Mentor week was currently in full swing and the students were completely focused on impressing their potential advisors. Margo and Eliot had a not-so playful rivalry going on around who would win over Alice's Aunt, Genji. Lilly was thankfully spared from the whole endeavor, by the fact that Eliza had already claimed her for mentoring. Their first training session was scheduled for the next morning, and she found herself anxiously awaiting it. Quentin spent every waking moment searching for a magical cure for his father's cancer. Lilly had been assisting him in his search or at least trying to. She left the library much earlier than he, who'd hardly slept all week. Lilly seriously considered dropping a sleeping potion in his Redbull the next time they researched together.

Lilly played with the hem of her blue and silver Welters uniform as the crowd's cheers saturated the stadium. A dark-haired Knowledge student performed a complicated spell to win a square. A patch of vibrant green grass replaced the tile. The Knowledge team and the stands applauded, much to the dismay of Kenna, Thomas, and the rest of their team. The two heads of the Illusionist house had approached her earlier in the week, having heard through the grapevine that there would be a Welters game. Each team consisted of five members, and Kenna, Thomas, Lilly, Alex, and a second-year girl named Cali, made up the Illusionist team.

The object of the game, as explained thoroughly by Thomas, was to capture as many squares as possible before your opponent. The players throw a ball across the board and land it on a square. Each square represents a location and a certain set of circumstances. The Magicians playing must cast for those specific complications and complete the spell successfully to capture the square. The center square was the most complex of them all and had only been completed a few times in the existence of the game. If either team were to capture this particular square, it would result in an automatic win. Fail, they forfeit the game. Needless to say, players avoid throwing the ball on that one.

The team pairings were posted that morning, and unfortunately, they were playing against the Knowledge students. Lilly's friends in the Physical discipline were against the Herbalists, and Psychics against the Healers. They couldn't have asked for a more even match. Kenna had been praying for them to end up against the Healers because apparently, they were pretty easy to beat. The Knowledge students, however, would be a bit of a challenge. They were notorious for being insanely good at Welters, thanks to their problem-solving skills, and affinity for casting complicated spells at the drop of a hat.

Lilly's team must've had luck on their side, for they hadn't missed a single square since starting. Unfortunately, the Knowledge students hadn't either, and they were tied. The board was scattered with blue and gray dressed students, each with the same determined face. The water squares were taken first as they were the easiest to cast for. Lilly managed to claim all four squares she landed on. One water square, two desert squares, and one mountain square.

A Knowledge student named Carlos claimed the last free square on the board and thus began the power struggle. Once all the squares were taken, if there wasn't a clear winner, they would have to cast against their opponents to claim their squares. Alex targeted the weakest link of the other team, out cast them, and put the Illusionists one point ahead. If they could get five points ahead, they would win.

A first-year Knowledge student went next, aimed for Cali, and accidentally landed on one of Kenna's squares. The boy's face went as white as a sheet when he saw the catlike sneer she sent him. There wasn't much of a struggle there either, and Kenna protected her square. It took another twenty minutes of back and forth for the Illusionists to gain three more points. It was Lilly's turn again, and if she could claim one more square, they would win. Her teammates waited expectantly. Alex looked encouraging as friends should be, but Kenna gave her a look that promised hell if she didn't pull through for them.

Lilly sized up the other team, they would all be a challenge, but she felt confident that her casting would be adequate to beat them. She took a steadying breath and rolled the ball across the board. It settled on one of the forest squares that belonged to the head Knowledge student, Harper. Lilly saw Thomas facepalm out of the corner of her eye, but she was determined to beat this girl, no matter what it took.

Lilly held her hands out, folding them together and twisting her fingers to match the required spell. It was a few seconds before she felt Harper fight back, and it was as if a brick wall had come up to block her path. Lilly continued to work, taking in the added complications. Casting against an opponent was like navigating a sailboat in the middle of a hurricane with razor-sharp rocks every few feet.

Harper seemed to be struggling just as much as she was. If Lilly could just outlast her, the Illusionists would win. There was a weakness in the defenses the Knowledge student had constructed, but if she targeted it, Harper would easily feel the magic current change direction and strengthen that section of her spell. Lilly, in true Illusionist fashion, decided to create a smokescreen by sending a surge of energy at the very front of Harper's defensive spell. While Harper compensated, Lilly, with barely any resistance, was able to sneak her magic through the weakest point and overpower her opponent.

Harper's face scrunched in concentration as she struggled to send Lilly back, but the deed had already been done. Her defenses crumbled to dust, and Lilly took control of the square. The crowd surged with excitement as Harper was forced off the square. Lilly was tackled by her screeching teammates, they'd won! Thomas lifted her off her feet and spun her around gleefully whilst the others jumped up and down. Alex wrapped her in a suffocating hug as soon as Thomas released her.

The knowledge students were understandably forlorn, but Lilly sent a smile towards the other team, which was gratefully returned by the captains. They were ushered off the board and sent back into the locker rooms to get cleaned up while they reset the board. The Physicals and Herbalists were next, and she prayed that her friends would win.

"Lilly!" Margo rushed over to her once they got to the women's locker room, "congrats, kid, I knew you had it in you. Have you by any chance seen our Fillory obsessed, nerdy mascot running around here? We're on in ten, and the little twat hasn't bothered to show up!"

Lilly learned over the past four months that Margo was fiercely competitive. They'd gotten into a game of magical quarters at a party, and Margo wouldn't let Lilly leave until she'd beaten her in at least one game. She went so far as to seal the door so she couldn't leave. So, Lilly knew that when she found Quentin, he was as good as dead.

"I haven't seen Q all day, I hope he's okay. He's been a bit out of it since he found out about his dad."

"I don't care if his entire family has cancer! He's late! If we don't have five players we forfeit! If I lose to a bunch of tree-hugging cabbage patch kids, I'm gonna rip his fat head off his scrawny little twelve-year-old body!" Margo's eyes burned like the gates of hell, and Lilly felt the urge to run.

"Check Professor Lipson's classroom, he's been using it to study recently," Margo didn't need to be told twice. She was out the door and on her way before Lilly finished the sentence. Ten minutes later, Margo, Eliot, Alice, and Kady stepped onto the Welters board, Quentin trailing behind. Margo probably gave him the tongue lashing of the century.

The Herbalists had a rocky start with one of their team members failing to capture the square. Margo stuck the landing and claimed one of the desert squares. The other team recovered quickly, going on to complete three squares. The Physicals stayed in the lead, each of them claiming their squares with no problem until it came to Quentin.

"Quentin!" Margo shouted as he stared blankly ahead, totally unresponsive, "Quentin!" Still, nothing, "Quentin!" She shrieked, finally gaining his attention along with the entire stadium, "get your head out of your twat and throw the damn globe!" The stands were silent as they waited for him to summon the globe. His hands shook, and the globe didn't budge. After a moment of awkward anticipation, Alice bent down, retrieved it, and handed it to a bashful Quentin. Lilly wished she could take his place.

Quentin lined up the trajectory of the globe and rolled it across the board. The crowd let out a collective gasp, and the mentors whispered amongst themselves. The globe had landed smack in the middle of the board, right atop the dreaded metal square. His teammates, along with the Herbalists, gawked. Despite the odds stacked against him, Quentin didn't flinch as he began to cast. He placed the tips of his fingers together before his eyes, curling them around each other and pulling apart.

A tiny black dot formed between his fingers, morphing into a dark storm cloud as Quentin stepped onto the board. He walked straight ahead, not fumbling when the wind picked up, and the storm cloud grew, filling the entire stadium ceiling. Every bit of light was blocked by the growing storm, plunging the stadium into darkness.

The people in the bleachers stood up to get a better view, everyone focused on what was forming in the rafters. The storm cloud had split apart to create what looked like a literal black hole. Lightning flashed ominously and people took cover when the stacks of papers on the referee's tables blew about, slamming into people's faces. Lilly's team members hid under the seats to protect themselves from the flying objects. They all looked at Lilly like she was crazy because instead of shying away, she stood rooted in place, clutching the metal bars separating the bleachers from the players. She couldn't look away from her friends on the board. The Herbalists had abandoned their squares in fear, but the Physicals team surrounded Quentin, entranced by his spell.

"Q?" Eliot yelled above the roaring winds, "are you controlling this?" He didn't respond, too enthralled by his power. He stopped once he stood on the metal square, letting the black hole grow even stronger.

"Do something!" Margo cried, holding her hair down in place. The onlookers were growing increasingly panicked. Lilly started to descend the steps towards the board, but stopped once she saw Alice standing beside Quentin, casting a second spell. A blue strip of light formed between her hands, disappearing in a flash and cutting through the storm clouds. Quentin's spell dispersed, making way for soft sunlight to filter through. The papers floated gently back to the ground. The spectators were silent as the crept out from wherever they took cover and stared awestruck at the board. Every single square had been cleared, Quentin had done it. He'd won the entire game with one spell.

"Holy shit, he actually did it," Thomas gasped.

"Yeah, he did."

➺➺➺➺

"There she is! That's our girl!" Alex shouted as soon as she stepped into the castle. She was welcomed by the heavy beat of blasted music and Jake Connors doing a keg stand. The Illusionists were celebrating like there was no tomorrow. Alex handed her a double shot of tequila.

"Lil-ly, Lil-ly, Lil-ly," the entire castle chanted her name until she downed the alcohol, "whooo!" They all cheered, before turning back to whatever they were doing.

"You have to take a shot before you're allowed into the party, house rules," he explained, leading her over to the table of booze. She mixed herself a cosmopolitan, pouring in generous amounts of vodka, as taught by Eliot then adding a bit of a magical twist by casting a flavor-enhancing spell over the ice, "where'd you learn to do that?"

"Eliot," Lilly told him, "where else?" He tilted his head in a 'good point' gesture and poured himself another drink, "this stuff could get a horse drunk." Lilly caught Thomas's eye from across the room as he raised his glass to her. She smiled back over Alex's shoulder.

"Sign me up!" The two friends spent most of the party together, getting pulled into various drinking games. The Illusionists had converted the castle into a rave. Enchanted strobe lights and endless alcohol. One of the third years had acquired a load of magical drugs from an herbalist friend of hers, so people were a bit crazier than usual. Lilly stayed away from those, perfectly happy getting drunk. At some point, one of the first-year guys fell off the invisible staircase and was too shitfaced to even care. This seemed to be a common occurrence at parties and one that supplied infinite comic relief.

"I'm glad you're kicking back a bit," Alex was sprawled out on one of the many window seats in the main tower, his legs draped over Lilly's. "You've been so on edge lately, I miss hanging out with you, I know Dani does too." He hiccuped, taking another long swig from the bottle of whiskey they'd swiped.

She agreed, it was nice to spend some time with Alex and her Illusionist friends. Since everything with The Beast happened, she found herself gravitating more towards her Physical friends because of their shared trauma. She'd been spending a lot of time with Quentin and sometimes even Penny, practicing their Occlumency. It wasn't that she didn't want to hang out with Alex and Dani, it was just that she was so consumed with protecting herself from The Beast that she hadn't had time for a break.

"I miss you guys too, I just had so much going on that I think I forgot how to even breathe." The music was softer in the tower, but they could still hear every word clearly, and there was definitely moaning coming from the door to their left. However, despite the classic party noises, the little bench felt much more secluded than it truly was. Lilly watched the ocean waves crash against the rocks below with a content smile.

"Hey, Lil?" Alex slurred his words a bit, but the tone was much more serious as he whispered to her.

"Yeah?"

"Say there's this girl," he started, pulling his legs into his chest, "and she's super smart and funny and breathtakingly beautiful. She can be kind of mean sometimes and is without a doubt, the scariest woman I've ever met, but it doesn't really matter, cause she's perfect anyway," Lilly listened intently to his words. His eyes filled with joy when he described this girl, and a lazy smile spread across his lips, "how would you ask her out? I don't even know if she likes me, but I really like her."

"I don't know if I'm the best person to ask about this, Lex, Dani has more experience in this department."

"No! I can't ask Dani, she'd make fun of me. She thinks I'm too sensitive," that did sound like Dani. She sighed, looking at her friend, who desperately wanted this girl to like him back.

"Well, I guess you should just ask her straight out," Lilly felt awkward giving relationship advice. She'd only been in one serious relationship in high school, which ended with the guy cheating on her with the captain of the cheer squad. It was as if he pulled the idea straight from a movie. "If she says no and doesn't like you back, then she isn't the one for you."

"God, I don't know why I'm acting like such a wuss. I'm usually pretty smooth with girls, but this one, she's something special. I tried all my usual lines and tactics of getting her to like me, but she just sees right through it all."

"Then don't use any of your usual ideas. Just be authentic, be you." He nodded numbly and Lilly wondered if either of them would remember this conversation in the morning. "There's nothing wrong with being sensitive, you know. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know, and she'd have to be crazy not to love you." Somehow the two managed to make it up to Lilly's room, not bothering to change into pajamas. They flopped onto the bed, still sipping the bottle of alcohol.

Lilly loved the feeling of letting loose for a bit. She didn't do it very often. Of course, she partied in high school and college, but as she got older she became more concerned with behaving to impress her mother, rather than acting out to get attention. It's not like either tactic worked out for her. Somewhere along the way, it seems she forgot to have fun.