Parker pitched his idea to the whole group at dinner. Caleb was still hesitant to his plan, Alexis still thought it was the dumbest plan they could think of and Hailee agreed with Parker.

“Seriously Hailee? You agree with him?” Alexis was shocked. She thought that Hailee would agree with her and lecture about how they needed to come up with some grand plan to stop Lara.

“Yeah, I do,” she said. “Caleb is right, we’re not going to improve any more in just a few days. And no matter what, there’s no way we’d be stronger than Lara. So, we might as well go. We might even catch her off guard by arriving early.”

Alexis considered what Hailee was saying and thought that she might be right. Maybe it would catch her off guard.

The light from behind the clouds disappeared, as the night grew stronger. The lake looked different since Lara’s Imperial had ended. It was now just a long, even layer of thick, fluffy snow. Looking out across the bridge, it stretched further than the eye could see, no longer ending at the edge of Lara’s Imperial.

Parker was sad to see that the moon and stars were no longer visible at night. The sky was filled with gray clouds that let loose a relentless amount of snow. Tonight was the night. As soon as the common room emptied and everyone went to bed, they would head to the secret entrance to confront Lara.

His heart was racing as he looked out the window next to his bed. Caleb was curled up under his blankets, staring at the ceiling. The other boys began filing into the dormitory and getting ready for bed.

“So are you ready for the end of term exams?” asked Oliver.

“I’m certainly not, how about you Dexter?” responded Gerald

Dexter shook his head vigorously. “Not even a little bit. I’ve got so much studying to do. I’m struggling with history but my Imperial isn’t too bad; I’m finally getting the hang of it! Any tips for history though?”

No one responded to him. His brother didn’t have an answer, Gerald shook his head, Sam was asleep and both Parker and Caleb were so lost in their own thoughts they hadn’t heard any of the conversation.

Dexter hung his head in defeat, “Guess I won’t be passing then. Hey, Parker, are you ready for the exams?”

Parker didn’t budge, eyes stuck on something outside. “Hey, Parker!” Dexter shouted. Parker shook his head from side to side and turned to look at him.

“What’s up? Sorry, was lost in my own little world.”

“I was asking if you had any tips for the exams.” Parker thought for a moment and then told Dexter the method he used.

“Well, what worked for me was doing some form of our Imperial while I studied a specific fact from history. Then when the exam came, I thought about the different types of our Imperial I was doing to remember the history fact.”

Dexter was listening, enthralled in what Parker was sharing. “That’s genius! I’m way better at our Imperial. Although, it did take me a while to figure out how to control the air that was a lot further away from me. How about you? Was that a tricky one also?”

Parker knew that it had been as simple as waking up in the morning for him but decided he didn’t want to be the person to brag to his friends. “Yeah, that was a bit trickier than the others. Took a little while before I got the hang of it.” Dexter laughed a little and thanked Parker for the advice.

The room began to grow quiet as each boy fell asleep. Caleb hadn’t budged in what seemed like hours, still staring at the ceiling. Once the last boy had fallen asleep, Parker sat up in his bed, ready to go. Caleb still didn’t move.

After Parker was done getting ready, he went to get Caleb. He shook his shoulder a little bit to get his attention. Parker wasn’t wearing the normal robes, but what he would wear under them. No reason to have the extra weight on him when he didn’t know what exactly he was getting in to.

They waited near the entrance to the common room until the girls showed up a little bit later. No one said anything as they left the common room to head down to the entrance hall.

Alexis finally said something when they were a couple floors away from the main hall. “Is anyone else as nervous about this as I am?” Their silence answered her question quickly. It seemed as though everyone was in their own little world, trying to figure out what to do.

“We’re going to be okay, I know it!” Alexis said, trying to sound as cheerful and optimistic as possible. Parker and Hailee gave a small smile at her attempt; Caleb continued to stare at the ground in front of him in silence.

Parker blew a gust of air high into the hole on the wall, revealing the secret corridor. As they approached the secret stairway they all were looking back and forth from one another.

“Well, here it goes…” Caleb said, clearly terrified at what they were getting themselves into. He raised his hands out in front of him and the staircase dropped into the floor as it had the first time they found it.

“So… who’s going to go first?” Alexis and Hailee asked simultaneously. No one raised their hand to volunteer. They just stood still and stared down the dark staircase.

“I think Caleb should, you know, since he can create a flame in his hand so that we can see.” Caleb was not impressed by Parker’s suggestion. But, he took the lead and raised his hand out in front of him. A small fire appeared, hovering over his palm.

They started to make their way down the stairs into the dark corridor. Caleb made the flame a little bigger lighting enough area that they could see the walls on either side of them.

Moving forward, they walked for a while with only the aid of the small flame in Caleb’s palm. The corridor was a warm, dark place that seemed to wind all over under the castle. Making turn after turn and going further and further underground. They could feel a slight slant in the floor, meaning the further they walked the further down they went.

After some time of walking, they came to a solid wall. There had been no other turn to make down the corridor; it just led to a dead end.

“What now?” Caleb asked. Frustrated that after everything they planned for, it led to a dead end.

No one responded to his question, each trying to figure out what to do next. “Can you increase that flame a little, so it’s brighter in here?” Parker asked.

Caleb responded by increasing the intensity of the flame. Parker looked all over the wall in front of them. “What are you looking for?” Hailee asked. “Anything to give us a clue as to what we’re supposed to do next. First, we had to find the hidden corridor upstairs by using our Imperial. Then, we had to drop the floor using his Earth Imperial. And if you remember, those stones in the floor were a different color. So, I figure that in order to get to the next part, we’ll have to use either his Fire or Water Imperial. She did say we needed a ‘true master’ a.k.a. an Omni.”

They knew that Parker was probably right but they couldn’t see anything on this wall. The bricks were all the same color. There were no holes in the wall either. “I just don’t know what the next step is,” said Parker.

Parker started to sweat as he looked around trying to find something that would tell him what to do next. He asked Alexis and Hailee if they’d spotted anything yet. Only having the small flame in Caleb’s palm made it slightly difficult to spot anything specific that may point them in the direction they need.

“Caleb, how are you not sweating? That flame is putting out some serious heat,” Hailee said. Caleb looked at each of his friends and noticed that they were all dripping in sweat at this point, but he was still as dry as a bone.

“Wait, I’ve seen this before,” Parker said. “Back home, everyone in my family is a Fire Imperial. The heat really got to me but it never ever bothered them. I don’t think that Caleb’s flame is putting off this heat, but because he’s in tune with all of the elements it doesn’t affect him. Maybe if he creates a big enough fire a door or something will open.”

Caleb just stared at him as he said this. “But Caleb, let us back away first, so we don’t get burned,” Hailee suggested.

Slowly backing away, until they felt they were safe, Hailee gave Caleb the signal to create his fire. He held his hands in front of him with his palms facing each other. The small flame went out for a brief moment leaving them in complete darkness.

Parker heard Caleb mumble something to himself and then a great ball of fire grew in front of him. As the fire grew larger, he moved his hands to accommodate the size. Eventually, the ball was big enough that it was touching the walls on either side of him. Then, in an instant, the fire disappeared.

Caleb could be heard panting slightly in the dark. They slowly crept forward, so they wouldn’t run into him. When they reached him, Hailee knelt down next to him and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. She whispered in his ear so the others couldn’t hear, “Caleb that was amazing.” She couldn’t tell because of the dark, but Caleb’s face was as red as the ball of fire he’d just created.

“Are you able to make another small flame so that we can see?” Alexis asked. “If you can’t, that’s okay, I understand.” She was trying to be nice, but did not like the pitch darkness they were in now. However, before Caleb could do anything to try and light the area for them, the wall that blocked their way dropped into the floor.

Behind the secret door was a room that looked as though it were completely on fire. “No wonder it's so hot down here!” Parker said. “I mean just look at this. It’s ridiculous. But, I guess we know what we need to do next. It’s gonna take some of your Water Imperial for this.” He gestured toward the row of flames in front of him.

“Wait, look there,” Alexis said. She was pointing at a small gap in between the flames. A small path led somewhere beyond the wall of flames lapping at their faces.

“But I’m the only one who can go through the path,” Caleb said. “The fire will burn you guys.”

They knew he was right, figuring out that this must be why only an Omni can get to the secret chamber where Lara was. “So, does this mean that only I can go on from here?” Parker could hear the fear in Caleb’s voice. It was clear that he did not want to go alone.

“Go into the room and see what there is and then come back and tell us. Maybe we can figure something out after that.” Caleb nodded his head, jaw tensed with anxiety.

He walked forward and disappeared among the lapping flames. Time dragged on as they waited for him to return. After a while, they began to grow nervous that something had happened since Caleb disappeared through the flames.

“So, what’s it like in there?” Alexis asked before Caleb even made it completely through the firewall in front of them.

“Once I got past the wall of flames, I was in the center of a completely empty room. But the wall of flames was at least ten feet deep; you never would’ve been able to make it through. Only the House of Kenna members would be able to make it though there.” Parker immediately thought about how disappointed his father had been that Parker was showing no signs of being a Fire Imperial.

“The room had that wall of fire all around it with only the path I came through. So, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do once I get in there. Any ideas?”

They sat a little ways from the wall of fire. “Can you put the fire out? Use your Fire Imperial to stop the flames?” Hailee asked, genuinely curious if that was even possible.

Caleb shook his head, “I tried putting some of the fire out but as soon as I turned to continue putting the rest out, the fire came right back where it’d been before.”

“Hmm… was there anything on the walls above the flames?” Alexis asked. Caleb thought for a minute but hadn’t noticed anything while he was in there.

“No, I don’t think so. But I didn’t really look above the flames that much. I was a little preoccupied with what to do with the flames.”

Alexis continued with her train of thought, “Well, maybe something is written on the wall above the flames. Why don’t you go take another look and then come let us know?”

At this point, Caleb just did as he was asked. No reason not to go along with her idea. He disappeared again behind the flames and time seemed to crawl by as they waited for him to return.

“What do you think it’s like in there?” Hailee asked. “Well, for him, probably nothing too bad because the fire doesn’t faze him. But for us, it would be miserable.” She nodded her head, agreeing with Parker.

They sat waiting for a while longer, talking about what else they might come up against, or if this was the line that they couldn’t cross, making Caleb go at this solo.

Suddenly, the room went dark. The wall of fire disappeared, leaving them, yet again, in total darkness. They turned their heads toward where the wall of fire had been and a tiny flame appeared a little ways away. Then, the small flame grew in size until it was a ball of fire the size of a tennis ball.

“Look, you can see Caleb’s face glowing in the fire’s light.” Parker walked toward Caleb, hoping that there wasn’t anything on the floor between them.

“How did you do that?” Parker sounded amazed that the fire was gone now; after Caleb had told him he wasn’t able to put the fire out before.

“Well, I took Alexis’s advice and looked at the walls above the fire, and over in that corner,” he gestured over his shoulder to a dark corner that couldn’t be seen any longer. “There were water markings on the ceiling, as if it had been leaking or dripping water for a long time. I didn’t notice any water on the ground because the fire was so hot any water would just evaporate. So, I drew the water out of a small hole and kept drawing until I had enough to put the fire out. The problem is, now we can’t really see anything to figure out what to do next.”

“Can’t you just do the fireball trick from earlier?” Alexis asked. Parker jumped because he hadn’t noticed that Alexis and Hailee joined them in the new room.

“I think if I do that, I’m going to run out of energy for whatever would come next.”

“Couldn’t we just make his fire bigger?” Hailee asked.

Parker responded with a confused voice, “What are you talking about? None of us are Fire Imperials.”

“Haven’t you learned anything about fire? Either in class here or from before you were here? Well, fire lives on oxygen. If you take the oxygen away, the fire goes out. But if you feed it oxygen, the fire will grow. So, being Air Imperials, we should be able to make the fire grow nice and big.”

Parker did not believe what Hailee was saying at all. “So, you’re saying, if I use our Imperial, I can make his fire bigger?” She told him yes and he turned toward Caleb’s fire. A gust of wind left his palm directly at the fire and put it out. The room was completely dark again.

“I knew that wouldn’t work!” Parker said from in the darkness. Another flame replaced the small one that Parker had just blown out.

“Here, let me show you,” Hailee said, laughing at how Parker gave up after one try. “You have to do very, very little, or like you just saw, it’ll go out.”

The room became quiet as Hailee concentrated on only letting a very small amount of airflow from her toward the flame. Slowly, the flame in Caleb’s hand began to grow. When it was the size of a tennis ball, she stopped. “See, I told you it would work!”

Parker was amazed by what he just saw. “Since it’s bigger now, you can give it a little more than when it’s so small. But still go easy on it, the less work Caleb has to do for this, the better.”

Parker got close to the ball of fire and slowly fed it oxygen. It was a slow process, but the ball of fire continued to grow as he fed it more and more oxygen. Ten minutes passed and the fire was the size of a beach ball. The entire room was lit now, and they began looking around, trying to find some clue as to what they were supposed to do next.

Parker could hear Alexis muttering something to herself. “We’ve had to use all of Caleb’s Imperials. That’s all of the elements, so we should be at the end. Is this room the hidden chamber?”

It was difficult at points to see because Caleb was also looking around, and the light source went wherever he decided to go. They went over every inch of the walls, looking for something to clue them in on what was next.

When they finally stopped and started to discuss what they thought was next, Hailee heard a splashing sound coming from behind her. They all went to investigate the splashing sound and saw that the sound was coming from a solid stream of water pouring out of the ceiling.

“That’s where I drew the water from earlier to put the fire out,” said Caleb. The water began to gush out and then the door they came through slammed shut. The stone around it began breaking away and crashing down in the water. More and more water spewed out of the ceiling.

Quickly, the room began filling with ice-cold water. Before they could think of anything, the water was already above their knees. “Where’s the water coming from?” Alexis asked, panic stricken and chilled to the bone. Caleb shook his head, “I don’t know. I just know that’s where I drew the little bit of water I used to put out the fire. But I would guess it has to be coming from the lake. That’s the only water around here.”

Alexis’s eyes opened wide, “You mean, we might be under the lake? That means this room could completely cave in!”

More of the ceiling broke away as the freezing water forced its way into the room. The water level began to rise even faster. Before they knew it, they were treading water to keep from drowning.

“What are we going to do?” shouted Caleb. Everyone was trying to think of something, but it was very difficult to focus between treading water and the sound of water crashing through the ceiling.

Parker focused his thoughts and spun, as well as he could, in the water, but nothing happened. “What are you doing Parker?” Alexis asked.

“I’m trying to create my own air bubble around me. But I don’t really know how to do it so I was just giving it a shot.”

“That’s genius! But I don’t know how to do it either,” Alexis responded.

“Me neither,” Caleb said.

Their heads were getting dangerously close to the ceiling by the time Parker had come up with his idea. All of a sudden, a large, spinning air bubble formed around Caleb. Then another around Alexis followed by Parker and lastly Hailee.

“What? How? Who did it?” Alexis asked.

Hailee had the largest grin of her life running across her face. “You learn that in year two,” she said.

“But what are we going to do now?” Parker and Caleb both asked. The room was pitch black and then Caleb created another flame in his hand, this time a little bigger in order to light all that he could without using too much energy.

“I’m not sure, but this room is completely full of water now. So the only place we can really go, is up, into the lake. But I really don’t think that’s such a great idea because it’s covered in ice right now.”

“Hailee makes a great point,” Alexis stated.

They stayed, floating, but in their air bubbles for what seemed like hours. “We’ve got to find a way out of here,” Parker said. “Caleb, could you use your Earth Imperial to open the door?”

“If I do that, the water will just flood the corridor. And if we go back, we won’t know what Lara is doing.”

“What if this all happened because we came early? Instead of on the last day of term,” Hailee said.

“No, I don’t think that’s the case. She said we have to save them by the end of term, not on the end of term. I think this is just another test. We can figure this out. Caleb, could you close the ceiling?” Parker could tell that Alexis was thinking up something, hopefully to save them all.

“I think I could, but then the water would have nowhere to go. What are you thinking?” he asked her.

“Well, if we close the ceiling, or at least put it back to how it was, then you could use your Water Imperial to make the water go back out of the hole and then you could close it completely. I think, somehow, you broke something a little when you used your Water Imperial earlier and that’s what caused this to happen.”

Parker was impressed that Alexis was able to think of all this during their current predicament. He was stuck, not able to think of something or focus much on anything. It was weird; he’d never been in a situation quite like this, where he didn’t have any idea what to do.

“I can give it a try, but I don’t know if being in this air bubble will affect it or if trying to move it through the water will. So bear with me for a minute.”

They all stared in complete silence, watching as Caleb tried to do what Alexis asked of him. Nothing happened at first, then the fallen stones on the floor started to rise; slowly through the water until they mended themselves back into the original places they came from.

“Caleb that was amazing! You didn’t even put your flame out. Are you going to be too exhausted now?” Alexis seemed worried that it would take too much energy for this to work and they’d be stuck.

“I’m surprisingly perfectly fine right now!” Caleb was as shocked as everyone else. “I think that I can handle this.”

They continued to watch as Caleb moved his palms slowly, in a rhythmic fashion that was very soothing to look at. The flame stayed lit in his palm as they swayed back and forth. The water began to swirl, spinning them in their air bubbles.

The room turned into what looked like an upside-down funnel. Water swirled around them, rising higher into the air and out the hole that it came through. As the last of the water vanished, he sealed the hole behind it.

Hailee lowered the air bubbles to the floor and released each of them. Parker walked over to Caleb and slowly fed the flame in his palm oxygen, making it turn into a ball of fire the size of a beach ball. Every corner of the room could be seen in the intense light put off by the flame.

“Caleb, that was…” Hailee began to say. The room froze. Everyone stopped, the flame stopped flickering, and the air stood still. Lara appeared next to Caleb.

She looked around at everyone in the group, so happy that they hadn’t died yet. “How pitiful. They think everything is all right just because they survived the water? To think, I could kill them right now and they wouldn’t even know it happened, wouldn’t even know it was coming. But where’s the fun in that?”