Auctioned off to a School for Magic

Chapter Five: Festival

Ruth’s P.O.V

We were all in my room getting ready to sneak out. “So we just need to have some illusions spells so they think we’re still here and to all be invisible so could leave. Before any of that we need to disable their detection system with magic.” The system monitors what kind of spells are used within the building. This is to make sure we’re not using black magic and for other purposes. If we don’t disable it they'll know what spells we all casted around the same time and be able to put together that we did those spells to leave.

Alice nodded. “Handle your own invisibility and illusion spells and I’ll handle everything else.”

“It’ll be quicker if I helped you.” Jezebeth offered.

Alice rolled her eyes. “I’m fast enough, I can do it by myself.” She got up and left. I could tell Jezebeth was worried, she probably didn’t think Alice could pull it off herself. 

Once Alice came back into the room after disabling the detection system me and Jezebeth performed our illusion spells. After we all left with her. Everyone else went to their rooms and performed illusion spells so it looked like we were all in our beds asleep. We all cloaked ourselves and our energy with spells so the cameras wouldn’t see us leave and the energy detectors at the exit couldn’t detect our energy leaving. He had to be quiet because there were still officers walking around the building. Alice did have to cast one more illusion spell so the camera wouldn’t see the door opening or closing when we left. 

We were gone with no complications. Once we were far enough away we dropped our invisibility spells and all laughed. “Seems like we got away with it.” I said.

“We won’t know for sure till we get back.” Jezebeth shrugged.

Alice scoffed. “You have no faith, we’ll be fine, right Grace?” 

Grace nodded. “Alice knows what she was doing and we all did our illusion and invisibility spells pretty good.”

I walked backwards in front of Jezebeth holding her hands. “We’ll be fine, okay? Let’s just have fun together.” I smiled and she blushed.

“Yeah, all of us will.” Zander said beside us. “Ruth have you ever been to a festival before?”

I pulled my hands away and walked regularly between the two. “Nope, never, not in this realm or the human realm. The only place I’ve ever been to in this realm is our school.”

Everyone looked awfully surprised. “Well I grew up in a village like this, I’ll make sure you enjoy yourself.” Zander promised as we walked into the village. Jezebeth locked her elbow in mine which I found cute. 

“In the demon realm there were seasonal festivals and they were always fun.” Julie mentioned.

I looked around and it was a mixed species village. I saw elves, mages, dragon shifters and dwarfs. Grace was smiling big. “I love seeing other elves.” It took me a while to realize but Grace was an elf/mage hybrid. The sun had just went down so there were a lot of lights on the booths. There were booths for games and food. I even saw an area where everyone was just dancing to music.

“Me and Grace don’t have time to stand around with you guys so we’re gonna dip. Meet us here in three hours so we could all go back together.” Alice instructed then left with Grace.

Zander grabbed my arm gently. “Do you want to try out some game? I have some money left over from what my parents sent. We could try to win prizes.” That sounded great.

I nodded but when we started walking Jezebeth let go of me and even Julie didn’t follow us. “Hey are you guys coming?” I said after I stopped and looked by at them.

Julie shook her head. ‘Go on without us I wanted to show Jezebeth something.

I hid my disappointment that Jezebeth wouldn’t be coming with me but I could try to find them right after so I guess it wasn’t such a big deal. I left to play some games with Zander and it was really fun. He helped me out in one of the games and after five or six tries we won a small stuffed demon animal. All it did was remind me of Jezebeth. “Demons are really cool, don’t you think so?”

Zander nodded as we walked toward the food trucks. “Yeah they are.” He looked a little tense. “You look really good tonight, especially in the festival lights.”

I smiled. “Thanks Zander, Jeze helped me get ready." I looked up at the stars surprised that I could see them past all the festival lights but they were there and shining so much brighter than in the human realm. "Do you ever miss home?” 

He shrugged. “I guess. I actually ran away when I was nine so I can’t really miss a place I chose to leave. If anything I only miss the village because they people were so kind.” 

I never knew many personal details about Zander. “Why would you leave?”

He sighed. “My mom was neglectful and she cheated on my father a lot. She didn’t do much to hide it and he never confronted her about it. I felt like he was only staying with her for me. It was a really f****d situation. Growing up through that I studied magic as much as I could because I thought it would be my out. I started being able to perform magic at eight. I practiced most of the time so that I could get taken on as a sorcerer’s apprentice early which means I’d live with my mentor." He was so good because he took magic so seriously at such a young age. "Generally the earliest you could get offered was twelve if you’re a prodigy.” I stared at Zander as he spoke and felt his pain, after all one of my parents was s**t too. “I pushed myself so hard I was considered a prodigy at ten. I started getting offers of apprenticeships for when I turned twelve or thirteen. They were just showing their interest in me early but my father turned them down, he said we were a family.” He chuckled. “Imagine considering us three a family, it was bullshit. My one out was gone so I ran away. My father caught me after a few days of me sleeping in the forest, he promised things would be different. He was too late because that's when the order showed up. They told him I had to go with them because I was a prodigy and it was the best thing for me.”

I looked down at my stuffed animal. “I’m sorry about that Zander.” I looked up at him. “I guess we all have messed up families here.”

He looked down at me. “Yeah but you don’t talk about yours much, only your sister but I want to know you better than that.” Jezebeth was the only one who knew the most personal details of my past. I could see Zander leaning down, his lips coming closer but all I could think was that I didn’t want to kiss him.

“Ruth!” I turned my head in the direction that I heard Jezebeth calling out to me. “Ruth we’ve been looking for you.” She walked up to me. “We need to leave and I need to tell you something… am I interrupting?”

Zander was about to speak but I did first. “No not at all.”

I knew Zander wouldn't stop trying but I really wasn't interested I just couldn't figure out why because he was a really nice guy who cared about me. Something else was in the way of me having feelings for him.

Julie looked panicked. "We have to find Alice and Grace, a few of the officers are here." Things aren't looking too good for us...