Enchanted Academy Box Set

by L. C. Mortimer

  “So they do,” Helena said thoughtfully.

  “If the girls, the fairy girls, are keeping their secret boyfriends somewhere, maybe it’s in the center,” Jessica said, catching on.

  “It does make sense,” Beast said. “A central location means they can take turns watching over the fairy boys to make sure they don’t escape.”

  “And it means they’re close,” Tinkerbell whispered. She ran her finger over the map. It was difficult to read because even though she’d been a student at Enchanted Academy for two years, she still had so very much to learn.

  “We need to go to them,” Jessica said. “What’s there? Can you two shift into your dragon forms and just go barreling in?”

  Beast and Helena Hex exchanged looks.

  “It’s not quite that simple,” Beast said carefully.

  “Why not?” Tinkerbell asked.

  “Because the area in the center of the map is an old castle, too,” Helena said. “And it used to be an academy for the fairies.”

  “A fairy academy?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s long been abandoned, but it’s heavily warded. A dragon shifter won’t be able to find it. Nobody except fairies can find it.”

  Tinkerbell swallowed.

  Hard.

  “Good thing I’m a fairy, then,” she said.

  Chapter 12

  Helena Hex was quick to inform the other teachers of what was going on, and the rest of us came up with a plan. Helena said she and Beast couldn’t just fly over and flame the entire place for a couple of reasons. The first one? They didn’t want to hurt Peter or the other boys.

  The other reason?

  They didn’t exactly know what they were dealing with.

  The plan was for Tinkerbell to lead the way, but cautiously. Helena was concerned that the fairies, when confronted, would do something crazy.

  Tinkerbell thought she was right.

  Being a non-magical person, Tinkerbell wanted to have me with her. Helena thought that the wards might not have included non-magical beings. After all, the wards were designed to keep the other four schools within their own boundaries so they’d leave the fairy school alone.

  Nobody really expected humans to go wandering into the forests or the mountains.

  So we set off. We were going to go to the school and try to find the kids. Helena said that the fairies used physical wards, so if we could find those, we’d be able to destroy them. Then the rest of the enchanted beings and magic users could come right on in and save the day.

  But we had to go fast because time was running out.

  We started out on foot. It was supposed to be a 30 minute hike from Enchanted Academy, but it had been years since anyone had wandered through that part of the forest, and after an hour of walking, we were still going.

  I looked back over my shoulder, but I didn’t see anyone.

  “Did you hear something?”

  “The others will be following at a distance,” Tinkerbell said. “You might hear one of them from time-to-time.”

  “Why are they staying out of sight?”

  “Because if the fairies think they’re being invaded, they might do something really stupid.”

  “Like get rid of the evidence.”

  “If that’s a polite way of saying they might kill the boys, then yeah, that’s exactly right.” Tinkerbell looked over at me and frowned. “And I hate this.”

  “Me too.”

  “He wasn’t even supposed to be running lines that night,” she shook her head. “It was stupid. He just wanted to do such a good job with the play.”

  “It’s not stupid to want to do a good job,” I told her. I stepped over a fallen log right before tripping over some roots. I landed on my hands and knees and growled with frustration. Great. Now I was covered in mud. What a pretty sight.

  “Hey,” Tinkerbell squatted next to me and offered me her hand. “Let me help you.”

  She pulled me to my feet and then looked me over.

  “You’re right,” she said finally. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do a good job. I’m just frustrated because I wish I had been able to stop him from getting kidnapped.”

  “That makes two of us,” Hook said, stepping out from behind a tree.

  “What are you doing here?” I looked around. “I thought everyone else was following at a distance.”

  “Oh, they are,” she said. “But we need to hurry. The teachers and faculty who are helping with this little search aren’t exactly known for their patience. If we don’t find Peter fast, they’re going to come barreling into the area and they could spook the fairies.”

  “If that happens, we’ll never know who took him,” Tinkerbell said.

  “Come on! Let’s hurry!”

  We practically ran the rest of the way. When we started to get close to the school, I could tell. I couldn’t see it at first, but I could feel that something was different.

  “It’s up ahead,” Tinkerbell whispered.

  “I see it,” Hook said.

  “How can you see it?” Tinkerbell looked at her sharply. Hook didn’t say anything. She just tugged a little packet from her pocket and held it up before shoving it back in.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Fairy dust.”

  “It lets you see the school?”

  “Something like that,” Hook said.

  We kept walking quietly, and at first, I didn’t notice the school. We kept going, though, and soon, I could see it.

  They were right: it wasn’t warded against humans. The fairy academy was huge. The castle was even bigger than the one at Enchanted Academy and that was saying something. It stretched up into the sky, looming over the forest surrounding it.

  “No offense, but I get the feeling that fairies can be a bit overdramatic,” Hook said.

  “Something like that.”

  “Let’s get inside,” I said.

  “We need to hurry,” Hook pointed out. “The faster we can get inside, the faster we can fight them.”

  I still didn’t know how we were going to do that, and I doubted the other girls did, either. We were in a bit of a hurry, after all. We approached the huge building. It was run-down, to say the least. The stone walls of the castle were crumbling and falling apart.

  “It’s not a very good place to hold a captive lover,” Hook pointed out.

  “It’s definitely not the place I would have chosen,” Tinkerbell agreed.

  “I don’t think they thought too hard about the place.” I stared up at the castle as we walked right up to the front door. We stared at it for just a second. The large wooden doors seemed out of place from the rest of the castle because unlike the walls and barriers, they didn’t seem like they were falling apart.

  “They’re going to be locked. We’ll need to find another way around.” Tinkerbell reached for the right door handle, anyway, and tugged hard on it.

  To our surprise, it opened easily.

  “What?” She stared at the door and then looked at us. “Seriously?”

  “Come on.”

  We stepped inside the castle and instantly, the air seemed to change around us. It seemed...ugly. So this was the type of energy that dark fairies offered up, was it? Gross. The air felt thick and strange as we stepped into the large interior hallway of the castle. This space was large and open.

  “Where should we look first?” Hook whispered.

  “They’re in the basement.” Tinkerbell sounded certain. I didn’t want to know how she knew. Maybe it was a fairy secret or perhaps she just had a feeling.

  “Wait,” Hook grabbed Tinkerbell’s arm and the fairy turned around. She was so tiny compared to Hook, who practically loomed over her. “I need to tell you something.”

  “It can wait.”

  “No, it can’t.” Hook took a deep breath. “No matter what happens when we find them, I want you to know that Peter and I really are friends, and he...”

  “What?”

  “He loves
you.”

  Tinkerbell stared at Hook for a minute, but then a slow smile spread over her lips.

  “Really?”

  “Really and truly.”

  “Good,” Tinkerbell nodded. “Then no matter what happens, risking everything to save him will have been totally and completely worth it.”

  We looked through the first few rooms quickly, trying to find a staircase that led down. If the layout was similar to the one at Enchanted Academy, then there should be several different staircases that led down to the other floors. It was important to the headmistress at Enchanted Academy that everyone be able to access any level of the castle regardless of where they were. This resulted in staircases at both ends of the school, as well as a couple of random ones sprinkled throughout the center.

  Finally, after a fair bit of searching, we found one. It was located in one of the side rooms. A broken window allowed enough light to stream in that we could see without needing flashlights, which was good because I hadn’t brought one.

  As I stared at the descending staircase, though, I realized that this was a bad idea.

  “We need lights,” I said, looking up at the girls.

  “I can see in the dark,” Tinkerbell said, blinking at me, as though I should have known.

  “Is that a fairy skill?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I have this,” Hook held up her hand. She produced a little glowing energy ball. I still didn’t understand exactly how she could create those. It looked so easy for her. That probably wasn’t true. Maybe it took years of practice for her to be able to make one of those little balls, but dang.

  “I don’t have anything,” I pointed out.

  “Just stay close,” Hook said. “It’ll be fine.”

  She nodded to me, as though that made all of the sense in the world, and the craziest thing was that I really did trust her. There was just something about Hook that made me think that regardless of how she acted at school, that somehow, we were going to be fine.

  We went down the stairs one step at a time. The air smelled like dust and sadness. It was weird. Somehow, it seemed like there was a really strong emotional scent. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I was feeling that was. It was odd.

  The stone steps felt damp.

  “Careful not to slip,” Hook said. I assumed she was talking to me since she was magical and Tinkerbell was the most graceful person we’d ever seen in our lives.

  “Okay.”

  We stepped down, moving deeper and deeper into the fortress of the old fairy academy. I had so many questions about this place.

  Why had it closed down?

  Who had the students been?

  Where had they gone?

  How did anyone know this place even existed?

  I kept going down the stairs behind my friends until eventually, the staircase turned, and then it kept going a little bit more. By the time we reached the bottom, I was worried that we’d get lost or that we may have gone to the wrong place, but Hook motioned for me to come with her. I looked around as we moved through the darkness. Her little orb lit up enough so that I could see the space around us, and it looked old and worn out.

  There were desks down here that were tossed on their sides. Maybe someone had thrown them down here for storage and then forgotten about them, or perhaps it had been an act of anger when the school closed down.

  The place was trashed.

  There were books on the ground and even boxes of magical supplies. We kept moving through the darkness. Tinkerbell led the way. She was always careful not to step on anything and if she thought Hook or I might trip, she’d pause to help us.

  “There,” I said, pointing to a little glowing object in the corner.

  “Is that a ward?” Hook asked, moving closer.

  “Definitely,” Tinkerbell said. She moved over to it and stepped on it, crushing the little object beneath her feet. She looked around, but nothing happened. Nothing felt different.

  “As long as that was it,” Hook whispered. “The others will be able to see the school. They’re already close, but damaging the ward means they’ll be able to get inside.”

  I nodded and swallowed hard. This was it. We were so close. We needed to find the boys before everything went to hell. As far as I could tell, we only had a few more minutes before Helena and the others would come barging into the area. Once they did that, the fairies were definitely going to freak out. They’d either flee or they’d hurt the boys. Neither one of those scenarios was going to result in a happy ending.

  Luckily, a few minutes were all we needed.

  Tinkerbell stopped, pausing once more, and she jerked her head toward a door just ahead of us.

  “That’s it,” she whispered so quietly I almost couldn’t hear her.

  “He’s in there,” Hook agreed.

  We moved toward the door. None of us knew what we were going to find when we pulled it open, but I could tell it wasn’t going to be something good. I felt...strange. It was like my entire body knew that danger was lurking behind the door, but I didn’t have a good reason for thinking that.

  “Follow my lead,” Tinkerbell said, and she yanked the door open.

  Chapter 13

  Tinkerbell expected to see Peter when she opened the door. She could tell that the dark fairies – all four of them – were close. Her wings itched and her body felt uncomfortable. When she pulled the door open, she realized that the situation was worse than she’d expected, though.

  There were four cages in the center of the room, and each cage held a boy.

  “Tink!” Peter was in the closest cage to the door, and he stood up and gripped the bars of the cage. “You came!” He said.

  Tinkerbell ran to him, forgetting about everything else except saving him.

  “Help!” One of the other boys said.

  “Before they come back!” Added a third.

  Jessica looked around, obviously unable to see very much anymore because Hook had moved away from her. The little glowing energy ball she had was enough to shine some light into the room, but Tinkerbell couldn’t see everything. Her fairy vision was good, but this place was really deeply underground, and it had been used by dark fairies. It was difficult to see everything you needed to when dark magic was involved.

  “You’re okay,” Tinkerbell looked back to Peter. He looked well. He was still wearing the outfit she’d seen him in last, and he looked clean and well taken care of. Good. So they hadn’t hurt him. She hadn’t really expected that they would, but...he was okay.

  “I’m fine. Let me out of here,” he gestured to the lock at the top of the bars. “I’m dying to get home.”

  Jessica hurried to one of the boys to start fiddling with the locks on his cage, and Tinkerbell reached for Peter’s.

  “What happened?” She whispered. “Where did they go?”

  She had so many questions for him, but mostly, she wanted to know if he really loved her the way Hook thought that he did. Oh, she loved him. That much was for certain.

  “They’ll be back soon,” he said. She reached for his hand to touch him, but Peter took a step back. “Come on,” he said. “Get me out of here. There will be plenty of time for that later.”

  “For what?” She asked. She felt a little rejected. She had gone to all of this trouble to save him, and he wouldn’t even hold her hand a little bit? It was all so...strange.

  “For anything,” he said. He looked at the lock and gestured to it. “Come on, baby,” he said. “It’s time for us to go.”

  He eagerly stared at the lock and then looked back at Tinkerbell. She was overreacting. There was nothing weird about Peter. He was just scared, Tinkerbell realized. He was scared and he was locked away. She reached for the lock, but Hook ran over and grabbed her wrist before she could open it.

  “No!” She said. “Jessica! Tink! Don’t do it! It’s them! It’s the fairies.”

  Tinkerbell dropped her hand instantly and started to give Hook a piece of her mind, but she
realized quite suddenly that nobody seemed surprised by this accusation.

  Why weren’t they surprised?

  And why did everyone look so...healthy...after being locked away?

  None of the boys looked disheveled at all. Their hair was perfectly styled and their clothing was clean. They were fine, but they shouldn’t have been fine.

  Why weren’t they fine?

  But then Peter shook his head.

  “You really are an idiot,” he snapped, and the glamour faded. Peter and each of the other boys seemed to instantly transform into the bodies of girls: dark fairies. They were very obviously dark fairies. Their hair was long and their eyes flashed black before returning to their normal browns. One of the girls had green eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness.

  The girl in front of Tinkerbell wasn’t Peter at all.

  Tinkerbell blinked, staring at her, shocked.

  This was the woman who had taken him away to be her weird sort of groom. It wasn’t the boy she loved. She had failed to find him yet again, and now they were almost out of time. Then again, maybe not. If the teachers ascended upon the school, maybe they’d be able to keep the fairies from fleeing. Maybe they’d be able to keep the dark faes from escaping and going back to their own homes and their old lives.

  Or maybe they’d cause too much chaos and the fairies would simply slip through the crowds unnoticed.

  “Where is he?” Tinkerbell asked, distressed.

  She needed to find him and to see if he was okay. He had to be okay. She had been so close, but she had messed up. Somehow, the dark faes had known they were coming, and they’d hidden away the boys and taken their places. They had used their glamour to do it, and while Tinkerbell knew the dark fairies wouldn’t be able to trick anyone again for awhile, the reality was that they had already tricked her and Hook and Jessica.

  That was far too much trickery for one day.

  They had taken the place of the boys. Why? Because Tinkerbell would have easily walked Peter, along with the other three boys, right past the teachers who were descending upon the school. They would have inadvertently helped the fairies escape, and they simply couldn’t have that. These fairies needed to stay right where they were: locked away.