Things get a lot more serious than you expected as it turns out Patrique brought "friends"

The doors suddenly burst open. Your first thought is that it's the families realizing they forgot their precious technological toys and coming back into the warehouse for them. But almost immediately you notice that the ones coming in are all men, mostly wearing suits or leather jackets... and most of them are carrying wooden bats and lengths of pipe. If there was any hope there might be something resembling an innocent explanation for that, it disappears when the first steel knife blade gleams in the sickly artificial light.

"Fuckin' hell!" Kinzie shrieks - and Vinnie's men seem to have a similar response to these newcomers. All of a sudden the enormous warehouse got a lot more crowded.

Millie's response is a high-pitched girly shriek as she scurries away from the advancing thugs, getting behind Aegidius, who stands there impassively as usual. Felice merely sounds annoyed. "What in ze world...?! Patrique! This is not another one of your ridiculous schemes, is it?"

From his perch, the hook-nosed, alabaster-skinned young man sighs theatrically and lolls his head to one side. "Oh dear. I had hoped not to involve you in this, my darling. I didn't want to have to alter your memories. But, c'est la vie."

Compared to Vinny's guards, these newcomers are less diverse in skin tones - all of them are the same kind of lightly tanned. A couple of them speak sharply to one another in a language you've never heard before: "O kızların yanında dikkatli ol! Kişi söz vermedikçe yaklaşmayın!"

It suddenly occurs to you that Patrique sitting up on the rafters like that might not just be him showing off his animorphic abilities for the sake of showing off. By placing himself up there, he's out of easy range of any spells. Anything you tried to cast on him from the floor, he'd see coming and easily be able to counter.

You give Aegidius a worried look. But he only glances briefly at you, mostly keeping his piercing gaze focused on the man looking down from above.

"You all should really leave." A smooth, dulcet female voice not belonging to any of your classmates resounds from behind you.

As you turn around, the newly arrived, dangerous-looking men step to the side. A particularly voluptuous woman with deep brown skin and south asian features steps forward, wearing a familiar snug-fitting sweater and plaid miniskirt.

You flare your nostrils and snort. "You!"

"Her?" Milly Cherrywood asks, the tall freckled redhead shaking her head in bafflement. "Sorry, who's that? I'm terrible with faces, especially brow- er, how am I supposed to say it again here? 'Darker folks'?"

"Samara Grover, of course." you say. "Oh yes! Don't think I don't know that you've been playing pranks and casting hexes on me non-stop for months on end! And surely, you were responsible for the shadow-MMF!"

Suddenly a strong hand wraps around your face from behind, covering up your mouth, and another clamps on your shoulder. For a moment, you thought you've been ambushed by some assailant who crept up on you!

...but then you hear a familiar (and familial) booming voice from over your head, as Aegidius addresses the newcomers. Oops, you almost said "shadow elves" in front of a bunch of mundaes. And... you said something about hexes. Double oops.

"Whatever this is about," Aegidius says, sounding enraged, "we must discuss it in private. Away from prying ears and foolish schoolgirls talking of nonsense and superstition.

"Oh, please, Aegidius." Samara says in her deep, smug contralto tone of voice. "Do you really think so little of those people who were in here, having their beloved children judged like livestock, that you imagine they have no idea of what you are? They aren't stupid, you arrogant pig. They are afraid."

Anger starts boiling up in your stomach. Samara has been tormenting you from afar for all this time and now she isn't even acknowledging you, but is speaking only to your brother?! Again, he upstages you! You try to stomp on his foot, but he keeps you held tight.

There is a flutter of wings. You and the other girls glance up and you feel Aegidius take a sharp breath. A small white bird flutters down next to Samara. She raises her hand, and it alights on her finger.

A moment later, she has to jerk her hand away, as the bird glows and transforms into a tall, hook-nosed young man with a pale complexion and an icy smirk - Patrique, of course.

Aegidius makes a sound like he's gargling broken glass. You hear several exclamations of surprise and shock, and heavily accented curse words from behind you, including from 'Five-Key Vinny', the mundane in charge.

But none of the newly arrived men, flanking Samara, react at all to the sight of Patrique calling upon his animal-magery shapeshifting power. Wait... what? Why aren't they reacting, you wonder?

"Thank you, my love." Samara says. "Now we can dispense with the facade."

"Patti...!" The word has a sound of an affectionate nickname twisted by anger. Aegidius pushes you aside almost as an afterthought as he begins storming twoards the two Boarbristle upperclassmen. "You reprobate! You swore an oath me that you would uphold the laws-"

"Oh no. No no no, Eddy. Nooooo." Patrique says, shaking his head. "You aren't going to hold that over me any more. Not after today."

"P...Patrique..." You glance over and see that Felice is grinning nervously. But she also sniffs heavily and is clearly blinking back tears. "This joke has gone on far enough, don't you think? You got me already. You got me good. You are really scaring me. So please, stop..."

"Don't worry, my dear little bunny." The smirking black-haired man says. "Tomorrow, you will be back home with father and I for the holiday, and this will all be like a bad dream. You won't remember a thing."

"Fuck." A casual profanity draws everyone's attention. Kinzie, of course. She doesn't look perturbed at all, and just has an eyebrow raised. "This is right juicy. C'mon, go canny with the mystery shite, tell us what you're on about already! Ya gonna have those goons put the boots to 'im?"

"Here now," Vinny, the mundane businessman (you're starting to suspect that he might be some kind of criminal, to be honest) steps forward with his hands raised. "Let's just talk about-"

"Be silent. Do not speak until I tell you to." Aegidius says icily. "I don't care what this is about. I will warn you, both of you, once only. Leave. Now. And return to the school. Then I will hear your grievances."

"YOU WILL HEAR MY GRIEVANCES NOW, YOU CALLOUS BASTARD!" A hate-filled cry tears itself from Samara's lips. It's a very far cry from how cool and collected she was the one time you met her before, where she never raised her voice above a monotone even while having sex with her boyfriend in front of you.

"Do you really not remember?!" Samara demands angrily.

Aegidius looks at her darkly and clenches his fists. "This is no place to discuss-"

"This is precisely the place to discuss it! You may not realize it, Aegidius, but this place," she sweeps her hand ad the dusty warehouse around you, "is exactly the point! I still remember it, you know! Seventeen long years, and I still remember it!"

Seventeen years? But Samara is still in classes. She can't possibly be old enough to have been a witch overseeing this place before Aeddy. She would've been, what, nine or ten years ol-

Oh. But aside from that revelation, there's something else to consider.

"Wait a cursed second!" you say suddenly, in a tone so shrill that it surprises even you. "You mean you have been harassing and bedeviling me for an entire semester, just as a way of getting at my brother?"

Samara gives you an odd look with an eyebrow raised. "Are you just now realizing that? My god you're dim."

Patrique clicks his tongue condescendingly. "What do you exepct? Girls her age think the sun and all the stars revolve around them."

Your cheeks start getting red again. "Alright! I have heard enough! More talk would be pointless. Send away those fools," you point at the stone-faced men in their ill-fitting suits behind her, "and we will settle things. I will be Aegidius's second."

"Shhh, shhh." Samara waves a hand at you. "The adults are talking. I believe my love already warned your friends that they should leave? You should tell them to listen. It would be regrettable if any of them got hurt."