Godhand had been infiltrated and Phoenie Rogan felt like an ill-behaved child. Rembrandt Payne had agents working undercover inside the cult all along – agents far more effective than Phoenie’s equivalent, a traitor whose name she daren’t even think of, had been – and they’d waited for an opportune moment to reveal themselves. A Patriarch, one of the ageing leaders of Godhand, was now trapped in the manor and his armoured Crusaders caught off-guard as Mr Payne’s agents launched their offensive. It was a far cry from Phoenie’s ill-thought-out rescue attempt, which ended with her ‘army’ being the ones getting rescued, and from a near-death situation at that! If she’d had any choice, she would have borne the scars of failure for the rest of her life, but Ms Clarke and her medical staff weren’t about to allow that.

Phoenie had always had her suspicions that the staff at Torsten Academy led secret double-lives, but this was something else. She still hadn’t quite gotten over the surprise of seeing her History teacher, Sabeen Haan, bounding around the courtyard challenging the terrifying Crusaders alongside Mythology teacher Valentine Baudin. Nor could see deny the surreal image of the diminutive Sage Khandro, the old monk who supervised the students’ sporting lessons, standing guard over a makeshift camp alongside a contingent of what Phoenie assumed were his apprentices.

The teachers and their allies had formed the camp inside a room near the front entrance of the manor where Ms Clarke – both the Academy’s Maths teacher and its chief nurse – took charge of making sure the students were properly treated. By the time Phoenie arrived in the dim-lit former-lounge, Kaori had been cleaned up and covered up in a blanket, while her mother and Joel comforted her. Given the state of their injuries ten minutes ago – both had looked as if bones had been broken – Phoenie was surprised to see Kaori and Joel looking so healthy. Even Shelley Edwards looked perky with bright eyes and a smile as she sat alone in the corner. As Phoenie sat down in front of Ms Clark, she began to feel something herself, as if the room were filled with the calming sound of the gentle ocean and whale song.

“Just relax,” said Ms Clarke. A cheerful, round-faced young woman with blonde hair that reached past her waist, the students knew her as the teacher with a formula for most things and a graph for everything else. Phoenie had never needed her medical expertise before but she’d heard stories of her working miracles – Theseus had once had a nasty cold cured the day before a boxing tournament, and his bruised body recovered the day after. As Ms Clarke’s fingers brushed against Phoenie’s bruised face, Phoenie began to understand just how miraculous her teacher was: the pain faded within seconds.

“You’re all healed up now,” said Ms Clarke after she’d spent several minutes running her fingers over Phoenie’s injuries, as if she knew exactly where they all were. A quick check in a nearby mirror confirmed that, aside from her mattered hair, Phoenie was in perfect shape, perhaps even more so than she’d been before the rescue attempt! Whatever strange techniques Ms Clark used, Phoenie would have to research them sometime.

She sat down to ponder the incredible healing power and watched as Doyle and Lyra were treated with similar gentle brushing motions. Both were eager to return to the battle and enact vengeance on Godhand, but Ms Shimomura drifted over to calm them down. Phoenie could have sworn the sound of whales increased as she did.

As Lyra and Doyle settled down with their friends Kaori and Joel, Phoenie began to feel lonely. It was understandable that the Raven friends would support one another, but where were her friends? She waited for Theseus to come waltzing in with a brash smile and tales of his victories over the Crusaders, or John to shuffle over to show her detailed schematics he’d compiled, or Andromeda to tell her stories with that hyperactive voice she slipped into when excited. Even worse, Katrina was still missing – had they executed her already? They couldn’t have. They would have made a show of it! And what of Phantasia Celeste and Dante Orpheus? Phoenie decided to take action – moping around just wasn’t her style.

Chapter 22
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