Parker's birthday went by in a flash. They spent their day between practicing on the roof and hanging out in the courtyard behind the castle. He couldn't help but think about the last time they had been there. Hailee had divulged the fact that she had seen Lara as well.

He started thinking about her again. Trying to figure out what she was up to now. There was no way she simply gave up after one attempt. She'd been upset that Caleb was as far along as he was and then vanished. Which was weird to him because ever since then, Caleb hadn't been any different. He hadn't shown signs of controlling either space or time whereas Parker had displayed control over his Space Imperial, Alexis had controlled both her Space Imperial and her Time Imperial and Hailee had accidentally used her Space Imperial.

They talked a few times about what they thought she was up to, figuring it was weird that there had been no sign of her yet. Parker tried to not let it distract him from his studies. He was doing very well this year in all of his classes instead of just the physical ones like he had the last year.

Over the next few weeks, Master Sora had broken ground with them on how to use their Space Imperial correctly. He had a lot of help from Alexis who had spent so much time thinking about it and working toward mastering it. She could take herself and two other people to a separate space for around five minutes before it would wear off.

They found out that they could accomplish a lot in the five minutes they were gone due to how long five minutes lasted in the separate space. She also found that she can't see anyone while in the space. The accident with Parker had been the only time she saw someone else.

Parker could only handle being away from the real world for about thirty seconds with two others and Hailee could last around two minutes. Caleb still couldn’t do it no matter what he tried.

Master Sora explained it to them as a great desire to be somewhere. He told them, "For example, when Hailee got embarrassed her greatest desire at the moment was to be somewhere else. This caused her to travel to a different space where she moved to a different spot giving the appearance that she vanished. Based on our trials it seems like one minute here is five minutes there. The greater the desire, the longer you can last. The more you practice it, the more natural it'll become and the less you'll have to focus on that desire, just as with your other Imperials."

After their private session one day, they decided to go out and relax in the courtyard. The temperature outside had started to drop drastically, especially the closer to the lake you were. The wind would tear across the surface of the lake creating a freezing temperature near it. The castle helped block the courtyard from the winds along with all of the trees that had been planted over the years.

"How are your guys' classes going?" Eliott asked.

"I'm actually doing really well so far!" Parker said while mimicking knocking on wood. "How are your classes going?"

"They're all very easy for me—I've always excelled at academics and so far, working with our Imperial has just come naturally. I keep my fingers crossed every day hoping that it stays this way."

"Don't you get bored though?" Ana asked.

"It doesn't get boring if you enjoy the material and what you're doing," Alexis added. Eliott nodded in agreement.

"I don't want to sound too cliché, but I'm really happy you started hanging out with us Eliott. It's so cool to get to know someone from a different house."

"I'm glad that you guys let me hang with you. I love my housemates but sometimes it's nice to talk around and get to know people you're not with constantly."

They talked and laughed for a while before the sun started to set. As the sky glowed a brilliant pink and orange they knew it was time to go in. Alexis started to head to the castle doors and the rest followed.

She stopped dead in her tracks. Parker ended up running into her. "Alexis, is everything okay?" He sounded worried about something.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Hailee asked. "I didn't hear..." She stopped speaking when Alexis held her hand up for her to be quiet. They could hear someone struggling from around the corner of some trees, blocked from view.

Alexis ran to see what was happening and she gasped when she saw it. A boy was standing with his arms stretched out in front of him. Two feet away from him was a girl in green robes with her head stuck in a ball of water. She was reaching for her mouth to keep from drowning but nothing she could do would stop it.

"What are you doing?" Alexis screamed. The others sprinted to her and saw the same thing she was. "Stop!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The boy in blue robes froze. The ball of water around the girl's head splashed to the ground and she started gasping for breath. Hailee ran forward along with Caleb. They wrapper her arms around their shoulders and took her straight to the Medical Ward before she noticed that the boy was frozen in place.

"He's a third year," Eliott said. "I don't know his name, but I've seen him around before." He said all of this before anyone had the chance to ask him if he knew the boy.

"Parker run in and get Master Sora, we'll stay here just in case my Imperial wears off before you return." At her words, Parker took off for Master Sora's office to tell him what had happened.

When they returned, the boy was still frozen. "What happened here?"

"Master Sora, I already told you what was happening." Parker tried to remind him.

"I know what was happening but explain how you were able to freeze him."

Alexis got shy for some reason and wasn't able to explain what had happened.

"Like I said earlier, we heard her scream and then she yelled stop at him, and he just froze."

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"Hm..." Master Sora was deep in thought for several moments. "I need you to unfreeze him so that I can take him to Master Terra's chambers."

"Why Master Terra's?" Eliott asked. "He's from my house. Shouldn't he go to Master Kingston?"

"She will be informed definitely, but Master Terra has our chamber we use for students we need to talk to that we don't want to disappear on us."

"Um... Master Sora?" Alexis stammered. "I don't know... how... to unfreeze him..."

"Well, let's see if we can figure it out. You saw something terrible happening and you wanted nothing but to stop it right?" She nodded. "My guess is that with such a desire to stop what he was doing and save that girl, you were able to tap into your Time Imperial, freezing him in place. So, maybe if you focus your thoughts on unfreezing him so that we can figure out what happened in the first place that will release him."

She considered what he said and closed her eyes. They could see the strain on her face as she focused to release him from his frozen prison. After a silent minute of focus the boy started to laugh. Once he noticed that his scene had changed, he quickly grew quiet.

The master took him into the castle by the collar of his robes. The group didn't say anything to each other while they were outside. The moon had risen into the sky and the stars had come out. When they arrived in their common room, Parker couldn't keep himself from saying something. "What was happening out there? Was he trying to kill that girl?"

"That's sure what it looked like," Alexis said.

"Who would do something like that?" Caleb asked.

They all tried to sleep that night but couldn't get the images of that girl struggling for breath out of their heads. When the sun shined in through the windows, not one of them had slept for a minute.

Each one of them showed up in the common room before the rest of the house was up and moving. They made their way to the dining hall in silence and walked straight to the head table instead of taking their normal seats.

The masters could see on their faces that none of them got any sleep. Master Sora was the first to say something to them. "We have the situation handled kids. We're going to talk to him today. You did the right thing, remember that. You saved a girl's life yesterday, don't let it ruin everything else for you."

They couldn't find any words to say to the masters, so they turned around and found an open table to sit at. No one said a word while they ate their breakfast or when they left to go to class.

Master Kingston walked to the front of the room and stifled the mumbling from the kids. "I'm sure you've already heard about what happened yesterday. Zoey spent the night in the Medical Ward, she's perfectly fine." The master gestured to the right side of the class where Zoey was sitting. They couldn't believe that she was in the class already. Parker figured he would've asked for at least a day off to regain his focus.

They continued with their lessons as normal. Each group was working on a project of using each of the four Imperials together. It was different than their exam presentation which had made everyone complain. They were wishing it was the same concept but a different show. Instead, they had to combine all four Imperials.

"This is the final project; you have until the end of term to complete it. It will be your final grade and will determine whether or not you pass the class." Whispering broke out around the room and then stopped when the master told everyone to get back to work.

"It makes sense that this is the final project," Eliott said. "Actually, combining all four Imperials into one somehow. How are we going to do it?"

Everyone shrugged, not sure what to say. "We've got time to figure it out, let's just make sure that we're not just using them next to one another like we did last time," Parker added that last part, still proud that he'd recognized it at the last second and saved their presentation.

When class ended, Parker met with Caleb to talk in the hall. "Why didn't you tell us the girl that got attacked was Zoey?"

Caleb looked at Parker perplexed. "I didn't know you knew who she was—"

"I watched your dual Caleb; how would I not know her? I just didn't see her face last night in all the chaos. Whoever this guy is, he must be pretty good if he was able to get the drop on her like he did." He saw Caleb's face drop a little as he recalled the duel he'd lost to Zoey.

Alexis caught up with them as they made their way to an empty room to study for their history class and catch up on the pile of homework that seemed to grow constantly.

"So, thirty years ago there was a big battle between The House of Kenna and The House of Leith?" Parker asked.

"Yeah, almost every student got involved. The House of Kenna decided that they shouldn't have to be in classes with The House of Leith because they had an advantage over them since water could douse fire."

"So, what if they had an 'advantage'. That just means you have to work a little harder and get a little more creative."

"Yeah, but at the time they had blown it so out of proportions that they started fighting in the corridors if they ever saw each other. It got to the point where they had to open a second Medical Ward so that they wouldn't be near each other after they got injured fighting each other."

Parker's eyes were wide and his mouth was open. "That's ridiculous. I'm glad our house isn't that dumb."

"Well—" Alexis began.

"Wait, our house got into something like that once, didn't they?"

"Yeah... It was a time when enrollment in our house was at its lowest. Across all seven years, there were only fifty-two students."

Caleb chimed in, "Oh yeah! I read about that. Didn't they refuse to be a part of classes with any of the other houses because they were so outnumbered?"

"Wait, how do you two know about this already?" Parker asked.

"How do you not know?" Ana asked.

"Wait, you know too? How am I the only one that doesn't know? I'm rocking history this year!"

Alexis laughed. "Have you read the next chapter?" He shook his head. "Well, there's your problem. That's literally what the next chapter is about. By the way Ana, I'm very impressed with the way you've closed the gap so fast."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you caught up to us in the blink of an eye. You'd think that you could control the Space Imperial as well and were studying there to learn more in less time."

"That's a genius idea!" Parker exclaimed.

"Um... excuse me..." a quiet voice came from the door. They'd barely been able to hear it with Parker yelling. "Is Alexis Ayers here?"

"Yeah, that's me," Alexis said with a smile on her face. She walked over so that she could talk to the girl that walked in alone.

"I'm Zoey, the girl you saved. I just wanted to—" Zoey was cut off when Alexis hugged her.

"I'm so glad you're okay." Zoey broke away from the hug looking a little uncomfortable. "Sorry... I'm a hugger and I just got really excited."

"It's okay... I just didn't grow up in a house with a lot of sentimentality. My parents had very high expectations for everything so nothing I've done is good enough, no matter how hard I try to impress them. If they heard what happened, I'm sure they'd just be upset that I'd let the guy do it in the first place."

"May I ask how it happened?" Alexis wanted to know but she also didn't want to make her relive the situation either.

"That's fine. Not much to tell really. The guy popped out of the bushes and immediately engulfed my head in water. There was nothing I really could've done to stop it. And once he had me, all I could do was focus on not drowning so I couldn't even attack him."

"I'm so sorry, I'm just glad you're okay now." Alexis went to hug her again, but Zoey took a step back.

"Thanks again, I look forward to seeing you in the finals of the duel tournament."

"Me too! I saw your duel against Caleb, you're very impressive."

"Thanks to this incident, I'm even more determined to prove myself now, so be prepared!" With that, Zoey turned and left them to their studies. When Alexis returned to their group everyone asked what she wanted. Alexis walked them through all of the details of what happened and warned Parker to be ready for the finals.