Soul Fire

7.3

The five faeries stepped into the dark hallway. Floating candles lit the corridors, creating plenty of shadows for the girls to hide out in as they got their bearings.

Blooms eyes lingered on the soft flames lighting the hallway. It was as if she felt their presence. Calling her, whispering to her, making her magic itch.

"I already have the schematics of the school." Xenia said softly as the girls gathered against the wall.

"There's no use with schematics." Stella bit back. "and you know it."

Bloom looked between the two faeries and furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"

Xenia sighed and broke eye contact with Stella to glance at Bloom. She knew Stella was right, but couldn't help herself from wanting to use her software anyways. "Cloud tower.... it's not like other buildings. It's..."

"It changes. Constantly." Musa finished for her. She tucked a piece of black hair behind her ear. "Corridors will shift, walls will appear and disappear, doors will lead to different rooms."

Bloom looked utterly horrified. "But... How do people navigate it?"

Musa shrugged. "It's a witch thing. They know how. I think it responds to their magic, and acts as a defense mechanism against intruders."

Bloom took a step back and looked all around her. The arched stone ceiling, the velvet purple runners on the stone floor, the giant windows at the end of the hallway. Something about this place made Bloom uneasy.

"Witches are fucking creepy." Stella grimaced and crossed her arms over her chest. "God, I hate this place. We need to find my ring." She nudged Flora, who sighed.

"I'm trying." She said. Stella had asked Flora to search for it, as she was particularly skilled at locating and identifying types of magic. Her ability to connect with the life force of plants gave her many vessels to dart her magic through and span a large area at once.

She identified the herbarium of the school almost immediately. It was one of the top towers, with green glass ceiling to mimic a greenhouse. Flora found the potions lab next, a room that happened to be near the corridor the girls stood in, because of the plants they kept on hand for spells. Flora sent out her magic to find the residential wing, looking for smaller clusters of plants. Flora followed her magic, the girls wordlessly trailing behind her. She walked the girls up a set of narrow twisting staircases up to one of the towers in the strange school. As they went up the stairs, a group of girls walked down, chatting loudly. They didn't even pay the faeries a second glance.

Bloom was certain they wouldn't be too happy to learn that five faeries had snuck into their creepy school.

The girls hesitated outside the hallway that led to the rooms. Flora clenched her eyes shut, trying to locate that thread of sunlight in the school. Stella's magic interfered with her searching a bit, but Flora tried to block it out and looked for something that resembled the blonde faerie. She felt something, a tiny whisper at the end of the hallway. Flora darted her eyes open and made eye contact with Stella.

"I think I found it."

"I think I did, too." Stella whispered, feeling what she could only describe as a wisp of sunlight in the corridor near her.

The girls slipped through the empty corridor. Stella put a glamour over them, hiding them from sight. She stepped in front of them and motioned them to huddle together and took a deep breath. On her exhale, she transported the faeries towards that shimmering thread.

To their surprise, the room was empty.

Bloom took in the room, her eyes following all of the burning candles that littered the tables and floated in the air. The room looked so... normal. Not nearly what she had expected to belong to evil witches. A rug warmed up the space, and two purple velvet couches sat in the middle. There was a large window over a worn dresser on one side, and a wardrobe on the other. A vines plant grew up the stone wall and up the side of the black iron window. Bloom's eyes trailed along the space, at the eclectic furniture and vintage books they'd collected.

Even stranger was the fact that there was art. Everywhere.

Dark paintings and sketches of eyes and hands, leaves, even flowers littered the space and were carefully pinned to the wall, along with other prints that looked both old and new. They were a beautiful collection, all tied together seamlessly in their color and style.

Bloom decided that she loved this room.

But she still hated the witches.

She spotted some broken ceramic on the floor by the far wall, and her eyes trailed over to a small staircase leading out of the room, presumably to the bedrooms. It almost felt... homey. Not at all the cauldrons and voodoo toys Bloom had expected.

Stella leaned in and said, "We need to look around for the ring, and if we don't find it, we wait here to ambush them." She straightened and said softly, "I need to conserve magic, so I can't keep us glamoured for long."

Bloom nodded and got to work, starting at one side of the room. She opened the lids of boxes and peered inside, finding strange smelling herbs and paused at a box that contained something that slightly resembled marijuana.

"Guys, over here." Xenia said, pausing in the middle of the stone floor. She pointed at a strange mark that was drawn with a coarse white powder.

"What is it?" Flora said, peering over.

"Wicca symbols. Witch writing. And it's fresh." She explained. Her rose-pink hair hung over her face softly as she leaned down.

Stella glared at the symbols. "I bet we know what they were using their magic on. God, I'll kill them."

"We'll find it." Flora comforted, putting a hand on Stella's shoulder.

Bloom bit her lip and tucked a piece of wine red hair behind her ear. "Well, we already know it's in this room, right?" She reasoned. "It has to be here."

Stella allowed her eyes to trail over the room. Sun-Weaver was part of her. She felt its presence. Her eyes drifted past a piece of broken ceramic and up towards the stairway.

She furrowed her brows, and darted her eyes back to the piece of broken ceramic, feeling that connection. Sun-Weaver.

Stella walked over to the wall and kneeled down before the mess. She used her fingers to brush away the broken object, and gleaming in the low light was her ring. Sun-Weaver.

Stella grabbed it with her bruised hand, sliding it onto her finger.

Every time Stella slipped sun-weaver onto her finger, it felt like two ends of a circle joining together. That was the only way she could explain it. Like her magic was connected to itself, a circuit that was self contained and entirely Stella.

Stella clenched her fingers together, marveling at the feeling of Sunweaver on her finger. She stood, and looked at the girls. "Holy shit, we actually pulled this off."

"Don't get too excited, we haven't technically pulled it off yet." Musa raised an eyebrow.

Stella waved her hand through the air. "Technicalities."

The Supreme Witch stood before the ancient Wicca texts, her piercing eyes skimming the near forgotten spells and incantations. Her pure black velvet cloak hung off her shoulders and fell to the ground gracefully, her deep purple hair pulled up into a French twist. In half a thought, Griffin lit all of the candles in the room and motioned with her hands to move the candles closer to the page.

Something wasn't right with this book.

She had felt its off-energy, and had finally decided to inspect it. As she turned the page, Griffin noticed it. She paused, her eyes skimming over the slight slip of paper in the binding. The only proof of the missing page in her oldest spell-book.

Someone had stolen a sacred text. Griffin flung out her magic to the school, which changed and breathed like a living being, trying to find the missing page, reading the energy of the witches in her school.

She felt them long before her magic reached them, the five glimmering wisps of light magic.

Five faeries were in her school.