Ash texted Mayra, We have real trouble on our hands. Need help ASAP.
But Mayra, who would in most occasions, text back instantly, didn't texted back immediately. As Ash ran from the chancellor's mansion to the dormitories, the natural environment of people chatting and laughing in small groups, hanging around campus felt too unnatural compared to the increasing unease in her chest.
Standing in the corridor of the dormitory, she debated between heading straight for Lady Bree or finding where Mayra was. In the end, she went to her room to find the warden. If the seer could tell her where everyone was, rest would easy. The warden, absent, must have been busy in her own preprations or investigations. Ash turned to Lady Bree's room and knocked.
As per usual, Drew opened and scowled at her, "she is..."
Ash banged on the open door with her fist. "This is urgent, the chancellor is hypnotized. I need to meet with her now."
For the first time, Drew gave her an expression other than a scowl. Her small eyes widened and her little nose flared in surprise. Ash pushed, "where is she?"
"She is in the boy's dormitory with Karn and Karlene. They found something."
Ash looked down the hallway. The door to the sirens room was still closed. The sirens were still under curfew? Was Mayra inside? Safe and sound? Or trapped? It was best to get her out to help.
Before Ash could thank her, Drew banged the door in her face. Ash frowned. Wasn't Drew going to help? Ash didn't have time for Drew's atittude. She was already moving to the siren's room. This time, instead of knocking, she turned the knob and opened the door.
The sirens, all busy in their own work, called, "you are here?"
"come hither?"
"Are you looking for Mayra?"
"She is sleeping."
Ash froze. Each of them was using their siren voice. There was an unblinking daze in each of their faces and an uncanny concentration on her. When she didn't move, one of them stood up- the member of the council. "Come. Let's wake up Mayra."
The woman pointed to Mayra's fluffed bed, covered entirely in a blanket but moved to Ash, a hand extended, welcoming her. Between the ten paces between them, Ash's hand went to the scale. Missing. She have given it to the goblin to make a case for her. She grit her teeth and did the next best thing she knew.
Ash called to darkness. First, from her own small shadow, thickening and rising, then from the shadows around the room and most of all, from the corridor outside, where the darkness was thicker. It expanded from the shadows and slipped in from the cracks but it did not move fast enough. The siren was close to her now, eyes narrowed, steps hurried. As soon as she reached Ash, her hand swiped Ash's arm.
Ash moved sideways. The siren changed directions and form. Her humane hand became webbed and she moved with Ash, fingers extended and sharper. She was changing form. Ash moved faster but within two paces, the next siren was upon her, arm gripped tightly, "what are you doing? Come. We should wake Mayra up."
Ash knew they were using the full force of her siren voice and if any of them had any sense, they would know it does not work on her. Mayra's roommates knew and Mayra's classmates knew and still they used every possible way to lure her deeper into the room.
Ash smiled, "I am coming."
The siren who held her relaxed a little, mimicking her smile. With horror, Ash realized, her face was beginning to shift, features mixing, nose higher, brows apart, and eyes big. She looked a lot like her mother.
Ash stopped breathing and yanked her arm out of the siren's reach. The siren's features began to relax. Her smile never wavered, "come. We have to go."
Ash moved towards the other siren who was now surrounded in a thicker blanket of darkness. The many lights around there room were flickering. Ash kept collecting the darkness and slipped out of the sirens' reach. Seeing her moving side to side, more sirens stood up.
Ash kept calling the darkness, pulling it around her first. The feeling in her heart intensified. The darkness wasn't working fast enough. Only the lights in the first half of the room had flickered out. The sirens on each side of her found it difficult to see her but those closer to Mayra's bed were still looking at her straight, beckoning her with a hug smile and waving hands.
It took a few minutes, before they stood up but by by then, the darkness was around her. The sirens voices were still thick with their magic, "why is it so dark in here? You must be nervous."
"Let me guide you."
"Come this way." Ash felt a hand on her shoulder and slipped away. She could tell the direction of the door was a few paces behind her. A few sirens were closer together, by the door, looking for her. Ash called, "where are you? I am here. I can't see anything."
She felt them move, with precision. Within the darkness, they turned at the sound of her voice and came. Ash moved out of their way and made her way for the door. As soon as she touched the door, she opened it and slipped out.
The darkness, the power she wielded rested in her chest. There was still darkness inside and she heard a faint, "where are you?" before she closed the door.
Win rushed into her hair and Ash paused. Drew? Lady Bree? But she found it was someone unexpected.
"Vance?"
Vance's eyes widened slightly. He took off his glasses to look at her. The red in them was cold for a moment before his brows relaxed at the corners. Vance realised a heavy breath. As much as she loved to relish in his company, her heart was far too anxious to find Mayra.
"What are you doing?"
"I am checking to see if its you and if you have been hypnotised."
"How can you check if it is me?" That wasn't important. She paused and changed her question, "not important. You know I don't get hypnotised. Besides, can you check if others are hypnotised?"
Vance nodded, "what is it? What's wrong?"
Everything was wrong. The feeling that wrong didn't begin to describe what she felt coming unsettled her even more. She focused on her first problem. She focused on the darkness in the room that had discipated yet. She thickened it. Vance looked sideways as the lamp burned brighter, harsher, lighting up the corridor. The darkness between them slipped under the door.
"First things first. Can you get in with me and check if the sirens in their have been hypnotized?"
"All of them?" Vance looked surprised but Ash didn't have time to sate his queries. He could see through the darkness she conjured, and he could see past hypnotism- the two qualities she needed right now. She opened the door and slipped inside. Vance slipped in behind her, brushed up against her arm.
The darkness was as thick as it had been in the high prietsess' office the first day. She heard scrambling and sirens knocking into things but their siren voice did not relent, "Ash. Are you here? Come with me. Look. Mayra's awake now. She wants to come with you." They were all close to Mayra's bed.
Vance looked at her with a slight daze, his pupil dilating, as he bagn walking towards Mayra's bed too. Ash caught his wrist and expanded her resiliance to Vance.
Confusion, and surprised, all poured into her focused body in trickled. Vance shook his head. His streight brows pulled together, gave an impression of annoyance. Then the annoyance poured into her heart, stronger than the other two emotions. Vance was mostly immune, which made the sudden siren requests and calls, a little annoying.
Ash swallowed through the sudden barage of emotions and pointed to where the sirens were collected but Vance didn't need her direction. He moved forward in a straight line before she had directed him. Ash moved with him, not letting go. She could feel his emotions of turmoil- something sweet and worrisome in his heart burried under the great force of concentration that pushed everything under the rug. Each of them knew the situation called for focus, yet the constant emotional changes in her heart, pulled her under far too often than she liked.
As Vance moved, Ash's loose grip on his wrist slipped. She was aware of her hand but as soon as her finger slipped at the edge of his palm, her awareness heightened. As if he felt what she felt, or perhaps, it was his own surprise and sweetness that made him close his fingers, brushed the back of hers gently.
Vance paused. Ash stopped. The sirens were not far. Vance looked through the darkness in the right direction as if he could see everything clearly. And perhaps he could. That's how the moon goddess, or the night goddess had written their fate. One could conjure, the other could see though it. If they were truly as the high priestess had suggested them to be, Ash didn't know what she would do. For now, she sighed.
The siren's moved.
"There. Are you there?"
Vance moved back several steps and Ash moved with him. Quickly she opened the door and the two of them slipped out before a siren face emerged in the darkness, eyes looking around wildly.
Ash shut the door and heart a wail of, "open up Ash. Mayra is waiting for you dear," in the voice of her mother.
Ash shuddered violently at the sound. Vance's wrist slipped out of her hand and he held it, "what is it?"
Ash shuddered again and again before she grit her teeth and stretched her body slightly. "Not much. That... that sounds like my late mother. Let's get out of here."
She pulled her hand back. The lapse in control had caused her protection to be removed from Vance. Vance walked beside her, "the sirens were all hypnotised. They talked of Mayra. Didn't you go on to find her?"
"I did. But she is not in the room."
"Under the covers?"
"Pillows maybe. Mayra is unusually thin, obsessed with her figure. There is no way she will be that huge pile of bones under the blanket. And sirens don't like to sweat, they like to be slippery and soft. None of them sleep with full covers on, not to mention their long hair often spill out of the bed."
"Whoever did this does know sirens out of the textbooks." Vance said. Ash nodded. "and they don't know siren songs don't work on me."
Vance asked, "why didn't you extend you resitance to them?"
"I cannot control it to a large extent and need constant touch to do it. It wouldn't work. Better leave them locked."
"Why aren't they coming out?"
"The warden must have shut them in. She saw this coming. I wish I knew where she was."
"We can't even ask fairies." Vance laughed a little. "What did they find?"
"You will see. We are trying to find Akiye. No one knows where she is and none of us can find her. We are asking everyone we know but no one has seen her since last night."
Ash had the urge to groan. Since Akiye was missing and the fairy was caught. Who hypnotised the sirens?
The two of them came out in the reception and went around to the other side, where the guy's dormitory started. Ash paused and looked back. Her dream. Her wild wild dreams. Sometimes, in those dreams she was here while at other times, she was down in the meeting room. They couldn't be real. Could they?
That would be too much. The incident on their hands was more targetted and specific, not as wild as she dreamt them to be. Vance asked again, "what's wrong?"
"I do not know what's wrong but something is wrong. Very wrong and unsettling. Where is everyone? We need to meet up."
And so, Vance guided her to the second floor, where Karn, Karlene and Lady Bree had the room to themselves. "where is Sven?"
Vance swallowed. "He tried to attack me. I trapped him in a room."
Karlene burried her face in her hands, "if I hadn't broken up with him. I could have kept watch over him."
Ash shook her head, "you couldn't. This is bigger than we realize. What did you find?"