The Outcast

“Are you sure you’re ok?!” Oscar demanded of Lily the following morning in the bathroom. She had gone straight to bed the night previous when they had reached home so now was the first chance she had got to tell the cats about the events of the Mediheim Festival.

“I’m fine, Ozzy.”

“It’s another incident like back when River sent you off that branch!” Kiki hissed.

“And this little liche is going to get away with it as well.” Oscar huffed.

“Guys. Come on, I’m ok. And no one discovered what I am either. We’re safe.” Lily reached to scratch both of their ears in the attempt to calm them down.

Kiki bristled a little in annoyance. “I’ll scratch her to pieces when I see her.”

“Or just inconvenience her by constantly getting in the way or knocking her stuff over” Oscar chuckled.

“Please don’t,” Lily sighed. “I wouldn’t put it past her to do something to you guys.”

“Maybe you’d do something about it then” Kiki scoffed angrily, her words stinging a little.

“Even if I did do something, it would bring more attention to me and things would only get worse.”

“But if you don’t start doing something, we’ll never find anything else out and it’ll be worse when it comes to you having to leave.” Kiki continued, beginning to pace up and down the side of the bath. It was clear she wasn’t keen on the idea of living the lie for a longer period than they needed to. “I love that you have friends here, but if they react badly to what you really are, it’ll hurt more the longer you are here.”

Lily leant against the sink with a soft nod of her head. She was very aware of that, it was slowly becoming a fear that rivalled the fear of the oncoming war.

“Xalina knows what you are,” Oscar started. “I think we should get her out, then you might have an ally when she comes to visit whoever it is she visits here? She could help get information from that angle?”

“You want her to break into prison again?” Kiki shook her head.

“We can get in like we did last time and get Xalina out the same way.”

“And how do you suggest she unlocks the cell?”

“Steal a key?”

“Or I could use wood and have it mould itself to the lock so it’ll work” Lily cut in, shaking her head to stop Kiki speaking as her jaws parted. “Ki, he’s right. We’re getting nowhere on our own, maybe the war stuff is hidden from all witches my age so we wouldn’t learn anything in time to make a difference. But whoever Xalina visits knows that she’s a Draconian, it wouldn’t be as strange for her to ask questions about the different races, especially considering her feelings for the person.”

“Right! She could approach the subject through concern for her partner, not suspicion of foul deeds” Oscar encouraged.

“And if she tells her partner what you are and they know you?” Kiki hissed.

“Then I’m in trouble,” Lily sighed. “But I’ll be taking the same risks if we have to start searching in places students aren’t supposed to go or start asking questions that label me as a ‘sympathiser’. Just asking about why they were arresting Xalina got me looks of distrust and I need to keep a place here.”

Kiki’s green eyes levelled the fairy and fellow cat with a look of disdain but stalked off without further argument. And that was how Lily found herself ascending the side of the holding cell block the following night after Dia was snoring soundly at midnight.

The silence of the night was intense. Every tiny sound became thoughts of being caught. Every movement of the shadow caused by the cloud in front of the moon became the foreboding figure of a witch who would have her life.

“No one’s here.” Lily’s recoil at a cough somewhere down the corridor had alerted Oscar to her mental strain.

“Sorry,” she mumbled sheepishly.

The large cat nuzzled against her calf before leading her along the same route as before. Soon enough, they had come to a halt in front of Xalina’s cell, and the shadow which Lily had kept up around her for concealment drained down into the dark void of the floor below.

“Xalina?” She whispered sharply through the bars, causing the woman inside to startle and turn a confused expression to the owner of the voice.

“Lily?” She questioned, eyeing the darker hair colour which Lily hadn’t kept up last time.

“It’s me.” Lily confirmed with a timid smile. “I didn’t want to let my disguise fade this time.”

Xalina simply blinked and then nodded with easy acceptance. “No wonder they haven’t realised what you are” she mused with a glint of amusement in her shining purple iris’. “You really shouldn’t be popping in and out of here you know, you’ll get thrown in the cell next to me if you aren’t careful.”

“I hope not. Well, I might get thrown in it, but we’re here to get you out so I wouldn’t be able to talk to you through the walls.”

“You… what?” Xalina inched closer to the bars in the door with an eyebrow raised.

“We want to get you out. And ask a favour, but I’m going to get you out whether you agree to it or not” Lily shrugged.

“Lil! That’s not a good way to make a deal” Oscar half scolded, though the delight in his voice was unmissable.

“I’m dealing with someone’s freedom, not a bribe” Lily deadpanned.

“So…” Xalina started tentatively. “What’s the favour?”

“I want to ask for your help with getting information about what this war’s really about and what’s going to happen. I can’t openly ask a lot of questions without basically pointing to myself and telling people to be suspicious.” Lily spoke briskly, not wanting to pressure Xalina, but not wanting to give her a chance to cut her off. “However, we thought that maybe you could ask your partner little bits without it causing too much trouble or suspicion? Then you could get the information back to me with one of my companions when they go out ‘hunting’.”

Silence followed her words, and Lily found herself beginning to ramble. “I’ve found nothing so far. And the friends I’ve made so far seem too good to be thinking of going off to murder fairies in five years. The people I knew back home may not have liked me, but none of them were being raised to be killers either. So, the idea that we’re about to go to war is making less and less sense every day I’m here. It’s like I’m missing something huge that’s the driving force behind fairies and witches going to war every hundred years. I need to figure out if there’s anything the witches are hiding and if there isn’t, and the war is just some kind of recurring grudge then maybe I could go home and convince the Council there’s no need for it.”

“You’re incredibly optimistic,” Xalina snorted, cutting Lily off and forcing a flush to her features.

“Not really. Just hopeful, I guess. I don’t want to find out my family or my friends are actually vicious and then fight against them.” Lily sighed heavily.

Xalina nodded into the silence. For a couple of moments, neither of them spoke. Oscar did nothing to move away from the stairway where he kept watch for guards. Finally, Xalina broke the heavy stillness. “Well, I’d be a pretty big liche if I didn’t help you out in exchange for my freedom. No one else is going to let me out of here other than to take me to the proper prison they’ve got.”

Lily’s eyes snapped to the purple ones which still glowed in the darkness of the cell. “Really?”

“Yeah. It’s not like you’re asking me to do anything risky for me, so it’s the least I can do if you pull this off” Xalina chortled. “I’m looking forward to seeing how you’re going to hide my wings.”

Lily couldn’t help the very tiny pull of a smirk on her lips. “You’ve never met a fairy, have you? I can hide you so long as we aren’t directly close to people. It’d be too obvious in the day, but the night helps.”

“Hmm. Sure.” Xalina still didn’t believe her, that much was obvious, but her voice was tinged with good nature. It seemed she was hoping Lily wasn’t exaggerating.

Her scepticism vanished quickly the moment Lily held out the vine she had used to scale the building this time and slotted it into the lock in front of her. Three clicks echoed in the darkness of the hall and the cell door swung open.

“I thought magic set off alarms?” Xalina mumbled.

“Well, technically I just grew the vine into shape so it probably didn’t register as magic” Lily shrugged.

“Witch prisons are arrogant if they didn’t take into account that Fairies use completely different magic.”

“Well, they probably think any Fairy would be inside the cells without anything to use for a key” Oscar chortled deviously. “Couldn’t ever imagine one being able to exist beside them for months on end.”

“That’s because it’s a death sentence!”

“She has a point” Lily agreed as they reached the window and glanced outside. “So, can we be quiet so no one catches us now?” Both Xalina and Oscar spread their wings a little as they nodded. “If you’re going to glide down, try and go slow enough that I can keep the darkness over you smoothly.”

Again, they nodded as the vine looped itself around the broken window frame they had been using to get in and out. Covering a second person with darkness moving in a different space was trickier than just extending it to cover Oscar’s black fur hovering close to her. Thankfully, Xalina was controlled enough to keep just above Lily to allow the shadow to spread evenly and steadily until they reached the ground.

“We’ll go around the side of the school, then head out towards the Densewood until we can’t be so well through the dark. Then you can head further while I go back before someone notices I’m missing” Lily explained softly once they were safe on the ground.

“How am I meant to walk with this shadow basically making me blind?” Xalina hissed urgently.

“It is?” Lily glanced over her shoulder at those purple eyes in confusion.

“What? You can see through it?”

“Yeah. But I suppose I’m the caster so…” she trailed off for a brief moment “Why don’t you hold onto the back of my dress, and Oscar and Kiki can sit on your shoulders to tell you what’s happening around you?”

Without needing to look at them, the two cats hopped up to sit on both the draconian’s shoulders. That relaxed her, and Xalina reached out to curl her fingers around the back of Lily’s black dress.

“Is this how you sneak around the school looking for stuff?” Xalina whispered.

“Nah, she’s too scared to do that but not scared enough to break you out” Kiki grumbled.

“Which you don’t approve of?”

“No! The first major risk she takes and it’s to free you, not to get information. We don’t even know if you’ll actually help us!” Kiki growled. “You could sell us out to that girlfriend of yours for all we know.”

“Ah, so you’re the cynical one” Xalina smirked.

“We usually call her reactive and prickly” Oscar teased from Xalina’s other shoulder. “Though she’s just hyper and cheeky when she decides she likes you.”

“Shut it!” Kiki hissed. “You know I’m right, you’re just hoping too much, so I’m trying to point out the other side!”

“We know Ki, we do. But searching through the library is only going so far.” Lily sighed softly “We have to stick to enough rules to not get caught, but we also only have so long before things get too close to the war. We need help!”

“This is an ongoing conversation?” Xalina mused.

“It’s starting to become more regular. The fairy council don’t seem to have much input.” Oscar breathed while glancing over their shoulder to check behind them. “We’re still clear behind.”

They kept to the edge of the outer wall of Quintegia school, allowing its shadow to help with their hidden movements. Only once they reached halfway did they turn to move diagonally towards the Archaic Densewood. The Densewood was many leagues further away than the Fae Greenwood, but the line of tall trees gave out a foreboding deep black while hiding the rising moon behind it. The distance also meant that within ten minutes of quick walking, Lily no longer needed to keep darkness around them, and it was no longer Xalina who was struggling to see so the cats had to lead the way.

“I should probably lead you all the way to the forest,” Oscar thought aloud as he flitted along with Xalina’s hand held onto his tail for guidance. “They’ll be able to see any flames you use until then and might panic. Flying is probably a bad idea too as they’ll spot you in the moonlight.”

“Good idea,” Kiki agreed.

“Do they make all your decisions?” Xalina chimed in a little louder now they were out of earshot from the school.

Lily coughed out a breath awkwardly at the forwardness of the question. “No! Well… Yes; I suppose they do” she conceded after a short pause. “I’d… never really thought about it.”

“Well, you barely talk so we kinda have to do it for you” Kiki teased softly.

“True” Lily sighed with a shrug.

“It’s nice that you have that” Xalina commented “Companions that are both part of your soul and your friends always sounded great to me. Never seen it in real life though.”

Lily smiled into the darkness as they slowed to a halt “It is pretty cool.”

“Pretty cool?”

“You know you love us.”

“Always.” Lily chuckled, turning to squint through the darkness at the draconian. “Are you going to be ok from here?”

“Yes. Thank you for this. So, if I get information, I’ll let Oscar know every other week? I’ll have to wait a little bit before I see my missus, but I’ll be able to contact her at that time.”

“Not getting caught again is a great idea” Oscar laughed.

“Exactly,” Xalina agreed. “But still, two weeks would be good. If you don’t show up I’ll have to assume you’ve been caught and I have to come and bust you out.”

They laughed softly into the silence of the night, Lily feeling the tension from the whole night loosen in her back. Even though she had been more than willing to free Xalina without getting the help in return, she was relieved that the dark-skinned female was organising the correspondence.

“Hopefully we’ll avoid a cycle of just breaking each other out,” Lily tittered.

“Deal. See you around!” Xalina clapped her hand against Lily’s shoulder with a flash of a smile through the dark before following Oscar towards the Densewood.

“Stay out of trouble!” Lily called softly after her before allowing Kiki’s insistent tugs to turn her around. “Ok Ki, let’s go back.” She whispered in amusement while her feet were guided by the cat in front of her.

The moonlight glittered off the snow that crunched under her feet. As they walked back, Lily shifted the ice to cover all the footsteps they had left behind. Manipulating two elements at the same time wasn’t always the easiest, but manipulating three was one she had not done before. Keeping herself in darkness while removing footprints and pulling herself up over the wall with the vine, well, she was rather proud of herself when she landed on the ground inside the campus without messing up or harming herself.

“Now just sneak back! I’ll go in through the window to make sure Dia isn’t awake. If she is I’ll meow at the door when you come up.” Kiki chirped before scampering off towards the dorm building.

Silently, Lily walked back through the grassy areas behind the dorm buildings and circled around to the front so the statue of the Morequcor could let her inside.

As she turned the corner, however, she froze. Her face fell as she met the green eyes of Finnigan Byrne. His eyes focused on her through the darkness with his eyebrow raised in question.

“So, you’re a fairy.” It wasn’t a question in his voice, and that somehow made the terror flooding through Lily much more intense. He’d already made the right conclusion and she had no idea how he had come to it, nor how she was going to convince him it wasn’t true.

“W…What?” She said lamely, still frozen to the spot.

“You’re a fairy.” He repeated, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. That made this even more confusing. It wasn’t a cruel smile, nor was it forced or threatening; it was soft and almost amused. Lily stood rooted to the spot, wide-eyed and terrified. Half of her wanted to bolt back the way she had come and go meet up with Xalina. She could try and find out information from the outside. She could go home and tell them she failed. Though if she did that, there was no chance her own kind would ever allow her to feel like one of them. And she would have to leave the school where she had begun to feel at home with the friends she had made. Friends that didn’t know what she was. Though one friend was standing in front of her in the silent night, and he seemed to be very sure of what she was.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Lily kicked herself at the squeaky sound of her voice which just made her denial an obvious lie.

Pushing himself away from the wall, Finnigan stepped closer to her, making her feel like a rabbit unsure whether to run from a fox. “Lil, I suspected after you got out of the lake. There was no chance you could have been so close to the surface still while wearing that thick coat, and you couldn’t use any incantation underwater.” His voice was soothing and patient, a hand raised as though to convince her not to run. “And I watched you cover yourself in shadow and the snow cover up your footsteps seemingly by itself.”

Her mind was blank by now and all she could really register in her own head was the pounding of her own heart. No explanations, no words that would get her out of this. Lily glanced around absently hoping to find the solution somewhere in the cold air. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing to get her out of this. Lily paused, realising there was also no-one else there to bring her to the Lock Up she’d just broken Xalina out of.

“You didn’t call anyone?” Lily whispered.

“Why would I?”

“Because… Fairies are the enemy right?”

“Are you here to hurt us?”

No!” Lily’s voice gained some strength, her eyes turning to look at Finnigan’s still curious face. “No. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“So why would I tell anyone?” Finnigan asked honestly, receiving an incredulous look from Lily who obviously didn’t believe him. “Look.” He sighed “You’re my friend, right? I wanted to ask you about it, and maybe tell you to be more careful if you aren’t here to kill us all from the inside.”

The waggle of his eyebrows pulled a huff of laughter from Lily’s lips despite herself. “I’m definitely not here to kill you all. I was sent here to find out where you guys would be attacking first when the war came around in four and a half years’ time.”

Confusion passed over Finnigan’s face. “Where we would attack first? Witches don’t plan attacks, we counter the threats we get before the fairies attack us.”

“No. Witches attack us for our wings.”

“Why would we want your wings?”

“For potions?”

“That’s a bunch of zaloot! We don’t use fairy wings in potions, the things we call fae wings are the wings of Karai!”

“I know!” Lily half yelled before wincing and looking around in case anyone in the dorms had heard. She then sighed, raising her hand to rub her face in frustration. “I know. The stories of why we go to war are completely opposite to each other, so it makes no sense how we end up going to war every hundred years.”

Finnigan shivered a little in the cold of the night, but his head was tilted in interest. “So, wait, you’re taught that we tear your wings off for magic and that’s why we go to war with you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s… that’s so wrong!” Finnigan exclaimed. “I assume this means that you guys don’t attack us because you want to expand the area of the Greenwood?”

“What? We don’t need to expand anything. We live in the middle of it inside a barrier that shrinks everything that goes through it. We’ve got spare space up the wazoo.” Lily shook her head at the very idea of them going to war for something like more woodland space. “So, one’s got to be a lie, right?”

“Or both?” Finnigan shrugged, looking at the ground with a mind-blown expression. There was nothing between them that suggested mistrust of the other. Instead, there was just a heavy silence where Lily knew her confusion and worries were not hers alone. She now had Xalina and Finnigan knowing the truth of her presence, and, so far, neither had reacted badly so far.

A few moments ticked by before Finnigan broke the silence. “By the way, how have you managed to hide your wings?”

“I don’t have any to hide,” Lily mumbled. “I was born without them. Which is why I was able to get in here, change the colour of my hair, eyes, and glitter and I look fairly normal so long as I don’t put my hair up away from my ears.”

A hum of thought left Finnigan’s lips while he reached out a hand to brush the side of her brunette hair to the side. Lily tensed but allowed her pointed ear to be seen. Letting the hair fall back down to her shoulder, he smiled slightly. “Well, that explains the loose hairstyles you favour.”

“Yeah…” Lily whispered.

Another awkward silence fell between them.

“Does anyone else know?” Finnigan asked, seeming to be the only one out of the two of them who could think straight enough to break the silences. But, Lily figured there was no change there. Finnigan had always been better at holding the conversation up than she had.

Slowly she shook her head “No, only you and the draconian girl I just sprung from the Lock Up.”

“That’s where you went?!” Finn barked out a laugh. “I thought you were the quiet, rule-following one?”

Lily blinked at him before a small smirk pulled on the side of her lips as she deadpanned her response “I’m a fairy infiltrating a witches’ school while my companions’ search everywhere for information and I learn everything I can from the library.” Finn was laughing softly now which brought a light chuckle to Lily’s lips as she admitted “Though, I think I’ve learned more from you and the draconian tonight than I have from anything else. But the magic has been fun, I never knew we could use witch magic.”

“I bet no fairy has ever tried before. Can you do some of our magic without the incantations?”

“I’ve not tried, but I don’t know if I would be able to. My natural magic is mostly tried to five elements but you guys can create all sorts with the incantations.”

“It’d be fun to try though right?” Lily nodded to his question before he grinned. “Oh! We could go out of bounds as a social thing and you could see if you’re able to get some of the spells to work?”

“What about the others?”

“You want to tell them?” The smile dropped from Finnigan’s face at the idea as he glanced up at the sleeping dorm they were still standing beside. “What if they turn you in?”

“You’re not.” Lily pointed out hopefully.

“Yeah, but… I don’t know them enough to know how they will react. Do you?” Lily shook her head with a disappointed exhale. She didn’t know how they would react, but she really wished they would react positively. Finnigan smiled sadly as he reached to take hold of her hand, squeezing it soothingly in his. “Look, I can only imagine how much you would want them to know about this and accept it. But you’ve been hiding it for a reason, right? I can help you keep it hidden until we figure out what the liche is going on here with the whole war thing. When we have more evidence, we can get them on board; even if they aren’t so cool with the whole idea of fairies being friends at first.”

There was no arguing with that logic, even though Lily found herself disappointed that it wasn’t Dia and Tanith who were telling her these things. She liked Finnigan, sure, and he made her stomach do weird twists and turns when he smiled at her so merrily. But, he wasn’t the two who she wished she could tell everything to.

“Yeah” She resigned. “With more help, we should figure it out quick enough.”

“Exactly! Especially as I can teach you the whole background of witches and you can tell me the fairy history and we can figure out where the discrepancies have occurred?”

“That sounds like a great plan!”

“Yeah? Cool, so we’ll say I’m taking you into the town for drinks and we can call it a date so they don’t feel the need to come with us?” That grin was back on Finnigan’s face causing Lily to squirm.

“Wait… a date?” She squeaked.

“It’s a good cover!” He defended. “It’ll give us a reason to go off alone without them wondering what we are up to.”

“What? But… but they’ll ask questions” Lily felt a strange panic building up inside, even though it was going to be a cover, there would be questions and Lily had never even been on a date to know what they were meant to have done to make the cover work.

“So?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know what to tell them. I’ve never…” Lily felt her blush grow on her cheeks, embarrassed by having to admit her lack of a social life prior to coming to this school. Finnigan tilted his head a little, raising an eyebrow but making no noise to pressure her. “I’ve, you know, never been on a date before” she mumbled finally.

“Really? Are you serious?”

“Well, yeah.” Lily couldn’t look at him, finding herself entirely too embarrassed. “I never even had friends back home, let alone anything else.”

“Wow. Ok. We’ll have to cover what you’d tell people when we get back from any outings as well. That’s totally ok, feel bad that I’d be your first date would be a fake one.” He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck softly.

“Nothing wrong with that, I’ve never been too bothered by actually dating. It’s just embarrassing when people judge me for it, you know? It seemed to be another thing for people to mock and avoid me over so I thought you were going to laugh.”

“Never.” Finnigan’s reply was immediate, his hand squeezing hers again “They were all idiots, you’re pretty cool in my opinion.”

Lily smiled ruefully and squeezed his hand in return. “Thanks, Finn. It’ll be nice to have someone to talk to about all this besides Oscar and Kiki.”

“Oh of course!” Finnigan exclaimed with an excited smile “Your companions can talk, can’t they? Is it true they can fly too??”

The smile was infectious and Lily found herself giggling quietly as she nodded. “Yeah, though they don’t fly often because they don’t like to rub my face in it.”

“That’s sweet of them.”

“Very” Lily agreed. “Though I do feel bad sometimes, they seem to have lots of fun scampering around on four legs, much like I actually enjoy climbing trees.”

“Maybe we should go climbing sometime then, while we’re talking about the histories and stuff, obviously.”

Lily laughed again but found herself nodding “That would be fun.”

“So how about tomorrow we go get drinks then go climbing and we can catch each other up on all the history?”

Smiling lightly, Lily nodded and let go of Finnigan’s hand. “Let’s do that, meet you at breakfast so I can tell Dia and Tanith beforehand?”

“Good plan. Say I called you out tonight to ask you? Explains why we’ve been standing outside in the snow during the early hours of the morning too” Finnigan grinned.

“That helps for sure; I’ve been out a long time, Dia may have woken up at some point.”

“Ok. I’ll see you tomorrow then.” With one last smile and a kiss to the top of her head, Finnigan turned and headed back to his dorm leaving Lily to go back to hers with a grin playing on her own lips. Two people knowing what she was, both of them being ok with it and willing to help her. Tonight had been a good night.