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Lin's smile was frozen on her face as she stared at her professor. She had heard what he said, but it wasn't really registering. For once, Lin's brain was having a severe problem with processing information that she was just given.

Lin laughed nervously and she looked around at her surroundings in confusion. "But... But, I don't understand. Of course you can bring him back. You are a demi god."

Right before Ophiuchus's hand could touch her shoulder, Lin jerked her shoulder back and took a couple steps away from her professor. There were now tears in her eyes, though she barely noticed them. She wouldn't look her professor in the eye. She was shaking her head and was looking out toward the school. There were still many lights on in the school, but lights in the Night building were going out since classes had probably just ended, those that had continued on despite Danni's funeral.

"You are telling me... that this... school...," she practically hissed the word 'school'.

"teaches that white magic users and dark magic users should coexist and work together, that there should be no prejudices..."

She turned her dark ice-blue eyes onto her professor in a furious glare, "but one of its own professors won't bring back a fellow professor simply because he uses dark magic?!"

Lin glared coldly at her professor as tears fell down her cheeks. "Alright, well, if you could not bring him back with your magic, then you must know some potions or herbs that could resurrect him."

How... pathetic. He couldn't even control his native powers. Oh, he had figured out what was wrong. It was Dymetri's aura, it was inexplicably faded, to the point that his trail from two hours ago was stronger than his aura now. What happened to him? He couldn't have left, because he was somehow still here - slightly. Oh so slightly. Ialo had to put all his concentration into that one point just to get a half-decent sense of Dymetri's trail.

But that was easier said than done. Thousands of other uras were all teeming for his attention. They were all moving, changing every second, and it was sapping his energy just to keep up with them. Which meant, that there was almost no energy left for Ialo to use on cutting off this magic, or even moving his body to get up off the floor.

"Would you like to hear a story, Addy?" Edmund spoke from his spot by the fireplace, and Addy looked over, stopping her conversation with Ambrose about the desert.

"Are you going to tell a story tonight, Eddie?" She asked hopefully, always loving his fairy tales. At his nod, she immediately turned to face him, while the others looked on suspiciously behind her back. They knew Edmund was still upset over the way they'd been wiping the girl's memory, and he could be very stubborn about some things.

"Very well then. This tale is about a witch, a young witch by the name of Magdalene, but most called her Maggie. Our dear Maggie was a dark witch among a family of white magic witches, and she was rejected by her family, by her friends. She was not really understood, you see, and so she became very lonely.

"Our Maggie was not a weak child, though. When she became lonely, she created her own friends, enchanting different objects, giving them personalities, giving them life in her own way. She was very strong, and very talented in what she did, and she loved easily, loved completely. Never did she intentionally hurt anyone, but still she was turned away, and still she was alone. Eventually our lovely Maggie was unable to deal with the loneliness that engolfed her day after day, and so she ran away, trying to escape what she was.

"Unknown to Maggie, she had a group of guardian angels watching over her, and they pitied the young witch, who had never done anything wrong but was so lonely it just broke your heart. Wanting to help her before she did something drastic, the angels took human forms and used their god given powers to take away her memory.

"The angels took her in as a daughter, as sister, and gave her the family she'd always wanted. Under their care, she was given the love and care she needed, and her smile returned once more, for all the world to see. Since her powers had proved such a burden for her, those had been locked inside her, along with all her memories. If ever she saw something that reminded her of her past life, the angels wiped her memories once more and moved their home to a different area. Maggie remained forever unknowing, but happy, and loved, and the angels considered this a complete success. Maggie lived the rest of her life content to know no one but the angels, and she never again had any worries or cares, and never felt the pain of loneliness again, living happily ever after." Edmund trailed off, studying his 'sister' while the other stared at him in disbelief of his foolishness.

"Did you like tonight's story?" Eddie asked, and Addy looked up, frowning slightly.

"...I don't think I would consider that a happy ending, Eddie. I know I'd never want to live like that." She said slowly, and all eyes turned to her as Ryder asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well, that can't really be called living, can it? It was more like she...existed. I think, if I were Maggie, I'd always be sad, always be frustrated, because I'd know there was something...something inside me, just out of reach, something I want but can't have. It would be a kind of torture, I'd think, to be denied the powers you were born with, to be denied your memories, however painful." She frowned, looking at her brothers and parents, at Ambrose.

"Wouldn't that be so sad? To be on your death bed someday and have no good memories to run through your head because they'd been erased over and over again? No matter how unhappy she was, she wouldn't have stayed so long if there hadn't been just a bit of happiness from time to time. Or maybe she stayed because she hoped someday it would get better. That would mean she loved them, loved the family who pushed her away, despite everything else. As soon as the angels took her away from them, took away those memories she'd held onto that had made her stick around...They took away her choices, her decisions...That's not living, and that's not freedom. It's just...living in an illusion. That's no way to live, is it?" She asked, and when no one answered, she fidgeted in her seat, and was only more confused when Edmund shot a smug smile at Salem and said,

"My point exactly."

]Ialo saw Kai's aura before he saw or heard Kai himself. He wanted to say something, something along the lines of 'help me'...

"AUGH!!!" He woke up to no air, and the sensation that there might as well have been a gaping hole in his abdomen, where Kai had so kindly kicked him. He was coughing as wheezing as Kai pulled him up. Everything was light again, and only the faintest shadow of any aura could be seen.

"What... the hell..." Ialo wheezed, " -boots are you wearing?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ialo grumbled. He was breathing heavily, trying to get air back into his lungs. "You've been gone... I don't even know, actually.... You died, and then you came because because you were there at the labs..."

".... I'm REALLY not the right person to ask about time right now. I don't even know how long I was gone."

Ialo sighed, and did what he always did when he was frustrated - he automatically ran his hand through his hair, causing it to cackle and stand up on end from electricity. He didn't even know where to begin.

"Life SUCKS right now. There's a student dead, something happened to Dymetri, Cook is mourning, Riser exists period, and now his son is going to be staying here for who knows how long. I can't believe I actually said yes. That guy is jealous of me, and I don't even know what the hell is going on right now. I've got a big black space where the past few days should be."