"Nelgomi, what are you doing?" Cary asked. She looked around at the square, at the destruction that Nelgomi had caused. Not only to the fountain, but to the road around it. Water was flowing across the cobblestones, heading downhill towards the entrance to the campus. The cobblestones around the fountain were not only littered with the debris, but were pulled up in places, destroyed in others.

As Cary stared around at the place, she wondered how it was that Nelgomi had managed so much destruction without anyone noticing. The admin building was right next to the square, with several windows overlooking it. The sound of the sledgehammer against the stone should have rung out across the space, echoing against the buildings. But the entire time that Cary had been walking through the grounds, ever since she was dismissed from class, the place had been deathly silent. Unless the destruction had been done during the lockdown, how would it have been missed? And the lockdown had been over for an hour easily. Nelgomi wouldn't have been waiting around for that long.

"Were... Were you out here during the lockdown?" Cary asked. She was almost afraid of the answer. Afraid that her friend was the witch. But she couldn't bring herself to ask that question. The real question.

"No," Nelgomi said, shaking his head. "I just... I waited for the students to head through here for the dorms. It wasn't that hard to destroy the fountain. I am a dwarf after all." He smiled back at the fountain, as if he was proud of the destruction that he had caused. At how easily he had done it.

"But... But why, Nelgomi? Why destroy the fountain?"

"Because this was under it," he said, holding the mushroom up again. Its glow radiated out from his hand, throwing rainbows all over the place. It was the same effect that the fountain had had, before it was destroyed. And as Cary was staring at the mushroom, she realized that it had always been the source of the rainbows.

"That's... That's the heart of the forest?" she asked. "It looks so... mushroom-like."

"It's the heart of a mushroom forest," Nelgomi said. "What did you expect it to look like?" He gave Cary a strained smile, as if he thought her stupid or something.

"But... But why do you have it? Why destroy the fountain for it? Are... Are you going to take its power? Are you the witch?"

"What? No. The w– Girlie, do you have any idea what's going on here? The grownups are lying to us. They said that they didn't have this."

"So? If that thing is so important, its location was obviously going to be secret. People were lying to keep it safe. Now put it back."

"Girlie, you don't understand," Nelgomi said. "I need this. My people need this. We've been asking for it for years. Years, girlie. Without it, my people are going to lose all access to magic."

"What? Why? How? What are you talking about?"

"Don't you remember what this thing does? It creates fairy rings. Without fairy rings, people can't travel between realms. And in the dwarven realm, fairy rings aren't just endangered. They're almost extinct. There's only one left, and it's being held safe by the government. But that means they are the ones that get to choose who goes through and who doesn't. The only reason why I made it through was because of my papa being a sorcerer. I'm grandfathered in. Why do you think there are so few dwarves here? This was a dwarf only school not too long ago. And now? There's like five of us. In the whole school. That's just wrong, girlie."

"So is breaking open the fountain and stealing the heart," Cary said. "How did you even know it was in there?"

"That's not important," Nelgomi said. "What is important is if you're going to let me leave with it. If you're going to let me walk out those gates and return to my people with this."

"Ha," Cary laughed. "I'd like to see you try. You know just as well as I do that we can't pass through those gates. We're fifth graders. It keeps us in, afraid we'll run off and get ourselves killed out there or something."

"Well, the magical realm is dangerous. They're protecting us for a reason. Just look at what happened today. The witch that attacked the school. That was a student."

"What?" Cary asked. "How? There weren't supposed to be witches here."

"There weren't before, and there aren't now. Witches aren't born, Cary. They're made. Worse, the headmaster knew it was going to happen. He can't be trusted. I'd invite you to come with me, but I'm going straight to the dwarven realm. Humans wouldn't survive long there."

"Nelgomi, no," Cary said. "You said it yourself, it's dangerous out there. And with the heart of the forest? You'd risk that? There was a reason why they were keeping it safe in there."

Instead of looking towards the gates, towards where Nelgomi meant to head, Cary couldn't help but look back at the admin building. She couldn't understand why the teachers hadn't come out yet. Why they weren't there to stop him. They must know what was going on. She could almost see them staring back at her through the windows. But all the windows were empty, with no sign of anyone inside there. For all she knew, the teachers were hiding somewhere else on campus.

Or maybe they weren't on campus at all.

"Don't bother looking for the teachers," Nelgomi said, easily reading Cary's thoughts. "I put the building into lockdown, just like they had it during the witch attack. No one can see anything outside from in there, and they can't get through the doors even if they could. It's just you and me here, girlie. So, what's it going to be?"

"How... How do you know how to do that?" she asked. "I only know two spells. That's... That's advanced stuff."

"Not really," he said. "Not if you know what you're doing. My papa has been teaching me magic all my life. It was only now that I've been in the realm that I could do it. What do you think I've been doing these past few months? You know just as well as I do that magic comes easier to some of us than others. And if you had a proper teacher? Not one that's trying to hold you back. You'd already be the most powerful sorceress in all the realms. You were born for this, Cary. You'll see that soon enough."

Cary looked between the admin building, Nelgomi, and the gateway, suddenly unsure of what was happening there. What to think about everything. If Nelgomi could lock the admin building like that, he probably could make it through the gateway as well. He'd take the heart of the forest with him, risking it in the wilds of the magical realm. And he said it himself, without that, they couldn't make new fairy rings anymore. They couldn't create new portals to the magical realm. People would lose access to magic.

For the first time since coming to the magical realm, to that school, Cary realized that she didn't want that. She liked having magic in her life. She liked being a sorcerer. She didn't want that to go away, or for other kids like her to miss out on magic. So, as she turned back to Nelgomi, she knew that she needed to stop him.

"I see," Nelgomi said. "Well, just know, I'm not going to make it easy for you to stop me. And like I said, I've been practicing magic far longer than you have."

"Yeah," Cary said, nodding. "But I'm taller."

For once, Cary really was taller than someone. She easily had a few inches over Nelgomi. And after being short for her age for most of her life, she knew what kind of advantage that was. Before Nelgomi could react, Cary jumped forward, trying to grab the heart away from him.

But Nelgomi moved faster. He closed his hand around the heart, pulling it further away from her. His free hand moved forward, punching at Cary. The punch grazed her cheek, knocking her to the ground at his feet. Even that small graze felt ten times worse than the last time she had been punched, when Greg had caught her off guards coming out of the library that one time.

"Stay down, girlie," Nelgomi yelled at her. "You don't want any part of this."

Nelgomi quickly moved past her, stepping over her prone body, as he headed towards the gates. Cary grabbed onto his ankle as he passed, pulling him down to the ground with her. He held the heart out from his body as he fell, making sure not to fall on it. Not to crush it under his weight.

"I can't let you leave here with that," Cary said, as she desperately clung to his leg.

"I'm not giving you a choice," Nelgomi said. He whirled around, easily breaking free from Cary's grip as he crawled on top of Cary. His free hand grabbed onto her right one, pinning it to the cobblestones beneath her. "There's nothing you can do to stop me. I'm stronger in every way. And now you can't even cast a spell at me." He pressed her hand further into the cobblestone, as if to demonstrate just how helpless she was.

Cary hadn't even thought of casting a spell at him. She had momentarily forgotten that she could. That it was an option. But she didn't know what she could do that would have any impact on him. The two spells that she knew wouldn't be able to stop him from leaving. For a moment, she thought of using Snoiod Suas on the heart, to make it look like something else. But he'd still have it in his hands. Then two words seemed to come to her seemingly out of nowhere, as if whispered into her ears. And Cary couldn't help but smile.

"What are you smiling about?" Nelgomi asked.

"My ring hand is my left," Cary said. She pulled her left hand, her ring hand, forward, feeling the magic flowing through her, as she said the words. "Fae Fete."

Suddenly, sparks flared up around Nelgomi's eyes. The same kinds of sparks that she had been seeing all over campus, coming from the strange torches. Cary knew that they were harmless, that they would do no damage to him. But Nelgomi still freaked out, his hands going wildly around him. They reached up, clawing at his eyes. He punched out, his fists raining down onto Cary, who was still pinned beneath him. Cary's arms went up, trying to protect herself from the punches. But she felt pain slice through her as those punches hit her arms. And she thought that she heard a loud crack.

"Get it off," Nelgomi shouted.

He finally stood up, getting off of Cary as he started to run around the square, desperately trying to get away from the sparks over his eyes. In his blind confusion, he stepped on one of the broken off pieces of the fountain, slipping in the water flowing out from it, and fell heavily onto his back.

But Cary barely noticed that as she stared up at the sky. The stars were starting to come out, shining down at her from above. Or at least, she thought that they were stars. As her vision started to fade and she started to pass out, she wasn't so sure that those were stars. She just hoped that the white lights coming down at her was heaven. That she hadn't somehow missed something and was about to be condemned to hell for being at that school.

"Cary, are you alright?" someone asked. Something came in front of Cary's face, hanging over her and blocking her view of the stars. At first, she couldn't make out much of it. A dark blob and nothing more. But then the person reached up, pulling the hood back on their cloak. She could just make out her face in the darkness. The very familiar face. But as Cary lost consciousness, she couldn't place it. "Oh, God, I wouldn't have brought you here if I... I'm so sorry, Cary. I'll make sure that you're alright. Hold on, okay? Just... Just know that I love you."