The next day during Chemistry class, Elikem's version of peace lasted precisely 13 minutes.
Mr. Agboola was trying to explain ionic bonds using rice and beans as metaphors. Half the students were asleep. The other half were pretending to copy notes but were secretly scrolling on magical watches under the desks.
But not Zina.
Zina's third eye it wasn't visible, but she could feel it blink behind her forehead started to itch. Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
BOOM!
A flash burst from the back of the class. Bello's chair exploded into glittery green smoke, launching him five feet into the air.
"AYEEE!" he screamed as he landed flat on his back, covered in sparkles and shame.
Mr. Agboola dropped his marker. "Not again! Which of you used alchemy in my class without supervision?!"
Everyone turned to look at Timi. He was already laughing so hard he fell out of his seat.
"Sir, it's not me o! Maybe it's Bello's destiny to explode every Wednesday."
Zina ignored the chaos. She walked quietly to Bello's desk and crouched. Something shimmered faintly under it runes, glowing and hot. A summoning sigil.
She touched it. It pulsed with old energy. Not student-level. Not regular.
This was ancient.
After class, Zina met up with two students in the old science garden. The frogs there could whisper gossip if you gave them chin-chin.
"I know this sounds mad," she told them. "But something's happening in this school. That sigil was from the Order of the Hidden Scroll."
Adaora blinked. "I thought that was just a bedtime story for kids with too much magical energy."
"No," said Desmond, adjusting his prefect badge. "It's real. My truth-sense flared up in Chemistry. Someone's activating old school magic."
Zina nodded. "And it's not random. They're looking for something."
Desmond asked, "What?"
Zina pulled out a page from an old diary she'd found in the library's forbidden wing. It was charred, half-eaten by time, but still legible:
"The scroll that reveals bloodlines sleeps beneath the old gym. It calls to those who dare to awaken it."
"The Hidden Scroll," Zina said. "It can reveal anyone with magical blood. Even those who don't know yet."
Adaora's eyes widened. "And if it falls into the wrong hands?"
"Then Elikem becomes a hunting ground."
They stood in silence.
Then Zina said, "We form a team. A real one. Secret. We find that scroll before anyone else does."
Adaora stepped forward. "I'm in."
Desmond nodded. "Same here."
In that moment, a quiet wind blew around them an unspoken promise sealed by magic.
But far away, near the clock tower, Yusuf Bello was watching. His eyes glowed. His watch shimmered with black glyphs.
And he whispered, "Let them come."