The Purge Feast - Fate: The Winx Saga

I have a war to fight

None of the fairies could think of sleep that night. There was too much going on. The adrenaline still fresh in the veins and the fear of what was to come robbed them of the last bit of tiredness that might still be in them. The moon was already high in the sky, illuminating the treetops with a bright bluish light. A few stars twinkled among the dense gray clouds slowly gathering from Eraklyon. Had the Purge Feast not been announced, it would have been a beautiful night. A peaceful one even. But the tense atmosphere alone told the fairies that it was not a quiet night. Not even a peaceful week. Life as a fairy had never been easy in the Differentworld, but the Purge Feast made the already difficult life unbearable.

Bloom could vaguely remember how many fairies fled Solaria to join Eraklyon's crown. Some even made it across the sea to Linphea, where life as a fairy was probably accepted to be shared, as long as one used one's magic for the good of the crown. But Solaria clung to the historic celebrations. Rather, Queen Luna stuck to it, as did the people and the specialists. The three fairy schools were still the only safe place for fairies in all of Solaria. But as soon as you had completed your training and were not taken on as a teacher, you had to leave the school. There was a good reason Farah was so keen on showing every fairy how to control magic to keep it from showing as much as possible. But there were also families in Solaria who didn't think much of fairy tuition. It was foolish, Bloom thought. Like looking death straight in the eye without blinking.

The Crown knew these schools existed. They didn't know how many, but when they discovered School Northarx 5 years ago, they realized that there must be more of these institutions. That day 23 fairies were killed on the spot. Another 74 fairies were kidnapped into the castle and executed two days later. It was a dark day in fairy history. Before this horrible event, one could still speak of four fairy schools.

And every year the specialists were more successful in tracing the tracks back to the schools. Last year they almost discovered Headmistress Tiberius' school, Pretine. Pretine was a rather small school compared to Alfea. The school was hidden in the mountains of Solaria. A small entrance led to a stalactite cave in which an old castle was housed. The cave's stalactites were encased in glowing rocks, lending something magical to the cold stone walls. If you didn't look closely, it looked like a starry sky with thousands and thousands of stars sparkling in a bright purple. That was all Bloom knew. Miss Dowling had once told her about the different schools in the Differentworld when she was younger. It was more a bedtime story than historical classes about the fairy world. But somehow she had liked the magical glowing stone wall and remembered it her whole life. But where exactly the Pretine School was located, Bloom did not know. This knowledge remained solely for the three principals, Rosalind as the head of Solaria's fairies and the students and teachers of this school. Another security measure. And now it was Rosalind herself who had broken that security measure by showing the fairies all over Solaria an approximate location of Alfea.

The fire fairy turned away from the window in Dowling's bedroom and looked at her Headmistress, who still lay motionless in her bed. Farah Dowling would never have allowed her school to be used in a war, Bloom was sure. She cared too much about her students, even if she didn't show it that often. But now you couldn't turn back time and the Winx girls had to act quickly. The first thing to do was to wake Farah Dowling from her unwanted sleep. After Bloom, Stella and Musa found their Headmistress and quickly realized that she was taken out with the somnum potion, the three fairies informed their friends, as well as Ben Harvey. They hadn't learned how to make a counter-potion for the sleeping potion themselves, and they certainly didn't want to try it. After all, they were taught in their first year that each potion had to be made with pinpoint accuracy or there would be uncertain side effects that could even lead to death. While Mr. Harvey wasn't her professor of potions, he ran the infirmary next to the Greenhouse and knew all the stuff as well as Professor Palladium, if not better. And besides, the Winx certainly knew he wasn't on Rosalind's side. And before Bloom knew it, Aisha, Flora, Terra and Mr. Harvey were stepping through the bedroom door.