Chapter L

When the bell signaling the end of sixth period rang, Lilly Harper let out a sigh of relief as she closed her notebook, within which not a single note was written. The page she had sprawled open before her was completely blank, and while the pages before it had various notes and reminders listed, she didn’t have any recollection of writing those notes herself. In fact, she knew she hadn’t, for until she returned to Wilham the previous night, she hadn’t actually attended her senior year at West Wilham High. What was even more unfortunate was that the schedule the erased realm had created for her was not, unsurprisingly, the same as in the real world, and she considered herself lucky that Damien had happened to check his before arriving that morning only to notice the discrepancy. It would have been very awkward had she walked into Mr. Lowe’s first period only to realize that it wasn’t her class.

Though then again, knowing my schedule doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t have a damn clue where I was supposed to be sitting. In nearly every single one of her classes, she had shuffled up to the teacher and asked which seat she sat in, only to be met with a dubious look, as if they suspected her of trying to pull some sort of prank. At least in the classes I share with the others, I didn’t have to go alone, though that probably just made us seem more suspicious. This class was even worse.

As she silently slipped her notebook into her backpack, she glanced up at the old lady serving as the day’s substitute in her government class. The woman was standing in for Mr. Alexander, who had suddenly called in sick that morning without leaving any sort of lesson plan. The other students didn’t think much of it, but Lilly knew it probably had to do with the fact that he, too, had been stuck in the erased realm until yesterday, and unlike them, he didn’t have a clue that magic was real. His memories returning would have been just as sudden as their disappearance.

Poor guy… He’s probably traumatized at this point.

“Yo, Lilly!”

She was just getting up from her seat when she heard the sound of Vinny calling out to her, and when she turned around, she saw him approaching with Damien and Liz at his side. Government had wound up as the only class they had as a group, and she was grateful that they would get to leave school together for the rest of the year. She just wished Eric could have been there to join them, but even after nearly a day, there wasn’t yet any sign of him.

“Hey, guys,” she replied with a wave. “So did you enjoy class?”

Vinny snorted. “Not in the slightest! Back in the erased realm, I wasn’t stuck with stupid Mr. Alexander for the second year in a row! He hated me the first time, and that’s certainly not going to be helped by the fact that I don’t even remember the first month of class!”

“Just be happy he wasn’t here today,” Damien told him. “The sub went easy on us. Something tells me that when Mr. Alexander does come back, things are going to get a lot rougher.”

“Well, he probably won’t be back for a while, so take solace in that,” Lilly added. It was only when Vinny turned a confused look her way that she remembered that she had been the only one Rista had told about Mr. Alexander getting erased. “Oh, er, well, I guess I forgot to mention it but he was in the erased realm with us, so…”

“What?!” Liz exclaimed. “Since when? Why?”

Seeing their stunned expression, Lilly could only shrug and smile guiltily. “No idea, actually. I never actually got around to having Rista fix him cause, well, I kinda forgot he was there. I was so focused on you guys, after all.”

“Oh, jeez,” Damien muttered. “Should we go talk to him then? I mean, he’s probably really confused right now. At the very least, we should probably assure him that he’s okay and that he shouldn’t worry.”

Lilly nodded meekly. “Y-yeah, that’s probably a good idea. On the bright side, though, I don’t think there’s anybody else who got erased that we didn't know about so there’s that!”

She gave a thumbs-up and the other three just sighed.

Yeah, well, that’s fair. You know, Angel, you could have reminded me about him!

“And if we had? What were you going to do with a random teacher? The others were pretty unnecessary, too, but you were dead set on helping them. Figured it would just delay everything further if you got hung up on a random guy.”

Lilly internally scoffed. Now you sound like Rista. Was I really the only one who wanted to get everybody’s memories back?

“Outside of your own little group, yeah, probably. I mean, their memories were going to return when the realm fell anyway, so…”

Yeah, yeah…

“Anyway, let’s get going,” she said, returning from her internal debate. “You guys want to head to the clubroom just for the sake of it or do you just want to go home? Admittedly, today was really tiring after everything we’ve done.”

After they’d all headed home the previous night, they had spent a rather lengthy call debating what to do about school the following day. From what they could tell, their return to the real world had gone unnoticed by everybody except Alexa, who had remembered everything relating to magic and their disappearances only once they destroyed the realm. The only hypothesis The Angel could come up with was that prior knowledge of erasure could cause differences in how people remembered everything, and because Alexa had known they could get erased, her memories didn’t need to be tweaked by the magic. However, all of their parents, teachers, and fellow students didn’t seem to remember them ever being gone, which was convenient to a certain extent. Eventually, they decided it would be best to try and act as normal as possible, and so they opted to go to school, if only to keep up the illusion that nothing was amiss. The only exception was Evan, who declared that he needed a long break and that his parents wouldn’t give a damn anyway, so he wasn’t there that day.

And then there’s Jay and Alice…

As Lilly had expected, the return wasn’t so easy for them. Jay had been in a coma before vanishing from the hospital, so his circumstances had already been strange. Therefore, when memory of him returned, so did memory of his disappearance, and when Jay arrived at his parents’ apartment, awake and perfectly healed after so many months, chaos had erupted. He’d texted them a few times throughout the day, but it seemed the police were already investigating and he’d been taken to the hospital for a checkup. She wasn’t sure what he’d tell them since he couldn’t exactly blame magic, but there was little she could do for him now. She’d asked Matt Briggs that morning about the attack on the diner in April, but he said that the cops never figured it out, so she was sure that Jay’s sudden reappearance would probably cause a resurgence in rumors about those murders.

Alice, on the other hand, was a completely different matter. She had reformed in Lilly’s house, where her parents were, and while her mom and dad hadn’t recalled Alice reappearing on their balcony, they didn’t seem to find anything strange about her being there. As far as Lilly could tell, in the erased realm’s attempt at putting Alice back into the world without causing chaos, it had rewritten history so that she had been found and investigations into her disappearance had already taken place. The running theory was that the realm prioritized convenience over all else, and would take the easiest route in editing the world’s memories. In that sense, Alice was lucky that nobody batted an eye at her presence, though having returned to a body with a missing leg, she had opted to stay home just to process everything.

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Those were the only issues though. Brad, Evan, and Natalie were able to go home like nothing had happened, and the same applied to the Magic Club, so for the first time, Lilly was actually grateful for the erased realm’s memory magic. It made their return far simpler than she had expected it to be.

“I think we should head to the clubroom,” Liz suggested after a few moments of thought. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been in the real deal. And besides, I’ve got nothing better to be doing.”

“Yeah, same,” Damien agreed.

With their afternoon planned, the four of them departed the government classroom and headed out into the halls of West Wilham High School. They were packed with students pushing each other and stepping on each others’ heels, and it was an overall annoying experience to be back, yet she was happier than she ever thought she would be. She saw the real faces of her fellow students and the actual walls of her school, and when she looked out the windows, she could see the real courtyard. It was all so surreal and all very much real, but as they rounded a corner and came to the staircase, she could only stop and stare, as did the other three. They had all seen it that morning, but it still didn’t take away from the impact.

One of the bulletin boards had been removed and replaced with pictures of Rina, Jay, and Eric, with little paragraphs written about them to honor their memory placed underneath. There were flowers left on the ground beside the little makeshift monument and standing in front of it were two students, Charlotte Banks and Steven McCormick. Both had been close to Rina, and Lilly watched as they knelt down beneath the girl’s picture and each placed a rose against the wall.

“We should bring something tomorrow,” Damien whispered. “For Davens, I mean.”

“Yeah, agreed,” Vinny muttered.

Lilly watched as Charlotte and Steven turned and headed back into the crowd before glancing back at the board, specifically to Eric’s picture. He was the only one who hadn’t been erased, and thus his time in Ijiria really happened here. Unlike them, he vanished back in April and nobody knew where he went. If and when he did come home, he wouldn’t be able to return as easily as they did.

“Come on, let’s go,” Liz prompted, and just as they were about to head toward the stairs, Lilly felt her phone buzz in her pocket.

She cocked an eyebrow, figuring it must be from Jay or Alice, but when she pulled it out, she saw that it was Scott who texted her. To make matters stranger, Damien, Liz, and Vinny all did the same, implying that they, too, had received Scott’s text. Finding herself even more confused, Lilly opened the message and read it.

Come, my fellow club members, and meet me at the place where it both began and where it did end. I will be waiting with open arms for our long awaited reunion! Signed, the superior club member!

She could only gape at the words that would have never been sent by Scott. She read it a second time and then a third, knowing what it meant but not wanting to mistake it as something else. But how could she mistake such a ridiculous and vague message as anything but what it was.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Damien uttered. “The beach. He means the beach, right?”

“Of course he does,” she said with bated breath. “Yeah, the beach. He’s at the beach! Come on, guys!”

They didn’t argue or protest as she turned and sprinted through the front doors of the school, and when she glanced back, they were on her heels, running after her. They all knew what this meant, and Lilly wanted nothing more than to get there as fast as possible. Had the others not been there, she would have activated The Angel that second and used light magic to flash there immediately. Yet she held back as they almost barreled through students before rushing through the gates of the school and out onto the neighborhood roads.

Please! Please let this be real! Please let him be there! she internally begged.

They continued to run, and she often had to look back and slow her own pace so she didn’t lose the club members as they followed the path they had taken back in the erased realm, going down the road that led out of town before coming to the hiking trail alongside the beach. It was a little after three o’clock so the sun was high in the sky, and even in September, she could already feel the heat despite the rather cool breeze.

After everything we’ve been through, after everything we did, and after finally winning, please let this be the end! If he’s there…then it’s really, truly over! If he’s there… He’s gotta be there! Please be there!

Finally, she could see the natural steps just up ahead and she picked up her pace to run as fast as she could before skidding to a halt at the very top and gazing out over the sand. She could see the cave and the horizon but her eyes were immediately drawn to the boy standing just before the waves, gazing out at the sea with his back turned to her and his hands casually stuffed in his pockets. His hair was a little longer than she remembered, and he looked as if he had grown a bit, but even so, she knew it was him. As she stood there, just taking in the scene, the others finally caught up and came to a stop beside her. Smiles broke out across their faces, and she could see tears in Liz and Vinny’s eyes.

“Eric Reiner!” Vinny shouted out, his voice echoing down to the figure. “You insane bastard!”

The blonde boy was laughing as he bounded down the steps before jumping over the last two and landing in the sand. Liz and Damien were close behind him, but Lilly stayed in place for a moment, just enjoying the sight. She could see the figure’s shoulders shake with laughter and when he turned around to face them, he was grinning broadly and he stretched his arms out to either side of him.

“Dear Vinny!” Eric called back. “It has been a long time, my friend. Too long, in fact!”

Vinny didn’t even say anything in reply as he rushed across the beach and threw his arms around his friend, embracing him after all that time. Eric chuckled and hugged him back, then glanced up to where Liz and Damien were already arriving. When Vinny let him go, Eric took a step forward and regarded the couple.

“Dear Liz. Dear Damien. Glad to see you’re both alive.”

“Eric…”

“Good to see you’re alive, too, buddy.”

Liz was the first one to step forward and hug him, and after a moment, she, too, stepped back and allowed Damien to take her place. From where Lilly still stood, she watched as the Magic Club finally reunited for the first time since the first day of the spring festival. There were tears in her eyes as Eric and Damien stepped apart before her boyfriend turned and looked up to where she still stood. There was this exasperated look on his face as he raised his hand to wave.

“You coming?” he called up to her. “It’s not a proper reunion until you’ve joined in, right?”

Smirking to herself, Lilly took a step forward and descended the staircase, her eyes never once leaving his. He seemed even more different as she looked at him, showing her how he’d matured during his time in Ijiria, yet even with that more knowledgeable look in his eyes, she couldn’t miss the same Eric Reiner that she had accidentally crossed paths with all that time ago. His smile was just as comforting and his voice was just as charming. With each step she took, she felt her pace once again increasing and when she reached the beach, she was practically speed walking toward him, but she came to a stop a few yards away before folding her arms across her chest.

“What was with the cryptic message?” she inquired with a raised eyebrow. “You could have just met us at the school instead of making us run all the way here. Now I’m all sweaty, you know?”

Eric chuckled and shrugged. “Where’s the fun in that, dear Lilly. I thought it would be poetic if we all met on the beach after all that’s happened. And if I do say so myself, I thought my message was beautifully worded.”

“When did you get back?” she asked.

“Last night,” he answered. “But you see, my phone was taken from me in Ijiria and they never gave it back, so I had no way of contacting you. I was also quite tired so I thought I’d sleep first. I only learned this morning that my father knew your number and then I came up with this little scheme.”

She could tell he was forcing himself to talk the way he was, as if trying to reach back into the past to the person he had been before Nigreos and Album showed up. Yet, she couldn’t help but smile back at him. He was different yet the same, and she found herself unable to hold back any longer.

She had done enough teasing.

Lilly sprinted forward and practically jumped into Eric’s arms, throwing her own around him and giving him the tightest hug she had ever given anybody. He seemed surprised for a brief moment before he embraced her back, and she realized she was already crying with joy. It wasn’t going to be easy yet. She knew it would take time for Eric to return to his normal life, if he even could, but she didn’t care. So long as he was there, in Wilham, with the club, she would be happy. She had spent so much time fearing that they would never go back and now, it had happened.

There on that beach, the Magic Club was together once again.

They had escaped the erased realm.

They had killed Nigreos and Album.

Eric Reiner had come home.

Finally, it was over.

The Magic Club had won.