The World Unknown
Defeat
Chapter Twenty-Four

"Vlad, I'm so sorry about earlier," I began as I followed him and the others into the classroom.

He combed the hair behind his ears, revealing a small bruise just under his right eye, "No, I'm sorry, I know it was important to you, I should have asked nice. I just had a theory about it possibly—"

"Curatio." I said firmly as I mimicked the wand movements Antonio had done when casting it on my arms.

It was as if the bruise was never there to begin with.

"I have a strong feeling Noir was behind the necklace too... Which means I must have known who they were or at least been a massive threat to them if they managed to get rid of me and erase me from people's memories here."

Vlad's look of shock faded as quickly as it came, "Do you know who it is?"

"My memory is slowly coming back to me in pieces. Whoever they are, they aren't good at memory charms – at all."

"Dammit!" Vlad hissed as he put his arm on his hip and snapped with the other one, "There I was, feeling so great about myself because my remembrance charm was able to work properly..."

I couldn't help but smile slightly, "Remembrance charms are as hard to cast as memory erasing is hard to do. Thinking back, I'd be shocked if you were able to override a skilled wizard's spells with that."

He scoffed as he furrowed his brows, "Your memory must be coming back... That hurt, ______."

"Never mind that for now, I think I've finally figured out who Noir is—"

"Yes, we all have." Elizabeta hissed as she pushed her hair our of her face, "It's Allistor, but after today he'll finally be dealt with—

"Lusio!" I said, pointing my wand in her direction. Her expression changed immediately, and she looked conflicted.

"I will reveal Noir, but first I need you to wake Gage up and set Alfred free, they're innocent." I spoke.

"Even if..." She paused as she looked for the right words to say, "Even if you do have magical abilities... I can't wake Gage up alone, I need Hayden and Allistor to help me wake him since Bliss wasn't a part of the group. As for Alfred, he's still dangerous. I won't risk it."

"She has a point." Vlad added under his breath.

"Alright, then I've got a better idea. Vlad, use this to cover Gage." I said, and before he could ask, he felt the fabric of the invisibility cloak, "Antonio found a ton in them in the Talian room."

"The Talian room?" He asked, to which I gave a stern nod, "Elizabeta? Since you can't wake Gage up, we're going to need to borrow him... So, can you come with us?"

She hesitantly looked down at the wand in my hand before glancing over at him and nodding slowly, "I'm going with you. Ludwig, can you stay here with him?" She asked, motioning to Alfred.

We headed out with Vlad and I pushing the now invisible Gage down the stairs while Elizabeta nervously walked ahead of us.

"Earlier you said you'd reveal Noir, right?" She asked anxiously as we stood at the end of the hall.

"Yes, but it has to be in front of a crowd, he'll be cornered this way." I explained.

She nodded quickly as we heard the footsteps approaching us. I glanced over seeing Antonio who was leading Seamus, Alroy, and Peter.

The brothers all looked pale, but none could bring themselves to speak.

Not a moment later, we began to see figures emerging from the smoky library. Once they dragged themselves to a safe enough distance from the smoke, the brothers ran up to Allistor who was collapsed in the middle of the hall.

"What are we going to do?" Elizabeta asked, glancing back to me ever so slightly. It must have been the realization of everything that has happened that convinced her how important it was to uncover Noir.

"This must mean Gage was framed," Bliss said as her eyes lit up if only for a split second. "But Allistor's locked his wand." She began to curse under her breath as she stared ahead.

"At least we're alive, right?" Vlad said in his usual, cheerful voice. He took a few steps forward, eager to reveal Noir. "It has been an eventful night, but we did fight super damn hard tonight, we've had some fascinating revelations, I think so at least."

Hayden who was slightly shaking huffed out, "Get – to the point, Vladimir, everyone is tired, and we have a fire we have to get rid of."

"If you want to get rid of that fire, you're going to get everyone on campus to help. So, I don't think anyone is going to be sleeping anytime soon. Since you're so fixated on my point however, well..." He paused dramatically as he stepped aside with his wand in hand. He gave a flick and the invisibility cloak covering Gage fell to the floor. Bliss immediately jumped to her feet.

"Why's he here?" She shouted at him.

"Great question. First though, I need you all to wake him up. I think I've finally figured it all out thanks to her." He flashed me a smile and I began to push the table foreword, concealing the wand in my shirt sleeve for the moment.

"W-We can't wake him up, just look at the problem at hand—"

"I think we should do it." Elizabeta said quickly.

Hayden furrowed his brows, "We can't even if we want to, not since Allistor's out."

"Wake him up then!" I spoke up.

"It doesn't work like that," Lukas explained, "Whatever he was doing in there, he got himself knocked out."

"That's fine, I'll take his place!" Bliss exclaimed.

"If he's guilty of something, you all still outnumber him." Vlad pressed as he traded wands with Bliss.

Against his will, Hayden joined the two girls in casting the spell, and slowly, he sat himself up. His eyes panned around the room while Bliss danced eagerly in place and the library continued to smoke behind us all and he let out a long sigh as he laid back down and shut his eyes again.

"Not what I planned to happen." I admitted as he I frowned and looked over at everyone, "but regardless, some of my memories have been coming back to me slowly."

"Memories?" Hayden asked.

"Yes, they're not all back yet, but they were being suppressed with this—" I held up the necklace which Vlad explained had been invisible the whole time.

"Gage, you know what this is, don't you?" I asked, tossing the necklace to him.

He had been frowning at me the entire time and must not have been able to see it as it hit the side of his face. To think he was mad before hand was an understatement to how he must have been feeling after getting hit in the face with something unknown.

Walking over, I handed the necklace directly to him and he started examining it.

"I asked Allistor about invisible jewelry that could only be seen by the wearer and the caster just minutes before he started acting irrational. He seemed to know what it was, yes, but he wouldn't say it... Or so I thought!" He exclaimed dramatically only for Elizabeta yell at him to get to the point.

"Right, right, sorry. Well, I thought about it for more than two minutes and after visiting the Talian house, I came to my conclusion. Allistor would have told me what kind of spell would do that happily, as he did so to Alfred in teaching him the jinx. However, he couldn't because there has been a spell cast over the school that has a ban on it."

"There aren't any bans on the school or we'd know—" Hayden tried, but Vlad cut in again, "Exactly!"

"The fact that the school prefects would know if there's a spell over the school is the very reason, I suspect a prefect to be capable of casting a spell like that over the school in such a way that no one else would be able to detect it... The very spell that's cast over the school that bans words related to whatever was cast on that necklace is the same exact spell cast in the Talian room that bans bad words. Isn't that right, Hayden?"

Bliss and Elizabeta huddled together as the two waved their wands in unison up in the air, "H-He's right. There's something there!"

"I'll get rid of it," Elizabeth spoke as she began to mutter something. There was a short crackling sound then everything was normal again and Gage spoke, "So it's an Anti-Magik charm, I remember Lin Choi teaching us how to make these when we were in our second year... You remember, don'cha, Gold?" He grinned as he tossed him the necklace.

Instinctively, Hayden caught it, confirming everyone's suspicions.

"That night you and I met at the wissenbark tree, I thought you were being sincere to me," I began, "but in reality, you had just stolen the detinkeller egg to frame Gage and you told me to tell you if you saw Gage doing anything suspicious because you wanted him to get in trouble for it. You even got Peter to spy on me in the Ailat room so that you'd know when and where to start that fight with Gage.

And then after that, you found Amber and got her potions list – not that it was important though since whatever ingredients you needed were just a distraction for whatever you were plotting. When you manipulated Amber and Arthur, you basically laid out a path for me to follow so you could frame Gage. You were impatient."

"So far it's your word against mine, you don't have any proof I did any of that." He finally argued back, throwing the necklace at my feet.

"But I do. You confirmed it yourself when I went in the Talian room earlier. You told me about Amber's potion list, something you shouldn't have even been aware about since Bliss didn't even know what I was talking about! According to what you said to me in there, you also took the alias 'Noir' to frame Gage."

Hayden shook his head as if disagreeing before he took a step back then pointed at Allistor who was still unconscious, "None of that connects me to Allistor now and what he did. There's no explaining his actions unless he acted on his own accord and attacked on his own accord –"

"No, there is!" Dylan spoke up as he pushed himself up to his feet. He looked exhausted but spoke, "Peter and... that girl, Erika, they came in and gave him something. He left after that, I'm positive."

"The cookies." I responded as I turned to where Antonio stood, behind him stood Erika who was nodding profusely and next to Allistor, was Peter who was quite outspoken about it.

"That potion you added to the cookies. That's how you did everything... Isn't it?"

"I didn't add anything to the -" he tried to say, but Peter, who I had brought here by Antonio boldly shouted back, "I SAW YOU! You pulled it from the cabinet, you did!"

Looking around me, everyone had their wands raised at him, but he said nothing for a while.

Then finally he laughed curtly, "And to think I did everything right this time... You two still managed to mess up my plans." He glanced at Gage then at me, "Anywho, I don't want to get hurt and despite who I work for, to kill someone is against my morals, so," he tossed town his wand and raised his hands behind his head, "I surrender."

"Repunz!" Some people shouted around me, casting a cage around him.

Although he was now unarmed and imprisoned, I still felt rather uneasy as I took a few steps closer.

"I don't understand why you did this. Why did I have to lose all the memories I had of this place because of you? Who did you work for, Hayden?"

He let out an uncomfortable laugh, "You helped me do it, so don't start feeling sad all of a sudden."

"I helped... you?"

"Yes. It's not just you whose memories got erased after all. Mostly everyone here has their slate cleared of you."

"But why?" I pressed.

He didn't say anything, instead he sat down on the floor of the cage and shut his eyes, "You can take me away, I'm not saying anything else."

The prefects did so, carrying his cage upstairs in an uneasy silence and I stayed behind, feeling left unsatisfied. Vlad slowly approached from behind me and with a smile, wrapped an arm around my shoulders, "Cheer up, we figured out who Noir was!"

"That's not it. I still don't know who I was or why he did anything!" I responded, "I thought that being in front of everyone would be pressure enough for him to confess everything, but I was wrong."

"But you also figured out you're a witch, ________, and if you didn't just catch what just happened, we caught Noir!"

I pressed my lips together and nodded slowly, "I guess there's that."

"Dylan, Lukas?" Vlad called out, the two walked over and Vlad spoke to them for a short minute before they waved each other away. He turned back to face me and gave a comforting squeeze to my shoulders, "Come on, it's been a really long day, you need to rest."

"And the smoke in the library?"

"They've got it." He cooed quietly as he lead the way back to the Ians room, "We'll finish everything in the morning.~"