Don't Mess With Time

Chapter Thirteen

Hilda latched onto Amber's hand and she pushed them through the mass of bodies around them until they made it to the flag they were trying to reach.

Group three.

As in Surviving Fairytales.

She would say the odds of all her friends being in the same group with all of their mentors was impossible, but then she remembered the star she had seen.

This was not merely some chance.

Merlin has made it so.

She stopped right under the flag and let go of her sister's hand.

Dede has latched onto Amber as they had gone and now released her with a relieved expression.

About a minute later, their whole group was there together.

Hilda, Amber, Dede, Milly, Theresa, Axel, Nathan, and Serenity.

The mentors were there as well.

Hester, Amber, Dot, Beatrix, Tedros, Agatha, Hort, and Kiko (in that order).

Milly cursed quietly as she saw that Reena was not in their group and was instead in four.

Beside Chaddick.

Flirting.

She felt her skin crawl uncomfortably and looked away.

He eyes landed on Beatrix and she saw that the blond was glaring at the two.

She took that as a victory and silently cheered.

Perhaps she hadn't done much, not more than getting the two to sit a bit closer to each other when she was around, but it seemed like whatever it was did something.

She just hoped that Beatrix didn't still have that crush on Chaddick (though, to be honest, she wasn't sure if her mother had ever had a crush on him... but then again, wasn't sure meant she couldn't say ether way definitively).

Yuba looked up at them and raised an eyebrow.

He was about to speak, but he caught sight of a star on a tree about five paces away.

The calling card of his greatest student.

Whatever abnormal things that were occurring here were his doing.

And Yuba trusted him.

So the gnome said nothing about the weird, and frankly obvious, resemblance between the children.

He simply led them into the blue forest.

~

The first challenge he gave them was quite simple.

All they had to do was find one of their kind.

Evil find Evil, Good find Good.

Just as it had been for as long as documentation had recorded.

It was the coffin exercise he had performed first year, he did it with all his first years, but slightly different to throw off the fourth years.

This time, he had both girls and boys in and out of the coffins.

Theresa was not interested in participating.

All she wanted was for her father to find the coffin within which her mother resided.

Yuba pointed at her with his walking stick.

"Everyone must participate!" he snapped.

She sighed and turned to the coffins, intent to just choose the first she saw.