Mate's come first - 6. Going back to school

They walked into the school and were met by the headmaster. Mr. Theakin was wringing his hands and sweating, but he bowed and greeted them politely.

"Good morning, sirs. I wasn't sure how you wanted to talk to the kids and teachers, so I have them all gathered in the assembly hall."

Gray gave a sharp smile. "That's perfect. Shall we?"

The headmaster led the way, and they were led through a door that led straight to the base of the steps to the stage. Gray climbed up first and Mica followed.

"Good morning, everyone," Gray's voice echoed through the hall with the help of a simple spell. "For those of you students I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, I am Leader Oliver Grayson or Gray to my friends." The crowd chuckled at his accompanying wink. Gray held out his arm to indicate Mica. "This is my second, Mica Jacobson. We have come today to speak to you all about a matter that has come to our attention.

"I have been told that your teachers haven't been teaching you everything you need to know about this coven and its leadership. So first, I would like to ask some simple questions. Please raise your hand if you know the answer. How many kinds of magic are there in this coven?"

A few hands went up, and Gray pointed to a boy at random. "One, sir. Since there is only one type of magic, sir."

Gray shook his head. "I'm afraid that is wrong. I will explain after my next question. If there is only one type of magic, how does Second Mica do this?"

On cue, Mica allowed his magic to light up between his fingers, and he held his hand high for all to see.

Gray waited for the gasps and whispers to fade before he spoke again. "Second Mica is an elemental mage. He uses electricity to power his spells."

Suddenly there was a hiss, and Mica shook his hand, spraying water over Gray too.

"It looks like our other elemental mage is nearby. Are you going to join us?" He called the question out, and Owen appeared at the bottom of the steps to the stage.

Mica was gobsmacked. When he and Gray had left the house for the office, Owen had been adamant he didn't want to see or speak to anyone. Mica had even fixed a transmitter to his shirt so Owen could hear everything that was happening without having to be there.

"I think some of you may recognise Second Mica's mate, Owen Kerby. As you may have seen when he doused his mate, he uses the power of water for his spells. Owen, why not give another demonstration?"

Owen nodded and made a ball of glowing water hover over his hand as he had done in the cafe with Mica. There was a sudden hubbub from the children, and Mica looked up to see a small girl standing with wide eyes.

Gray noticed as well and called to her, "What's your name, little one?"

"I'm Nancy, sir." She gave a small curtsy but didn't take her eyes off of Owen.

"Did you want to ask something, Nancy?"

Instead of answering, she held up her hand. A small flame lit up and hovered there. The children nearest to her moved away, but she held firm and the flame stayed over her hand.

With a grin, Owen flipped his water until it was hovering over Nancy, dripping on her and making her flame sputter and cough.

Mica noticed the water also contained something else. There was a spell in the water Owen was sending to Nancy, but Mica couldn't tell what it was.

Owen grinned as Nancy giggled. "Do you know, Nancy, that water and fire make the best cleansing spells? All you have to do is think about your element flowing through you and, in your case, burning away any nasty things it finds."

Nancy frowned in concentration and the flame went out as she glowed as though lit from the inside. The glow lasted a few seconds before fading.

"I feel different, better," she said with wonder in her voice. "My teacher told me I shouldn't use fire to do spells. Why did she say that?"

While Gray tried to reassure Nancy and find out who her teacher was, Owen grabbed Mica's hand and tugged him to the edge of the stage. "I need you to set off the sprinkler system without setting off the alarms." He kept his voice to whisper.

Mica frowned. "Why? What have you thought of?"

"If Nancy is feeling better now for no apparent reason, then she may have had a spell on her. I know I felt something wrong in her before I told her about the cleansing spell. If you can get it to rain indoors, I can put the cleansing spell in the water. Why don't we see how many kids would like to talk to you after they've been washed?"

Nodding, Mica thought about how to do it and decided on making a show of it. Getting Gray's attention, he used some signals they'd made up as children to communicate what he wanted.

Gray nodded. "It seems that Mica thinks he should be able to get his own back on Owen. What do you all think? Can he make something as impressive as Owen?"

Varied answers were being called out as Mica called the electricity in the room to him. He sent bolts through the room like fireworks and had the children oohing and ahhing. He then sent one off course and hit the sprinkler in the centre of the hall. The children yelped as they were doused in freezing water. Mica could feel Owen's magic mixing with the water. At his mate's nod, he sent another bolt to the sprinkler and made it shut off. They'd definitely brought down a storm on the school, Mica thought with a wry grin.

Owen laughed. "Since my mate made you all wet, let me help dry you all." He sent out a wave of magic, and steam started rising from the various people in the room. Soon everyone was dry, and the children were chattering amongst themselves.

Gray clapped his hands for attention. "Now that we have all had fun, I need to talk to your teachers. I have asked all your dinner supervisors to come in early, and so you can all go outside to play until someone comes to get you. I will be here all day with Second Mica and his mate Owen. We will be in the headmaster's office until the final bell. If you want to talk to us at any time after lunch today, please tell your teacher and they will allow you to come to the office. Until then, go have some fun."

The children all filed out, and Gray turned his attention to the teachers who were now gathered at the back of the room.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let's go to the conference room and talk. Mentors, Ian and Trevor, please join us as well."

###

The group all entered the conference room attached to the headmaster's office and everyone found seats.

Once they were all seated, Gray leaned on his steepled fingers from his position at the head of the table. "Ian and Trevor, do you have any clue why you've been included in this group?"

Ian and Trevor were silent with their eyes fixed on the ground.

Gray tsked. "Would it help if I told you I have recordings of you, Ian, arranging for my assistant Cravin to cover up what you'd been up to? No? Fine. Ian Woodrow and Trevor Finaham, you have both been found to have been terrorising the children of this school for a number of years. You are both to return home until I have spoken to your parents. I will then decide whether you will be staying in this coven or not."

The boys exited the room silently, and Gray turned his attention to the teachers.

A knock on the door preceded the entry of a small lady with a beaming smile.

"Miss Dooli," Owen called with a wave, he had been hoping to see her again.

Miss Dooli grinned. "Owen, how are you? Have you been working with your element?" She seemed to notice who else was at the table and flushed. "I am so sorry, Leader Grayson." She dropped into a curtsy at the same time Gray waved her to a seat. She flushed again and sat next to Owen. "When I got the notice from you, Leader Grayson, that I was being reassigned I made sure to inform my replacement about Owen and got his reassurance that Owen would be supported to catch up with the other kids. The poor boy didn't even know what an elemental mage was. I assume you helped him finish catching up, Mr. Ceeman?"

Miss Dooli turned to Mr. Ceeman expectantly. He huffed but finally answered her silent stare. "I did everything I could to bring the boy up to an acceptable standard. However, he refused to follow instructions and wasn't able to master the most basic spells. I couldn't concentrate on him to the detriment of his fellow students. So, I set him some written work and put him in a nearby classroom. He was to graduate academically, and his certificate was being sent to his parents’ house."

Owen was wishing a hole would open up. Mica had told him why his parents had missed him. He couldn’t understand why they were told about him being bad at magic but not told that he wouldn’t be included in the graduation ceremony. That was a question for another day.

Miss Dooli was sputtering. "What do you mean he couldn't master basic spells? When I left, he had already reached level two in spell work and his classmates were on level four. You should have easily been able to catch him up and not neglected the other students. He already had brilliant control of his water power. He had even taught himself healing. He scratched himself on something during a class and healed it completely no problem. Healing is level six so he was even ahead of his classmates in somethings."

Mr. Ceeman stuck his nose in the air. "Water magic is not a recognised magic in the school's curriculum. He needed to use his magic the way every other student was required to."

Mica lifted his hand and let sparks zing between his fingers. Owen hid a grin; Mr. Ceeman was in for a shock. "I attended this school, and I helped Gray rewrite the curriculum fifteen years ago when the then-current headmistress left to join her mate's coven. I distinctly remember adding a test that determined a student’s power type. If someone tested as a magic power that wasn't covered by the current teachers, then a request should be sent to the leader's office and either Gray or I would find and assign a new teacher for that person or persons."

Mr. Ceeman shook his head. "There is no such test, and even if there was, why should one student get preferential treatment over others?"

Miss Dooli leaned forward and waved her hands; her tone was scathing, "Preferential treatment? How is it preferential treatment to receive an education? Elemental magic doesn't work the same as the more common magics. Owen needed another elemental mage to teach him how to gather and use his magic. Even if you weren't an elemental mage, you should have been able to teach him the theory, and you wouldn't have been neglecting the other students as you would have been teaching them about elemental mages anyway during the leadership classes."

"Miss Dooli,” Owen interrupted. "No student in Mr. Ceeman's class learnt about elemental mages. In fact, he refused to accept they even exist."

Gray interrupted before Miss Dooli could lay into Mr. Ceeman again.

"There is going to be a full council investigation of everyone involved with this school. I have already placed the call, and an investigating team is on their way. Any teacher found to be voluntarily complicit in this debacle will be summarily banished from this coven and sent to the council for any further punishment. I am very disappointed in all of you. I was going to give each of you the chance to defend yourselves, but I think I will wait for the investigators. Until then you are all under house arrest. Enforcers will escort you home and see you all stay there."

Gray tapped his phone, and enforcers started filing into the room. Each teacher was escorted out until only Miss Dooli, Gray, Mica, and Owen were left.

"Well, it is nice to see you again, Owen. I hope that even with this you have been bettering your magic."

Owen nodded happily. "Yes, miss."

Miss Dooli waved a hand in the air. "You're an adult now and mated I hear. My name is Dehlia or DD if you wish."

Owen didn't know what to say. She had always been Miss Dooli to him. "I'll try." He decided on and she nodded.

Gray cleared his throat. "Can I ask where you were reassigned to? Because although the order may have come from my office, it didn't come directly from me."

"Oh," Miss Dehlia said in dismay. "I was reassigned to admin. The headmaster delivered your orders, and he made sure to also tell me that admin staff were not to have interactions with students. If I was found breaking this school rule, I would lose my job, and it would be reported to your office."

Mica shook his head. "This is going to take ages to sort through and find out exactly who was doing what and why."

Owen agreed and it suddenly came to him there was one way he could help. "Then it is a good thing that this coven has such a great leader and an even better second then, isn't it?"

Mica turned wide eyes to him as Gray whined, "How can Mica be better than me if I'm the leader?"

Owen vaguely heard Dehlia laughingly tell Gray that mates trump everything, but his focus was on his mate, who had pulled him into his lap.

"You know I am eighteen not eight. I'm a bit too old for lap siting."

Mica ignored the jab. "Did you mean it? You want to stay?"

Owen smiled and framed Mica's face with his hands. "Yes, I meant it. We should stay and help Gray get all this mess sorted out. I realised when I was listening to you and Gray confront Cravin. Although I will have to go and see Mr. Mosely and tell him everything that has happened. I take it you’re happy to stay here?" he asked teasingly.

Mica didn't answer, instead Owen was treated to his first kiss from his mate...and what a kiss it was.