#and Calix woke up and they were like ‘just leave and we won’t kill you.’ and Francis attacked again so they downed him but they just left

[ziracona]

My d&d dad run away … I didn’t get a chance to use my plan…

He ignored my sending

[idornaseminary]

Chapter Ninety-One: Beatrice, Calix, Mel, and Natasha

Midnight.

The watch on Calix’s wrist pulsed as the ticking hands met, pale light creeping through the stained-glass windows of the Den to illuminate the clock-face, heightened by the ruby roar of the immortalised fire in the corner.

Midnight. They should be here soon.

Calix returned his divided attention to the medical notes carefully fanned beside him, his wand gently tapping the paper as he read through the fallen cases, for the hundredth time. He was gently playing with Beatrice’s hair, his fingers roaming through her long curls, as she rested in his lap, waiting for the full arrival of their unlikely company.

Calix and Beatrice had arrived first, after the inmate had been released from Doctor Evans’ incarceration, notably soured, followed shortly by Mel, notable unnerved. They were simply waiting on Natasha and Enzo - if either of them even showed up. Calix was highly sceptical of them both - neither of them were particularly communicative - nevertheless, their absence would certainly be felt. They were a team, whether it pleased any of them or not.

“Any word on Enzo, Mel? I haven’t seen him since yesterday, roaming the halls.”

“Then you have me beat,” said Mel, casting a glance towards the portrait. The last time she had spoken to him was in this very room. He was definitely avoiding her. “Something tells me he won’t show.”

“I mean, he should. I understand why he wouldn’t, though,” Beatrice said with a soft sigh, propping herself up against Calix’s chest, offering Mel a small, hopeful smile. “If he doesn’t perhaps we should make an effort to reach out to him. It was this isolated behavior that led him to being possessed in the first place,” she added with a not so subtle eye roll, perking up as the door of the Den opened, revealing Natasha looking more than a little frazzled.

Natasha looked at the small group gathered in the Den. Calix, Beatrice, and Mel. No sign of Enzo. She hadn’t seen the Aquilen since separating on Halloween night, and she had a feeling they wouldn’t be seeing him now.

She took a few deep breaths to try to calm her nerves, knowing that they were safe inside of this room. No one else knew about it. No one could be watching them.

“Hello,” she said a bit shortly, walking over and taking a seat in one of the chairs.

Calix glanced upwards but distastefully returned to his notes straight away, despite Beatrice’s immediate delight, as the portrait of the dying woman closed behind Natasha. She sounded as curt and as cold as ever, how little things change, cutting to the bone without a second thought, like the sadistic dagger plunged into the painted lady’s breast.

Just one more now.  

“Hey,” Mel greeted with a nod. She glanced around the group, heaving a sigh that was mixed with nervousness and impatience. “It’s past midnight. How much longer are we supposed to wait for him?”

“We should just go on without him,” Bea said, drumming her fingers on her denim overall covered knees. “He knows we were supposed to meet here tonight. If he’s not here, it’s because he doesn’t want to come be a part of this anymore.”

Natasha had planned to say something similar to what Bea did. Enzo was emotionally compromised now; there was little chance he would be willing to show his face in front of them, considering he probably felt some sort of guilt for what he did.

“How are you feeling, Beatrice?” she asked the other girl, surprising even herself. She didn’t expect to care, but she honestly hoped that the Gestona was feeling better.

“I mean my best friend isn’t talking to me and two people tried to kill me last week, and I didn’t get to say goodbye to my dad before he left on Sunday morning. So, yeah, I’d say I’m handling this all pretty well right about now,” she said sarcastically, letting out a sigh afterwards. She rubbed her hands together and frowned looking around the small group. “I’m sorry. Rough day is all. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

Natasha blinked in a bit of surprise at the response she received, but she nodded. “Sorry,” she mumbled, the voice a little shorter and a little more guarded. She didn’t bother to speak again, waiting for someone else to.

Wrapping a protective and reassuring arm around his girlfriend’s midriff, Calix felt the dark tension, blooming since Beatrice’s release from the infirmary, take deeper root. He kissed the top of her head, attempting to take her mind off the hurt, and couldn’t hide his pleasant surprise at the German witch’s almost kind inquisition. He wouldn’t have thought Natasha had compassion for others, not much anyway.

But, they had business to attend to. Secret meetings at midnight were meant for importance.

“So,” Calix sighed, the weight of the last few evenings palpable in the Den, “Enough about Enzo, who isn’t coming, and bad days. The real hippogriff in the room is what we’re going to do next - all of us.”

Mel allowed Calix’s words to sink in, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“What can we do?” she asked, feeling that same sense of frustration that had been lingering in her gut the last few days surge to the surface. “All I can think is that we’ve got to tell someone, but who do we tell? Liara?” She shook her head. The conversation felt like it was headed towards a dead end and it had barely started. “What are they going to do about it besides drag Enzo away for questioning?”

Beatrice huffed and pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache beginning to build. “The fact is we don’t know enough to really come up with any sort of plan. What does Mount Helviti have to do with this? Who were the other hooded figures? Why did Chantal kidnap me and possess Enzo? What were they saying? How long has this been going on? There are too many questions and so few ways to find answers. It might just be best for the time being to keep a low profile. The survivors just woke up and Chantal seems to have disappeared into thin air. There’s no threat, and we should start to move on,” she said, not realizing she was babbling on and on.

Natasha shot a look at Beatrice when the girl said there was no threat and they should move on. “Someone made them jump. Whoever it was is still out there, and I highly doubt it was Chantal. She was on the pitch, someone would have noticed. That means that she’s some sort of lackey, and we have to find the real person behind this and put it all to rest.” She was angry, and she felt rightfully so. It was easy for Beatrice to say they should just move on -- she still had her friend alive, still had a chance at getting her back. She didn’t care what else happened after that. Natasha didn’t have that luxury.

“We can’t tell anyone,” Calix said sternly, his steeled voice serrated but calming. As he spoke, he gave Beatrice’s waist a cautionary warning-squeeze as her babbling affected the company, particularly Natasha. He didn’t care much for her, but he could feel the change in the air. They needed to work together - there was no other way.

“Mel, I’m sorry, but we can’t tell a soul. Beatrice is right, we don’t know enough. We don’t know who’s in league with Chantal or any of them. We don’t know if the possession is temporary, you just knock off the necklace and that’s that, or whether someone could just flick a switch at any moment. And, when it comes to Enzo, he cast the killing spell - there’s a jury waiting for him if that gets out.

“And, Natasha is right too, Bea. Chantal - though an important lackey - is not pulling the strings, she’s a puppet with a little power. The real threat, the threat which is very much at large, is whoever or whatever possessed the fallen, a threat powerful enough to stop time and space. We don’t know enough, but we need to act. We. Us. Just us. Together.”

Mel nodded, feeling resigned. “Shit. Well, Cal, there’s no arguing with that earnest fire of yours. I guess I’m in.”

Beatrice let out a little chuckle, a genuine smile playing on her lips as she looked up at Calix, a bit of her aggression dissipating. “You’re right, honey,” she admitted, squeezing his hand tenderly. “But we do need a game plan moving forward. What’re we going to do when we leave here and when’re we going to meet up again?” she asked, her question reverberating around the room, sitting heavily on the minds of all those present.

“First thing is keeping an eye out for Chantal. If anyone sees her, at all, we cannot let her get away again,” Natasha said, having half a mind to go hunting for the blonde.

“That bitch is priority number one,” Calix spat, his breath hitching painfully in his throat, “But, no one tackles her alone, unless there’s no alternative. She’s dangerous. Very dangerous.”

“I never would have pegged her for a villainess,” said Mel, breathing a sigh. She remembered seeing Chantal in the halls around Ilvermony, and she seemed like the perfect all-American girl. What had gone so wrong? “Regardless, we also need to figure out who she’s working with. It’s gotta be someone in the school.”

“Well, the easiest way to spot somebody would be if they had one of those pendants that Enzo was wearing,” Beatrice said, wriggling her nose side to side in thought. “But I doubt that they’re still in use since we brought him back. So then my next question is, who do we look for? They’re probably pretty powerful, but that’s about all I could think of.”

Natasha sat back a bit in her seat, fingers tapping a bit on her knee as she thought. “No student would have been able to pull something off like that alone,” she said finally. “Even the seventh years. They haven’t developed their magic enough.”

‘I would never have pegged her for a villainess.’

There was something about that simple phrase that caught Calix’s attention, paranoia lingering longer than it should like a barbed thorn beneath the skin. Someone should’ve realised. Someone should’ve coped. Someone should’ve evaluated her.

Calix could not remember whether he had or not.

That was worrying.

“Alone? Not in a million years, there’s old magic at work here,” he said, tightening his vice-grip around Beatrice as his thoughts bolted, “She’s definitely not working alone. We just have no idea who to trust, no idea who’s on our side. Or worse, who’s on theirs.”

A dangerous thought wriggled its way to the forefront of Mel’s mind, leaving a trail of toxic fear in its wake. She swallowed hard, eyes flitting from face to face.

“Is there a possibility it could be a professor?” she asked quietly.

Beatrice winced slightly as Calix’s grip on her became more aggressive than protective and gently took his hand in hers, releasing his arm from where it was coiled around her waist like a cobra. “Well, it does make sense. They’re highly skilled, arguably the most talented witches and wizards in the world. But which professor or professors? There could be more than one of them,” she said, paling at the thought of her teachers ordering a hit out on her, making her question being released from her boyfriend’s death grip on her.

Natasha had thought the same thing, that it was a good chance a professor, or possibly more than one, was behind this, but who would be capable of such a thing? Who would even want it? She hated not having answers, and this wasn’t getting any clearer. “If we don’t know who it is, we need to keep an eye on all of them, figure out who is acting suspiciously and keep track of what they’re doing.”

“Sorry,” Calix puffed softly, pecking the back of Beatrice’s neck as he loosened his locked muscles. These were dangerous thoughts to think and to share, thoughts that if acted upon too soon could land them all in very hot water - ignoring the boiling mire they were already perched precariously above. Calix sickeningly understood how far they had fallen, without any safety net or light to see by.

“So, we keep our eyes peeled,” he said, without acknowledging the little knot forming in his stomach, staring straight over his girlfriend’s shoulder at the lustrous fire, “We can’t really do much else until we sort Enzo, find Chantal or figure out who is involved.”

Enzo…

Mel nodded resolutely, standing from where she’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor. “It’s a good thing our majors are all pretty different. We can cover more ground with the professors that way. Let’s take note of anything suspicious and meet back here in a week at the same time.”