They’re coming for you… The Syndicate… You can’t stop them…
“What do you know? You don’t even exist…”
We’re what you think, Emilie… You know you can’t stop them…
“You’re wrong. We’ve trained. We know what we’re doing.”
You’re a child… You can’t fight adults… You’re just going to get killed… Or your friends will…
“That won’t happen!” I loudly shouted. I closed my eyes. “That won’t happen...”
Footsteps came from the distance. My door burst open.
“Emilie! Are you alright?” Raven asked.
“Yeah, just… Everything got a little loud for a moment” I panted. They’d already started to quieten down a little bit. Raven ran to my side and helped me sit up. “I’m fine...”
“What was the shouting?”
“It was just… I was arguing with the voices...” I explained. “I know they’re just hallucinations… But it’s hard to just ignore them...”
“I get it.” Raven gently assured me. “Listen… I know you’re not going to like this… But are you sure there isn’t any medication you can take to help you
I shook my head.
“These voices… I hate them… I hate not being able to get any quiet; that they’re always just whispering away in my head, without anything I can do about them… But… Dr Birchwood said that any kind of medication could interfere with the way magic energy flows in my brain… It could stop me from being able to use magic…” I explained. “The voices are horrible, and I wish that I could get rid of them, but I can control them, at least a little. I can deal with it. I… I can’t afford to lose magic. Not with how much there is at stake. I can’t give that up, Raven. Not ever.”
Raven sighed and put her arm around my shoulder.
“Okay. No medication. But if there is anything that I can do to help you, promise me you’ll ask. Okay?”
I slowly nodded.
“Okay…” I whispered. “I promise…”
“Now, go to sleep. It’s late.” Raven stood up and walked out of my room.
“Thank you…” I quietly called after her.
“Don’t worry about it. Good night.” She smiled and closed the door.
*
Something felt off as I woke up in the morning. I wasn’t sure what it was, at the time at least, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. Or had already happened. When I got up, Raven was already dressed and ready to leave.
“When did you get up?” I asked.
“About half an hour ago.” Raven shrugged. “Are you alright? You look pale?”
“I… I feel like there’s something wrong… I’ve just got this really horrible feeling…” I explained. “It’s probably nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t brush off things like that so easily. I’ve learned a lot, with how long I’ve been alone. A gut feeling is never something that can just be ignored. Even if you’re right, and it is nothing, you need to trust your instincts.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I admitted. “I need a shower… It’ll help me clear my mind…”
The shower helped a little, but even afterwards, something still felt off. I checked my phone. It was 6:30. I had about half an hour before we had to leave. I pulled out some clothes from the messy pile that I hadn’t gotten around to putting away yet and got dressed. I wasn’t hungry for breakfast. I figured I’d get something from the Foxmart before we went in to school. Raven spent the whole time sitting on my sofa. She talked a little, but I wasn’t really that responsive.
“It’s nothing. I’m sure it isn’t.” I suddenly decided. “I mean, with all I’ve got going on in my head... It’s probably just that… I’m just paranoid…”
But what if it’s not… What if there really is something wrong… What if we’re right…
“You’re not. Everything’s fine.” I argued, trying to convince myself more than I was the voices.
“Emilie?” Raven worriedly tried to get my attention.
“I’m fine.” I shook the voices away. “I’m back. We should leave.”
*
“Emilie? We’ve stopped.” I heard as I felt someone shake me awake. I slowly opened my eyes.
“Raven…” I realised we were on the bus.
“You must have fallen asleep. But we need to get off now.” She picked up my bag and helped me to my feet.
“Shit… I never do that…”
“You barely slept last night. I’m not really surprised…”
“I’ve barely slept the last six months. I don’t know why it’s only just giving me trouble now…” I wondered. “Come on. We’re going to be late.” I jumped off the bus and took my bag off Raven.
That was lucky… You could have stayed on the bus… Then you wouldn’t know what was happening at school…
“Nothing’s happening at school.”
But you can’t be sure….
“I am sure.”
What if it’s gone…? You would have wasted all of that time training… And you weren’t there to help…
“Stop it…” I whispered. “Nothing’s wrong…. Nothing’s wrong…” I repeated under my breath as we walked down the road towards the shop.
“Emilie, nothing’s going to have happened. You don’t have anything to worry about,” Raven assured me.
“I know… I know…” I sighed as we walked into the Foxmart.
“Morning.” I forced a smile at the lady at the checkout. She smiled back. I picked up a cereal bar from the shelf and gave a handful of coins to the lady.
“Haven’t you had breakfast?”
“Wasn’t really hungry…” I explained.
“Fair enough. Have a nice day.” The lady smiled again.
“You too.”
Me and Raven walked to the back of the shop and walked through the door to the school. I gasped as I saw the destroyed gate lying on the floor.
24
“Emilie!” I heard Raven shout after me as I sprinted into the school.
“No… How did this happen… What happened…” I panted. I pulled out my phone and frantically called Matt.
“Emilie? Are you alright?” he asked over the phone.
“Me and Raven only just got in. What’s happening?!”
“I… I don’t know. But the Dorms are in lockdown. We’re all inside, but no one can get in.” he explained. “Do you think…”
“The Syndicate… It must be…” I turned around. “Raven, hurry up!” I shouted back to her. “Is there any way we can get into you guys?”
“Not in Solaris… But Raven’s registered at Umbra, so you should be able to get through the seal,” Matt told me. “Just get inside. The teachers will handle this.”
“But if it’s the Syndicate… Then I have to help fight…”
“We don’t know what it is. But whatever happens, we can’t just go after them without a plan.”
“We don’t have time! We have to act. We’ve been training for this.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Matt shouted. “We can’t just jump in and hope for the best. This is our lives on the line. Everyone’s lives on the line.”
“But…”
“Emilie!” Matt cut me off. I was about to say something else before Raven took the phone off me.
“Silvemist? What’s going on?”
“Fire-bird? Take Emilie to your dorm and stay there. Don’t let her do anything stupid.” I heard as I pressed my ear against the back of the phone. Raven hung up and pushed my phone back into my pocket.
“Come on. We need to go.”
“But… I can’t…”
“Don’t make me force you, Emilie. We’re in danger. We can regroup and make a decision on what to do when we’re not standing out here.” She said basically the same thing as Matt. She grabbed hold of my wrist and started pulling me along.
There were three men walking around the courtyard.
�
��Archaeus… Invoco… Elementum… Ignis…” Raven muttered as she sent a blast of fire into one of their backs. I cast my own spell and froze the legs of another. Raven finished the other one off with a final blast of fire. We kept running until we came to the circle of buildings that made up the dorms. The place was abandoned.
“Why aren’t there any of them here?” I questioned.
“I don’t know… But the dorms are safe. We can talk about that once we get inside,” Raven decided. She grabbed hold of my hand and pulled me through the door of Umbra dorm.
We ran upstairs, and into Raven’s room. Mary was sitting on her bed, barely moving.
“Oh, shit… Raven, Emilie. I’m so glad you guys are safe.” She suddenly snapped back to reality. She jumped up and threw her arms around us.
“We’re fine, don’t worry.” I assured her. “What happened here?”
“I… I don’t know… It must have happened pretty early… I was just getting ready, and there was this crash, and I heard people running around, saying people were in the school… The barriers went up…” she sobbed. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know either…” I admitted.
“Have you heard from anyone else?” Mary asked.
“Matt and Leigh are fine. I haven’t heard from August,” I replied.
“Have you spoken to Hannah?” Raven asked.
“She’s okay… She’s scared, but she’s safe…”
I glanced out of the window.
“Why aren’t they here…” I muttered.
“What do you mean?” Raven asked.
“There’s no one out here. Surely if they’re attacking the school, the dorms would be their main target.” I turned around. “Raven, is this the Syndicate?”
“I… I think so…” Raven replied. “It’s not their normal tactics though. The Syndicate… they manipulate, they control. They don’t just attack outright. If it’s them, then they’re not looking to attack the students. There must be something else…”
“Me?” I suggested. “Or, at least, the Stone?”
“It’s definitely possible… But…”
“Something doesn’t fit…” I agreed. “They know I have the Arch Stone… If that was all they wanted, they could have jumped us on the way to school, or been waiting for us at the gate. There must be something else… But what is it?”
“What are you two talking about?” Mary asked. “Did you say it was the Syndicate?”
Raven nodded.
“It makes the most sense.”
“And this Arch Stone, what’s that?”
“It’s… It’s a long story. I’ll explain another time.” I felt bad for not giving Mary answers, but it really wasn’t important at that point. We all sat in silence for a moment. I opened the door. “We need to find the others.” I said to Raven.
“Others? What others?” Mary asked.
“You need to stay here.” Raven ordered. “It’s too dangerous.”
“No way! If you two are going, I need to help you.”
“You can’t,” I asserted. “We’ve been being training for exactly this. We’re ready for this. You’re not. Just stay here. And stay safe.”
“But…”
“Please, Mary. Just trust us. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Mary stopped for a moment and sighed.
“Fine. But if I find out that you two have gotten yourselves killed, I’m going to kill you again myself. Got it?” She was joking around, trying to be brave, but it was clear that she was worried about us.
“Got it.” I turned around and ran out of the room, Raven following after me.
“So, what’s the plan?” she called after me.
“We need to get Matt, Leigh and August. We can work on a plan from there.”
“The dorms are in lockdown; we’re not going to be able to get in.
“Not through the doors.” I smiled.
“You mean?”
“I’ll find the others, you make sure that there’s no one else around the dorms who aren’t inside.” I decided, quickly taking control of the situation.
“Okay…” Raven agreed, albeit seemingly unconvinced. “Just be careful, okay.”
“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. I stopped, letting her keep running.
“Good luck!” she called back to me.
“You too,” I replied.
Once Raven was gone, I took a deep breath.
You can’t do this… It’s not going to work…
This was not the best time for the voices to be piping up.
I closed my eyes and breathed out. I made a fist with my right hand and rolled it across my left palm. I rotated the fist around and pushed into the hand and spread out the fingers of my left hand. I held my hands out at my sides and closed my eyes. Finally, I quickly crossed my arms over. I closed my eyes and hoped for the best as a tingling spread over my body. I felt the air shift around me and opened my eyes.
I was standing in the bottom floor of another dorm. I looked around. I was in the bottom floor of one of the dorms. It was fairly plain, with a few sofas dotted around the room, a TV on the wall, and honestly not much else. A picture of a sun was drawn on an empty wall. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was standing in Solaris dorm. It took about a minute for me to realize that I was far from the only one in the room. There were about a dozen students who had just seen me appear out of thin air. They were all shouting questions at me.
“Where are the Silvemists?” I shouted over the noise of the room. The place fell silent.
“They’re in their room. Second floor, room 112,” one of the students replied.
“Thanks!” I shouted back as I sprinted up the stairs towards the dorms.
I found Leigh sitting outside of a room in the corridor of the second floor. She was crying.
“Shit…” I muttered. “Leigh, are you alright?” I quickly asked, running over to her side.
“I’m… I’m fine…” she assured me, wiping her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you and Matt…” I explained. “Raven’s pretty sure this is the Syndicate, which means there’s a pretty good chance that…”
“That they’re going to come looking for you…”
“Even if they’re not looking for me specifically, you can bet Elijah will be lurking around looking for me…” I admitted. “Where’s Matt?”
Leigh pointed at the door opposite where they were sitting.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just… I’m just freaking out a little. I’ll be fine,” she assured me. “You should go get Matt. I just need a minute.”
I stood up.
“Sure.” I smiled as I walked towards the room. I banged on the door. “Matt, it’s me!” I shouted through the door. A second or two later, Matt opened the door.
“Emilie? What are you doing?”
“The people attacking the school; Raven thinks it’s the Syndicate.”
“And that means it’s up to us…” Matt realised. “Shit…”
“Pretty much…” I sighed. “Anyway, come on. I need to get August, and then we’ll work out how we’re supposed to stop these bastards before someone gets hurt.”
*
I got the wind knocked out of me again as I appeared on the stairwell in Maidenheart dorm. Apparently crossing over space in a second takes a lot out of you. Who knew!
“Well, this place is just as creepy as I remembered…” I muttered under my breath, so that the group of cloaked students in the corner crowding around some kind of weird magic circle didn’t hear me. I ran up the stairs up to August’s room. I actually ended up catching her about halfway up. And when I say catching, I mean I ran straight into her.
“August? Where are you going?”
“To find you? Is this the Syndicate?”
“Looks like it. Matt and Leigh are waiting in their dorm. Raven’s making sure there’s no one else around.”
“Are we going to fight them?”
“Let’s get on with it then.” August sighed.
*
Me, Raven, Matt, Leigh and August stood in a circle in the dormitory courtyard. There weren’t any Syndicate agents there at the time, but we knew that we could be swarmed by them at any second.
“So, do we have a plan?” Matt asked. I thought for a moment.
“We really need to work out what they’re doing…”
“They’re attacking the school,” August pointed out. “Not much working out there.”
“The Syndicate don’t just attack places. I’ve never seen them going on the offensive before,” Raven argued. “There’s no way that that’s their entire plan.”
“What about the teachers?” Leigh asked.
“We need to find Professor Greyford,” Matt decided.
“Definitely,” I agreed. “That’s our first move then. We find the professor, and we work out what they’re doing,” I decided. “We’ve been trained for this, and we’re strong. But don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want anyone getting killed, okay.”
The rest of the group nodded in agreement. “Right, let’s go.”
Matt, Leigh and August all started moving. Raven started to walk away as well, but I grabbed her arm.
“Raven… If the Syndicate are here… Then…”
“Elijah will be here… I know…”
“Don’t go looking for him. If he is here, then that’s exactly what he’ll want. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Please.”
Raven nodded.
“But, if we do find him, you’ve better make sure he pays.” I smiled. “Come on… We should catch up with others.”
25
The main courtyard was still crawling with Syndicate members. We crouched down behind a hedge, just barely being able to see the entrance to the school.
“There’s no way we’re getting in through the front,” August pointed out, as if it wasn’t completely obvious.
“They’ll probably have a healing specialist around,” Raven explained. “That’s how they’ve already recovered from earlier.”
“Is there a back entrance?” I asked.
The Arch Stone: Foxway Academy: Book 1 Page 16
