Briallen Bevin and the Clocktower Guard

Chapter 13: A Clear Picture

Minister of Magic Caspian Everard was a proud, stately, war veteran who made up in leadership abilities what he may have lacked in people skills. He was elected by an electoral landslide twice, had been minister now for eight years, and had been re-elected seven months ago for his third, and final, term. The witches and wizards of America adored his no-nonsense attitude and strictly 'no favorites' government policies - he was hard on everybody, no matter who they were or how much money they had. He was nobody's tool except God's, in whose name he struck down dark magic users and corralled monsters into domesticated captivity.

He remembered what had happened in Britain just over a decade ago. A dark wizard arose, proclaiming himself a 'Lord' (Minister Everard snorted at just the thought of this word, Lord - he believed aristocracy to be a joke), and by the fault of a weak government, this dark wizard managed to gain an ungodly number of followers to do his evil bidding. Such a thing would never happen in the United States of America - not while Caspian Everard was in charge.

This was why he had to take time out of his busy schedule to visit Bergamot Academy for the Magically Gifted. Had this been a less important task he would have sent one of his peons. As it was, however, this was a very important task, or at least it was important to him. His advisors said it was pointless, useless, and would only make him out to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist once the journalists learned of this trip. But dealing with dark wizards was his specialty - his favorite hobby. And this dark wizard wasn't some lowly warlock turning kids into gnomes and sending dogs after them... this dark wizard was rumored to have followed this 'Dark Lord' who once terrorized Britain, and he was currently working at the largest school of magic in the United States. Caspian Everard just could not allow that.

Britain's Dark Lord was supposedly destroyed twelve years ago, but Minister Everard knew better. He had fought in three wars, and was responsible for the capture of over one hundred dark wizards during his time as Chief Auror and he knew this Dark Lord was the worst of the worst, and that it would take more than some little boy to bring him down (he'd heard the rumors of the Dark Lord dying by the hands of an infant and scoffed at such absurdity).

Caspian Everard had bided his time, just waiting to hear news from across the pond of the return of their Dark Lord that they had so naïvely believed to be vanquished. Because he was coming back soon, and Caspian had what he believed to be hard proof to the fact - the Dark Lord's followers were once again making themselves known.

"He's a fool to come to this country and play his silly games while I'm in charge!" bellowed Minister Everard as he walked through the front doors of Bergamot. His many medals glittered brightly against his stark gray robes and turned everyone's attention to him. It was the middle of afternoon break and students were everywhere, and they all turned their heads when the Minister strode past them. The Minister's chief advisor noticed the attention the students were giving the Minister and begged his boss to lower his voice. "Nonsense! These kids know who I am and what I do! They should know-"

"Minister Everard! Welcome to Bergamot!" interrupted Professor Alembic, who had just run into the entrance hall from the dining hall. She instantly composed herself and smiled politely at the elderly wizard. "We were told you weren't arriving until tomorrow! Erm - we're not entirely prepared for your visit, I'm afraid."

"That's perfectly fine! I don't intend on remaining here for very long. Let's get down to business, shall we?" he demanded in a less than courteous manner.

Professor Alembic nodded, curtsied, and then led the Minister, his advisors and bodyguards up the grand stairs.

Briallen and Lucan were in the entrance hall discussing their progress on the first clue with Amir and Lindsay when the Minister made his grand entrance, and just like everybody else, they stopped and stared at the imposing man.

Briallen had completely forgotten about when she overheard her grandfather and Professor Alembic discussing the Minister's impending visit months ago but now it all came rushing back to her. She was shaking with so much excitement that when she turned to Lucan to tell him what she remembered, all that came out was, "Oh! Oh! Oh!"

She didn't wait for him to ask her what she meant before she ran off after the Minister. Lucan followed her, curious, while Amir and Lindsay followed her to make sure she stayed out of trouble. Briallen knew Professor Alembic was taking the Minister to see her grandfather in his office, but they were taking the main staircases in the portrait hall, and Briallen knew a shortcut.

"No running in the library!" shouted Mrs Shan as Briallen ran past her and up the stairs behind the front desk. Then Lucan rushed past her. "No running in the library!" she shouted again, louder this time. And finally, Amir and Lindsay ran past the frazzled librarian, who instead of yelling this time, raised her wand and sent a cart full of books after the rule-breaking students. "And one of them is a prefect! What has this school come to?"

They exited the library on the fifth floor and ran up a rickety iron staircase in a corner to the sixth floor. Turning two corners and a straight sprint brought them to the portrait of Professor Meyers, who had awoken due to all the commotion the four students made in getting to him. "My word, you kids today and the racket you make," he mumbled, opening the door to Cal Bevin's office.

"Briallen, this is the Minister of Magic we're talking about - the leader of the free magical world and the third largest wizarding nation on earth!" said Amir as authoritatively as he could muster. He was out of breath at the moment and finding it difficult to sound serious when he paused after every word to take a deep gulp of air.

"What about the Minister?" asked Cal curiously, looking up from a roll of parchment he'd been reading. He sat at his desk, and in one of the chairs facing his desk sat Reynard. He flashed the kids a wicked smile and winked at them.

Briallen didn't get the chance to answer her grandfather's question as just then Professor Alembic entered, followed by Minister Caspian Everard himself. The Minister didn't pause or halt at all in his steps as he strode straight over to Reynard, grabbed the man's arm, hauled him out of his chair and tried to lift the sleeves of his long shirt.

"Oy! What do you think you're doing there?!" shouted Reynard. He had the same mad look in his eyes from when Lucan announced Briallen would be his partner in the scavenger hunt.

"I demand you show me your forearms!" ordered the Minister.

Cal's eyes widened and he jumped out of his chair. "Minister, there are children here! Let me see them out before we begin."

The chief advisor looked relieved by Cal's suggestion, but the Minister shook his head. "I'm not waiting any longer Calhoun! You Brits, always so concerned with manners and propriety! Look where it landed you - with wizards like this!"

With a sneer, Reynard rolled up his sleeves and stretched his arms out in front of everybody, his palms up. There was nothing extraordinary about the clock-tower guard's arms, aside from the fact he seemed to be losing patches of arm hair.

Briallen was confused. Amir, Lucan and Lindsey, on the other hand, very clearly knew what was going on - they all looked relieved to see that Reynard's arms were just regular arms, though Lindsey looked just a little bit frightened as well.

Cal's lips were pursed and his brow furrowed as he stared at the Minister. Nobody in the room spoke or moved. Finally, Cal whispered, "Briallen, please take your friends and leave. I'm busy right now."

She didn't want to leave but Lucan took hold of her arm and pulled her out of the room. Amir and Lindsay followed willingly. As soon as Professor Meyers had shut the door, Amir-the-Prefect spoke up. "What we saw does not leave that room, understand? There are a lot of students at Bergamot who have friends or family who live in Europe, and I do not want to start a panic for no reason. We all saw there was nothing there."

"But the Minister had to have a reason to check in the first place," muttered Lucan.

"I have cousins in England and some of them go to school with... with..." Lindsay flushed and let her sentence remain unfinished.

Amir put an arm around her and sweetly kissed her on the forehead. "I don't think Lindsay and I are going to play his game anymore... but if you two plan on continuing we'll help you out. Just be careful, alright?" Lucan nodded. Briallen was still confused. "I'll owl you tonight with what we've figured out so far."

Again, Lucan nodded. Amir and Lindsay left the way they came but Lucan and Briallen went to the portrait hall. "Do you want to tell me what just happened in there?" Briallen asked in a whisper. They were on a staircase with a few other students and she was trying to be as discreet at possible.

"They were checking his arm for His mark," whispered Lucan.

"Reynard's mark?" asked Briallen, confused.

One of the kids in front of them, an Almerick, turned and glanced at them, a weird look on his face. Lucan sneered at the Almerick and with a snort, the Almerick turned back to his friends.

"No..." They had stopped on the second floor landing in front of the library. Lucan took Briallen's arm and pulled up the sleeve of her robe. With his wand, he drew a faint, flesh-colored picture of a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth. Almost as soon as he'd finished, the picture disappeared. She'd never seen nor heard of the image, and she was still confused.

Then she was really confused as Lucan suddenly wobbled sideways and then fell to the floor to her right, his lip bleeding and his hand over his eye. She looked to her left and saw Hayden. His teeth were bared and his cheeks were red and he was breathing heavily.

"You learn that little trick from your Death Eater grandfather?!" shouted Hayden, now standing over Lucan with his wand at Lucan's throat. "Don't. Touch. Her. Again."

"Jealous because she won't let you touch her?" retorted Lucan with a sneer.

Briallen had never seen Hayden so angry - in fact, she'd never seen him angry, ever. He pulled his wand back, ready to hex Lucan, but Briallen realized what he was about to do and grabbed his arm and yanked it away. Hayden stumbled into her and the two of them fell back on the stairs.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" bellowed Professor Alembic, horrified and spitting angry.

Behind her stood Minister Everard and his entourage. The Minister watched with great interest as Hayden quickly pulled himself and Briallen up, and hid his wand behind his back. Lucan was on his knees on the floor. He took his time in bringing himself to his feet, using the stair railing for support.

The next words to come out of Professor Alembic's mouth were in a low whisper: "My office now."

O * O * O * O

Professor Alembic was furious with not only Hayden and Lucan, but Briallen as well. She wasn't entirely sure what happened. All she saw was a bloody Lucan on the floor with Hayden standing over him and Briallen next to him, and so she held them all accountable. Briallen lucked out, however, and Professor Alembic only gave her one night's detention, meaning she could still play in the Quodpot Final Game on Wednesday evening. But Lucan and Hayden were given a month worth of detention and since there were only two weeks of school left, their first two weeks of spring term would also be in detention.

Later that day in Potions, Briallen was forced to field questions by curious classmates, wanting to know if it was true that Hayden Van Vlerah and Lucan Stone got into a Muggle fist-fight over her. She refused to answer any of their questions and attempted to brush off the incident as nothing important or exciting.

"Everybody - QUIET!" shouted Professor Alembic at the front of the room. "Class is starting now and I am not in the mood to tolerate off-topic conversation, which means that there will be no more talk of the altercation between Mr Van Vlerah and Mr Stone, and I will assign a month of detention to anyone who disobeys me. Do you all understand?"

Everybody silently nodded to the Potions professor, who was still pink with anger. No one wanted to test the veracity of her threat - they all believed her. "Now," began Professor Alembic, "today we'll be brewing a potion that requires the utmost precision and attention, or at least as much precision and attention as a bunch of twelve and thirteen year olds can possess. One small mistake, and this potion is utterly useless."

Toby and Briallen looked at each other, brows raised. They'd never known Professor Alembic to be so snarky, but the combination of the Minister's unannounced visit, and Lucan and Hayden's fight right in front of him, had obviously frayed her nerves severely. Professor Alembic was now standing in front of a small cauldron from which a wispy, shimmering indigo fog was emanating.

"This is Tranquil Tonic. In it are those things that are known to soothe the nerves, quiet the mind, and relax the body: fairy wings, lavender, powdered moonstone, and the crushed twig of a mandrake."

Chante Nguyen raised her hand, and the professor called on her. "Isn't it true that Tranquil Tonic is addictive? Tinna says that Cora Quinn's grandmother takes a sip of it every ten minutes."

"No ingredient within this potion is addictive. Those who use Tranquil Tonic on a daily basis are weak hypochondriacs who're overly absorbed with their supposed suffering," snapped Professor Alembic. "There is a difference between addiction and dependence. Tranquil Tonic is only meant as a temporary relief for stress - used too often and it becomes ineffective."

A Summerbee boy whose name Briallen didn't know raised his hand next. Everybody seemed to be trying to get participation points and earn their way onto the Potions Professor's good side. "Is this the stuff Mrs Krause feeds the kids who have meltdowns during finals?"

"Yes! Now can I please continue my lecture without any silly interruptions. Mr Garcia, if you raise your hand you had better have a very good reason for doing so."

Flushing, Dante lowered his hand and his eyes. Satisfied that nobody else had any questions or comments, Professor Alembic began an in-depth lecture on the history and uses of Tranquil Tonic.

Briallen was bored and began day-dreaming of Quodpot, more specifically of the game on Wednesday against Wenlock. She imagined herself as being suddenly, inexplicably, magnificent at the game, and scoring goal after goal in their cauldron, and making the Wenlock team cry.

Come game-day, however, Briallen was anything but magnificent.

It was halftime now, and her teammates joined her on the bench for a much needed break. The Quod had exploded in Briallen's possession five minutes into the first quarter, benching her almost immediately and meaning she wasn't able to re-join the game until the third quarter. The score was tied at three to three and both teams had spent the last quarter preventing each other from scoring at all.

"When you get back out there, Bevin, watch the Quod!" Conall shouted at her. He followed his demand by a string of curses so rotten Briallen winced and her toes curled.

Once Conall had thoroughly finished, Rex Hampton approached him. He handed both Briallen and Conall a paper-cup full of cider to combat the cold of the snow that had begun falling that morning, and then turned to Conall and suggested, politely, "Shouldn't I be the one out on the field today?"

"No! You kept messing up your part in our Prickly Play and that's what I plan on throwing at those damned Wenlocks in the third quarter. Briallen has that play down pat."

Rex nodded understandingly at Conall but once the Captain's back was turned, he scowled at Briallen and stomped away. Briallen sipped at her cider while Conall went over with the team the game-plays he wanted to use for the last half of the game.

Professor Black, one of the referees that day, blew the game whistle and the Withers and Wenlock teams marched back out onto the field. The wind was picking up and the light snowfall was becoming a weak blizzard. Briallen kissed the protective talisman Hayden had given her last Christmas, and then swung her leg over her broom.

For ten minutes she did her best to score a goal but the Wenlock team kept intercepting the Quod, and so it went back and forth between the two teams every minute or so.

"Is it just me or is this the most boring Quodpot Final we've ever witnessed?" Lindsey Price's voice echoed dully over the field. She had given up commenting on Quod possession early in the game, since possession changed so quickly. "I feel like we're watching a lazy Sunday game of BowderBall! COME ON TEAMS, MAKE US WANT TO CHEER FOR YOU!"

Though Briallen couldn't see Lindsay in the commentator's box, she was sure Professor Montignac was chastising the Summerbee girl for veering off topic. Lindsay was right, though - no one in the stands was cheering, and they were all sitting down. Even Briallen's friend, who were normally hyperactively jumping all over and shouting at every game, were sitting calmly in the bleachers drinking from steaming mugs.

Frustrated, and wanting to impress her friends, Briallen decided to break from Conall's game-play. Veering left sharply, and then flying low to the ground, Briallen flew under her teammates and most of the Wenlock team, making her way straight for Wenlock team member number twenty-three, who currently held the Quod.

"Merlin's beard! I think - I think something is actually happening! Bevin is pulling a cellar and going right for Reedus for Quod possession!" screamed Lindsay enthusiastically.

Now Briallen could hear the screaming of boos and cheers from the bleachers. She smiled and leaned forward on her broom to increase her speed. Reedus was just a few feet away now. Behind her Conall was screaming at her but she ignored him. She convinced herself she could get the Quod by surprise still and possibly make it back to their scoring cauldron and score the winning point.

She blinked. She thought she must be going incredibly fast as the flyers around her began to blur. She blinked again - no, there was no blur. She cut in front of Reedus just then, startling him, and stole the Quod from his hands. It was vibrating violently now, getting ready to explode. She had to be quick.

She only had one hand guiding her broom now, as the other held the Quod. Around her, the screaming voices were blurring into a white noise. Conall appeared by her side and was screaming something at her but Briallen couldn't understand. Her fingers felt numb and weak all of a sudden, and the field started going blurry again. She shook her head to try and snap her attention and focus back in place but it didn't work.

Conall saw something behind her and the look of fury on his face seemed to grow more intense. He pulled back but Briallen didn't look to see what was the reason. She didn't even notice all the other players pulling back too; all she saw was the blurry, black dot of the scoring cauldron, just a dozen yards away.

Out of nowhere a BowderBall suddenly smacked her in the side of the head. Briallen swerved off course. A BowderBall smacked her on the other side of the head and she swerved the opposite direction. Then two more BowderBalls hit her, in the back of the head and in the back. She winced and slowed down which allowed yet another BowderBall to smack right into her fingers.

With a scream, Briallen released her grip on her broom and, without her holding on at such a high speed, the broom flew out from under her and she rolled hard into the ground. But she still held the Quod! Briallen had no idea if it was against the rules or not but she took off towards the cauldron on foot, running as fast as she could. A Wenlock player pulled in front of her and she leaped over his broom.

"BEVIN'S LOST HER BROOM AND IS RUNNING DOWN THE PITCH TO THE SCORE ZONE!" screamed Lindsay Price at the top of her lungs. "SHE'S LEAPED OVER REEDUS' BROOMSTICK!"

Briallen somehow dodged two more Wenlock players. The Quod was beginning to emit smoke from several of the small holes in it, and Briallen only just managed to toss it into the scoring cauldron before it exploded. She turned to face the pitch and the crowd, but it was all one big blur.

The next thing she saw were the tall lights surrounding the pitch and the Quidditch goal posts.

"What's wrong with her?" asked a voice to her left.

"I dunno - she looks like she's on something!" replied a voice on her right.

Briallen smiled at the voices and giggled as she shook her head dreamily. The light above her swirled around in geometrical shapes and reminded her of a kaleidoscope. She raised a hand feebly towards the light, trying to catch the shapes with it.

"Move aside!" said Professor Black, annoyed. He bent over her and sighed irritably. "Someone spiked all the cider jugs with a high concentration of Tranquil Tonic... I really hate reffing game finals! CALL A DRAW, MS PRICE! WE'RE DONE FOR THE EVENING!"

Briallen was out of it for the rest of the evening, though she remembered her grandfather yelling at someone. When she awoke the next morning she felt perfectly fine, aside from slight memory loss. There was nobody in her dorm room when she looked around and she was worried that she might have slept through her alarm when she remembered it was Thanksgiving and there were no classes.

After throwing on a pair of jeans and a sweater and sliding on her favorite house slippers Briallen trudged down to the common room. Conall, Benjamin, and Noah were all sitting on one of the couches in front of the fireplace, discussing something seriously. They looked intense and angry, and Briallen didn't want to disrupt them so she made her way quietly to the door.

"Hold on a moment, Bevin," said Conall just as she was about to open Sir Lawrence of Woodcroft's portrait. She didn't remember the game last night - at least not the last half - but she had a feeling she'd done something wrong or bad, because of the way that Conall spoke to her.

"Look, Conall, I don't really remember last night, and I don't know why I don't remember but-"

"Someone spiked our cider with Tranquil Tonic as a prank. It's the reason we were all so slow the other day - even the Wenlocks. You just got more than the rest of us because you were downing the cider while on the bench," explained Conall gruffly.

"It made you a little loopy," added Noah with a grin. "The last goal you made, you know, you made by running to the cauldron... which is technically allowed, just not all that common. Certainly made the game more interesting, though. Everybody's talking about it."

Briallen grimaced and looked at Conall guiltily. She was expecting him to chide her for playing like a Muggle but he merely shook his head and even smiled a little. "You're not mad at me then?" asked Briallen, hopeful.

"Not for that," said Conall, frowning again already. "You broke the play, Bevin! I don't care if you did score - that wasn't teamwork! This game is all about working together, as a team, to accomplish a common goal."

"I'm sorry, I really am..."

Conall eyed her carefully, determining whether or not she was being honest with him. He apparently decided she was as he mumbled, "Fine. Just don't do it again. I'm only letting you off the hook this time because you were under the influence."

With a nod, Briallen left the three boys to continue their previous conversation and went downstairs for breakfast. The dining hall was buzzing when she walked in and a few eyes watched her as she took a seat next across from Toby and Marisol at the Withers table.

"That was an incredible game!" gushed Marisol, clapping.

"Even if you were drugged up," added Toby. "We were just talking about who might have done it."

"Dante," all three of them said at the same time. Briallen continued, "Makes sense. We are learning about it in Potions, and he does hate most all the Withers and the Wenlocks..."

And he's probably trying to keep me from playing the scavenger hunt, thought Briallen. I bet him and Morana have no idea at all what the first clue is about and they're just desperate to keep the other teams from figuring it out before they do!

"No, well, yes - but we were talking about all the BowderBalls that flooded the field!" said Marisol, her eyes wide. "Someone, or someones, threw all those BowderBalls at you guys last night. Dante could have done that too, I mean he's got friends with enough money to buy that many of those silly balls!"

Briallen nodded in agreement.

A sudden increase in whispers and giggles originating at the opposite end of the dining hall, near the door, got Briallen's attention just then. Hayden had just walked in and many of the girls in the dining hall were pointing and whispering as he passed, and throwing him flirtatious winks and smiles. Hayden was flushed but his walk was more like a saunter and he held his chin a little higher as he made his way to Briallen.

"Hey there, you," he whispered, nuzzling Briallen's neck while he sat next to her.

Briallen raised a brow and shrugged him off of her. "What's that all about?"

"What? The girls?" he asked innocently, as if he'd been oblivious to the sudden attention he was getting. Briallen nodded and gave him a look that told him she didn't want to play around. He shrugged nonchalantly. "Ever since I hit Lucan I've got girls coming at me right and left! They all think I'm romantic for fighting over you."

Hayden looked quite pleased about his sudden change in status. Overnight he had gone from being a cute, yet awkward, journalism geek to a gorgeous, romantic, old-fashioned heartthrob. And Briallen couldn't believe she hadn't noticed until just now. As she looked around the dining hall she saw that most of the first, second, and third year girls - and even a few fourth years! - were eyeing Hayden with little smiles.

Briallen was disgusted. And a little jealous and indignant. She stood up from the table and mumbled, "I'm heading to the library."

"It's Thanksgiving!" said Marisol. "I don't even plan on visiting the library today! And we're supposed to go make turkey hands, and Professor Kuntz is having a turkey catch later - she's putting a hundred turkeys in the courtyard and a few with have a bag of galleons around their necks and the kids who catch them get to keep the money!"

"And Professors Berry and Perry are holding trivia contests in one of the Muggle Studies room!" said Toby, excited. "Come on, Briallen! You and me could win those so easily!"

"I've got an essay I want to get done with," she replied dully. Hayden looked confused and disappointed, which made her strangely happy. With a quick wave, she left her friends to their breakfast.

The library was empty. Mrs Shan sat at the check-out counter, eating a muffin and reading a book, and paid her no attention as she went down the stairs to the study tables. She sat down at a table nearest a large window that looked out over the north wood, folded her arms on the table, and put her head down.

Briallen wasn't sure how long she sat like that, but eventually Lucan had arrived and tapped her on the shoulder. She'd lifted her head and acknowledged him, and laughed a little at his bruised lip and eye. He expressed his desire to continue their research on the first clue, she agreed. Two hours had passed since then.

"This makes no sense, this makes no sense," sang Briallen. She was doodling a silly picture of Mrs Shan being chased by her own books on one of the sheets of paper Lucan had given her to take notes on. She had stopped taking notes almost an hour ago, however.

"We really should figure this out before winter break. I can't believe it's this hard," muttered Lucan while his eyes busily scanned the wide book set open in front of him. He sat back, sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "Okay, so read me the clue again."

Rolling her eyes, Briallen began, in monotone, "I'm in abyss at most times, I am rooted to the earth, I'm in actuality the sublime, I am glistening in mirth. I'm as omphalos, in shape and size, but I'm natant in my other guise, and I'm incandescent as the moon, So I'm treasured by the wise, but I'm exquisite most when in tune, which is only why I rise."

"What do we know so far?"

"Cave-dwelling, water-dwelling, shiny, happy, expensive, is like a giant religious stone artifact..." said Briallen, ticking off each description on her fingers.

"Whatever that means," said Lucan, rubbing his eyes again. He was referring to the use of the word 'omphalos' in the riddle. It didn't make any sense to either of them and they'd started using it as a joke, referring to anything that was weird as an 'omphalos.' Lucan happily, and frequently, used the word when talking about Hayden, only stopping when Briallen had told him she'd had enough and to move on.

"And patterns?" asked Briallen.

"Each line, excluding the last, starts with a title and a connector-thing, and is followed by... an adjective, except in the first and third lines, and of course the last line."

Briallen wrote down the third word of every line so that her note paper read:

Abyss

Rooted

Actuality

Glistening

Omphalos

Natant

Incandescent

Treasured

Exquisite

She read the list over again, underlining each word, and going over the first letter of each word several times until they were dark and there were flecks of graphite dotting the paper. The side of her hand was now a silvery-black due to the graphite.

That's when she noticed a new pattern. She sat up, and was amazed she'd finally gotten it - or, at least, thought she'd gotten it.

"Lucan! The first letters of each third word... they spell out a name!" cried Briallen, excited, as she wrote the name next to her list. Luckily, because the library was empty, Mrs Shan only glared at her from the check-out desk.

"Aragonite?" said Lucan, unsure, as he read her paper. "Isn't that a sort of stone?"

"Yes! Remember when we learned about Abel Fewter? Well, I did a bit more reading on him and aragonite was one of the stones he discovered had hidden magical properties! It's fits the clues - it can be found in caves or in seashells, it's shiny, it's used in happiness potions, and it's expensive!"

"That's only some of the clues. What about actuality? And omphalos? And being in tune?" asked Lucan, doubtful Briallen had answered the riddle.

"Well, maybe they're instructions for how to get the stone. Maybe we can't just use any aragonite stone but... something omphalos like - something with a spiritual purpose?"

Lucan was starting to believe Briallen now. It did make some sense. "And wizards often hide treasured things by making them impossible to get at without some strange way of unlocking it, so maybe the 'in tune' part refers to it only appearing when music is played?"

"Maybe! It's not like we have any other leads so we might as well look into it," suggested Briallen. "Especially since the other teams are starting to play hard-ball - I know it was one of them who spiked my team's cider with Tranquil Tonic, and it was one of them that set loose the BowderBalls during the game!"

"I agree," said Lucan solemnly. Briallen wondered if any of their competition tried anything to hinder Lucan as they had her. If so, he hadn't mentioned it.

"We should get help from Amir and Lindsay," said Briallen matter-of-factly.

"What? They're another team!"

"They quit, remember?"

"And we should believe that? What if it's just a ruse to get us to share our information with them?" argued Lucan.

"Then they beat us to the clue piece, we learn our lesson, and we start working on the second clue! It doesn't matter!" exclaimed Briallen in a huff. "And I believe them anyways. They're not liars and they play fair."

Lucan shook his head and went silent while Briallen waited for a response.

"Fine," mumbled Lucan, sounding reluctant and a little angry. "We'll see if your friends know anything."