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Alice and Claire arrived on the shores of Normandy, and with a portal Alice created, they left to the school.

The school was quiet and empty, almost like a war had taken place, and any form of hope was squashed. They walked slowly along the field, looking around with the hope that, they'll here someone call out to their name, but it was futile.

"What do you think happened?"Claire asked Alice.

"I'm clueless regarding this," Alice said.

"Melwise said Mrs. Burton was alive and with some other women, do you think she might be wrong?" Claire asked.

"I don't think so", Alice said. "First off, the school buildings are intact, and i don't see any sign of a battle either. It's just awfully quiet, because they're probably hiding".

"But i feel they should've noticed our presence here at least", Claire said, as they entered the garden, they used to sit to have their pastries.

"They have", Alice said as she paused, staring intently at the open air.

"What do mean", Claire said, "I can't see anything"

"Don't try to see, Claire, feel".

Alice closed her eyes and weaved her hands in the air, and a pale blue light followed through, and almost instantly, the space Alice was staring at, turned into a large net of spikes waiting to strike them.

"Alice?!" a voice shouted from the distance.

Alice and Claire, on hearing the voice, turned towards the field behind them, and saw her mom, sarah, and two faces she hadn't seen a while. It was Elena and the druid melissa.

On seeing them, Alice ran in excitement towards them, with tears running down her cheek and engaged sarah first in deep embrace, claire followed too and hugged melissa tightly.

"How're you both been?" Sarah asked, as she fought back tears Alice wasn't so strong at holding back her tears, as she began to cry.

"I've been fine mom", Alice said, crying.

After a few minutes of intense and passionate embrace, it dawned on sarah, that peter wasn't with them.

"Where's peter?" she aksed.

"It's a long story mom", Alice said, smiling. "He's alright though".

Sarah, melissa and a quiet Elena all heaved a great sigh of relief on hearing Peter was fine.

"Common now", Elena said. "We've got to get you something to eat and after good rest, then we can talk about what has happened over the past month".

"Kylian, Marie and Adrian are alright, aren't they?" Claire asked.

"Yes they are dear", Sarah said. "They arrived about 2 weeks ago".

"I'm glad you kids are okay", melissa said. "Women of the council weren't so lucky though".

"What happened to them?" Claire asked.

"That very day you guys left to the Angel realm, a demon priest used an ancient curse, that blew almost all our forces to oblivion, and unfortunately only Mrs. Delphine and Brilda survived, the rest didn't, Sarah said.

"The chairman too?" Alice asked with a weak voice.

"Including the chairman my dear," Sarah said, as she puller Alice closer to herself and hugged her.

They arrived at the school door, a very large door, about 20 feet high and Melissa undid the enchantment she placed on the door and they went in.

Immediately they entered into the school corridors, a loud cheer erupted. It was the students of the Ecole dé magie.

After a short while, they had already surrounded Claire and Alice, and gave them a very warm and loud welcome, just as they did for Kylian, Adrien and Marie.

"Alice!" a voice shouted, but Alice couldn't hear it over the song of welcome currently in the air.

Alice and Claire finally made their way out of the crowd of students and she saw who had called out her name earlier. It was Adrien, he was standing alongside Marie and Kylian, who had been inseparable since they arrived and in his hand, he was holding a bright red rose. He stretched it to her and said:

"Welcome my dear," and he proceeded to hug her deeply, wetting Alice's blue shirt with his salty tears.

Alice was quite surprised at the welcome from Adrien and started to feel a little uncomfortable. She eased him off her shoulders and took the rose from his hand.

"Thank you Adrien," she said, smiling broadly at him.

"Welcome, both of you, we've missed you a lot," Marie said, as she hugged both Alice and Claire.

"Come on now kids, there's plenty time to catch up," Elena said, "for now, Alice and Claire should go eat and get rested".

"Sure thing," Kylian said.

Melissa and Sarah stayed back and escorted the welcome party back to the great hall, where they had set up camp, while Elena took Alice and Claire, upstairs to the teacher's area, where a nicely prepared room was waiting for them.

As they ascended the flight of stairs, Alice couldn't help but ask.

"Why are they housing at the great hall?".

"It's the place the demons will go last if they were to invdae," Elena said.

"So there's no one in the dorms?" Claire asked.

"No there isn't. The dorms have been fortified with curses and spells, like a trap".

"Ooh, that's smart," Alice said.

Later that evening, after Claire and Alice had rested, they were invited to the school's infirmary, which was the new place they held their meetings.

The teachers were present, alongside Sarah, Melissa, Elena, Brilda and Mrs. Delphine, who were always looking gloomy and barely smiled.

"We would like to know how the meeting with the council of Queens went," Sarah, who was made the new chair said.

"They need the humand, us, to gather our forces first, before they join the fray," Alice said.

"It's going to be quite hard to convince the other magic councils, especially after the massacre back in Paris," Mrs. Delphine said.

"At this point, I don't think they have a choice," Alice said. "The Queen of Queens, gave us this to give to the head of the magic councils," Alice said, as she stretched out her hand and an orb appeared, a very beautiful and colourful orb.

They expressed surprise when they first saw it, but they all began to smile shortly after, except Mrs. Delphine and Brilda.

"This means they can't say no now," the enchantments teacher said.

"They'll have to honour this call to war," another teacher said.

"And that means, we now have a fighting chance, and also a good chance to win this war," Sarah said, as she got up and collected the orb from Alice.

"Please, Mrs. Delphine, I need you to send this to the council in England right away, we need to start getting ready," Sarah said.

"Why the rush, we haven't been attacked yet, and for all we know, they've probably had a change of heart," Claire said anxiously.

"I wish that was the case dear," Melissa said. "We spotted 3 demon spies, around the school, earlier in the week".

"They're here?" Claire asked in shock, "but how?"

"We don't know either," Sarah said. "What we do know, is that, since they've gotten here, they must have probably sensed the demon presence here and are gathering their army to mount an attack".

"If it is as urgent as you say, then I don't think we'll have much time," Claire said, visibly terrified.

"There's no need to worry dear, we can all do this together," Sarah said.

"Not you though, you'll be with the other students, in the case of an attack, while we fight them off," Melissa said.

Claire looked around and when eyes weren't on her she muttered, "works for me".

While the meeting went on, Adrien was nervously waiting at the door of the infirmary to see Alice. He brought her another flower from the garden, and also specially had Alice's favourite pastry prepared by the school's head cook, so he could give to her and probably spend the rest of the evening with her, but it wasn't the case.

As Alice and Claire walked out of the door, they were discussing something, and from the look on Alice's face, Adrien could tell she was worried.

"I wonder if Peter is fine," Alice said.

"I'm sure he is," Claire said, "he's with the council of Queens, arguably the safest place he could be".

"I know, but I fear Queen Aselia, she doesn't like him much, I fear she'll use a special spell to take out the Demon lord's power from Peter," Alice said.

Nothing of that sort will happen", Claire said dryly, hoping that that particular topic could end, as she felt uncomfortable talking about Peter with Alice.

Claire wasn't the only one wishing for Alice to drop the topic, Adrien too. He was disheartened, when he heard Alice, talk about Peter with such love for him, he could tell, because it was what he wanted from Alice but couldn't get.

"I got you these", Adrien said, dryly, as he stretched the flower to Alice.

"They're so beautiful, thanks Adrien, this means alot", Alice said.

"That's so thoughtful of you, i think i feel perfect chemistry here", Claire said and laughed, knowing fully well, that there was no chemistry anywhere.

There was a feeling in the air, but it wasn't perfect chemistry, it was tension. Adrien was trying desperately to try to reach out to Alice, Claire was trying to push Alice to Adrien and Alice badly wanted to get out of the scenario, and just then, Sarah, Melissa, Elena, Brilda and Mrs. Delphine joined them, and Alice couldn't have been more relieved.

"Do you need anything, mom?", Alice asked, pulling Sarah's arm, toward herself as a signal that they should leave.

"I don't think i need anything though -- ," Sarah was saying, when Alice interrupted again and said;

"Come on mom, I'll tell you about my experience in the Angel realm"

Sarah Still didn't understand what was going on, but had to leave, due to Alice's persistence.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," Sarah said, as she followed the direction, Alice was pulling her in.