James shifted and rolled onto his side, the sun flashed in his eyes, but before he could raise a hand to block it, a burning pain shot through his body, and he rolled onto his back. He brought his hands up to his face and rubbed his eyes yawning in a silent scream.

‘I see you’re up at last,’ a kindly voice said from the other side of the room. A short stout woman in long, white, robes was flicking a wand to make the curtains on the windows open, letting the soothing warmth of the sun inside. James cautiously stretched; then looked at the woman, who presently made her way over to the side of his bed. 

‘Did I sleep long?’ he asked warily. 

James seriously hoped he hadn’t slept another month and a half away. 

The woman beamed at him. ‘It’s the nineteenth today. Thursday, beautiful day,’ she said, rummaging in a nightstand that was positioned on the right side of James’ bed.

The hospital room was of medium size. There were ten other beds in the room, and about half of them occupied. 

‘Here you are,’ the woman offered, handing James a fresh stack of clothes. ‘You go get dressed while I get you an ointment to put on that wound of yours,’ she said, patting him on the shoulder and hustling out of the room.

James slowly slid out of bed and walked to a washroom that adjoined the hospital, and carefully changed into his clothes. 

After he was dressed, he took a moment to peek under the bandage on his side and examine the wound beneath. The skin looked like a blackish bruise that spread out for some distance with snake-like tendrils under his flesh. The scar itself looked waxy and felt hot and painful to the touch. 

After examining it, James slipped back into the room, went to his bed, and sat down to wait for the plump woman to return; cradling his tender side the whole time. A few moments later the woman hurried back into the room, her little feet moving quickly towards James.

‘Here you are, dear,’ she said, handing James a small container full of a thick, black, ointment.

‘Thanks,’ James smiled and stood up to leave.

‘Oh, wait, dear; I have one more thing for you,’ the nurse said. 

James stopped and turned back to face the kind woman. She was rummaging through the large pockets on her robe, muttering about just having whatever it was a moment ago.

‘Aha! I knew I had it here somewhere!’ she exclaimed, holding up a small piece of battered old paper and handing it to James. ‘It’s important, the Headmaster made that much clear.’ The woman smiled. ‘He wouldn’t tell me what it’s all about; I suppose he’s right to do so,’ she laughed, ‘I’m terrible with secrets!’ 

James smiled and unrolled the paper to read the neatly printed words.

James, 

Please be so kind as to bring yourself and Miss Elizabeth Hartwell to the main hall at 11:30 this night. Your curfew has been lifted for this occasion. Please bring your wands.

Yours,

 Tobias Fletcher – Headmaster.

James wondered what Fletcher could want at an after hours meeting, but pushed the thoughts aside, thanked the woman again, and left the hospital, trying to find his way to the dormitories.

If only Tyre were here, he thought, and then he remembered, Tyre! 

What had become of his Stone-Hound friend? The last James had seen of Tyre he’d been kicked brutally by one of the Knights of the Fifth Order.

James picked up his pace and pushed the pain in his side out of mind. He figured he must be on the other side of the Orphanage, as it took him at least fifteen minutes to get to his dormitory, and when he did finally reach the door – guarded by the two stone centaurs – he had to wait another few minutes, because they wanted to hear what had happened to him, and why he had been gone for so long. After briefing them with a shortened-down version of events, he swept past them and into the dormitory’s main sitting room.

‘Seems like a good enough kid,’ James heard one of the statues tell the other as the door swung closed behind him. 

James sighed in relief as he saw his black-haired Stone-Hound laying stretched out on his back in front of the empty fireplace.  The animal stirred, stretched slowly, and lumbered to his feet, making his way over to James, smiling tiredly.

‘James, yem bek!’ the small Stone-Hound said looking up at him. ‘Et tuk yer lung eneuf,’ Tyre added briskly, as he climbed up to perch himself on James’ shoulder. 

It didn’t hurt that much, really.

James smiled to himself; he was truly happy that Tyre was alright.

‘What happened to you then?’ he asked looking over at his familiar as Tyre rubbed the end of his nose vigorously.

‘Eye jes gut bek frem Lundun a dey ergo,’ Tyre said, grabbing a few strands of James’ hair and smelling it as if to make sure that he hadn’t been landed with an impersonator.

‘What were you doing in London?’ James asked, interested. 

Tyre chuckled slightly and patted James on the side of the head. ‘Eye furget yer jus lernin. Eye’m won o’ ter las Stun-Honds arund; ter’s onli a handful o’ us lef.’ 

James was startled by this news; he really didn’t know that much about Shadow Mountain or the magical world.

‘An so wen won o’ us gets hurt, ter abut twenti ductors who wunt ter mayk sure eye’m fyne.’ 

A moment passed in silence as James tried to digest, again, what had happened to him and his friends. 

‘Eye wus jes abut ter go up ter te huspetle agen,’ Tyre assured, ‘an Eligh and Eluzerbeth wus ter las nyght, just befur ter seven o’clock.’

James was slightly surprised. He had figured Elizabeth would come to see him – as they had known each other for most of their lives, and if the situations had been reversed he knew he would have tried to check up on her as much as possible – but James had only known Eligh for a few hours before the attack. Surely he didn’t have to check up on him.

‘You’ve talked to them, then?’ James asked excitedly.

‘Aye, an ter buth luken fuward ter talkin’ ter yew,’ 

James’ side tingled with pain, but he shrugged it off. He was now too excited to care about the pain. He wanted to go see his friends and find out what he had missed.

‘Do you know where they are?’ James questioned; the excitement in his voice quite apparent. 

‘Aye, ter en te librarbey, et’s a free period,’ Tyre said, now looking behind James’ ears, and sniffing loudly. Without a word of warning, James bolted for the secret passage, so fast in fact, that Tyre nearly fell off. As James hopped up into the stone corridor he felt Tyre resume his position on his shoulder. James was glad to have Tyre with him to help with directions. He was sure that if he hadn’t been unconscious for a month he would have probably had many of the routes to different places memorized by now. Nevertheless, as it was, he only needed to ask Tyre and they were on their way. While they walked, Tyre complained about the library. How Miss Jones didn’t like him, and how she would never let him in without giving him a lengthy lecture on library policies.

‘She ne gevs aniwon else ter fivth degri,’ he said, his arms folded, and a slight pout on his face.

It wasn’t too much later when James was tentatively sticking his head out of an archway that was visible from one side, but to the careless onlooker, it looked like a portrait of a portly knight. Once he was sure no one was around, James slipped out, and walked down the long, spacious, hallway that adjoined with the secret passage entrance.

A few more paces and James saw the study hall come into view. It was marked by large windows that ran the length of the front entrance. The study hall was actually one of the Orphanage’s numerous libraries. Tyre slipped off of James and lagged behind, obviously wanting to sneak in through some secret entrance of his own. James decided to help him out by walking through the front door, so as to draw the attention of the stocky old woman who sat on a stool grimacing at anyone who entered her library. 

James walked passed, hoping to be unnoticed.

‘Hey you, Newt!’ she began to call out to him, but stopped as a young boy, carrying a stack of books tripped, spilling them all over the floor. ‘YOU LITTLE PUKE!’ the librarian screamed, descending on the unfortunate boy.

James took the chance and darted out of view. He made his way to the far end of the large room, where several tables were situated. He grimaced as a sharp pain shot through him and stopped, tenderly reaching over to his wound and gently touching the large bandage under his shirt. Another blast of dizzying pain coursed through him, and he withdrew his hand.

When he had control of himself again, James straightened up and walked a little slower towards the tables. He spotted his two friends sitting at a table, their noses in oversized textbooks, surfacing every so often to make notes.

James walked over to their table and sat down silently. He smiled to himself, wondering how long it would take for them to notice him. Elizabeth was the first to look up from the text to make a note. She looked at James casually and then returned to the large book.

‘Hey, James,’ she said, as if he had been there for quite a while. She dropped her book and jumped up from her chair. ‘James!’ she exclaimed, grabbing him and pulling him into a tight embrace. James was somewhat taken aback, but returned the hug. A moment later they broke apart and Eligh stepped over and patted James heavily on the back.

‘Hey, Buddy, how’s it going?’ the dark-haired boy asked, grinning widely. 

James rubbed his shoulder tenderly and smiled. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, ‘I’m just glad to see you two are alright.’ 

Eligh and Elizabeth laughed.

‘We’re fine, thanks to you, James,’ Elizabeth smiled.

‘What do you mean? Horace finished those prats off, not me,’ James explained as the three sat down again. 

Elizabeth stuffed her school books into her shoulder bag hurriedly, as did Eligh. 

‘Horace cleaned up, but you saved us, James,’ Eligh said smiling. James still didn’t understand. He hadn’t even been able to tell what was going on around him. He hadn’t even been aware of the situation his friends had been in, so how could he have done anything to help them? James must have looked confused, because Elizabeth spoke up to fill the quiet space.

‘Do you remember the one Knight, the one who kicked Tyre?’ she asked, her tone becoming more serious at the mention of the Knights of the Fifth Order. James of course could remember the one soldier who had kicked Tyre; it had spurred him on to produce a particularly nasty hex, and it had been one of the last things he had done before he had been shot.

‘Yeah, sure I remember. What about him?’ James asked.

‘Well, before you hexed him he was really starting to go nutters. It was scary, and well…’ she trailed off, a silence hung in the air for only a moment before Eligh spoke up.

‘The long and short of it is, he was reaching for some explosives, he was going to blow us all up, but you stopped him,’ he said, looking quite appreciative.

James’ jaw dropped open.

‘It’s true!’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘Bloodstone found the charges when he got there. He had enough to kill us all, by the sound of it.’

‘Well, erm… I’m sure you could have stopped him too,’ James said, his ears turning red.

‘Maybe,’ Eligh shrugged, ‘but maybe not.’

‘The point is, we didn’t stop him, James,’ Elizabeth said grinning, ‘you did.’

James thought he must have looked like a lobster now; he felt flushed, and he was embarrassed. He had been in the spotlight a few times back at his old Orphanage, and he hadn’t liked it very much. This was on quite another level altogether. There was a quiet moment that followed, broken, much to James’ relief, by the appearance of Tyre, who sulked over to them and hopped up on the table.

‘Did you get in okay?’ James asked sadly, knowing full well the answer. Tyre grunted angrily and flopped down into a sitting position.

‘Shi’s evil, ta wumen, te uld Witch!’ he grimaced. Tyre spent a few moments telling them about his latest encounter with Miss Jones, the librarian. By the end of his story they were all in stitches. This, of course, was most painful for James.