“Why?” She looked surprised.
“It was far from home. While it had a good reputation, I thought a school closer to home would have been a better idea.” Adrien folded his arms and a thoughtful expression settled over his face. “I thought Etienne had forgotten himself, let himself get too interested in playing games and not training as a Guardian. But I was wrong. Back home, my training gave me the basis for what I need, but my time here has made me realize what it really means to be a Guardian. I don’t only understand why I need to protect people. I feel it now in a way I didn’t before. Sending me here is the best thing my parents ever did.”
“That’s so sweet of you to say.” Christie smiled warmly and extended a hand. “How about you join me for one dance? My date won’t mind.” She nodded to a junior boy who chatted with several of his friends near one of the food tables. “Once you get him going, it takes him a good fifteen minutes to stop talking, and you should at least dance once at the Spring Formal.”
Adrien looked as uncomfortable as he suddenly felt. “This isn’t some romantic gesture, is it?”
She winked. “No, my date will be back. But I think everybody should get in at least one dance.”
“Fine. Let’s dance.”
He joined her on the floor and quickly surprised the girl with his grace. Of course, he’d trained his entire life to control his body. Battle had a quickly changing rhythm. In comparison, adapting to music was trivial, even if he didn’t always show the skill off.
Christie understood what Adrien had said, but part of her wondered if he wouldn’t be happier with someone. For now, he said he didn’t care, but she vowed to herself that if she was still at school when he changed his mind, she’d find him someone.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sara made her way up the grand staircase and smiled. She’d had a great time with Philip at the Spring Formal, and they’d spent a lot more time together in the few days since the dance. It was funny to her how even though she’d known him for a year and a half, she learned so much more about him now that they were dating.
She was about to turn toward the girl’s dorm when a tall, dark-haired wizard stepped in front of her.
“I need to talk to you.” Kenneth, a junior, narrowed his eyes and looked back and forth down the hallway.
Sara had barely talked to him the entire time she’d attended the school. Much like her, he had a tight-knit group of friends from his own class he hung out with.
“About?”
“We can’t talk here.” He pointed down the stairs. “Follow me, please.”
“What about the common room?”
“Too many people. Too many ears.” Kenneth headed downstairs without further delay.
She considered whether she should follow the mysterious junior. He passed other students and his eyes still darted back and forth. He couldn’t have looked more suspicious unless he had a floating magical sign above him saying, SUSPICIOUS.
After a few seconds’ hesitation, she bounded after him. She doubted that he’d be so obvious if he had some sort of evil scheme.
Kenneth led her outside and along the side of the building but didn’t move around the corner. Numerous students still stood in and around the circular drive, which left them far from isolated. Whatever this was, it wasn’t about getting her alone.
“The best place to hide is apparently in plain sight,” he said and eyed an elf girl about twenty yards away. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It’s my greatest honor to inform you, Sara, that you’ve been selected.”
“Selected?” She blinked. “Selected for what?”
“The Live Unnecessary Tricksters.” He nodded solemnly.
“The who?”
Kenneth’s mouth twitched. “The Live Unnecessary Tricksters. We’ve decided to take on the legacy of April Fool’s Day at this school. We’ve gathered only those most dedicated to practical jokes, and our day of glory will come soon.”
Sara stared at him. “I’ve literally never heard of your group before.”
“Oh. Sure, yes. Of course you haven’t.” He nodded quickly. “That makes sense. We’re a secret society. Um, semi-secret society.”
“Okay, so what does this have to do with me?”
He stared at like she’d said the sun was cold. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. I’ve never even heard of you, so why would you try to make me join?”
“Because you’re a kitsune.” Kenneth blinked and clearly didn’t understand her confusion. “What’s more trickster than a kitsune? Your magic is even trickster-based.”
Sara sighed. “Look, I’m flattered, but I’m not really into practical jokes, even if I am a kitsune.” She half-wondered if that was part of her problem with her magic. Maybe she didn’t have enough of a trickster heart. “So I’ll have to turn you down.”
He stepped back, a huge grin on his face. “Oh, I see. You’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” Sara snapped. “I’m merely not into practical jokes.”
The wizard pointed at her. “You can’t escape the prank war by running away. If you choose to flee and deny what you are, then you’ll force the Tricksters to force you to join the war by any means necessary.”
“Are you serious now?” She narrowed her eyes and squared her shoulders. “Are you threatening me?”
“On behalf of our grand alliance of Tricksters, I’m issuing a challenge. Unless you think you’re too feeble to face us.”
Sara rolled her eyes. Kenneth was so theatrical he should be in drama, not playing practical jokes.
“Fine. I won’t let you jerks push me around.” She poked him in the chest. “I don’t need trickster magic to take you on. I accept your challenge.”
An hour later, as Sara and her friends prepared for that night’s treat, the action archaeology adventure of the first Ancestor’s Quest movie, she explained the challenge.
Philip groaned as he hauled the last snacks out of a plastic bag. “I’ve heard of these guys. I thought it was only a rumor, though.”
“If they’re going to war against you, then we have to help,” Raine insisted.
Cameron and William nodded their agreement.
“I’ve thought about it since Kenneth challenged me, and I’ve decided that I don’t think I want you guys to help.”
Adrien seemed unsurprised, but the others all looked shocked.
“Why not?” Raine blinked a few times. “The way you explained it, He has friends. Why not involve your friends?”
“I’m not taking them on in a Louper match.” Sara wrinkled her nose. “I’m only having a prank war with them. Look, I’m not a huge fan of pranks, but I’ve known more than a few people who are, and I have good instincts. I’ve merely kept them under wraps. If you guys all get involved, this will only get bigger and more annoying. I want to beat these guys at their stupid war and make them back off.”
“Are you sure?” Philip moved away from the snacks on the coffee table toward her. “We all have your back, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, I do, but don’t worry.” She grinned. “These guys won’t know what hit them.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sara clucked her tongue as she stepped over the nearly invisible tripwire that stretched across the hallway. Even if her magic hadn’t fully come in, that didn’t mean she couldn’t sense magic. Besides, strange and out of place spells were something she would notice given that it was April Fool’s Day.
Someone grumbled in the distance from around a corner. That made sense. The Tricksters would have to be careful and keep an eye on her.
Their prank war was directed at Sara. If innocent civilians became casualties, the professors might intervene. The only problem was that so far, she had managed to avoid every single attempt. They were either too magical for her to not notice or too clunky and obviously non-magical. She’d already avoided three different buckets alone.
For a secret society dedicated to pranks, they honestly weren’t that
good. That might explain why they were so desperate for her to join them. She was a little disappointed. An easy victory felt hollow.
Sara continued down the hallway to potions class. She’d walked to her classes away from anyone else, especially her friends, in case the Tricksters managed to actually pull something off, but now, she began to think she could be surrounded by a hundred people, and no one would so much as get an extra drop of water on them.
She pushed into her potions class and took a seat in the back corner. After withdrawing her notebook, book, and pencil out of her bag, she scanned the class for anyone acting suspiciously. Satisfied that no one would jump her in some bizarre trick, she retrieved her homework, a weak healing potion for plants.
The Tricksters hadn’t gone after her in class yet, but they had to have someone in her grade. Otherwise, they’d miss half the day’s opportunities.
A gray-haired girl with pointed ears, Jillian, sidled up to Sara’s table. They’d talked on and off in the common room and in classes a few times, but the Gray Elf girl was aloof and tended to keep to herself. Or so Sara thought. Her sudden interest seemed far too coincidental.
The kitsune kept a smile on her face even as she waited for a trick. She was slightly surprised a Gray Elf would be involved in practical jokes, but maybe Jillian didn’t consider jokes a violation of justice.
The girl held her potion in her slender fingers. “That was a hard assignment, right? I was worried I would run out of ingredients. I kept messing it up.”
“It’s not as bad as preparing a repair potion, but yeah, I can see why there aren’t tons of high-powered healing potions lying around.”
“Do you want to be my partner for testing later?”
“Sure,” Sara said evenly. “Why not?”
“Then let me go get my stuff.” The Gray Elf girl headed toward another table.
Professor Fowler cleared her throat at the front of the room. “I trust, class, that everyone has brought their homework. Before we test them, I want to spend some time exploring the differences between some of the relevant herbs on Oriceran and Earth and how they would affect preparations of this particular potion.”
The kitsune offered Jillian a polite smile, ready for a major battle in the war.
Once Professor Fowler had finished her lecture, it was time for the students to test their potions. Pairs traveled to the front table one by one to grab a small shrub with several broken branches.
“Hey, I have to finish writing some notes,” Jillian said with a smile. “Do you mind getting our plants?”
“Sure.” Sara gave her a thin smile in response and stood. She didn’t even bother to try to look back.
The elf had fidgeted and glanced continually at Sara’s potion during the entire lecture. At this point, the kitsune felt sorry for the Tricksters. They obviously needed some higher-quality training in the fine art of pranks.
She was glad she hadn’t involved her friends. The war would have been so one-sided as to end up a massacre. She could only imagine the kind of nefarious tricks Philip could come up with, and if Adrien or Cameron were involved, they’d probably do something so over the top that it might scar the poor Tricksters for life.
Sara grabbed two of the potted plants and turned to head back to her desk. Jillian sat there, her hands folded in front of her in a perfect picture of obviously feigned innocence.
Without a word, she set a plant in front of the elf and the other in front of her own chair. She sat and purposefully fell forward to knock the plant off the table in the process.
Jillian spun and snatched the pot out of the air, demonstrating the preternatural reflexes Gray Elves were known for. The kitsune didn’t hesitate and took that moment swap the potion in front of her with the one in front of her partner.
“Sorry!” Sara said and feigned a wince. “That was really clumsy of me.”
The girl smiled and held her pot up. “It’s okay. I caught it.” She placed it on the table.
Butterflies invaded her stomach. She’d assumed Jillian had swapped their potions earlier, if only because of the girl’s out-of-character behavior, but the possibility that the elf would assume Sara would detect the trick was there as well. In that scenario, the prankster would purposefully not swap the potions and depend on her paranoia to get her to deliver the troublesome potion to herself.
Then again, it might simply be that she wanted a partner and came to a friendly face.
Sara almost groaned. She began to see why prank wars could be dangerous. Once the paranoia started, it was hard to rein it in, but she couldn’t deny that a part of her found the whole thing exciting—a challenge that wouldn’t end with anything but a little embarrassment. She didn’t know if this was new or if it was simply part of her kitsune nature that she’d buried.
A prank could be a work of performance art if properly performed, but unfortunately, so far, her opponents had delivered sad and not very artistic efforts.
“I have a great idea.” She picked up the potion in front of her. “Why don’t we pour at the same time? See whose works fastest? A little competition.”
Jillian’s breath caught. “I like competitions. I just…never mind. Let’s do it.” She pulled the stopper from her potion and held it upright over the damaged shrub.
Sara winked. “May the best trickster win.”
The other girl yelped and dropped hers. It fell into the pot on its side and the contents leaked out. The soil sizzled.
The elf pushed back and turned with lightning speed. A loud pop sounded, and a lavender cloud puffed into the air toward her. The cloud’s edge touched the Gray Elf’s hair before she made it out of her seat.
Sara scrambled out of her chair and backed up, but the directional cloud dissipated in a few seconds and left only a faint scent of lilac in the air.
Professor Fowler rushed toward the back. “What’s going on?”
“A little accident.” Sara tried not to laugh.
The back of Lilian’s hair was now streaked with a rainbow of colors, but the front remained gray.
The professor stopped and peered at the pot. The shrub was also coated in rainbow colors.
“Jillian,” the professor said and raised an eyebrow. “It’s very clear to me that, among other things, you didn’t follow the recipe. To make up for this assignment, I’ll give you a recipe for a very effective hair dye potion.”
The class laughed, and the elf sighed.
Sara sighed also, but hers was one of relief. She’d almost convinced herself that Jillian hadn’t swapped the potion to begin with. This war needed to end before she descended into a pool of paranoia she couldn’t escape. It was up to her to deliver a knock-out blow.
She considered how the Tricksters might react and rubbed her chin. While she had a plan, it would require back up. It was time to call in reinforcements.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The sun dipped low in the sky and highlighted the soaring Dorvu overhead as Sara wandered near the edge of the forest. She’d made a point to ensure that at least one of the people she believed was associated with the Tricksters had her in sight at all times. By the day’s end, she’d identified six likely suspects, including Kenneth and Jillian.
To her chagrin, Sara had to admit to herself that despite all the paranoia, she’d enjoyed herself far more than she ever would have guessed. She could add avoiding and detecting pranks to her lists of talents and depending on how the rest of the day went, pulling pranks off as well.
The kitsune turned back toward the school, unsurprised a few minutes later when the six students she’d suspected of being Tricksters marched toward her in a line led by Kenneth. She stopped, folded her hands behind her back, and put the sweetest possible smile on her face.
The group stopped a few yards away.
Kenneth scowled at Sara. “You’re dishonoring the prank war.”
She tried not to laugh at Jillian’s still discolored hair and mostly succeeded. “How am I doing that? There’s nothing tha
t says that during a prank war, I have to sit there and take your tricks. It’s not my fault I’m really good at avoiding them.”
“Harrumph. We Tricksters acknowledge your skill. We suspected a kitsune would be a worthy member, let alone a worthy foe.” He pointed at her. “But you don’t win a war only by defense. You have to go on the offensive. This doesn’t end today simply because you avoided our pranks. We’ll keep going continually until we succeed. We’ll make you acknowledge the power of the Live Unnecessary Tricksters.”
Sara looked at each one of them in turn. From their freshman to Kenneth, they all looked so deadly serious. That was a shame.
“You do get that these are supposed to be fun, right?” She shrugged. “This is a war, but it’s supposed to be a war of fun.”
“That doesn’t matter.” Kenneth gestured toward Jillian’s hair. “We’ve taken casualties, and honor demands that we reply in kind.”
“I think not,” a crisp voice called from the woods.
They all turned, and Headmistress Berens wandered out of the woods and frowned. “Professor Fowler informed me of the incident in her class today. I’m willing to overlook a lot, but not when they interfere with your education. And what you did to that bathroom was completely over the line.”
Kenneth’s eyes widened and he put his hands up. “Headmistress Berens, we can explain. And, uh…bathroom…we didn’t…what are you talking about?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time to explain to me over the next few weeks. I think Horace can use a lot of help. If you have all this energy and time to pull pranks off, you’ll have more than enough to help him out. I think he planned a spring-cleaning for the stables.”
The Tricksters all groaned with panic on their faces.
“Wait,” Kenneth said and waved his arms. “We didn’t even…I mean, sure, the class, but we didn’t involve anyone who didn’t…” He sighed and his head slumped forward.
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