William leaned forward and squinted. “The Notebook? What’s that about? Besides notebooks.”
Philip stared at the TV. “Dude, this is some kind of romance—isn’t it? Sara, this was your plan all along.” He shook a finger at her.
With a huge grin, she headed to a chair and plopped down, crossed her legs, and folded her hands primly in her lap. “My plan was for us to try different kinds of movies, and yes, this is the best kind. Tragic romance.”
All the boys groaned except Adrien.
The credits rolled and the only dry eye in the house was Adrien. His stoicism had again won out. The boys tried to avert their gazes and did their best to pretend that they weren’t tearing up, but the girls didn’t bother to hide it.
Sara wiped tears away as she walked over to the player. She ejected the DVD and placed it back in the case. “I love that movie. It’s one of my aunt’s favorites, and it was her mom’s favorite.”
“For an old movie, it’s okay,” Cameron mumbled and still avoided looking anyone in the eye. After Adrien, he’d done the best to control his tears out of any of the boys.
Raine sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I can’t believe how dedicated Noah was.”
Cameron’s sadness vanished in an instant, replaced by confusion. “You can’t?”
“Yeah. Allie was there, but she kind of wasn’t. It would have been easy for him to talk himself out of it and move on. Instead, he went to read her the story, to remind her of what they shared, even though there was no hope she’d get better.”
Sara took a few deep breaths, her eyes red and her cheeks puffy. “It had to hurt.”
“Is that what love is?” Evie sighed. “Sacrificing for someone you love?”
The boys all exchanged glances, suddenly nervous with where the conversation had gone. Most of the people in the room were already paired up, and any exploration of romance meant it might set expectations in certain sniffling girlfriends in the room.
“I think it’s part of what love is.” Raine rested her head on Cameron’s stiff shoulder. “It’s not about only the happy times and the fun times.”
The shifter relaxed after a few seconds but remained silent. This was dangerous territory. It’d be safer to fight dark wizards.
William snorted. “The important thing is that love isn’t a fairy tale. It’s work.” He grimaced and blushed, then looked away as a hint of fire appeared in his eyes.
Evie turned beet red and focused her gaze on her hand.
Raine lifted her head and smiled. When she’d come to the school, she hadn’t even considered anything like dating or boys but being with Cameron now felt natural and normal. She missed him when they were apart, and it made summer harder than it needed to be.
“What do you think, Adrien?”
The elf looked at her, confused as to why she’d even bother to ask him as he wasn’t dating anyone. “Me?”
“Yeah, you.” She gestured around the room. “Did you like the movie?”
“It’s a moving romantic drama.” He nodded. “And I do enjoy the themes of sacrifice and protection.”
“What about love?”
Adrien shrugged. “I’ve never been in love, so I can’t say.”
“You haven’t even thought about it?”
“I think that I’m training to be a Guardian, and I’ll need to focus on protecting everyone and not worry about my personal relationships.” He shrugged, slight irritation on his face at the question. “I know that sort of thing will become more common around me as everyone grows older, but what others do and what I do are separate matters.”
Raine couldn’t let it go. “Are Guardians not allowed to be in relationships?”
He shook his head. “No, they are, but it’s a matter of focus.”
She turned to Philip. “What about you?”
“Me? Oh, I don’t know. Girls can be fun.”
“We can?” she asked with feigned confusion.
“I can’t.” Sara laughed. “I never have fun—not at all, ever.”
Evie prodded William with her elbow. “What about me? Am I fun?”
The half-Ifrit eyed her. “Is this a trap?”
The girls all laughed.
Philip helped himself to a handful of popcorn. He chewed for a few moments before he swallowed. “Just saying.”
Sara set her DVD case down and watched Philip intently. “That’s what you like? A girl who’s fun?”
“Pretty, fun, intelligent. But I don’t want a girl who’s a doormat, either.” Philip and Sara stared at one another. “Someone I know is cool.”
Raine leaned over to whisper in Cameron’s ears. “Maybe it’s only the movie affecting me, but do you see what I see?”
“Yeah,” Cameron whispered back. “It’s hard to miss.”
Adrien cleared his throat. “So, who’s turn is it next?”
Philip smiled. “Mine.”
“I look forward to seeing what you’ll bring.”
Chapter Seventeen
Raine rubbed her hands together. Even though magic kept the rain off the Louper field, the lingering chill was uncomfortable. She popped a firebug candy into her mouth to warm herself quickly. Cheering fans filled the stands, all waiting for the Cardinals to take on their remaining obstacle to the quarter-finals, the Orono Ouroboros. The home team had been strong throughout the season, but many of the competition were as well, and the Ouroboros were favored for the championship because of their dynamic offensive playstyle—the so-called ‘separate swarm.’
Matt led his team toward the edge of the sprawling vine-covered ruins in the field. Adrien and Etienne watched their flanks while Cody and Daniel brought up the rear. They’d not spotted the opposing team yet, even though the Ouroboros’s advance in three separate groups was visible to the raucous spectators.
The Cardinals crept along an overgrown path toward a worn and half-covered stepped pyramid in the distance.
Cody constantly tried to bring a tracking orb up, but it didn’t respond to his efforts. The team continued along the cracked and weed-covered stone road. Experience had taught them that in cases where tracking was blocked and there was a dense environment nearby, the obvious place was sometimes the correct destination in which to find the token.
“Stay alert, guys.” Matt glanced over his shoulder. “The Ouroboros will do their standard play, I bet—break into small teams to cover more ground—but we can catch them out and at least restrain them. We have a better defensive game if we stick together.”
Adrien leapt forward and his sword appeared in his hand as he apparently charged Matt. The shifter captain rolled out of the elf’s way on instinct, not worried for even a millisecond that his teammate would harm him. The elf hacked at a barbed vine that crawled out of the ground. The entire thing screeched and withered down to the root.
The crowd roared their approval. Raine cheered and whistled.
Matt grinned. “Also, everyone make sure you pay attention so you don’t get taken by surprise. If we lose, let’s lose to the other team, not the environment.”
The opposing team still wasn’t in sight. The Cardinals closed on their target and the pyramid loomed larger with each step. A few more barbed vines ambushed them along the way, but no one was taken by surprise.
Adrienne and Etienne hacked a few of these to pieces. Cody and Daniel blasted theirs with fireballs.
“Did anyone catch sight of the other team?” The captain surveyed the jungle around them as they arrived in front of the huge, dark entrance to the pyramid.
The other players all called out in the negative.
The shifter wasn’t nervous. For some reason, he had a good feeling about the match. But that didn’t mean it would hurt to pay attention.
Something screeched overheard. Four stone monkeys bounded down the steps, but after a quick blast from the team, they careened away and fell. They smashed into dozens of pieces on contact.
The distraction dealt with, Adrien frowned and pointed to
some dusty footprints. “The Ouroboros are already here. At least two of them, judging by their tracks.”
“Let’s go, then,” Matt ordered. “We can’t let those guys take our token!”
The Cardinals rushed into the entrance. Torches lined the hallway and their flickering light illuminated the area. The team’s feet splashed in a thin layer of water. The hallway separated into three different directions, and the water destroyed any trail the other team might have left. With tracking spells blocked, they had no idea where they might be.
“Which way?” Matt looked back and forth and shook his head. “We don’t have time to wait if they’re already here, and knowing them, they’ve already split up.”
“What’s the plan?” Adrien peered into the heightened shadows along the wall.
“I’ll go center, Cody and Daniel, you go left. Adrien and Etienne, you go right.”
“That’ll be risky.” Etienne frowned. “Even if there are only two of them, if they surprise us, it might be over.”
“We have no choice.” The shifter rushed toward the center passage. “If we lose here, we don’t get to go to the quarter-finals. I’m not ready for my final season to end.”
The two other pairs hurried off in the indicated directions without further argument.
Adrien and Etienne rushed down the hallway and their heavy footsteps echoed. The older elf grimaced and froze as something clicked beneath his foot. He cursed under his breath.
His brother took several more steps before he skidded to a halt. “What’s wrong?”
“Go!” Etienne shouted. “It’s a trap. Since it’s not gone off yet, it probably won’t until I move. Now get out of here so we don’t both get eliminated.”
Adrien frowned and quickly sent a pulse of magic against the ground in front of him, much like they’d been shown by Professor Powell in their illusion classes.
The elf was less worried about the false reality around him than finding any differences he could exploit. He took note of the faint differences in the texture of magic in the floor and avoided stepping there. The tactic slowed his progress, but he found no other traps.
Etienne shouted in the distance as he tried to move and fell into a pit. He landed with a resounding thud at the bottom and groaned, only to look up and find Matt, who shrugged and leaned against a wall.
“It’s up to the other guys now,” the captain mumbled.
The pit closed over them.
Cody and Daniel turned a corner. The passage ahead was filled with six lizardmen in feathered necklaces who held obsidian scepters. Before the wizards could get their bearings, the scepters spat balls of azure flame at them. The attacks struck the wizards’ shields and forced them back.
Daniel immediately raised his wand and thickened his shield. He stretched it to cover most of the passageway. “Open on left in five. Normal play, bro.”
“Roger!” Cody grinned and brought his wand up, rattled off an incantation, and fed more and more magic into the tip of the wand. Sparks of flame danced and flowed from it.
The lizardmen continued to pelt Daniel’s shield. The young wizard took deep breaths and fought to hold his defense as he counted down.
“Five, four, three, two, one…zero!”
A small hole appeared directly in front of Cody, who shouted his final words of power. A fireball blasted from his wand and roared toward the lizardmen.
The magical attack exploded around them. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of the simulated monsters.
Daniel shrank his shield, and the pair continued, only to hit a dead end. They groaned and sprinted back toward the first intersection.
Meanwhile, Adrien finished his careful trip through the trap-filled floor and arrived at narrow, precarious stairs that led into the darkness. He bounded down and impressed even himself when he didn’t slip. He snapped a sword into existence as he reached the bottom.
Something glittered in the distance. The golden token sat on top of an obsidian pedestal in the center of a vast, sprawling cavern. The geometry of the cave didn’t make sense given the height of the stairway, but that wasn’t uncommon in Louper-created environments.
“This is too easy,” the elf murmured. He crept forward and released another pulse along the ground. It detected nothing that felt like a trap. Something clattered to his side, and he spun that way, his sword raised.
A wand rolled a few inches on the floor and a muffled shout sounded from beneath him.
Adrien frowned. An Ouroboros player taken out by a trap meant there could be others. He froze and pushed another pulse of magic forward but this time, he concentrated above him instead of directly ahead and at the sides.
Even though the ceiling looked like it was hundreds of feet high, the actual magic pulse collided with something around twenty feet up. He detected a few differences in magical texture at a few key spots. The trigger wasn’t on the floor. No wonder the other player had been surprised.
The elf crept cautiously toward the obsidian platform and conjured more detection magic as he went. Someone shouted from the stairs above—another member of the Ouroboros, his wand pointed into the chamber.
Out of time, Adrien rushed toward the token. The opposing team member raised his wand and shot a growing net of vines toward the elf, and the restraints barely missed him.
Twin white-blue bolts erupted from behind the Ouroboros player and stunned him. He collapsed to his knees as Cody and Daniel appeared from around the corner. Both grinned as they rushed over and grabbed the other player to stop him from pitching forward. It would be poor sportsmanship to let the poor guy bump his head.
“Get it, Adrien!” Cody yelled.
The elf sprinted forward while his brain raced to remember where he’d detected the trap triggers. He leapt for the token and the ground around the pedestal fell away and disappeared into deep darkness.
He swung his arm down. If he missed, there was nothing but a long fall for him. Even if he didn’t die because it was a Louper match, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt.
His slender fingers snagged the prize, and the darkened chamber vanished. The crowd roared around him as he stood and held the golden token in the air.
Cody and Daniel high-fived each other.
The Cardinals would go to the quarter-finals.
Chapter Eighteen
Raine, Cameron, Sara, Evie, and Adrien all settled around a table at Bubble and Fizz a few days later. Their other friends had work they still needed to turn into Professor Hudson. Some of William and Philip’s procrastination concerning their recent ancient history essays had caught up with them, but they both insisted everyone else head to the kemana and have a good time.
After the waitress fairies took their order, the friends relaxed and looked around. The place was packed and filled with the light chatter of other patrons who obviously enjoyed their snacks.
Raine cleared her throat, more nervous than she’d expected. “I have something to tell you. It’s not a big secret or anything, but this is as good a time to mention it as any. I’ve not told anyone but Agent Connor, and you’re my friends, so you should know.”
Cameron shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable with the buildup. It sounded serious.
Unlike the shifter, Adrien, Sara, and Evie leaned forward, interested and even a little excited. Any surprise that didn’t end with a crazy wizard or black dog was welcome.
Raine took a deep breath. “I’ve decided I won’t be on Student Council next year.”
“Why?” Cameron frowned. “Is it because of Kerry? Don’t let her push you around. You’re stronger than that.”
She shook her head. “It’s not Kerry. I don’t care about her. I want to start my FBI training and I need more time, so I have to make some sacrifices.” She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll be an FBI agent, not a politician. Student Council was fun, but next year, it’s time to leave it behind.”
“And you’re sure no one has forced you to do this?” Sara folded he
r arms. “Kerry or Agent Connor? Headmistress Berens?”
“Nope. It’s all me. I talked to Agent Connor about time and stuff, but I’d already made the decision before I spoke to him.” Raine gestured toward an Arc Eighty-Eight player who wandered toward a nearby table. “I’ve thought about it ever since I tried Arc eighty-Eight at the start of the semester.”
“What does that game have to do with anything?” Sara’s face scrunched in confusion.
“Because it made me think about time and priorities.”
“Time and priorities? Does that mean you’ll have less time for things…” Cameron gestured around the Bubble and Fizz. “Things like this?”
“No,” Raine said firmly. ‘That’s one of the big reasons I want to stop Student Council. I’m not willing to give up my time with you guys.”
The shifter leaned back. His smile returned and his tension retreated. “Whatever you want to do, I’ll back you up.”
Sara sighed and looked disappointed. “And I looked forward to being able to yell at Kerry. Maybe I still will.”
They all laughed.
“Don’t bother,” Raine said with a smile, glad that her friends supported her. “She graduates this year anyway, and no one will have to worry about her.”
“Good point.”
Some fairies returned with the trays containing their orders.
The chatter afterward remained sparse until everyone had a few minutes with their smorgasbord of Doritos, Twinkies, and the all-but-required Hershey Experience.
Cameron swallowed some fiery jalapeno Doritos and took a sip of soda. “I still can’t get over that match, Adrien. I hate to admit it, but with Matt in a pit and Cody and Daniel going the wrong way, I thought you guys were done for, even after I saw the Ouroboros guy go into the pit.”
Adrien took a sip of his drink, a root beer float. “If Etienne hadn’t realized that he’d stepped on a trap, we would have joined Matt in the pit. So really, my brother was the key to the match.”
“Will you miss him when he graduates?”
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