The chair creaked, Laura Kemp held her breath and listened out for any noises coming from the rest of the building. Nothing. She let out her breath as quietly as she could, trying to smother her fast beating heart and get absorbed back into her work. Laura had fallen behind on her work again, and had snuck out of her room late at night into the library where she was attempting to get ahead. It wasn't easy, as the corridors were patrolled hourly at Greenstern. Greenstern is a school for witches like herself to practice within the safety of its boundary. Laura closes her laptop and hides under the table whenever the night patrollers pass through. It would be so much easier if she could work in her dorm room, but there is absolutely no signal in the dorm building, their theory to force the pupils to be social in the evenings and not stay awake late on their phones. It did sort of work. But things like that never stop anyone, there's always someone who is caught scuttling around the school halls at night trying to call their boyfriends. But in Laura's seventeen years at this school, she hadn't been caught yet. She knows the best hiding spots and the timetables of all patrollers like the back of her hand. She was attempting to find sources for her Botany essay, so that tomorrow she could focus on putting all the pieces together and completing the two thousand word minimum. The Greenstern library is huge, with a tall ceiling and wooden finishings and smells slightly of mold, the paint had started to peel off the tops of the walls and the floors had been worn down so much it could no longer be polished. Despite the fact that there were many rich parents whose children attended this school, the word maintenance seemed to be long forgotten in the library. And as the Headmistress always says 'It is a historic site and cannot be touched!'. Yeah right, more like all the funding has been used up on the new sports hall.

Creeek. Laura's head snaps back up from her screen, her eyes looking around wildly. Quickly glancing down at her watch she realised she had forgotten to keep an eye on the time, the patroller was coming. She could hear the door in the corridor clicking shut behind them as they made their way to do the library check. As quietly as she could muster, Laura closed her laptop and slid under the table. Peaking through the bottom of the chair legs, she heard footsteps coming closer. They must have heard her, or seen her laptop screen light, as they never came this far into the library. She could see feet come round from behind the bookshelves, Laura frowned. They're a student, those were the mandatory black mushroom leather lace ups all the students had to wear. Gingerly, Laura crawled along through the middle of the table to get a closer look, she saw a swing of long silky black hair as the person rounded down another aisle. Suddenly, more footsteps could be heard from the library entrance. Laura crouched down further into the shadows.

"Psst, Aaina, are you there?' The new person calls out, Laura could recognise that high pitched voice anywhere. 

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Maggie Williams was in Laura's year at Greenstern, they had never really talked all too much aside from polite smiles in passing. But Maggie was always a big presence in every room she was in. Her loud and bubbly personality coupled with the fact that she was extremely pretty meant that she had a friend in every room. Laura had always kept to herself, yet recently Maggie had become much quieter and more out of character than usual. Laura wondered if her seemingly new found friendship with the girl in the book aisle had anything to do with that. Suddenly the long dark haired girl came back out from the bookcase. Aaina Arya, she was a different story. She was a social outcast, she was rude and didn't like anyone. Even despite her extreme beauty, she was as warm as the Greenstern lake in winter. The only reason anyone puts up with her is due to her family's wealth.

"Maggie you idiot, shut up! You'll get us both caught!" Aaina whispered loudly across the room. Maggie Williams clumsily made her way over to Aaina's voice, Aaina grabbing her wrist and pulling her into the shadows of the tall bookcases before someone could see them. Laura could hardly see them now, but neither Maggie nor Aaina had ever mastered the subtle art of whispering.

"Well? Did you bring it?" asked Aaina.

"Duh." Maggie replied, a long period of fabric rustling commenced before Maggie finally pulled out a small paper wrapped package from under her jumper. A door slams.

"Right! Who's in here?" a loud voice cuts through the darkness, and a torch is flicked on. The face of Mrs. Miller is illuminated in the gloom. From the corner of her eye, Laura sees Aaina and Maggie making a break for it and Mrs. Miller hustles off in their direction as they loudly sprint off to the fire exit. Laura takes this as the perfect opportunity to leave, and calmly makes her way back to the dorms, do they ever learn? She thinks to herself.

*

Laura, who had been making sure to check around every corner before stepping out, found herself outside her dorm window. It was five metres up, and her usual exit and entrance from the building when sneaking out. It had never been much of a problem for her, as when she was thirteen she had planted a climbing wisteria outside her window and along with some loving words and some moon charged fertiliser, had grown into the perfect climbing wall. That paired with her long legs and strong arms, she quickly scaled the wall and pulled herself through her wedged open window with her laptop still tucked under her arm. You could say she was a natural born climber, but any intermediate level student would know that somewhere on her body, maybe written in sharpie on the bottom of her foot or scribbled onto a piece of paper in her pocket, would be a rune. Runes were banned for any students below year ten, but Laura had been obsessed with them from a young age and had stolen books from the High Level section in the library. By the time she was finally able to do them openly, she had already mastered the basics and excelled in the class. But as time went by they had lost the exciting shine to them, and runes fell inline as just another tedious class at school. Sleepily, she plugged in her laptop to charge before flopping down onto her bed and falling into a deep and restless slumber.