"Do you have anything to say for yourself, Derrick Renard?" asks Ms. Haven.

The three of us sit in the back of the car, cuffed.

I shrug. Out of all the compromising positions I've been in lately, this is at least the one that gives me the most leverage to wiggle out of it. "Sure. First, I'm glad you found us. Second, we just saved some kids' lives. Third, is there any kind of loophole that would allow us to act as agents of the United States government? Because if so, just keep in mind that you could use us as agents. We're doing a pretty good job, right?"

"They're doing a pretty good job," agrees Mr. Harring.

"Frederick," Ms. Haven breathes.

"Look, if I can solve murder mysteries in a haunted English manor at the age of thirteen, and you can create a sanctuary for magical animals at fifteen, I'm fairly sure these kids can handle a few anomalies," Mr. Harring says. "anyways, you know they've seen worse."

"It's not that easy. None of you have any sense of self-preservation here, do you?" she asks.

Here goes nothing. Carefully, tentatively, I ask, "Ms. Haven... if it's so much trouble to keep up with whatever shenanigans we keep getting into, can I at least ask why you keep defending us?"

"Derrick. Not the time," snaps Mikayla.

Ms. Haven keeps her eyes on the rear view mirror, looking back at us with a penetrating coolness. She takes her glasses off, folds them, and places them in the cupholder up front. "The world isn't going to look out for any of you. It will rough you up the first time it gets the chance, as will all of the people in it, whether they're loved ones, your peers, or society at large. So many people are going to teach you that the world is an uninviting place, and if no one was going to teach you that there's also some degree of kindness in it, I figured I would have to fill the role. You deserve positive adult role models, especially you, Renard, but I also have to protect you. It's a hard balance to strike. I don't even know if I'm striking it well. Does that make sense?"

"Thanks," I say. I bite my tongue before an even sappier response leaves my mouth, but I'm sure the voice crack says enough.

"Cool. Thanks for that," Mikayla says, "However. I do think that we could fix this together. We're heroes. We were heroes. If there's any one thing we can do, it's this."

"It's not the same," Ms. Haven begins.

"Maybe it is," Mikayla says.

"I understand you think you can handle this," Ms. Haven says. "but it isn't a quest. This isn't something the universe has set up for you, using your personality and your abilities as fodder. This is a completely unscripted set of random anomalies and people, most of whom are much older Extras who have been honing their abilities their whole lives, have already died."

"No, no. I think it is a quest," Mikayla says. "A spiral that converges on our town? The eye motif? Incidents especially targeting us? I don't think you can get closer to quest-level contrivance than that if you tried. Something out there is playing a game that it wants us to answer to. Plus, it's not like we haven't already proved that we're more competent than your agents. Alya was the only one up there when the void kicked in."

"We had plants working there as employees. They were all sedated," Ms. Haven says, glaring ruefully towards Alya.

"I thought they were part of the anomaly," Alya complains.

"Point stands!" Mikayla says.

"Fair enough," Ms. Haven says. "I can't argue with what you've done so far, and admittedly, none of you have died. It's not that I approve of this. It's not even that I'm letting you go with permission to do so. Right here, right now, I am going to acknowledge that I can't stop you."

"Thanks, mom," I say.

"Derrick?" asks Ms. Haven, sounding more flustered than in the entirety of this conversation combined.

"That was... a joke?" I say, laughing to play it off. Unsurprisingly, no one buys this, and the laugh degrades into a sigh.

The silence ensues marks our first casualty on these missions: my dignity.

---

"So, to conclude my notes from the Student Council meeting, we will not be attending prom this year. Sorry guys. If it makes you feel better, most of the second years are acculturated into the student body. You'll all have your chance later," Arthur concludes.

This is not met by great applause, but most of us are too tired to argue.

"Most, as in those of us who aren't going to be sent to other facilities," Mikayla corrects him. "How many of us are going to be at this school next year?"

Arthur folds his hands. "That's not any of my business, and I'd wager it's not any of yours either, Mikayla. Ms. Shinke, can we get back to class now?"
Mikayla bolts to her feet.

Arthur raises one smug, perfectly formed eyebrow. "Is there a problem?"

"Of course there is. There's a massive problem that you will never acknowledge, going on right under your nose, and--"

The door creaks open imploringly.

A small figure stands in the door, rattled. A mess of dark hair frames a clean face and big, inquisitive eyes that are now narrowed with something that isn't quite resentment. Sarah walks back into the room, and at least half of the room falls into anarchy.

"What are you doing here?" asks Maris, in what is at least kind of friendly (good start, I guess).

"Oh no. No no no. You get to leave, now. We're not dealing with this today," Mikayla starts.

Brittany waves her aside. She walks towards Sarah, whom frankly, she towers over, and asks as a teacher might ask a kindergartener, "Is there a problem? Because if not, this isn't your room anymore."

"There's no problem. I wanted to say sorry," she begins, and sniffs once, as if for emphasis. With that, she stops. "Sorry. Things were rough, but that's okay, and I know that all of you will work through all of your... everything in time. If you ever want to talk, I'll be right here, and I hope that we can still be friends."

"Oh, I'm sorry that things were 'rough' around us," Mikayla calls, still standing by her desk. "I'm sorry we weren't the perfect group of magical friends you were looking for."

"No. I did like hanging out with you. All of you," Sarah squeaks.

"You could have done that without lying--" begins Maris, calm like the ocean during a rainstorm.

Sarah yells, tears streaming down her face, "You won't let me leave on a high note, will you?!"
Mikayla laughs under her breath. She stalks up the aisle, knocking aside Sarah's old desk on the way up. She stands between Ms. Shinke and a startled Sarah, and colder than death, begins, "You don't get that kind of closure. You fucked up! That's not going to get romanticized or glossed over. You don't get a gold star for trying or a nice big cross to hang yourself on. You get to leave." Mikayla extends a finger. "There's the door."

Arthur stands. "Hey. She was legitimately trying to make amends."

"Exactly! They're not hearing me out," Sarah says.

Arthur spreads his arms wide. "Mikayla, you don't need to antagonize everyone."

"And you don't need to make amends for her. She spoke for herself. I listened. I am very frankly stating my opinion on the condescending schmaltz that was just jammed down my throat, and I do not need to be lectured by the lapdog of everyone who wants us to sit down and look pretty."

Arthur's jaws clamp together. He looks across the rest of the students, including Brittany, who is next to the door, and then to Ms. Shinke, accuastorily. "Can you go?"

"I want an apology," Sarah says, still facing Mikayla. "From her. I apologized. Now she gets to."

Mikayla crosses her arms. "That's sweet."

"Mikayla--" Arthur entreats her.

"Pick a side, Spienwell," snaps Mikayla. "Go on. Tell me, to my face, that I need to forgive her for lying to all of us. Tell me that I need to her walk all over me without saying a thing in return out of the goodness of my own heart. I'll take it, but I'm going to take it from your mouth."

Arthur looks at Sarah. Arthur looks at the teacher. Ms. Shinke finally intercedes, "Well? Are you going to apologize, Mikayla?"

"That doesn't sound like an order," Mikayla says, her voice like a knife.

"It's not an order," confirms Ms. Shinke. "I just want to know."

Mikayla's mouth twitches into a grin. "I don't think so."

Arthur and Mikayla remain standing. Sarah folds her arms tighter. Softly she says, "You're right about me. I do wish you guys weren't a bunch of self-pitying assholes who were only ever mean to me. All of you are cliquey, and bitter, and I hate you all, and all of you should know that someday you're going to get what you deserve for--"

"For what?" Arthur asks. "Not tolerating your centralizing, aggravating stories about what a special snowflake you are? Listen, no one in this room is perfect. That's why we're here. To rehabilitate. This is an environment with its own set of rules and its own set of customs, and you just thought that the surface level stuff 'seemed cool'. This comes with a price. This comes with baggage. You don't get to pass your stories off as anything on the level of what most of the people in this room have been through, especially Mikayla, and I don't know why you're asking her to apologize. She revealed you were breaking federal law. This falls under identity fraud. If you want us to upend the legal system, well, I'm sorry to tell you that the only people who would be down for that are coincidentally the most angry at you. Now, I'm sure you're late for class, and Mr. Carters down the hall, your first period teacher, trust me, I know everything, definitely didn't send you down here. Now, may you please get out of my face before Ms. Shinke is forced to call the office?"
Sarah backs up slowly, mouthing something to herself, and runs the other way. Arthur looks back to the class.

"What was that?" crows Alya.

"Well played," Mikayla says, clapping.

Arthur nods slowly, though his expression is impenetrable as ever. His muscles practically flex under his shirt, ever the absolute masculine ideal. "I'm your class representative. Make no mistake, I don't approve of half the things some of you do, but I'm trying to advocate for our class. Can you guys please stop treating me like I'm on the other side, now?"

Mikayla extends a hand. Arthur shakes it.

"Bet she's going to say a bunch of mean shit about us," Mikayla says.

"Probably true shit," Endina grumbles from her corner.

"Shit," whispers Owen.

"Amusing as this little excursion has been, there will be no more profanity in my class," Ms. Shinke, who has been filing her nails in the corner, says.

"Crap, I'm so sorry," Arthur jokes.

"Hell, we've really got a problem," I snark.

"Damn," Hoshi says.

Ms. Shinke uncorks a small silver bottle and takes a long swig in front of the class, closing her eyes. Placing the vial of hellfire down, she mutters, "Sucks about the prom, though."

"I'll... try again?" Arthur asks.

"I'm going in there with you next time," Mikayla says.

"You're too abrasive, Ahlam. No chance," Arthur says.

"It's one of my greatest assets," Mikayla says. "Hey, fuck you. Democracy. Can we put this to a vote? Who says from now on, we refuse to be pushed around?"

The expected hands go up: Ayla, myself, Hoshi, Olive, Castelia, who is waving around a crowbar that Ms. Shinke would probably confiscate had she not downed enough of what was probably hard vodka right in front of us to kill a man. Maris raises her hand as well, resolutely brushing a strand of hair from her face with those awful gloves, and Brittany follows with a roll of her eyes. I'm pretty sure the rest of the class wasn't paying attention until now, but when I tap Finn's desk, he raises his hand.

"Teens," he says, engrossed in the Game Boy. "All of you are high maintenance. Who cares about dances? You realize no one's going to get drunk at a school dance, right?"

"Afterparty?" suggests Brittany.

Then we're all grinning.

"Well, I'll have to show up to this one," Arthur says. "I guess."

"Good," Brittany says. Arthur puts an arm around her and she blushes a vibrant red, leaning into his arm. "Okay, class rep, you, I, and Mikayla are going to get us into the pre-afterparty in a week."

"So," Alya says, looking more alive than I've seen her in weeks, "Biology?"

"Sure, sure. Anyone want to teach the class?" asks Ms. Shinke.

Alya gets to her feet. "My moment has come," she says.

I almost pay attention, this time, aware that somehow, wonderfully, we have descended into anarchy.

(A/N: Right on four days late! I'm a competent author.)