Cary was in the nurse's office for the night. By morning, she was feeling back to normal, no worse off for the fight with Nelgomi. She still felt bad about everything that had happened, about attacking her friend like that. But she had convinced herself that she had no other choice. That Nelgomi had given her no other choice.

As she was heading out of the nurse's office, she paused in front of Nelgomi's bed. The bed was empty, making Cary think that she imagined him being over there in the first place. But the sheets were thrown to the side just like he had always done in their room. Someone must have come for him in the night, bringing him out of the nurse's office. And perhaps even bringing him off the campus. Cary paused there for a moment, just staring down at what she felt would be the last sign of her dwarven friend.

"Cary?" David asked, drawing her attention to him. He was standing at the door to the room, his head bowed as if he were ashamed about something. Perhaps that he hadn't protected her from Nelgomi. Or maybe it was about their fight. But after what happened with Nelgomi, Cary was over both of them. "Are... Are you ready to go?"

"Go?" Cary asked, as she turned back to David.

"Breakfast," he said, throwing his thumb over his shoulder. "Gotta get there before the bacon is gone." He smiled over at her, giving a small laugh at the comment. Cary just stood there for a moment, looking between the empty bed next to her and David.

"Sure," Cary said, smiling, as she nodded her agreement.

David led Cary out through the admin building. The nurse's office was straight down a hall leading off of the entry room for the place, opposite from the headmaster's office. The familiar torches were hanging up on both walls, lighting the way forward. Cary glanced at the torches as she passed them, suddenly having a new familiarity with them. Knowing the spell that powered them somehow took away some of the wonder. Some of the fear that she had when she first saw them. She wondered, she hoped, that the same could be said about all the magic that she was surrounded by.

As they came out into the square, Cary still paused in mid stride, staring at the fully repaired fountain. There was no sign of the destruction that Nelgomi had caused, nor of her fight with him. Cary almost expected to see the hooded figure, still standing there from the night before. Instead, there was a dwarf standing there, looking at the fountain, tapping it a few times with a long stick as if testing it. Cary had thought she had seen the dwarf around campus before, but she never got his name.

The square looked perfect. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought that nothing happened there at all. That the heart of the forest was still hidden beneath the fountain. However, the fountain no longer threw rainbows all over the place, making her think that it had been the heart of the forest doing that all along.

The mead hall was a lot quieter than normal as Cary and David came inside. At first, Cary thought that the room was just emptier than usual. But as they made their way over to the serving dishes in the back, she realized that, if anything, the place was more crowded.

Cary headed down between the mouth and toad tables like normal, slipping past the upperclassmen as they made their way to the serving dishes on the far wall. As they passed them, Cary realized that most of the kids at the mouth table were wearing black armbands on their arms. Several of them were wearing all black outfits, their heads bowed as they stared quietly at their plates in front of them. Whatever had happened, they seemed to be taking it doubly hard.

"What's going on?" David asked, when they came over to their usual spot.

Siobhan and Sam were sitting in their old usual seats, the schism within their group healed automatically. However, as Cary sat down, she couldn't help but look to the open seat between them, the spot that Nelgomi once took.

"What do you mean?" Siobhan asked. "I should be asking you two that. Sam said you two made up last night."

"Well, with a witch attacking the school, words don't seem to have the same strength anymore," Cary said, as she sat down. "But I think David was talking about the mouth table."

"You mean the H and H house?" Sam asked, pointing towards the other table. "I hadn't noticed."

"They're all quiet and depressed," Cary said.

"They lost someone in the attack," Reggie said, turning around in his seat to talk to them. "When the witch went witch, they killed one of the H and H-ers."

"Oh," Cary said, simply.

The way that Reggie talked about it, about how the witch became so, it sounded almost like the witch had no control over it either. That they suddenly went bad and killed someone in the process. Despite feeling more confident in her power, less scared about all the magic around her, turning witch still worried her to no end. And Reggie wasn't helping things with that.

"But who went witch?" David asked. He looked around at the two tables they were between, as if looking for someone wearing a witch's hat or sporting a newfound mole or cat. Someone cackling their glee. But Cary knew that the witch would have been removed from campus, would have been arrested right after the attack was stopped.

Or perhaps, David was looking for someone who wasn't there.

"I noticed a certain dwarf is missing," Reggie said, pointing towards Nelgomi's empty seat. "He had been looking a bit suspicious these past few weeks."

"What about Mark?" David asked, pointing towards an empty seat at the sixth grader's table. "I never liked him."

"Hey," someone said. The boy was coming up the aisle between the sixth and seventh graders' tables, quickly taking the seat that he was pointing at. "That's not nice," Mark said.

"It wasn't Nelgomi," Cary said. "That was something else. My money is on those devil worshipers."

"Oh," Reggie said, sounding surprised. "I don't think I've seen the coven this morning." He looked around him, searching for the self-proclaimed witches.

The low murmur that the room had been instantly died as everyone turned to the doors. Cary stood up, desperately trying to see what everyone was looking at. Standing just inside the front door, looking over at all the students that were staring at her, was Sidney; the member of the coven that had somehow turned all the way around at the tryouts. She just stood there for a moment before a wide grin spread across her face.

"Sorry to disappoint," she said, as she let out a little cackle.

"Oh, don't tease them," said Sharon, as she came in after her. "We may be witches, but even we have standards." She rolled her eyes at the H and H house table, as if they were beneath them. Not worth killing, even if they did turn witch. "Isn't that right, Rachel?"

"Oh, I don't know," Rachel said, as she came inside. "That one on the end looks pretty juicy." She licked her lips, as if salivating at the very thought of murder.

"That's enough," Headmaster Sparks shouted, as he came up behind them. "All of you, take your seats. That goes for you, too, Veronica. No need to be all dramatic about it." He looked back towards the entrance, where the fourth and final member of the coven was waiting for her own dramatic entrance.

As the four coven members headed towards the serving dishes in the distance, Headmaster Sparks made his way over to the teachers table. The room stayed quiet, all eyes trained on the headmaster. Clearly, everyone there was expecting something to come from him. Some explanation for all that had happened the day before. He took his time, heading over to the middle of the teacher's table, before turning towards the students assembled before him.

"Now, I know you're all wondering about yesterday," Headmaster Sparks said, in a low voice that easily carried around the room. People were all staring at him with bated breaths, silence filling the room. "I'm afraid that I must confirm that the rumors are true. A student at this school gave in to their darker nature yesterday, and became a witch. In the process, we lost not one, but two students. Shedder Dust of the Herbology and Healing house had been heading towards the bathroom right before the lockdown started. The soon-to-be witch was laying in wait and jumped her as she was heading towards the door. However, contrary to some of the rumors that were going around, she was not caught outside of the bathroom during the lockdown. It was initiated the moment that the witch killed Shedder and became a witch. Now, let's have a moment of silence for the fallen."

Headmaster Sparks hung his head there, his hand flicking through the familiar sign of the cross, as he sent a prayer up to God for the lost student. As Cary watched him, she realized that he must be a Christian as well. Someone who believed in God and took His tenants to heart. With everything that had happened the day before, and with her becoming aware of his own faith, Cary's calling him a witch on the day that they had met seemed all the worse for it. As the moment of silence went on, Cary made a promise to herself to apologize to Headmaster Sparks when she got the chance.

The moment of silence was ended with the sharp, loud sound of trays being slammed down on the table. With everyone quiet and seated in the room, Cary easily spotted two members of the coven standing at the end of the H and H table, even as Rachel was making her way towards the fifth grade table and Veronica was heading towards the seventh grade one. This seemed odd to her, given how they were talking about the students in that house. To think that they had such contempt for their own classmates.

When Cary looked back at the headmaster, he was glaring over at the four of them. He quickly schooled his face, but not quickly enough for people to have missed it. Once he had the attention of the students again, he continued.

"Classes will be resuming today, as scheduled. I know that Shedder was quite popular, and had several close friends. If anyone has need of additional support, feel free to schedule time with your guidance counselors. They're here for a reason."

As he said that, Cary started to wonder if this was exactly the reason why they were there. Why they required all the students to see them at least once a month. The words of Nelgomi's own guidance counselor from the night before flitted through her head, suddenly in a new light. Were the guidance counselors specifically looking for students that were about to turn witch? If they were, how did they miss this one? Or did they?

"As for the witch himself, I can assure you that he has been arrested and removed from campus. They are no longer a danger to anyone, here or elsewhere. As most of you know, witches are an all too common occurrence in the magical world, especially in the magical realm. We should not take them lightly, but we should also not let them get in our way of living our lives. That is all the information that I, or any of the teachers here at Thorbjorg, will be saying on the subject. Please, do not spend all day bombarding them with questions that they will not be answering. And, one final announcement, the JV Cadavraball team managed to win their game last weekend, which means that they'll be making their way to the finals next month. Can we hear a round of applause for them?"

Headmaster Sparks vibrantly clapped for the team, pointing out the players one by one within the ocean of faces in front of him. But as Cary stood there watching him, she thought that the headmaster's eyes never left her own.

And the worried voice deep within her told her that he was watching for her to turn witch next.