Last week, dear reader, Belinda and Hailey clashed over the use of a geas spell. Caught atwixt them, poor Bella finds herself staring down two inexorable titanesses bent upon enforcing their will. Navigating the suddenly treacherous undercurrents of her spell lesson will take all of Bella’s intelligence and test the budding growth of her bond with both women. Still, nothing she says or does may be enough to forestall the fight.

“So you want me to lose all my friends because I have to keep this secret forever?” asks an irate Hailey.

Unmoved, Belinda replies, “This spell should not exist. It is the product of a tyrannical, truly evil, wizard. He intended to enable the worst kinds of abuses all for his own sick pleasure. So will I help you place chains around your friends, and enslave them as my family was enslaved? The answer is no.”

“It’s not about enslaving them! It’s about protecting myself. If I can’t tell them, if I can’t tell Theo and Missy, I’m going to fail.” Hailey finishes with a flush in her cheeks, the passion in her words bleeding through her body.

Confused, Bella asks, “Fail at what?”

Frustrated, Hailey shoots a glance at Bella. Her expression clearly spells out her unwillingness to specify exactly what bothers her. In her anger, Hailey turns to her and spits out, “Why aren’t you on my side Bella? You know exactly how bad it can be to hide things from your friends. You should be trying to convince her with me!”

Reeling at her words, hurt flashes across Bella's face as she tries to form a response. After a few seconds, Bella nods aimlessly and slumps down against the ground, her knees scrunched up against her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs as she leans against a bookshelf. Her stricken expression leaves no ambiguity as to the realization Bella just made. Sniffling slightly, she says in a hurt voice, “This was never about a lesson was it?”

Realizing her mistake, Hailey starts to answer until Bella cuts her off with a shake of her pigtails and an exclaimed, “No!” Looking up at her friend she says, “Hailey you’ve done a lot for me, so maybe this is really unfair, but friends don’t use each other. I’ve been really excited about learning magic, even knowing I can never actually use it, and this was supposed to be my first lesson. Instead, you’re using it and me as a way to bully Belinda into doing what you want.”

Falling to her knees, Hailey looks down at her hands through her oversized sleeves. She struggles to find words.

Finally, In a small voice reeking of despair she says, “I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have. But I’m going to lose them both Bella. He hasn’t texted me once, not even when Becca attacked. I know him, and he’d never cut off communication like that unless he’s really mad at me. So is Missy, if possible she’s even angrier. They talk with each other, they know something is going on with me and they won’t let me get away with lying to them anymore.”

To the surprise of both girls, Belinda walks to the edge of the table and jumps off, falling into Hailey’s hands. There her powerful voice fills the room as she says in a comforting voice, “Child, you are overreacting. When Theo sees how you and Bella remain friends, he will forget his anger at how you handled the situation. Bella, you will need to speak with him. Assure him that all is well between you two and that she has done the right thing since.”

Slowly at first, Bella nods. Then she stammers out as she continues to nod, “Of course! I mean that’s the truth right?”

Belinda smiles in her direction and gives a simple nod before putting her tiny hand on Hailey’s chin and lifting her face upwards so they can share a look. “Handling Missy will be more difficult. You will need to apologize and ask for her forgiveness. I think you will need to tell her about your conversation with Mr. Rutter to start, and perhaps explain that your grief-”

“No,” says Hailey, cutting her off.

“Child I-”

“NO Bel. It’s wrong. I don’t want to manipulate my friends. You might be right about Theo, he maybe is more worried about Bella than angry at me, but that doesn’t change that Missy saw me run out of my house in the middle of Becca’s attack. I can’t lie to her like that. I can’t invoke our dead friend as a way of keeping her in the dark.”

Bella interjects before the metal woman can reply, “She’s right Belinda. It’s not okay.”

Sighing, Hailey gently lifts Belinda back up to the desk and sets her down before saying, “I have to be honest with her.”

Belinda quietly asks, “You will tell her about me? About all of this?”

Shaking her head in reply, Hailey answers, “No. But I can tell her I have a secret that I need to keep, one I can’t and won’t explain. She might hate me, she might never forgive me, but she’s earned my honesty.”

Belinda smiles kindly, although the expression doesn’t quite meet her eyes, patting Hailey’s hand through the fabric of the sweater. “This is why I chose you, child. You’ve bravery to spare, even if it accompanies your somewhat foolish attitude regarding boys.”

Wryly, Hailey cuts back, “I thought you picked me because you had no real choice. Everyone else in the mall was running or dead except Malefic and me.”

Eyes glinting in warning, Belinda answers, “That may have had some influence, but I work with what I am given, not what I wish I had.”

“Ouch!” gasps Hailey in mock indignation. “Keep up the attitude and I might never get around to hunting down Malefic,” she teases back.

Bella shyly interjects into the banter, “What? You’ve mentioned something about this before, what do you mean by ‘hunt down Malefic?’”

Guilty, Hailey looks away. Belinda, however, is ready with the answer, “I do not teach magic to just anyone girl. She and I made a pact, I teach her, and in exchange she will help me obtain vengeance against the one who killed my ancestor, Malefic.”

Alarmed, Bella tries to meet Hailey’s gaze. “You’re planning on killing someone?”

Belinda gives a vicious smile and nods in a satisfied fashion. “Indeed, and if I have my way she will die slowly, as befits such a vile creature.”

Grabbing Hailey’s sleeve and tugging on it, trying to turn her body enough to bring her face-to-face, Bella flounders with the excessive fabric. Finally, she gives up and seizes her friend by the shoulders, forcing her to meet her eyes. “Hailey,” she intones, “you’re not a murderer. You can’t just kill someone in cold blood.”

Hailey looks up at her with a troubled expression in her eyes and conflict in her tone. “She’s not a good person Bella. She burned Amanda to death and she killed Wiccan in front of me. She tortured me and she wanted to watch me die in flames. That’s not even counting the hundreds of other people she’s hurt and killed over the years. Malefic is bad, evil, all the way through.”

“That’s not the point!” exclaims Bella, “I know what she is. Do you seriously think that I haven’t researched every villain that attacks this city? I know practically everything about her, including that she’s considered dangerous enough cops are allowed to shoot her on sight. But that’s not the point.” Inhaling slowly, Bella reaffirms her grasp on Hailey’s shoulders, bunching up the fabric of the sweater in her hands. “The point is that you’re not a cop. You can’t sit here, knowing you’re going to kill her, and tell me things are okay.”

“What’s the difference?” counters Hailey. “The cops can shoot her, why can’t I do my version of that?”

“Because you’re a sixteen year old girl who just got done worrying about a boy and her best friend!” explodes Bella, “you shouldn’t be planning this! It’s not right.”

“Right?” snaps Hailey, “Was it right that Amanda died? Or that-”

Shouting over her friend, Bella strives to win her argument with sheer volume. “I KNOW!” Hailey stops talking in shock at the vociferous burst from her typically reserved friend. “I know,” repeats Bella, catching her breath. “I know that Amanda died. I know about everything Malefic’s done. But I also know you. I know that you risked your secret to save me. I know that you could have killed me and instead you did everything possible to rescue me from Belladonna. That’s what a heroine does. She saves lives, she doesn’t take them.”

Troubled, Hailey has difficulty forming a reply. When she does, it carries a note of uncertainty to it. “You were different. I know you.”

“And what about The Chauvinist? He threatened to rape you, to enslave you, and you didn’t kill him.”

A faint fire flickers in Eldritch’s eyes as she snaps back, “Maybe that was a mistake. You saw that he got out, God only knows what he’s doing now.”

Shaking her head, Bella counters, “It wasn’t a mistake. Do you know who Black Nod was?”

Apprehensive, Hailey replies in assent.

“Right,” Bella says shaking her head, “I guess everyone knows who he was. But before he died, Black Nod was the leader of the movement to give superheroes a license to kill. Beacon was on the other side of the fence. He argued killing was the one thing you should always avoid. Black Nod’s attitude was dangerous, because it made every fight a fight to the death. The villains knew losing to him meant putting their lives at his mercy, what little there was.”

“Maybe he was right,” Hailey says, uncertain.

“When he started executing villains without turning them over to civilian authorities, they started escalating the fights and doing anything to avoid capture. Black Nod’s attitude split apart Beacon’s team and eventually ostracized him from the rest of the Association. He made Europe an easy place for Ascherus to recruit from because so many villains were already killers out of necessity.” Taking a deep breath before continuing Bella adds in a grim voice, “And do you know who one of those recruits was?”

Almost to herself, in a voice so low Bella almost misses the answer, Hailey mumbles, “Malefic.”

“Exactly,” Bella replies, “I don’t know, maybe she was always destined to be evil. Maybe Malefic was bad long before she met Ash. Maybe, well probably, she’s exactly as messed up as you think. But you aren’t, not by a long shot. So I don’t want you to go down a road like Black Nod did, it isn’t worth it.”

Reminding the two of her presence, Belinda taps her chin creating a metallic ringing noise through the room. Her inflection is royal as she states, “Your concerns are noted. We will take them under advisement.”

“Bel…” Hailey trails off, thinking for a moment before saying a firmer voice, “Bel, you won’t teach me the geas because of how Athow used it. This is the same thing. I can’t force you to teach me that spell because it’s wrong. You shouldn’t force me to kill either, it’s wrong.

Frostily, Belinda intones, “We have an agreement.”

“We created the bond right after Amanda died, when I was still recovering from the mall. I wasn’t making entirely clearheaded decisions and I might have been hasty agreeing to kill Malefic.” Eyes pleading, Hailey turns to her mentor and asks, “I want her imprisoned just as much as you do. I want her behind bars, and if the courts decide to execute her for everything she’s done then I want to be on the other side of the glass when it happens. But I don’t want to set out to kill her.”

Angry, Belinda repeats herself. “We have an agreement child! I spent my life, as did my mother and her mother and every woman in my line, searching for a way to save my ancestor. When I finally came succeeded, she was in anguish, mentally lost and thrust into an unfamiliar era, but I was making progress. She was close to coming back to me, and I was close to fulfilling the mandate of my entire bloodline!”

Pacing across the tabletop, Belinda openly fumes. “Then that hag, that monster, that evil, vile, anti-feminist cost me everything! She destroyed it all with a blast of her accursed fire and now you want me to let her live? It is incomprehensible, reprehensible, and utterly indefensible that you would even entertain the notion of asking such a thing of me.”

Subdued, but determined, Hailey presses back. “What about me? My best friend wants to be a cop when she grows up, someone who upholds the law. Before I met you I wanted to be a psychiatrist, and I wanted to heal people. How can I stay on that path and become a killer?”

“That,” says Belinda in a frigid voice “is not my concern.”

“Then,” says Hailey in a trembling voice, “maybe you should find someone else to teach, someone who is willing to kill.”

Livid, Belinda explodes with anger. “Child! I have invested my time and energy into you and this is how you repay me? This betrayal?”

“I’m not betraying you Bel! I’m making a choice. If you need to walk away I can’t, I won’t stop you.”

Trembling slightly with rage, Belinda stares at her young protégé for a full minute. Finally, she collects herself and masters her turbulent emotions. When she speaks, her voice is flat and bereft of emotion. “I must ruminate on these matters child. Do not summon the dagger until I give you leave. If you plan on continuing to play the heroine, it will be without my aid.”

Finished, Belinda’s figure transforms back into the wicked looking dagger and falls upon the desk. Hailey reaches out, grasping the metal and vanishing the blade before turning back to face her friend. Bella, however, has her eyes on Hailey’s phone. The phone rings, a name she is unfamiliar with on the screen. Silently she looks up at Hailey, a question in her eyes. But even as she asks, Hailey answers the mobile, leaving Bella to wonder; who is Erika?

What news does Erika bring? And without her spiritual companion, can Hailey handle whatever tribulation is coming next? Find out next week in… “Conversations and Classrooms!”