s Battle Magic,” Greyford replied. “It was specifically designed for war. Not just fighting, or duelling, but actual conflicts.”
“But they take a lot of energy, and a lot of construction.” Artemis quickly added. “If it’s not done properly, it’ll sap the user’s energy until they just collapse…”
I thought back to a few weeks before, when Raven had collapsed in training after trying to cast the spell. I knew something had seemed strange about it at the time, and this made it all make sense…
“Do you think you can do it?” Greyford asked.
Raven shuffled on her bed.
“I… I don’t know…”
I sat down next to her and put my hand on her shoulder.
“You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with, Raven… But the truth is, if this is as powerful as they’re saying it is, it might be our best shot…”
; “But I… If I can’t… I could put all of you in even more danger…”
“That’s not going to happen. You’re one of the strongest Magicals… one of the strongest people I know… You can do it… I know you can…”
Raven smiled.
“Thank you…”
Greyford nodded slowly.
“Well said, Emilie.”
“I don’t like it…” Artemis decided.
“It’s our best chance,” Raven agreed. “And we don’t really have time to think up a better idea.”
“This is what we’ve been training for. We’re ready,” I insisted. “I’m sorry that we’re worrying you, but it has to be done.”
“I… I know… I just… I don’t like seeing you kids put yourselves in danger like this.”
“We’re all in danger, Miss Artemis. People have already gotten hurt tonight. I’m going to make sure no one else does,” I swore.
“I’ve been working with them for a long time now, Nina. I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I didn’t think they were ready.”
“They’re children, Max…”
“No, they’re not. They may not quite be adults yet, but they’re far from children.” Greyford argued. “I just need you to trust me, Nina. They’re ready.”
I looked at him.
“Do you really think that?”
“I do.”
I looked down at the Arch Stone. I could feel a strange energy coming from it. It was almost like it was pushing me on itself, like it was alive. I felt it. I was warm, an unnatural warmth.
“Okay… We can do this. We can do this…” I didn’t care that my head was saying everything it could be convince me otherwise. We had a plan, and we were ready.
*
It caught everyone in the room off-guard when Elijah Blake finally spoke up.
“You know, I’m disappointed,” he decided. “I was expecting someone to come in, all guns blazing, throwing out a bunch of heroic bullshit to try and intimidate me. I was looking forward to crushing her back down again…”
August clenched her fist, but Matt held her back.
The Arch Stone: Foxway Academy: Book 1 Page 34