Sebastian made it out of the school to meet up with Lauren, who waited beside a tree humming to herself. She turned to find him standing there and gave him a ‘warm welcome.'

“Huh, was wondering if you’d ever show up. By the looks of things, I thought you’d have refused,” Lauren said.

“Uh, hello to you, too?” Sebastian didn't know if he should take offense to that statement or not. What was her deal? But regardless, he should get straight to the point. “So, I got your message from Troy. What is it you want?”

Wow, rude much? “Um, how do I put this...?” Lauren scratched her chin at that statement.

“You’re not here to pick a fight with me, are you?” Sebastian jumped to conclusions and placed his arms on his hips. “Because if it’s a fight you want...”

“Look, I don’t want to fight you.” Lauren interrupted.

“Oh, so did you just want to insult me in how—?”

“No, not yet. Just listen to what I need to say, alright?”

“Alright. Wait...”

“I want to help you... well, find the traitor, of course.”

“Hmm, sounds reasonable.” Sebastian nodded his head in agreement before letting what she just said sink in. “Wait. What?! How did you know about that? I certainly don’t remember—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does for me.”

“Well, it’d be shameful if Glenda were to find out you let a student follow you. Not to mention let her sneak into the magic room to eavesdrop and use the information as blackmail...”

“Are you kidding me!? What the devil—?”

“I want in. Got it?”

“Childish demand much? And what do you even have to gain for this? You’re usually the type who expects a serious reward for—”

“What do you take me for?” Sebastian paused when he heard Lauren say that. Was he seeing a new side of her? She didn’t look like the type that could act this way. Then again, he solely judged her from the outside and her attitude in the past, which made him feel bad.

As Lauren walked off, with her hands behind her back, she continued her speech. “Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not doing this for you, or the school.” She stopped for a moment to twist her foot on the ground slowly, “It’s something more... personal, that I got to sort out.” She turned back to face him. “You’re doing this for a good cause too, right?”

Sebastian was at a loss for words. For the first time, in a long time, he was speechless. Unsure of how to express his thoughts on the matter. Of course, he was doing it for the greater good, his teacher and grandmother said so herself, but was he? Was that his only reason for reporting ‘yes’ to her?

As Lauren waited for an answer, Sebastian, for now, just nodded. “It’s also personal for me.” He looked up to her, finding she now smiled at him, “I had no idea about you, though, my deepest apologies.”

“It’s okay.” She replied, “I’ll forgive you if you pay up your bargain. So what do you say?” She extended her arm for him to shake. “Partners?”

Sebastian noticed the hand and made a small grin. “Yeah.” He went over to shake it. “Alright, just don’t tell anyone about that secret either, ok?”

“You got it; the secret is safe with me.”

After shaking, Sebastian clasped his hands together in excitement. “We should let each other know what we’ve done and found so far. That way, neither is lost and—”

“Nah, that’s too time-consuming.” Lauren waved her hand in disagreement. “Besides, what I got is hard to explain.”

“Oh, I see...”

“Rather, why tell you when I can just show you instead?” She pointed next to the tree beside the windows. “You stand behind that tree, and don’t move, no matter what, alright?”

“Okay?” Sebastian had no clue what was going on, but maybe he should trust her and wait and see what happened next.

Lauren walked to the center of the fields and tapped her foot in some rhythmic pattern.

.-.-.-.

Meanwhile, inside the school, after Glenda had received a call from Clause, she hurried to a room and locked the door so no one else could hear them. Surely there must be some reason he called outside, outside of being lonely and stopping to say hello or make stupid jokes again. Glenda sighed and answered the phone. Then again, she thought about calling him earlier, so maybe it’ll be okay. This had better be good.

Glenda pressed the dial button and enabled the hologram feature, and he appeared in the light-blue, somewhat static-like screening.

“So, how is your progress going so far?” She adjusted her glasses, ignoring the weird exchange earlier.

“Progress? Oh, yes, right, progress!” It took a while for it to register for him. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea to leave him in charge of watching after all. “Well, actually about that... I haven’t made much since no one else has come by since you left, and considering how worried I was that something bad might have happened to—”

Yep. “Well, I appreciate the concern, but worry about your goals at the moment.”

Glenda pointed out as politely as she could, to which Clause nodded sadly. “To be honest, I haven’t made much progress either...”

“Is that so?” He inquired, raising his eyebrows.

“But I have been doing some process of elimination on who could be the one behind all this. And that includes who the traitor is working for!”

“You mean there’s a chance there could be more than one!?”

“Of course, but it could be anybody, however...”

“But they all seem to like—”

A loud, rumbling noise interrupted them. The hologram got more static, and the ground shook to the core.

Nearly losing her balance, Glenda grabbed onto a table and headed toward the door while Clause almost lost connection to her. “What's going on?!” Clause asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to check for myself!”

“W-wait!”

“What?!”

“Should we at least tell Sebastian that—?” The device cut off before he could finish, and the phone floated back into Glenda’s pockets. The earthquake soon settled down. Glenda looked down at the phone, and, clenching her fists, she headed out of the room as fast as possible.