Chapter Text
When the alarm goes off, it pierced Musa’s subconscious like a white-hot blade. She is asleep; and then she is awake, heart thundering in her chest, disoriented and bewildered as a noise akin to pain screams through the suite.
She recognizes it immediately; of course she does, she wrote it, create it, made it. It is urgency and need-for-action and danger in audio form; distilled and shaped until any further crafting would have made it draw blood.
It is welcome, and she lays in her bed while her noise of her friends waking and preparing fill the air around her for precious seconds, blinking back tears.
She has never been unsafe for such an extended period, in such a total and all-encompassing manner, before. These months held prisoner in the school meant to educate and nurture and protect them –
All of them are exhausted, wounded by it. But it is – Musa does not know if the others have realized it, but –
There is no coming back here.
Intellectually she knows they know; there is a reason Tecna has been planning and revising and plotting to rob Alfea blind since the Trix were – banished. But she does not think they realize it emotionally.
None of them will ever feel safe here again. Even if everything goes spectacularly and they resolve this without plunging everyone and everything into war – Musa might not even set foot back on Magix ever again, let alone Alfea.
“Musa.” Tecna’s voice is quiet, and the alarm cuts off abruptly. Musa rolls out of bed and tests the silencing spells she’s burned into the walls of the suite; they’ve held – but only barely.
“We’ll need to be quiet from here on out.” She rasps, and Tecna nods; she’s already dressed, pre-packed bag slung over her shoulder.
Musa cheats – uses one of Stella’s spells to put her getaway clothes on to save time. Heavy-duty denim from Earth, a long-sleeved undershirt, sweater, a reinforced weather-proof jacket, steel-toed boots, thick socks. They, all of them, look like they’re packing for a hiking trip, but they don’t know what they’ll be walking into if – when – they get off-planet. They’d discussed it early on, and while Stella believes that Magix won’t dare shoot them out of the sky, risk Bloom like that – the rest of them aren’t so sure.
She digs her bag out from under her bed, wastes a heartbeat staring at the array of instruments she is going to have to leave behind, and casts a witch-spell.
All traces of her biological presence – blood, sweat, hair – scorch out of existence throughout the suite. Use of those ingredients would be witch magic, not fairy – but they’re not sure about wizards, and Bloom was adamant they not take that chance. Earth tales about what a mage can do with those things had her – freaking out. She was probably right, too – otherwise there wouldn’t have been a specific spell for it in the grimoire.
Her grandmother’s flute is a comforting weight at the bottom of her bag. It’s the piece of her heritage that would hurt the most to leave behind. Losing everything else – because she doubts she will ever see her father’s old guitar, her first clarinet, again – hurts. Losing the flute would hurt the worst.
Musa draws in one, shuddering breath, and pivots on her heel.
Flora is standing sentinel at the balcony doors, her pack sitting neatly at her feet with Mirta perched perfectly balanced on top. Bloom’s bag is next to hers, and the low sound of voices from Stella’s room tells Musa where the other two fairies are at.
Tecna has set her own bag on the couch, and is shrugging on two empty duffel bags. Musa sets her own pack besides Tecna, and then startles when Tecna tosses a third at her.
“What – “
“I need you to come with me.”
“What, we’re – robbing everything?”
“There are four rooms we were not able to sufficiently track down. The current security configuration has them close to one another, but that is still four rooms we need to clear before it’s time to leave, four rooms that are most likely filled with other traps.”
Entering the hidden rooms had been the easy part; Musa’s lockpicking bypassed every alarm ward on the rooms she’d accessed, but once inside there had been illusions, tricks and traps of varying levels of lethality. Tecna had refused to try taking anything, but they had mapped out which rooms went where for each security configuration – the four left were just the four closest to Faragonda’s office, four they were saving for last because Tecna thought they’d have harder security.
“Do you need the rest of us to come too?”
“No. If – if you and Mirta can watch Faragonda’s tower – the only security forces Alfea has on-hand are the professors. You’ll see them crossing the courtyard if everything goes badly.” Tecna says, haltingly.
Musa swallows. Flora nods, sharply.
“We’ll start blowing up parts of the school if we see them converging on you.” Flora says, fingers raised and ticking against the balcony’s glass doors. She says it so easily, it’s wonderfully chilling to hear – Musa’s mouth quirks up into a smile despite herself.
“Thanks, babe. Be back soon.” She says, double-checking she has what she needs on her, and then situating the empty back over her shoulder.
“Stay safe!” Flora hums back, firm and unyielding.
“Are we going invisible?”
“A waste of magic at this point. We’ll knock Griselda out if she runs but – none of my simulations thought that a viable option.” Tecna says grimly. Grim, because despite everything logic and her calculations told her – Tecna does not believe Griselda will keep covering for them.
Musa laces their fingers together and squeezes, gently.
They open the door and step out into the hall.
Griselda is sitting in her customary spot, the dim light of the hall’s night-lamps reflecting off her glasses. She watches them carefully close the suite’s door behind them, and seems to slump a little in her seat.
“Be quick. Be careful.” She whispers, barely audible, and her heartbeat does not sing deceit.
“Thanks, G.” Musa whispers back, and then they are gone.
X
Alfea’s dead at nights. Fairies aren’t typically nocturnal, and for those that are, there’s still a general curfew – Alfea’s willing to make certain accommodations within the dorm rooms themselves, but unless there’s a special class, everyone’s supposed to stay in at night.
Normally that would do fuck all to stop people from sneaking out or partying, but after their – after the execution – things have been…
Oppressive.
Tecna leads her directly to a dusty alcove on the back side of Faragonda’s tower, where a dingy wooden door with iron fixtures is tucked away out of sight of the hall proper. It takes Musa no time at all to pop the lock, and the door swings open into a cramped, oddly-shaped room.
It looks like a closet, just – every wall covered in wooden shelves, cubpoards and countertops. It resembles a potions lab, but no idiot would brew in a wooden lab; and –
“I am not detecting any illusions or security measures.”
There’s dusty equipment and – books. Musa hesitantly picks one up, flips it open, and –
“These are journals.”
“Take everything.” Tecna says. Like with Domino – they don’t have time to parse out what’s useful or not.
Musa hums, and shrugs her bag off her shoulder. The two of them slip into the room, pressed awkwardly against one another, and start packing.
They use their hands for this part; Just because there’s no traps on the objects doesn’t mean there aren’t traps inside the objects, and spells could be lying dormant until they sense foreign magic. There’s nothing hidden in the room, no secret compartments or false drawers – and that’s been typical, from what Musa’s seen, too.
These hidden rooms are mostly old or used for storage. Back in the day, they’d housed the arms and armor Alfea would have used to defend itself and Magix, the constructs that the Headmistresses could animate and call on for aid. And those things were still there, mostly – along with piles of junk. Old textbooks, trunks, piles of personal belongings.
Students that had been disappeared. Staff that had – never existed. That had been…
Tecna had written down their names and homeworlds, as best they could figure them out. It felt wrong not to go and get those girls’ belongings, return their items to their families, but – they have to prioritize.
If they leave Magix without the spell the Coven created, all of their homeworlds will die.
The second room is the farthest from the dorms, clear on the other side of Faragonda’s tower. This door opens directly into Faragonda’s tower; and it is a trophy room.
Musa’s mundane methods open the door. Tecna spends a nerve-wracking ten minutes standing in the entryway, carefully disabeling every alarm spell and trap she can detect. Footsteps echo, faint and distant, and Musa stands watch.
She’d kill if she could, to keep their presence undetected. But Alfea’s protections would have to notice the death of a student or staff member, and that would alert everyone; Musa suspected grievous bodily harm would register too.
Alfea was evil, but it was also still competent, after all.
Tecna let out a staticky sound of triumph; Musa snatched the sound right out of the air, wrapped it around them, and stepped back into the room, pulling the door shut in front of her as she pulled that noise in with them too.
“Can we take everything?” Musa whispers, even with her magic flush with the seams of the doorway, the faint vibrations of footsteps coming closer.
“We have to. It isn’t safe to assume the spell will be in a grimoire, still.”
“But you don’t think it’s here.”
“No. These are – none of these stands are set up for functional use or easy retrieval.”
There’s wings, on one of the stands. Still rust-stained where they’d been carved off their fairy. Artifacts and books and armor, weapons and wands and things Musa has no name for. There are plaques; Tecna’s eyes glow and she casts something that tears all of the plaques off their stands. Musa only has time to skim a few; she doesn’t recognize the planets listed on most of them.
There’s –
“The ghost was wearing that.” Musa says. The footsteps are passing the door now; Musa’s attention is split agonizingly between tracking the approaching person and the cracked porcelain mask sitting on a clean pedestal in the center of the room.
“Bloom and Icy were almost caught in her tomb. Bloom said she burnt the body. They must have…” Tecna doesn’t finish her sentence, just grimaces and plucks it up, carefully depositing it into one of her bags.
Musa shudders, and slides a beautifully crafted sitar into her own bag.
They bags have been enchanted to stay light and to carry far more than they should, but it will be a close thing, Musa suspects. There’s – a lot of pedestals, a lot of trophies, some slotted into cubbies or shelves on the walls, some rising proudly out of the ground, some hanging suspended from the ceiling. They will not have time to –
Their passerby does not pause outside the door. They keep walking.
“Fuck it, Tec, hold on. We need to – “
“You’ll activate some of these.”
Musa hesitates, because – Tecna’s right. And that will be –
But –
The ghost was still wearing her mask, even dead, even removed from her body, looted from her resting place.
She reaches out hesitantly, tentatively, and the items explode into a cacophony of –
Her vocal cords shift. Slip out of alignment, snap into something new. The sharp flash of pain it brings leaves her breathless for one long, lingering moment; and before her scattered thoughts can panic over what is going on –
“Quiet.”
She’s got her fingers pressed to the wings. The spirit there is – nebulous. All of them are, although there are some that are – far larger than the rest. She does not linger on that.
“We seek to reunite you with your worlds and your people and your dead, as best we can.” Musa chooses her words carefully. Not all of these artefacts will come from innocents. The Coven had copycats, after all, and Musa does not believe that she and her girls are the first to figure out what rot lies at the heart of Magix – their actions will ignite war, and will lead to the deaths of – untold millions.
Some of these dead want to rest. Most of them, she thinks, will want revenge.
“Will you come with us?” She asks.
The spirits communicate amongst themselves. She does not hear it, buzzing faintly just out of range of her senses, but she feels the weight of it, the tension.
It’s horrifying. Spirits – should not be powerful enough to have a fucking conference like this. Not when they are the tattered, shredded remnants of the murdered and the executed, pinned like butterflies to the last physical bits of their bodies and worlds and held up for display for centuries.
Not when some of them are – too great to have been human.
“Mother goes to War for what has been done to you.” She says.
The chatter ceases.
The spirit whose corpse she is touching unfurls.
We will come. It – he, holy fuck – says gravely.
Tecna jerks, at her side. Twists and casts, and all three of their bags distort, opening as every trophy in the room – lurches.
It is quick, and it is orderly, and Musa gags at the taste of ozone and rot, snatches her hand back as the wings quiver and shake and then rise.
She rushes to push her power against the door as displays rattle and unlatch and shatter, as bones rustle and metal creaks and the spirits sigh as they vanish into the bags. It’s disorienting, her throat sore and aching and still other; Tecna watches her with worried eyes but calmly manages where directing is needed regardless.
And then it is – over. The room is empty. Frighteningly so; no matter the spirits’ thoughts on the Council or the Company of Light or the horrors done to the worlds they are from, Musa would have expected one or two to linger. To want to stay.
She’s unsure if the others gave them a choice – and that…
“Musa…”
“Later. Two left and we’re running out of time.”
X
Musa’s hands pause over the third door, tools at the ready.
“There’s something here.” She whispers. She doesn’t think she’s set it off, but Tecna wisely slinks down to her side and reaches up, moving around Musa rather than pushing her away.
None of them are well-versed in magic like this. Tecna’s been able to brute-force and hack by virtue of the backing of Zenith and the seniors at Alfea, supported by what little they could surreptitiously source from the internet and library. There’s a theory to stealth-magic, theft-magic, that is – far too complicated for them to grasp with any degree of actual skill with only stolen moments to study it.
These protections have not protected much, not yet, not things protected for centuries, not things fit to slaughter worlds.
“It’ll take too much time to go to the next room and double back.”
“This is the only door we have found with extra protections in place.”
Tecna’s eyes whirl with silent calculations, probabilities, and Musa breathes out slowly, and nods. Tecna still hesitates a moment, and then her form shimmers, transformation sweeping her in a startlingly subdued flash of electric green and purple.
“I will hold the door. You…”
“I’ll be fast.” Musa promises, hands still raised. Tecna does not respond, does not acknowledge that Musa had spoken – she focuses, with all her might, on that door.
Musa feels it unraveling, Tecna slicing and tricking and carving her way through the protections. She feels the snag, the moment Tecna comes across a trap she cannot destroy quickly enough, and then the door is slamming open and Musa throws herself forward, fingers curling into fists around her tools.
She takes the room in in flashes, in an instant – the ancient wooden table, heavy and carved, ringed with old, comfortably upholstered chairs. The walls arched and alcove in an imitation of windows, each holding frescoes in paint and tile. Color. A podium, at the other end of the room, on a raised dais. Three books set heavy and open-faced on podiums of their own, along the far wall. Her feet are silent on thick carpet.
There is no scream of an alarm, no ringing of bells. There is the flash and blister of magic slicing and smashing down, deadly intent raising every hair on her body. There is the shrieking of her senses, her transformation taking her as she leaps into the air over the writhing carpet and the rumble-crack as parts of the arches pulled free – long, spider-limbs reaching and smashing.
Slow. Too slow. These were not protections put in place for the benefit of Faragonda and her ilk; Musa notes it distantly, wonders if Alfea has been fighting this whole time, but there’s not enough to think of it –
She hits the dias and skids. The first podium she had seen glistens with protective magics. There are two books sitting on it.
She raises her hands, opens her throat, and sings a single note. All of her vocal chords ache with it, bleed with it, and the note smashes right through the magics binding those books, severing the podium itself, and buries its remaining power in the stone floor beneath.
The books are malevolent; their aura flashes out in an instant, and Musa does not allow herself to flinch. She grabs them with her bare hands, ignores the burning, and turns.
Logs, she thinks, not grimoires – but she grabs them anyway, and then launches herself backwards as a wooden pillar slams into the dais where she had just been standing. She flies backwards, upside-down, facing the ceiling, and zooms back to Tecna.
Her arms are blistering where she holds the books tight to her chest, awkward and heavy as they are.
“I am taking you to your fucking people, calm the fuck down – “ She snarls, twists, and barely manages to avoid an arch of wood impaling the table beneath her. A burst of fractals takes a hit from a second arch, shattering, buying her just enough time to reorient herself, and –
Musa slams right into Tecna. Tecna twists, her own wings flashing out, and wraps one arm around her. They bounce off a wall into the open hallway. Their momentum takes them into a second wall – and out a window. Musa feels the glass shatter behind her, and half-screams a note in the back of her throat; the shards flash out like lightning, spray away from her unprotected flesh.
And then they are airborne.
She smells smoke.
X
The alarm had been designed to go off once the boys – who were significantly less monitored than they – heard from the witches, or from Mother, that they needed to get their asses in gear. Timmy would remotely trigger it, to give them as much time as they could. It would be easier for the boys to get out than them, after all.
Stella had not realized, when they had agreed that Tecna and Musa would be the ones to – well, rob Alfea blind – that she would have to wait.
And holy shit is it unbearable.
They keep the lights off, and do their best to reinforce Musa’s silencing spells in her absence. They’ve prepped for this too well, frankly; there’s nothing else to pack or prep.
There’s just a lot to worry over.
“What if they don’t find it?” She asks. Her voice is soft, but it cuts through the silence of the dorm like a knife. Bloom goes still, where she’s tying her hair up into a ponytail, and Flora flinches.
“Sweetie – “
“If we leave – we won’t be coming back.”
“We can’t stay.” Bloom says, but – her voice shakes.
“We can’t leave the spell in their hands.”
“You can’t – “
“Stella – “
“I am the only one with motive to stay.”
She’s the only one with the power to stay. She’s a Princess, the sole heir to Solaria’s throne. She’s dating the man the public believes to be the Prince of Eraklyon. She’s reignited her social media and resumed her dominion over the social lives of the Solarian fairies at Alfea – they cannot make her disappear.
It isn’t a guarantee. They have a spell to erase worlds from living memory. But if any of them have even a chance at surviving, at not incurring that horrific cost – it is her.
“What motive?”
“Don’t you know? Those foul witches just stole away my best friend. Put all these nasty ideas in her little head. Made her stop trusting me. Made her put my planet in jeopardy.”
Bloom looks – stricken.
“I didn’t know you’d heard all that.” Flora says softly, sadly, and Bloom whirls on her. Stella’s heart aches.
“Of course I did, dear. And what I didn’t, my girls told me. I – talked to Diaspro about it all. If Tecna and Musa fail, she’ll have a rumor campaign launched in seconds.”
The campaign will be a little late to be wholly effective, which will be a weakness, a sign all its own, but Diaspro has…plans. She’s technically the only fairy of near-equal station Stella socialized with, after all – she makes a perfectly appropriate confidante.
Diaspro will come forward with her relief that Stella finally broke away from that earth girl’s terrible influence – Diaspro, who has plenty of motive to hate Bloom all on her own – and share all those ready-made motives to everyone eager for leverage against Bloom.
“No one would believe – “
“Not if you leave me conscious. And not if – “ Stella cuts herself off. Hesitates, and then steps forward, takes Flora’s hands in her own, and – slips her ring onto Flora’s finger.
Flora makes a wounded sound.
“You’ll knock me out, if it comes to it.”
“And steal your ring?”
“Willingly given, Flor. Not that they’ll know that.”
If Bloom had her powers, Stella thinks fondly, she’d be aflame along with the entire couch right now. Flora curls her fingers around Stella’s hands slowly and squeezes, gently.
“Flora, don’t – “
“Only if it comes to it.”
And Bloom, beautiful, brilliant Bloom – she doesn’t protest it again. She sweeps Stella into a bone-crushing hug, clinging for dear life, but – she doesn’t say another word.
Bloom doesn’t quite grasp it, the obligations Stella has to her planet, her people, the wider magical dimension. And that’s – fine. It’s just – it means a lot, that even though Bloom doesn’t get it, she trusts Stella knows what she’s talking about.
Stella squeezes her eyes shut hard enough she sees the stars, and when she opens her eyes – there are lights flaring on in Faragonda’s towers.
“We’ve been had.” She says. Not too badly, not yet – because there, over the forest, is the dim shape of a ship flying low and fast towards them.
Flora makes a pleased sound, and pushes open the balcony doors.
“Mirta, I hope you have a clear view!” Flora chirps, and she lifts one hand, yellow-green light flaring in her palm.
And the potions wing erupts into hellfire and ash.