The Academy of Magical Arts

Chapter 20: New Target

  ~Raynor~
  I woke up early in the morning. The sun was still rising and the Sky was still pretty dark. I felt something warm press against my body. I rubbed my eyes and looked down. My face heated up completely.

  I was hugging Noelle.

  I had somehow rolled over to her mat and hugged her in my sleep. She didn't twist or turn at all. She slept peacefully and I could barely hear a sound.

  It felt...

  ... warm.

  As soon as she began waking up, I jumped away before she could realize that I was what I was doing. I stood up and rolled up my mat. She rubbed her eyes and yawned.

  "Wake up sleepyhead!" I called.

  "Hey, princes aren't allowed to be mean to princesses." She protested.

  "I'm not being mean, I'm just teasing you." I said. "C'mon, we've gotta get back."

  She rolled up her mat and tied it up with vines. We searched for fruit to eat on the way back.

  "It's the hut!" She exclaimed. We found the hut up ahead.

  "Noelle! Raynor! Where were you? We were getting worried!" Emily exclaimed.

  "We were looking around the forest and we got lost." I said.

  "...that's it?" Emily asked, kind of disappointed.

  "We also found the ruins of the school." Noelle said.

  "Really? Did you find anything inside?" Eric asked.

  "We found a note. They were planning the destruction of the school ever since it opened." I said.

  "This could be a clue." Eric said. "Keep the note. We'll have to find more clues."

  ~Noelina~
  We decided to go back to the ruins of the school. We found the ruins of the principal's office and looked under the debris.

  "What's this?" I asked. I held a book covered in dust. I blew off the dust and read the title. "The Origins of Magic."

  "Open it. There could be notes inside." Eric said. I flipped the book over and opened it. On the section about the Province of Wind, a bunch of small sticky notes fell out while some stayed stuck to the pages. Raynor picked up all the sticky notes that fell out.

  "Let's take the book. There's more clues in here." Emily said. We continued to look around. We found a shelf, broken and knocked over on its side.

  "There are more books here." Raynor said. "There could be more hints here."

  We searched the bookshelves to see if there are more notes. Most of them were about magic and educational methods.

  "Hey, what about this one?" Raynor asked, blowing off the dust. "The History of the Magic Domain. I might find something about my parents in here."

  I nodded. We tried searching more around the ruins of the school to see if Mrs. Thunderthorne hid any more types of clues.

  "What's this?" Emily asked. She found a single lion statue that survived the destruction.

  "How did this survive?" I asked, searching around it. Pushing down a single tooth on the statue, the ground rumbled.

  "What's happening?" Emily panicked. A stairway opened up to us.

  "A secret hideout?" Raynor asked.

  "This is suspicious." Emily said.

  "There might be someone in there. We need to remain unseen." Eric said.

  "I know an invisibility spell." I said.

  "As expected of Noelle, she's our spell book!" Emily cheered. I drew the glyph for invisibility with my staff and pointed it at the four of us, turning us invisible and we walked in. Sure enough, we found Mrs. Thunderthorne planning something. I looked closely at what she was writing, gasping.

  They were aiming for my country next.