8 Days till the fall of Almadel

"Wait! Did you hear that?" a voice came from Mrs Pooley's office. A man's voice. The door seemed to be open a crack, throwing out line of light that cut across the corridor ahead of them diagonally.

"Don't change the subject, I told you it was a mistake to keep her here, Jeremiah." it was Mrs Pooley.

"The door is kept locked at all times, Delilah. I told you!" said the man.

Trix squeezed Emma's hand to get her attention, and pointed at the door not far from where they were hiding. The door she had seen behind her eyelids all night. Surely they were discussing the events of that morning. That door. Wait, of course it would be locked. How had she not thought of this before coming here. That whispered suggestion in her mind had been too insistent, too urgent to ignore. She had felt that had she gotten this far, the door would simply open for her. Should she check?

"Well clearly it is not, you are to keep your research as far from the students as possible. That you would bring a demon actually into the--"

Emma looked at Trix with wide eyes and pointed at her ear as if to say "did you hear that?". Trix nodded. She noticed she had been holding her breath and standing very still. She slowly breathed out and shifted her position slightly to stop her foot going numb.

"This is the first progress my profession has made in a century--" the man said angrily.

"Your profession? You speak as though there were more than just the one of you left."

"All the more reason. You see? It was simply essential that I take her, and this is the only place in the world I could possibly hide her from him"

"hide her? you think that Mr Tobiah's disappearance was a coincidence? I doubt she is hidden anymore"

Emma pulled at Trix's hands, and gestured back the way they had come. Trix spun her finger, just a little longer .

"Even prince Andras will be incapable of finding her through the school wards, I am quite sure of that. Quite sure! We haven't survived here for centuries--"

"So we are to huddle in our hole forever, confined here with twenty children who cannot leave the grounds on fear of abduction? What an outstanding school we have become." interrupted Mrs Pooley.

"There are bigger things at stake, Delilah. I have a responsibility to the kingdom, I do not wish it... I do not wish it to become a mere plaything of demons!" hissed Jeremiah.

"Are you not too late, Jeremiah? How much of the government is under their influence already. You have precious few allies left."

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"No, I don't believe I am too late, not while I'm still alive. Besides! it looks like we might have a candidate for apprenticeship in the students this year. I might not be alone for long."

There was a pause. "...god bless their poor soul" said Mrs Pooley.

"I'm afraid that is rather unlikely" said Jeremiah dryly.

Emma squeezed Trix's hand hard now, and raised her eyebrows, cocking her head, looking very insistent. Trix nodded and they began to creep back down the corridor toward the safety of their dormitory. The intrusive whisper appeared again in Trix's head. "Look on the monster" it said, "try the door". She heard footsteps from Mrs Pooley's office. Emma tugged at her arm, pulling her down the corridor away from the door. Trix's hand was now moist and slick from being in Emma's sleeve for so long, it slipped easily from Emma's grasp, and Trix crossed the corridor in a few quiet steps. She reached out and gripped the door handle. It was a brass sphere with a geometric pattern carved into it in a spiral. It should have been cold, she thought, but it was warm, as warm as human flesh. It thrummed. She heard the voice in her mind again, the whisperer, no longer whispering. "Hello, Beatrix, child." it said. It was Trix's own voice, yet different. Imbued with a forcefulness and confidence that was foreign to her.

The sound of footsteps from Mrs Pooley's office was getting louder. Trix felt Emma grab her by the jumper and yank her away, the door swung closed with a clack, and then they were running, fear at their backs pushing them faster and faster the closer they got to their room. They burst into the dormitory and Emma slammed the door behind them and quickly turned on all the lights. They stood there staring at each other for a second, catching their breath, just waiting and listening to see if anything or anyone approached.

Minutes passed, and Trix's heart rate slowly returned to normal.

Finally Emma broke the silence, a wide grin spreading across her round face. "So uh, what were you going to show me? A demon?", she laughed and ran her fingers through her hair nervously.

"Perhaps." said Trix, a nervous, relieved smile also filling her face as the adrenaline began to drain away.

"Hell of a thing to show someone at 2am in the morning, girl."

"I didn't know it was a demon." Trix surprised herself by saying the word out loud. Demon. She wondered if she would have considered that possibility if she had not overheard the suggestion in the dark, at night, in the empty corridor of the big drafty school. It sounded plausible now, but probably wouldn't tomorrow morning, in the sunlight. "Assuming it is." she added.

"So how did you know they had something in that room?" asked Emma.

"I happened to see it on the first day of school, just a glimpse, through a gap in the door".

"You glimpsed a demon? What did he look like? Big horns, red, fire, muscular, that sort of thing?" said Emma.

"No, it just looked like a cat. I think it was a her, too." Trix wondered why she thought this. It just seemed obvious that it was a female cat.

"Oh, I'd be happy enough if you took me to see a cat, I guess." said Emma. She threw herself down on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling. She rubbed her feet against each other absentmindedly, brushing off the dust from the stone floors. "So when are we going to try and get in there again?" she added.

"Not funny" said Trix.

"No, what? Seriously? You clearly want to have another look, I saw you sprint across and grab at that door handle. I'm curious now too. What the hell is in there? It can't be a demon, of course, maybe that's a code word? What about the prince guy, maybe it's a jewel of his or something? Or his prize winning cat worth millions." she giggled.

A dust covered ruby, forgotten in a dark corner the thought strolled idly through Trix's brain. "I did see Jeremiah lock the door, he had a little white key."

"Did you see where he put it? Maybe we could borrow it. How did the door get unlocked that first time?" said Emma, sitting up.

"No idea. He got it from his pocket, but the room is right by his classroom, maybe he keeps it there?" said Trix. "I imagine he's keeping a close eye on it now."

Three days later, Trix saw the key again.