Sophia Brandt and the Brooch of Isolt Sayre

The Trials

My eternal thank you goes out to @Honeyfern1026, who votes for every single one of my chapters. You are such an amazing and dedicated reader! Thank you so much for sticking with this story--even after I waited months to start writing it again!

Sophia and Callum didn't have a suspect by the end of the week. In fact, they'd only narrowed their list down by a few more people who'd been stuck in the infirmary, busy doing homework all night, etc.

Headmistress Calderon-Boot had announced at Thursday's dinner that on Saturday, the second event of the QMCs would take place. Everyone agreed that this was early, especially Rowan Arbor from Ilvermorny, who'd apparently twisted his ankle in last week's competition.

Sophia secretly wondered if the headmistress was eager to finish the competition to focus on recovering the brooch, but didn't voice her thoughts.

Besides, everyone around her was excited. The second event was a chance for the Ilvermorny champions to redeem themselves after placing dead last in the race to the top of Mount Greylock. The girls in Sophia's dormitory were all wide awake Friday night talking about what the second event would be.

"There are only four possibilities left," Maia Wrangel said, talking to three other girls sitting on the nearby beds. "It could be the team, academic, problem-solving, or magical beasts event next. I hope it's the team event."

"No way," Colette Ashby interjected. "The team event is always last, like the one four years ago. Mahoutokoro beat out Ilvermorny at quidditch in the last minutes of the game."

They sounded so much like Callum Black that Sophia blinked in confusion.

She almost joined in on the conversation, but her mortal enemy--err, not friend--Maeve Braithmore emerged from the bathroom in her delicate pink pajamas and had an announcement.

"I'm going to sleep now, since beauty sleep seems to be more important to me than...anyone else here." She smiled angelically, turned off the lights in the room, then went over to her bed.

"Why does she decide when we all go to sleep?" Sophia asked, rolling her eyes.

Beside her, Colette Ashby pulled her sheets up. "It is past lights out, I guess."

Sophia sighed, but snuggled into bed nonetheless. She was far too tired to argue with Maeve tonight, anyway.

Sophia was early to breakfast, which almost never happened. She was able to eat three sausages, a muffin, and a bunch of grapes before her friends sat down.

"Gee, did you leave us anything?" Noah asked jokingly, scooping up what was left of the sausages onto his plate.

She smiled at him from across the table, happy to hear him in good spirits. "I'm just trying to get in a full breakfast before Rosie makes me head down to the gondolas."

"We're going down to Mayflower Landing again?" Callum asked, nearly spraying the table with muffin crumbs. "Sorry," he added sheepishly.

"That's what I've been hearing from everyone else," Sophia confirmed.

Callum was already thinking of the possibilities. "Hm..."

"Just eat your breakfast," Rosie said, giving him a kick under the table for good measure.

They arrived at the arena later than last week, but found four seats together in the stands higher up. This gave Sophia an even better view of the whole of the arena than before, which was lucky, because it wasn't empty this time.