Cassy and Amber landed before their dorm tower. The flight back had been, for the most part, uneventful. Cassy flew faster than Amber was comfortable with, especially when they were moving fast enough for the wind to whip by. The idea of flight with nothing more than a piece of wood digging into her behind for lift was still foreign.

Still, Amber held back on any complaining. Cassy obviously loved flying, and from what little Amber could tell, the blonde was really good at it.

“You’re a good flyer,” Amber said as they touched down.

“Uh, thanks,” Cassy replied. She looked over her shoulder and grinned. “Been at it for a whole two weeks. It’s way, way easier to fly here.”

“Because of the ambient magic?” Amber asked.

“Yeah, I guess. On Earth there’s like... a resistance to it? Not like air resistance, but when I flew it felt like I was using up a lot more of my tank than I was gaining. So all I could do back home were five or ten minute flights, then I had to wait a couple of hours before I could try again.”

“That has to be annoying,” Amber said. She leaned forwards onto Cassy a little, then swung a leg back and over the broom. “I... ended up getting yoinked over, and I never really used much magic on Earth. I don’t know what it feels like.”

“You’ll have a hard time going back, I think,” Cassy said. “It’s like... you ever walk out of a warm house into the cold? Like, really cold?”

“Yeah, sure,” Amber said.

“It’s like that. My family used to go skiing in Canada every winter. And leaving the hotels or whatever to walk out into the cold is crazy. All your heat just leaves. You can stay warm, but you need to work for it.”

Amber nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place that cold, but I get what you’re trying to say.” She took a deep breath, then let it all out in a long woosh.

“Stressed?” Cassy asked.

“A bit? We... might get into trouble because of tonight.”

“Meh, we found a weird doomsday cult—what were we supposed to do, surrender?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know who we’d be in trouble with,” Amber said. “We should talk to Morgan about it. Jade too. She can be pretty perceptive about some things, I think.”

“Sure,” Cassy said. “It’s why we’re here. I kinda like that we’re handling this ourselves instead of letting some nobodies take care of it.”

Amber nodded. I’m not too sure if I agree there. It would be nice if someone captured that murderer and figured out this whole plot for us. “Come on, Morgan will have ideas. And maybe she’ll flip out.”

Cassy laughed and opened the dorm tower door for Amber who slipped in first. They made their way upstairs, and Amber returned the favour by opening the door for Cassy.

Morgan was sitting in the little kitchen area, a book open before her, and Jade was on one of the couches, legs hanging over one of the couch arms and phone in hand.

“Hey, everyone,” Amber said as she drew the door closed. “We’re back.”

Morgan looked up from her book and nodded their way. “Welcome back. Did you have a good evening?”

“Ah, yeah, more or less,” Amber said. She couldn’t help but notice the look Jade shot her before hiding behind her phone. “We might have caused a bit of, ah, trouble?”

“Don’t open with that,” Cassy said. “So, we found a weird cult of magic-practicing weirdos who may or may not be the same people that attacked Amber and who blew up the school, and then we ruined their little cult party before returning here to tell you two.”

“That’s skipping a step or two,” Amber said. “And you’re exaggerating besides.”

“Not by much,” Cassy said. She moved over to the kitchen and opened the fridge there and rooted around. She stood, then tossed a bottle of water over to Amber. “We did everything I said we did.”

Morgan’s book closed with a dull thump. “I’m going to have to listen to this, aren’t I?”

“You... might want to do that, yeah,” Amber said. “Things got a little hectic. But I think I should start from the beginning?”

“Go ahead,” Morgan said.

Amber spun the cap off the water bottle as she made her way over to the table, then sat next to Morgan. “So, we stopped by a tea place and had some food,” she began.

“Was it a nice place?” Jade asked.

“Uh, yeah, sure. A bit quaint, but nice.”

“Did you sit next to or across from each other?”

Amber shook her head. What’s with that question? “Across? Did you want the whole menu?”

“No, no, the menu doesn’t matter, not unless you shared something from it?”

“We didn’t?” Amber said. “We just had drinks and some pastries. They were alright. Anyway, I noticed some people moving by, and they were suspicious. Uh, last timeline we all ran across a group of magicals that had these black robes in the forest. We were with two other teams, but they still managed to get away. I saw some people in similar robes.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Magicals?” Morgan asked immediately.

“Not the ones we saw, no. I asked around and they’re called the Black Magi.”

Morgan nodded. “I think I might have heard of them.”

“Really?” Amber asked. She leaned closer. “Where?”

“In our Agarthan Studies class. There’s a segment that covers pre-existing magical groups. Other than those who came because of the Seelie, there are a few groups that are entirely from Agartha. Some date back to Earth. They did actual magic on Earth and were pulled over here, then they managed to survive. The theory is that most cities in Agartha were started by that kind of group. Or the entire city was pulled over.”

“A whole city?” Jade asked.

“Shambhala, Camelot, Avalon, a few others. Chances are, if you’ve heard stories about a magical city, it might have been a real place that was pulled over here if they did too much magical stuff.”

“Huh,” Cassy said. “So there are some people on Earth that can do actual magic? Normal folk?”

“Yeah,” Amber said. “I remember the class we had on rituals talking about that. I guess these Black Magi date back a ways then?”

“They might be younger,” Morgan said. “It’s not like every group on Agartha needs to have come from Earth. Also, doing magic here is a lot easier.”

“Great, that means the freaky cult might actually be trouble,” Cassy said.

“Tell me about them,” Morgan said. It had the weight of an order.

“They gathered at a factory. I think it might have been an abandoned one? Textiles or something—there were machines to make cloth? Cassy’s the one that knew what they were.”

Cassy raised both hands in surrender. “I saw something like that in a documentary once. I’m no expert.”

“So a factory,” Morgan said. “There are a few that are abandoned. The locals can’t compete with Earth, even with the ridiculous price of shipping things over. I think a few local industries have fallen apart.”

“Oh, great,” Jade said. “A whole heap of disillusioned people with no jobs and lots of time on their hands, as well as a valid reason to dislike people from Earth. Fantastic.”

“I... had not considered that, but it’s a possibility,” Morgan admitted.

“I don’t know if it matters right now,” Amber said. “Anyway, there were... maybe twenty people? Thirty at most. I... wait, I recorded their entire speech.” She pulled out her phone and set it on the dining room table.

Jade moved over so she could listen in.

Amber felt herself flushing a little as her voice spoke, and Cassy’s whispery replies didn’t help. They almost couldn’t make out the voice of anyone else talking, but it was audible, if difficult to parse.

“That doesn’t sound... outright evil,” Morgan said.

“Not outright evil, just a tiny bit to the left of evil,” Cassy said.

Amber picked up her phone and stuffed it away. “I’ll send all of you copies, I guess. We might want to upload them elsewhere, just in case.”

“You mentioned fighting a magical,” Morgan said.

Amber nodded. “A woman. She looked older than us. I didn’t see her that well though, the lighting wasn’t great. She had a halberd. I think a blue dress underneath.”

“A blue outfit and a halberd,” Morgan repeated. “And older?”

“I think so.”

“That might be enough to narrow it down,” Morgan said. “There are only a couple thousand magicals in the North America region, at least on Agartha. I don’t know if there are any public records, but I can ask around.”

“Just be subtle about it,” Jade said. “If I were Miss Halberd, I’d be curious about anyone asking after me, especially after meeting with two strange magicals that crashed my party.”

“I didn’t get the impression she was in charge,” Amber said. “Just... there. Maybe a guest, or maybe she was looking over things, but I don’t think she was directly part of the group.”

“Maybe they’re divided. Like an army,” Morgan said.

“Or any other organization?” Cassy asked.

Morgan conceded the point with a nod. “That’s true. I’ll be back. I want to look something up on my laptop.”

“Right, I’m gonna go take a shower,” Cassy said as she stood up too.

Amber watched them go, then fiddled with the top of her water bottle. That was, until she noticed Jade leaning in close to her side, the girl’s eyes shining in a way that instantly put her on guard.

“So,” Jade asked in a low whisper. “How did the date go?”

“It wasn’t a date,” Amber said.

Jade grinned.

Why am I more nervous now than when facing off against someone that literally wanted to kill me?

***