Reaching Venus

Lock Down

Venus

After leaving Ian's house I immediately went back to the school to see if anyone needed to go to a calling. It was the only way I knew of to keep my mind off the weird feeling that was eating away at me. There were significantly less people than there had been the past couple weeks and they were all huddled together.

I jogged over and peered over someone's shoulder. Sitting on the table were two girls. One was leaning against the other, her eyes closed, and her skin pale. I recognized her from my fire classes.

I tugged gently on the person in front of me and whispered, "What's going on?"

"Pheonix was helping with a calling...they ran into the thing killing faeries. The faery disappeared and it went after her instead."

I shoved my way to the front of the crowd. Phoenix glanced up at me. It was clear the only thing keeping her upright was her friend sitting next to her.

"Hey Phoenix. Let's get you back to your dorm." I said

Phoenix shook her head, " I'm supposed to wait for the headmaster. He wants to know what happened exactly."

"You can tell me. I will handle all of this. But right now you need to rest." I offered her my arm for support as she slid off the table.

Her friend took one arm and I took the other. We helped her hobble out of the auditorium. Thankfully her dorm was one of the closer ones. I also used some air magic to make her lighter on her feet.

I waited in the doorway while Phoenix's friend helped her settle in her bed. Then she went and adjusted the curtains so sunlight streamed into the room. The dorms fire elementals stayed in had floor to ceiling windows on all four walls so not matter what the sunlight could stream in. Phoenix also requested I light a few of the candles around the room. There were at least twenty perched on the various surfaces. I closed my eyes and focused on warmth and love and compassion. Then I opened my eyes and narrowed them as I gazed at each candle and they wick burst into flame.

When I lite the candle closest to Phoenix it was clear the exposed to her element was helping. The dark circles under her eyes were less pronounced and she wasn't sinking into her pillows but was sitting up on her own.

Cautiously I took a seat on the corner of her bed and asked, "What was it that you guys saw?"

Phoenix and her friend shared a look then she spoke softly, " Well the thing was...it was just a girl. Honestly she looked kinda like me. Maybe a few years older. I thought she was a fire elemental. "

"So what did she do? How did the faery know to get away?"

"The girl, she started walking toward us. She was saying she needed our help. She was staring directly at the faery, Lizzy. It was like I didn't exist. She said she was looking for faeries and that they had been increasingly difficult to find lately. She acted like she was just annoyed but I could tell she was pissed." Phoenix shuddered as she recounted her experience.

"So then Lizzy disappeared...why did she go after you?" I wondered out loud.

Pheonix rubbed her eyes as she said," I really don't know. She just lunged forward and grabbed d my wrist as I turned to run. Venus it felt like my magic was pulling like a rubber band. Like if she pulled hard enough it would come out of me. But when I got out of her grip the rubber band snapped. Now it feels weak. Barely there. Like the last embers of a fire. I can feel it building back up but if Kate hadn't been nearby I don't know of I would've made it back to the ring."

I'll take care of this. You just rest OK? " With that I left the room.

If this girl was affecting elementals like this it wasn't safe or fair to ask them to keep going out. My next step was to have Mary call an emergency council meeting. They agreed that until we knew more the entire ring would be on lock down. Next I went to the library. Lark and I got to work searching for any evidence of something like this happening.

We had been combing through books for 3 hours when i found a passage that might have meant something. I pull the book over to Lark and pointed to the passage.

"It says here there is a faction of faeries looking to break their magical connection to the earth. Maybe that's what this is, someone who broke their connection. " I voices my theory.

Lark shook his head, " The children of Ether wish to free faeries from their servitude to Gaia. If one had succeeded in breaking the bond that necessitates callings they wouldn't be going around killing faeries."

"OK so how do you explain her ability to drain magic?" I asked

"That is not the important question. What we must know is what her goal is. She claims she needs help, but with what?" Lark mused.

I nodded and looked back to my book. I knew I had lost Lark and he wasn't so much talking to me as he was thinking out loud. He used to do that a lot when I was a kid and would get stuck in the library during the day. I liked to think of Lark as my first friend. No matter how much he said I annoyed him he never once turned me away. But he was not into small talk and he didn't like to explain things I had a hard time understanding. As a kid that's a lot of things. I remember bringing him books and asking him questions. He usually took the book from me and handed me a simpler one on the same subject.

As I continued to skim the book I heard Lark mumble, " If it wouldn't kill me I'd go ask that little twerp myself "

I cracked a smile at how Lark had started calling the thing that had us all cowering in the faery ring a twerp since the second he found out she looked like a teenage girl. But what he said did make me think. It wouldn't kill me if she touched me. And I had a lot more magic than Pheonix so it would probably take longer to drain my energy and make me weak. If I could find her I could ask her what she wanted. I just needed to find a faery who was willing to be bait.