Knight of the Black Rose (27 page)

"Who?" Will asked confused now.

"Domnus and Validus?" Lucy said as though this was obvious.

"Yeah, but they said that they didn't see you," Will told her.

"Good," Lucy said. "I didn't want them to,"

"Do you know how stupid that sounds?" Alex asked kind of amused and confused at the same time by her statement.

"It was actually what they were talking about," Lucy told them. "It was kind of weird to be honest. They were looking for someone, someone that should have started this year, a girl. But they couldn't find her. They think that she's either going by another name, or that she might have changed her form,"

"Change her form how?" Troy asked confused.

Lucy shook her head. "It means, that whoever they're looking for, isn't human,"

They all looked at her, as if wondering if she was winding them up, but she looked deadly serious.

"How human could she look?" Alex said dismissively.

"How human do I look?" Lucy asked before she could stop herself, making them all look at her. "She'll look as human as a human,"

"You're not human?" Troy asked uncertainly.

"Of course she is," Alex said dismissively, as they would so know if she wasn’t human, and was sure that if she wasn’t then she would have told them because she knew that she could trust them all.

"It's possible," Will said smirking. "Fine. Anyway, what else did they say?"

"Mainly that," Lucy told him. "They're going to double check all the files, probably to check against the none humans. But...I know they're teachers and everything, but things like that, are normally sealed. Mine would be,"

Alex and Troy both stared at her, as though they didn't know her; she really had lied to them all these years and she was still holding out on them now that it had come up.

"Get over it, already," Lucy said annoyed with them. "It's just one of those things. And, just so we're clear, I'm not going to show you what I really look like,"

"That isn't fair," Troy complained.

Alex was still staring at her. "Err...well...do you...do you look anything like that?"

Lucy looked at him and smiled. "Yes, but different... Sorry, but..."

"It's fine, really; we get it," Will told her, he understood that she trusted them, but things like that had been drummed into her since before she had even known them.

"Thank you," Lucy said.

"So, the real question is, how are we supposed to find out what they're up to?" Will asked them all.

"I'm not sure," Lucy said; the lift opened and Lucy stepped out first, with them closely behind her. "These are the free rooms,"

Alex stepped around her to check out the rooms, he bent slightly to have a look at the name plate of the first room, then slowly stood up and turned around to face her. "This is your room,"

"What?" Lucy said confused as she went over, and sure enough, he was right; her name was on the plate. "Oh...maybe that happened when I went inside,"

"You've already had a look around?" Troy asked kind of annoyed that she hadn’t waited for them.

"What? No," Lucy answered.

"Did you hide in there?" Will teased.

The three of them looked at her, as her face blushed a deep shade of red before them, which told them everything.

"At least we know that's all you have to do to claim a room," Will said as Alex opened the door and went inside, the lights coming on as they all went in to have a look around.

It was a little smaller than their classrooms, but it was still quite big. There were six desks and chairs on the right hand side of the room, with empty bookcases behind them along with shelving. On the other side of the room, up near the door, was a kind of lounge area, with sofa's and comfy chairs. Then in the back corner, nothing; probably left free so that they could do with it as they pleased; well there wasn't really nothing, in fact there were two doors.

"Don't you think this is a lot of room?" Lucy asked behind Will.

Will shrugged. "Well, not really if there's a few of you in here working on different projects,"

"Where do you think the doors lead too?" Alex asked as he walked over.

"Could be next door," Troy suggested. "That'll be handy,"

"The other one could lead to the arena," Lucy suggested.

"That's a point, I mean if we're supposed to share them," Will agreed.

"Yeah, but what are they supposed to look like?" Alex asked. "We haven't even seen them for classes yet,"

"That's probably because we don't know enough about magic yet to use them," Troy told him.

"Speak for yourself," Lucy said smirking.

Alex looked back at her over his shoulder shaking his head, before he turned around and opened the door on the back wall; the others walked over to join him, as they all wanted to know what these arena's were supposedly like. They slowly walked into the dark room, the lights slowly coming on, and a console rising up out of the floor. By the time that it had stopped, the lights were on full showing them a room the size of three classrooms combined together, with benches ringing the outside leaving only gaps to where doors lead to other rooms.

The console screen lit up, and a male voice spoke. "Room settings; please indicate how many rooms the arena will be joint to. It has to be linked to three or more rooms, and this setting can be changed if you wish to add more rooms."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alex asked.

"It just said," Lucy said.

"We get to decide who we can share the room with," Will told him.

"Well, how many?" Troy asked.

They all looked at each other, as if wondering what they should do.

"Err...how about this," Lucy suggested. "My room, for the girls. Next door, for you three. And then the third for what, Eddie and Methos? We need three to start with; I'm sure they won't mind. They'll be plenty of room in these three rooms for everyone,"

"She has got a point," Troy agreed.

"Fine," Will agreed also.

"You can tell them what we've done," Alex told her.

Lucy smiled as she stepped around them. "Fine. So...how'd you set the room?"

"Please enter the amount of rooms you want the arena linking to," the male voice told her.

"Three," Lucy said aloud as she typed it into the console.

The console screen flashed green and then the room began to move making her quickly step back into Troy who grabbed her, as they watched the benches shift, growing longer over the empty spaces that had been left open for the doors. Now there were only three of them left, two behind them, and then one just a little further on, for the last room.

"That was easy," Lucy said.

"We'll have to tell the others," Will said.

"Do you think they'll even be up yet?" Troy asked as he turned Lucy around so that they could go back through to the other room.

"We can at least check," Will told him.

About an hour later, they had managed to get everyone together in their own common room above the dorms; they all seemed quite excited that they had these rooms waiting for them, not minding that much that they had already been claimed.

"So...what are they for?" Libby asked.

"Whatever we want," Lucy told her.

"Do we have to share with them?" Libby asked nodding at the guys.

Lucy smiled slightly. "The only thing that we're sharing with them is the arena, which we have to. A minimum of three rooms have to share each arena; that's what the computer told us,"

"The computer spoke to you?" Libby asked.

"You've never seen an interactive computer?" Jess asked surprised.

"Not really," Libby admitted and wondered if she really had lead a sheltered life.

"And extra room should be alright to practice in." Selena said. "It'll give us more room to do other stuff as well,"

"Right, that's what I said," Lucy said pleased that someone else understood.

"We're looking forward to trying the arena out," Alex told them leaning back on his chair.

"Yeah, but you have to know enough magic, otherwise it's pointless," Eddie pointed out.

"That's what we're learning here," Alex told him.

The lad next to Methos dropped a newspaper down in front of them on the table, making them all stare at him. "Have you seen this?"

"You read the newspaper?" Alex said smirking at him.

"No...not normally," Duncan said puzzled by the question as he pointed to the front page.

The headline read ‘THE TRUTH REVEALED’, then underneath was a picture of one of their magical leaders.

"So..." Alex said dismissively.

"My mum sent it me," Duncan told them, as they all still stared at him wondering what was so important about it. "It's about a magical school, a student telling them basically what's been going on,"

"No one would sell their story to the papers," Selena said quite sure of this.

"You can't, there's supposed to be magical enchantments in place," Lucy told them.

"Well, whoever it is, got around some of them," Duncan told them. "And I think it's someone from our school and our year. Me, I'd never sell this out, even though I come from a non-magical family. But whoever this is, told them about the ship and coming to the island...though it doesn't say that it's on another world,"

"That'll be the enchantment." Lucy explained.

"It says that the students have been told to lie about what's really going on here, and what's real," Duncan told them.

"What does that mean?" Libby asked confused.

"Oh, my goddess!" Lucy said making them all stare at her. "They must have tried to explain that lycanthropes, vampires and other beings are real. But because we don't want them to come out just yet, there's restraining spells, so people can’t admit to them,"

"How do you even know that?" Jasper asked next to Duncan.

"My dads work," Lucy said dismissively. "Does it give anything away to who it might be?"

"Not really," Duncan admitted.

"What do you think they'll do about it?" Troy asked.

"They're putting the whole school in danger...well everyone actually," Methos told them.

"He's right," Eddie agreed. "The bigger picture was kept a secret, so there wouldn't be panic,"

"This is really bad," Jess agreed understanding fully what the real impact by be if this all got out.

Chapter Twelve

As they all sat in the dorm common room, talking about the newspaper article, a low rumbling sounded over head and then the head masters voice came clear through hidden speakers. "Can all first year students please return to their dorm common rooms immediately!"

"Wow...do you think it'll be about this?" Duncan asked holding up the paper.

"Probably," Eddie answered.

"There were these kind of contracts in our letters, we had to agree to sign them saying that we wouldn't give info away that would put others in danger," Jess told them.

"Wait a minute, I thought that you were a magic, because you know all of them?" Jasper asked her.

"I come from a mixed family," Jess told him.

The door opened for the bridge, and the last of the girls joined them, just as Professor Hunter came up the stairs making them all turn around to look at him; it was after all the first time that they had had anything to do with him, because he didn't take them for any lessons.

"I hope that you're all here," Hunter said gravely as he stepped forward so that they could all see him. "I'm just sorry that we had to meet like this. You may not be aware of what's going on in the non-magical world back on Earth..."

Duncan lifted the paper so that he could see it. "You mean this sir?"

Hunter took the paper off him nodding. "Yes, this appears to be the main sources at the moment, but there are other papers. This article might not seem a lot to you, just someone selling their story about coming here, but it is a lot. Especially now, now that we have had to finally come out of hiding. In the past, it has always been so dangerous when they found out about us, with many being killed because they were afraid of us and anything that was different. Some think that won't happen again, that they've grown enough to except us, but in truth, on whole, they're not ready for this.

“There are groups that believe us to be evil unnatural beings. Some, like this newspaper, are praying on others offering them money for their stories. The school is hidden for your protection, as is every school. If something were to happen, these schools are supposed to be protected, but it seems as though someone doesn't understand that. We can't force you to keep quiet, even though those contracts that you had to sign were supposed to restrain you, which from reading this, looks as though its kind of working. Like I said, we can't force you to do anything, but we ask you not to sell your story to the papers, as it's putting everyone else in danger."