The School of Bermuda - Volume 1 - The hunter's daughter

-16-

Viktor began to silently treat Lili's arm, using a bit of magic to close the wounds before bandaging it and putting it in a sling.

"Are you left-handed?"

"No, right-handed."

"Well, that's good then, but be careful. You'll stay in the infirmary tonight."

"You're not going to take my blood overnight, are you?"

"I'm not an animal, for goodness sake!"

Lili burst into laughter. Viktor stood up and sent the boys back to their respective dormitories, but as he handed Lili pajamas, Donatello burst in, accompanied by professors Amos Butter and Thorn Howler.

"How is Lili?" he shouted as he walked into the room.

"She'll be much worse if you keep yelling like that and preventing her from going to bed," Viktor growled.

"Sorry... when the students came to tell me what happened..."

"I understand. As you can see, we avoided the worst."

Donatello sighed with relief and knelt down in front of the little girl, carefully taking her in his arms.

"I'm relieved. I was so scared."

"It will take several weeks," Viktor added. "Maybe a month, a month and a half."

"Alright. I'll let Céline and Morag know right away that she's excused from flying class."

"But the Pall Elus!" Lili exclaimed. "I'm part of the team!"

"Congratulations. But don't worry, there won't be any competition until October, so you'll have time to heal."

After discussing for a while longer, Viktor finally sent his colleagues out before helping Lili change, which was not very practical to do alone with one arm in a sling.

For several weeks, Lili had to stay quiet. She often went to the infirmary, as Viktor had asked her to, so he could provide her with some additional care, and soon she became friends with him.

After this incident, it was clear to the headmistress that Lili should no longer go near the forest. So it was asked of one of the other students to replace her. Izãdo volunteered. The hunter's daughter was sad that she could no longer see the magnificent black rooster that always perched on her shoulder, but the situation was certainly better this way...

However, the appearances of this strange albino man seemed to worry the headmistress, especially after she learned about the extent of his powers. Fortunately, he didn't seem to mean any harm to anyone, since he had even saved Lili's life, but no one could know his true intentions.

The month of October was starting to unfold when Lili finally removed the sling that held her arm. Even with magic, these things took time. Classes continued tirelessly, and the students almost all enjoyed attending them.

The first Pall Elus competition was scheduled for Halloween, along with their first ball.

"Every year, the balls are held on different dates," explained Terence Vector, who was in charge of teaching dance to his students, rather than history. "You could very well have a ball on Halloween, like this year, or at Christmas, like last year. We also celebrate Easter, Hanukkah, and ancient festivals that non-wizards no longer celebrate, such as Liberelia, the Roman spring festival, or the Gaulish festival of Imbolc, which can be seen as the ancestor of Candlemas. There is only one ball per year, so we change the theme every year. All this, of course, not to mention the end-of-year ball, where second and eighth-year students present a play.

"What does this have to do with sorcery?" Anna grumbled, frustrated.

"Nothing, Miss Einerson. It's just for fun, to wish each other good holidays or to relax. Now it's time to start learning the basics of dance."

Each student stood up, and Professor Vector formed couples, taking Charity with him to show them the steps while explaining. Despite some clumsiness during the class - crushed feet, dizziness - the students did well, but they would need a few more lessons to master the steps they had learned.

Leaving the classroom, they walked briskly when Izãdo made a remark:

"I will never understand why this is necessary."

"It's not," Lili replied. "The professor said it's just for fun."

"We're not really here for that," Izãdo said.

His three friends sighed. The prince was sometimes too serious. They headed towards the Pall Elus stadium outside the castle to resume their training. They were determined to defeat the fifth-year students they would be facing. Charity had simply followed them, but Louis arrived about thirty minutes later.

"Ah, finally!" Ree exclaimed. "You're late! Do you want to win this cup or not?"

The triplets nodded silently, trying to explain, in sign language, the reason for his lateness.

"Forget it, we can't understand anything," Izãdo interrupted, grabbing his wrists. "Get on your broom and let's go, there's no time to waste."

He let go of him to let him get in position, and he himself took off for training.

Three hours later, as at the end of every game, they made their way calmly to the infirmary, where Viktor took care of their bites.

"You really have to have twisted ideas to come up with this kind of game," Lili murmured.

"It's fun," Ree added. "We come out with a few wounds, but it's not a big deal."

The hunter's daughter looked at her friend skeptically. It was true that they had all had a lot of fun during training, and she really enjoyed playing Pall Elus, but the concept remained incomprehensible to her, who had been raised among non-wizards.

They returned to the dormitory, and Ree had already fallen asleep while her friend couldn't find sleep. She finally sat up and pulled her legs against her, diving into her thoughts.

She had always gotten along so well with her father; they had always had an amazing bond. And yet, as soon as he learned that she was a witch, he had tried to kill her. What made her different, other than the fact that she possessed some magical powers? Had the wizards done something wrong to be hated by the hunters? And Martin? The year was well underway, and he must certainly be worried about her, but it was unthinkable to call him and tell him not to worry, that she was a witch, and that they would probably never see each other again... She shed a tear at the memory of the boy she loved so much and finally fell asleep.