The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

"Oh, just be quiet and let me concentrate."

Jesse does as he's bid, only grumbling a little. Because they've been here for hours, and while the blob at the center has shifted a couple of times, there's no way to really know if it's people or...something else. Either way, it seems thoroughly encaged, so Jesse is not precisely sure why it matters.

Midnight, however, refuses to vanish them back to the yurt and have done with it.

"Let's just go closer," Jesse mutters.

"No!" Midnight hisses. "We must stay unseen. Darkness doesn't want anyone to know about me. I'm his super spy." The last bit is preening.

"Then just call him up and tell him what you've found," Jesse sighs. "Or, better yet, never talk to him again and zip us back to Moon Valley."

"You're being a brat, Jesse,” Midnight snaps. "You begged to come along and now you won't even let me do my job.”

"It's not a job," he snaps back, lifting his head to glare at her. "You're paid in what, one yurt he got you twelve years ago and a lifetime supply of dark cabbage?"

She glares at him and then turns her eyes back to the cage. When she gasps, Jesse sits up, turning back to the problem at hand. "Look," Midnight whispers, pointing. "It's moving."

Jesse realizes that it's true, narrowing his eyes, trying to see, frustrated at the distance that Midnight made them keep for the sake of anonymity. After all, he's very curious why there are these cages in the Land of Darkness that correlate, according to Midnight's report, very closely with the location of the Atalaxian castle.

As Jesse and Midnight watch, the colors at the center of the cage shift and then separate. His eyes widen as it becomes very, very clear that one truly is a figure. And that it's passing through the bars of the cage. "How is it doing that," Jesse murmurs, leaning closer as if that's going to help.

"Did you see the other one?" Midnight whispers, sounding anxious. "It disappeared."

Jesse snaps his eyes back to the color

bet

he within the cage and nods when

he sees that there's only white

deft.

"Shit he whispers. “What...who is it?

"I don't know," Midnight says, definite. "But we have to tell Darkness –“

Jesse's hand snaps out and grabs her wrist, making her eyes fly wide. "No, don't tell him."

"Why not!?"

"Because!" Jesse says, searching his

mind for a good reason, even

thought he truth is that he just

ld help

doesn't want Darkness to have any information – at all that him with anything.

"Darkness...wouldn't want ave

incomplete report! You have to wait until you know more about who that is, coming towards us."noveldrama

Midnight gasps, turning towards the figure who is now outside of the cages - and moving incredibly fast. "Is he...coming towards us?"

Jesse frowns, not answering, because...

God, but there's something familiar about the way that person moves...

"Jesse?" Midnight says, reaching for him, curling her fingers around his arm. "Is

he coming for us? Do you...do you think he knows we're here?"

But Jesse doesn't answer, instead scrambling to his feet. "Jacks!" he shouts, beginning to sprint down the hill, waving his arms, desperate for his friend to see. Because it all snapped together in an instant the

né

he

size and speed of the figure as indeed came closer to them, though not with any real intent in the way that Midnight is thinking. But he's sure - there's only one person that big who can move that fast.

"Jesse!" Midnight shrieks, true fear in her voice as Jesse continues to scramble down the hill.

Jesse ignores her, shouting Jackson's name again as the figure goes still and then turns towards him.