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“Charlie isn’t your cracker type of parrot.” Natalie stroked the bird softly with her lips. “He has feelings and he doesn’t like crackers either.”

Max pulled his face, smiled and ran toward Sy and a couple of guys in class that were a couple of paces in front of us.

“You still haven’t forgiven him yet?”

“You wouldn’t either if it was you, Nat.”

“Probably. Still, he’s not a bad guy, Chas. He’s cute too.”

“Please, don’t go there.”

“You don’t think he’s cute?”

“No, he’s … I don’t know. He was different at the Compound. Reserved. Here he’s all personality and stuff.”

“The Outer does that to people. Still it’s good to have both of them here to help with teaching the class their skills.”

“I guess.”

“You really didn’t know that you were inside the Virtual Realm?”

“Nope,” I said.

“I wonder what those tests are like. I mean we know every single time we go into the Virtual Realm.”

“You do?”

“Leigh sums it up pretty much.”

I looked down as she said his name. “It would be awesome seeing him, other than in my dreams.”

“Ahhhh, you like Leigh!”

“Oh stop it. I know he’s not real.”

“He is, he just doesn’t exist in this world.”

“Still, it could never be real.”

“I can see why you like him, you have to be careful though. Margot once admitted her undying love for him and for some reason he’s kept his distance from her, so don’t let him know the way you truly feel, Chas.”

“Believe me, I won’t.”

THE FIRST CLASS OF THE DAY WAS WITH MRS.
Delvaga again. It was hard as I still didn’t know how it all worked. It was the other subject she taught too, Dream Wielding. The type you needed your sand for.

Today she sort of taught us, or me, how to connect with my sand in order to create dreams. Just like the dagger, I had to conjure things from it. The only difference was that you must somehow connect your thoughts with your sand, and let it create what is inside your mind.

It was easier said than done, as my sand created part of a hoof, when it should’ve been a full unicorn.

Sophie was really good at this, and created a small airplane that could actually carry her own weight. We watched in awe as she took a ride inside the thing around the class room.

When she misjudged a turn, it exploded and she fell on top of a heap of her sand.

The entire class doubled over and we just couldn’t stop laughing, including Mrs. Delvaga who was a legend when it came to creating dreams. Still Soph was the only one that could wield her sand to take a form that was strong and real.

She couldn’t stop talking as we walked to our next class

She just babbled about what it was I needed to control to make my sand take form like hers.

“Really Chas, it’s not that hard. You should just connect with your creative side and voilà. Your creation will come to life.”

“What if I don’t have a creative side?” I mocked her and she bumped me playfully.

“All Casters have them, you just need to find yours and start with the small stuff. That unicorn you tried to wield is very difficult to do.”

“How did…”

“The hoof, it said it all.”

I shook my head with a small grin on my face as we entered Mr. Dingle’s class.

We met up with Natalie again and Mr. Dingle started immediately after he greeted us.

“You all need to split into two teams. Max take Chastity with you.”

“Yay me,” I said to Nat and she laughed and bumped me playfully.

“Easy task, Leigh will give you a map and you need to get to your point of target first, do the task which, if I know Leigh, will probably be something hard, something physical which surely involves a Shadow Hound or two, retrieve the missing object which will be given when you receive your map, and find a Celestial with your team’s color on and get back.”

“Yay us.”

“Whoever finishes their task first will win a day free from the ring.”

Everyone was up for that as none of us wanted to get beaten to a pulp.

“So who will go first?”

“Chas, what do you say?”

“Fine, not pleased that it has to be with your mug again,” I joked and Max laughed. Nobody else knew what I meant as I didn’t tell anyone about spending almost a month inside the Virtual Realm, except for Natalie.

We were taken into the grey room.

Dingle closed the door and we just stared at one another for what felt like an eternity.

The room started to change. The chairs disappeared and I fell on my ass. Max laughed. He knew what was going to happen and I found his hand in front of my face, offering to help me up.

He lift me up with no effort and we found ourselves standing on top of a roof.

I touched the ledge and couldn’t believe how real it felt.

“You expected something different?”

I shook my head. “It’s hard to think that this isn’t really here.”

“It’s real, Chas, just not in the way you think.”

“Try to explain that to me? I know what virtual means.”

He chuckled. “Leigh is making all this real. It’s why nobody can really tell whether they are in the Virtual Realm or not, only the grey room tells you the truth.”

“Amazing.”

“Sure is.”

I looked around. The building we were on was tall. It soared through the sky and more buildings with tiny cars below were making my heart bounce a bit faster.

“Don’t worry, it’s just like last time. You won’t die if you fall, you will just wake up in the room again.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

He chuckled. “Where the hell is Leigh? He’s plenty of things but never late.”

I chuckled as I remembered Leigh telling me that he used to kick Max’s ass on a daily basis inside the Virtual Realm back at the compound.

Natalie and Margot appeared next.

The look on his sister’s face told me that tardiness wasn’t Leigh behavior at all.

“What’s going on? What are you still doing here?” Natalie asked.

“Still waiting for Leigh.”

“He hasn’t come yet?” Margot asked and Max shook his head.

She started to go and investigate, looking over all the edges as if he was hiding somewhere from all of us. “Leigh!” she yelled. No answer.

Nat rolled her eyes and I smiled, remembering what she’d told me about how Margot felt about him. It must suck for her that she wasn’t going to see him. It also sucked for me because it meant I wouldn’t see him either.

The next team came and the same thing happened. Everyone wanted to know where Leigh was.

Margot kept searching like a crazy person who’d lost her pendant all over again.

“Give it a rest. He’s not coming.”

“But he has a class to lecture. He needs to be here.”

“Maybe he didn’t get the memo. Chill, Mar. You will see lover boy again real soon.”

She squinted at her brother but a small smile appeared on her lips.

“So that’s why our real boys aren’t good enough for you? You’ve got a thing for the virtual nerd.”

“The virtual nerd will kick your ass ten times over Sy. I’d be careful which names you call him.”

I had to admit, it was a good answer.

“Well if Leigh isn’t going to show, I guess this is a waste of our time.” Max walked over to the ledge.

“What are you doing?” Margot scolded her brother.

“The mission is over when we do whatever the hell he set us up to do. No Lover Boy, no mission.”

He winked and climbed on the ledge.

“You’re seriously just going to opt out?”

Max turned around, winked and fell backwards off the building. We all ran to look at him and a bright light swallowed him whole.

That is so freak’n cool.

“He’s crazy!” Natalie yelled. “I’m not doing that,” she growled at Margot.

“Chill scare-dy pants, I’m sure there is another way.”

“Well, maybe there isn’t,” I said and climbed on the ledge too. “Besides I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to fall off a building.”

“Chas, you’re insane. Get away. Dingle will….”

I fell before she could finish her sentence and just closed my eyes as the wind blew against my back.

A white light engulfed me and I landed with a thud inside the gray room.

“….mean he didn’t show?” Dingle roared.

Max didn’t answer and I could tell he was a bit out of it.

Why I didn’t feel like that was beyond my knowledge. “He didn’t show,” I said.

“Chastity, he’s never done this before.”

“Please tell me how you do it,” Max finally said.

“Do what?”

“Deal with the effects. I feel as if I’ve trained for hours.”

Dingle just stared at me again and I shrugged.

“That’s quite remarkable, Chastity.”

“Thanks, I’ll be here all day. So are the others going to be called for?”

Dingle chuckled. “There is only one way to get back. It seems this lesson wasn’t wasted after all.”

Max laughed. “Face your fears.”

Margot landed with a thud, followed by Natalie.

Both of them experienced the Virtual Realm’s effects the same way as Max. They were drained.

I helped Nat up. “Never again. Don’t make me do that again.” She looked at me as I was grinning at her. “How on earth did you enjoy that? It was horrible.

“Guess I like adrenaline.”

“Urgh, crazy. You are both insane.”

THAT ENTIRE DAY WAS OFF. SOMETHING WAS
definitely wrong and I couldn’t help but worry about Leigh. He’d said when Margot’s pendant vanished that something was starting to change inside the Virtual Realm. What if something happened to him and that was why he hadn’t shown?

Class with Mios was just as strange. Greta was missing. I feared that my Anitule had gotten to her; I would kill him if he was in my room, with her inside his belly.

She couldn’t stop crying and we all helped search for Greta in trees and gardens, but she was gone, really gone. She didn’t even reply to Mios’ thoughts.

The third strange occurrence was finding Fox’s room destroyed. She was gone too, just like Greta, taken, and I had a really bad feeling inside my gut.

A group of Seekers came, thank heavens Beavis and Butthead weren’t among them. I thought about that day again.
What if I’d told Mom, would we still be together?

There were also a couple of dogs, probably Anitules, sniffing through all her stuff and two of the Seekers, a woman with short dark hair and a man in his late forties, had some sort of scanning device that replayed more or less what had happened.

I peeked outside my room and could see a holograph of two bodies, but couldn’t make out their faces, wrestling in Fox’s room.

Why would anyone take her? My thoughts immediately went to Dingle again.

She didn’t like him, that much I knew, and if he knew it too…

As I stood there, the woman looked over her shoulder and saw me standing at the door. She walked over to Fox’s bedroom door and shut it.

Later that night, Natalie came over to my room with Charlie on her shoulder. She looked distraught, it was written all over her face, her entire body was on alert. She even jumped when Mr. Grey entered gracefully through my window.

“It’s just Mr. Grey, relax.” I looked at him through narrow eyes.
I swear if he ate Greta he will be getting a spanking.

“I didn’t eat the stupid lizard, it was just a joke.” He snorted and went over to his basket and crawled up.

Natalie’s hand rested on her chest. “I’m just not myself today. We’ve only heard of things like this, we’ve never experienced people going missing and danger lurking around every corner.”

“Do you think this is why Leigh wasn’t at our training session?”

“It has to be, Chas. He’s never been late for a lecture before. Something’s not right.” She looked at me with huge eyes. “I can feel it, and Charlie feels it too.”

A knock on the door made both of us jump this time.

Outside was Sophie. “They’re calling us all to the dining room.”

I looked at Nat and cocked my head once and we left.

Tom was standing by the window with Henry sitting on top of a coat stand. John sat in one of the chairs off to the side.

Almost all the girls were around the table and I couldn’t help but notice the stupid grin on Mila’s face. She was dark and I was sure she was on that list of Light Casters Mr. Grey had warned me about.

I took a chair between Sophie and Nat and looked at John who stared at the table in thought.

Tom cleared his voice. “When was the last time any of you saw Fox?”