I can't believe she's canceling the rest of the session, and just when I thought we were getting somewhere. I wonder if it has to do with Cyrene. I hope not, because that is going to get ugly and make things very awkward for me.

As I'm speed walking back to Lorelei's classroom I see Nerissa hiding behind a tree, spying on someone. Not just anyone, it's Lorelei! Lorelei is on her phone, in a heated discussion with someone, pacing back and forth from the building, probably waiting for me to get there so she can lock up.

I watch Nerissa cast a spell that puts a dark shadow spot on the tree she is hiding behind. She puts her ear up to it, next to Lorelei a similar dark spot appears on the building, blending in with the shadow of the crystal lantern.

She's totally eavesdropping! What gives!? That's an invasion of privacy. I mean Lorelei may not be the nicest, but that's no reason to spy on her. Rude. Nerissa has been acting so weird lately. She's way out of line.

I march right over to her.

"What are you doing!?" I demand.

The spell quickly disappears and she grabs me and covers my mouth, forcing me behind the tree with her.

"Shh!" she hisses.

"Let go of me!" I whisper.

We stand still for a moment, I noticed I don't hear Lorelei speaking anymore.

"You freaking idiot, you almost ruined everything," she hisses.

"What are you doing?" I whisper.

She cast a new spell, makes a triangle shape with her fingers, a shadow appears in the space. We both look into it, and I can see Lorelei through a shadow veil, looking around in suspicion before hanging up the phone.

"Dariyah is right, you are a moron," Nerissa snaps at me.

"You still haven't explained what you are doing." I point out.

"What's it look like," she closes the spell.

I get a text on my phone from Lorelei,

'You are taking too long, I have to go. You'll just have to get your stuff tomorrow.'

I peek around the tree and watch her lock up the building and stomp off. Nerissa peeks over my shoulder.

"Why are you spying on her?" I ask.

"Someone has to get to the bottom of things around here, and since you aren't helping, then I have to do everything myself." She says in frustration.

"You think Lorelei has something to do with what's happening to me and what's going on around here?" I look back at her and cross my arms.

"I don't think, I know." She looks me in the eyes.

She's serious.

She thinks she has something on Lorelei.

"Prove it," I challenge.

"Come on," she grabs my arm.

She cast a spell and a large shadow appears under us. We sink down into it, and grow and appear in Lorelei's now dark classroom.

I quickly go for my stuff.

"Leave it," she slaps my hand. "We don't want her knowing we were in here." She says.

I pout and cradle my hand.

She quickly goes over to the desk and starts snooping around.

"You still haven't told me anything." I point out.

"I found some things, little things, clues that lead to something bigger. I just have to find the string that ties them together." She opens the desk drawer, digging around inside.

"What things?"

"While you were off in la-la land with Cyrene, I've been doing some reconnaissance. After the council turned down our bid for student elections but then put together a joint task force specifically for you, I knew something was up. For some reason, they are shutting me out, but at the same time, pulling you in. Things weren't adding up." She pulls out Lorelei's work laptop.

I walk around the desk and stand next to her as she opens it up.

The screen lights up and to my surprise, it's already unlocked.

"The arrogance of this girl knows no bounds," Nerissa whispers to herself as she moves to open some files.

"What did you find out?" I push, wanting to learn more.

"I was able to get into my parent's study and hack into my dad's computer. He's on the Celestial Council. I wanted to find out exactly what they knew about the investigation into what happened to you. And as I suspected," she scrolls through the files on the computer. "They aren't investigating it, at all."

"What!"

"Shh!" she smacked me in the stomach.

"Ow," I complain.

"After doing some witness interviews and reviewing the security footage, they just set the case aside indefinitely. Which I thought was very odd. Furthermore,"

"Furthermore, who even says that anymore?" I snort in amusement.

"Focus!" she snaps at me.

"Sorry," I mumble.

"They made your case file available to the Higher Council, and no one else. Which is odd, in cases like this they usually make it available to any caster council, but especially the world council. Not only that but for some reason Lorelei was assigned to your case. Even though she has no prior experience investigating anything and is not exactly equipped to handle the situation. So I started digging deeper as to why that is. But I think something else is going on here entirely," She clicks open a file.

"What?" I push her over to see better.

"While I was doing some investigation I found out that several council members, including my dad, and Lorelei will vanish throughout the day for a period of time. No record as to where they are going. Which is like, super odd. While investigating I found these hidden symbols and encrypted text, just like this one." She showed me a file that just looked like a simple lemon cake recipe to me.

"You're saying this is code for something?" I ask.

"Look at the measurements, they don't add up. 12 cups of sugar for one cake?" she eyes me.

"I don't bake," I shrug.

"Ugh, look, she moves the mouse to hover over the text. 12, as in midnight. And look at this ingredient, I've never even heard of it before, it looks like scribble. But unjumble the letters," she quickly gets to work on decoding the message.

"The banquet hall. Midnight, at the banquet hall, and look at the serving instructions. Perfect for end-of-year parties, one slice preserving. It's saying the end of the semester, which is tomorrow, and this is the invite." She explains.

"I don't know," I say skeptically.

"Trust me, I'm on to something big here. I think they know exactly who did this to you or at least have a good suspicion." She says.

"Who?"

"If my theory is correct, then I believe I have stumbled upon a secret society here at Belmore, and it goes all the way to the top. World leaders and whatnot are members. That's the only explanation I can think of as to why they would sweep something like what happened to you, under the rug."

"That still doesn't answer the question, why me? Why bring me here?" I ask.

"I don't know, but I'm close to getting all the proof I need. What do you say, want to help me spy on a secret banquet?"

"Do I have to dress up?" I complain.

"No you idiot, we are spying, we can't let anyone know we are there. I say we go do a walkthrough of the place tonight to find our perfect hiding spot. You in or not?"

"Who else knows about all this?" I ask.

"Just you, I still don't know who I can trust."

"This sounds pretty dangerous if what you are saying is true. I don't know how it works in Caster world, but in my world, if you have something on powerful people, you come up missing, or dead. I think you should be careful."

"I am careful, and it works the same whether or you are a Caster or not. That's why I need help. I can't do this all by myself. I need more hands-on-deck, so are you in or not?"

"How do you know I'm not part of this weird cult thing?" I challenge.

"You just got here, you're too much of an idiot to be trusted with something like that. You'd go blabbing your mouth to Vega as soon as it happened. And she'd tell Dariyah, who'd tell everyone."

"Point taken," I sigh.

"Are we doing this or not?"

"Fine, but only so I can prove to you, you really have lost your mind."

She rolls her eyes.

She closes the laptop and puts it back where she found it before we shadowport, that's what I'm calling it, to her room.

"Meet me at midnight, tonight, so we can go to the banquet hall and scout it out. Don't tell anyone, I mean it. Not Vega, not Cyrene, no one. Am I clear?"

"Crystal, geez. Have some faith."

"I'll have faith when you don't mess this up for me."

I roll my eyes.

"I've gotten us this far, I mean it, don't blow this."

"I'm not!" I get defensive.

She raises an eyebrow.

"Lips sealed." I zip my lips and throw away the key.

She sighs.

"Fine," she opens her room door for me.

"See you later," I walk out, acting as normal as I can.

I hear her sigh behind me before shutting the door.

Could Nerissa be right? Is there some shady secret organization behind all this? It seems pretty far-fetched. Even for me. But hey, who knows. Doesn't hurt to look into it I guess. Now how to find a way to keep this from my girlfriend who could read my mind if she wanted to.

This might be harder than I thought.