Chapter 23
The Bluestone Family
Lily laid her face flat down on the table top as the seconds ticked down to the start of history class. After escaping the Blue World and meeting back up with the others, Lily went straight to work returning all the stolen talents back to their owners. Not only did she have to find out which orb of light should go where, she had to fly around the school and sneak into each dorm room to give back the talents without being seen. The rest of the Sapphire Society helped, of course. But they needed Lily's magic bracelet to magically make them stealthy enough for the job since they didn't know any such enchantments themselves yet. Thanks to that, Lily ended up completely drained of magic power and needed to be carried back to her own dorm room by Viv and the other girls.
Sadly, sleeping the rest of the night away did very little to help Lily recover her lost energy. It was a miracle she could get out of bed at all, let alone get to class.
Maybe I should have just called in sick, she thought.
In front of her, she could hear some students whispering to each other.
"Hey, did you hear?" said a girl. "They just announced that all those recitals and concerts that got canceled are back up and running!"
A boy replied, "Yeah. I heard about that. It's so weird how so many of the school's stars in sports and arts had to call in sick, but now they're all better like nothing happened."
"Rumor has it, Lady Sapphire might have something to do with it. They say she's a magical superhero who helps people out with a wave of her wand."
It's a bracelet, actually, Lily thought, feeling the corners of her mouth turn up.
Despite the terrible ordeal she faced with the tiger suddenly going berserk, she was glad she managed to help so many people. But at the same time, remembering that tiger made her smile quickly disappear.
That was a really close call. Lily had actually gotten hurt for the first time since her adventures as Lady Sapphire started. Not only that, it was the closest she had ever gotten to death. Although her injuries from that night were all easily erased with a magic spell, the memory will forever have a place in her heart, like a scar that will never fade away.
Also, while the tiger's reign of terror was over, the Schemer's was not. There'll be more trouble coming to the school and its students, and they won't be easy to handle. And like what happened with the tiger, they could even be deadly.
I need to get stronger, she thought. Stronger and more powerful. And the only way to do that is to practice, practice and practice.
Suddenly, she felt a nudge to her arm and she turned to ask Viv, "What is it?"
"Just checking to see how you're doing," Viv said. "You holding up okay?"
"My face is stuck to the table; what do you think?"
"If you can joke around like that, you're probably fine," Viv said. "But just in case, you should probably skip the meeting after classes and get some serious rest."
"No way," Lily said stubbornly. "Oliver thinks he's found a clue to the Schemer's identity. I am not missing out on the chance to find out who he is."
Seeing it was futile to dissuade her roommate, Viv shrugged her shoulders and said, "Suit yourself."
She and Lily then turned their gazes to the front door as it swung open. In waddled Uncle Viceroy, singing loud, "Good morning, class!" as he made his way over to the podium.
"Now let's crack open those books and get ready to take some notes," he said. "Today, we'll be learning about King Kamehameha the First and how he unified the islands of Hawaii into one kingdom. But before that, you got a question, Edward?"
Eddie dropped his hand and said, "Uh, yeah. I just gotta ask, why the penguin costume?"
Uncle Viceroy was dressed head to toe in a black and white penguin costume. And it was a fat penguin with short legs and long, webbed feet.
The history teacher looked Eddie's way with his costume's blank, shiny plastic eyes and replied, "Because I felt like it. Now let's get started on today's lesson."
He lifted a flipper and hit the keyboard of his laptop computer. After a short pause, he went, "Hmm." And then he tried again.
"Stupid, fingerless flippers," the students heard him grumble. "Now how do I do this?"
He tried unsuccessfully to get the computer working. But it was impossible with the costume's soft flipper tips. After being at a loss for a while, he finally resorted to pecking the buttons with the plastic beak, bobbing his head up and down to hit each button.
Lily lifted her head up, saw her uncle dressed as a penguin mascot and then lowered her eyes back down to the table while he pecked at the computer, her ears as red as a boiled lobster. She was found doing the same thing in all her classes and after joining a gathering in the Sapphire Society's secret chamber.
When Oliver came to the library, he took one look at Lily and then asked the others, "Mr. Lin's penguin costume?"
The twins replied, "Mr. Lin's penguin costume."
"Can we please get on with the meeting?" Lily asked.
"Right-o," said Oliver. "I'll get us started. We all know what we're here to talk about: the Schemer's true identity. The clue to that is something Lily heard that metal tiger said when it went haywire."
"You mean how only Archibald Bluestone could tell it what to do?" Lily asked.
Oliver nodded. "At this point, there's no denying that the Bluestone family's deeply tied to this case."
Everyone exchanged looks before Viv said, "Was there ever any doubt?"
"I still fall under the age-old saying, innocent until proven guilty," said Oliver. "That said, if we're to find out who the Schemer is and put a stop to his mischief once and for all, we're going to need to take a deeper look into the history of the Bluestone family and their land that this school sits on, starting with Archibald. Based on Lily's testimony about the things the tiger said, my guess is that Archibald's the original owner of the tiger and the Schemer did something to make it follow his orders. Whatever the Schemer did, however, must have been undone or broken when Lily tackled the tiger and turned it homicidal. I already talked it over with the library helpers, so I'll hand the mic over to you, Hassan."
Hassan stood up and said, "Thanks. Well, we all know the school's more than a hundred fifty years old, and that the Bluestone family's owned the land for even longer than that. But after scouring all the library's records, we couldn't find anything about the Bluestones before Julius Bluestone the First, the school's founder, not even the names of the founder's parents."
"We even tried asking the archivists of the nearest towns," added Melody. "But it was no good. The earliest record found was a deed to the land with the founder's name on it, even though all the historians were certain that the Bluestones have been here long before his time. Everything else was just stuff related to the school."
"In that case, there's only one way to get to the bottom of the mystery," said Oliver. "We need to have a talk with Director Bluestone himself."
He volunteered to go talk to the school's owner by himself, but Lily wasn't going to let that happen, thinking it would be too dangerous for the teen detective to be by himself to confront the director, especially if Bluestone really did turn out to be the Schemer himself, or at least an ally of the villain. Oliver allowed it, but wanted everyone else to stay behind.
"He might not let us in if too many people crowd his office," he explained.
So while the others stayed behind, Lily and Oliver made their way to the director's office. They entered the Castle from the front and made their way up the stairs to the top floor. Hung on the wall at a platform between the first and second floor, there was a huge, realistic painting of a fierce, snarling Bengal tiger that made Lily flinch and quickly scurry around to Oliver's other side. Oliver gave his junior friend a look but said nothing. After reaching the top floor, Lily followed Oliver down the old-fashioned hall unchanged for fifty years, passing many doors before stopping in front of one with a big, gold plate with the director's name etched in black cursive.
Oliver knocked on the door, rapping his knuckles three times against the solid mahogany door.
Knock-knock-knock!
They didn't have to wait long before a raspy, elderly man's voice came through and said, "Come in!"
Lily and Oliver exchanged one final look before Oliver slowly opened the door and they stepped inside. The room was dimly lit, with the only source of light coming from the sun through the curtain-drawn windows. A shadow was cast over a scrawny old man sitting in a big, red armchair, sunk down with his hands clasped over his lap while one leg was crossed over the other, but Lily could still clearly make out his features. He had short, white hair neatly combed to one side and a neatly trimmed white fuzz around his face. This man, Lily remembered from the Start of the Year Assembly, was Julius Bluestone, the current director and owner of Bluestone Academy.
With a pleasant smile, the old man said, "Well, this is a surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from Bluestone Academy's resident sleuth? Nothing serious, I hope."
"Actually, sir," said Oliver, "I believe this is a very serious matter. It's about Archibald Bluestone."
Director Bluestone's smile turned upside down and he straightened up. "Please come in," he said. "And shut the door behind you."
Lily was a bit reluctant to do that, but she obliged, figuring that she could just blow the door open with a spell if they needed to make a quick escape. However, she stayed as close to the door as reasonable, hands behind her back with one clutching the bracelet, which quickly warmed to her touch. Oliver, however, strolled closer to the director, stopping in the middle of the room. Neither took up Director Bluestone's invitation to sit in the two antique office chairs in front of his desk.
As soon as the door was closed, the director asked, "Firstly, who is your companion?"
"I'm Lily Wong, sir," answered Lily. "I think you know my Uncle Viceroy."
"Ah yes," said Director Bluestone. "Viceroy Lin of the History Department. He's a rather . . . memorable member of our faculty. Ahem! Anyway, moving on."
He leaned forward over his clasped hands while propping his elbows on his office table. "Now tell me," he said. "Where did you hear that name, Archibald Bluestone?"
Oliver and Lily exchanged looks, and then Lily stepped forward and said, "Would you believe me if I said I heard it from a giant tiger made of bronze?"
Director Bluestone looked at her and said, "Normally, I would say you have quite the imagination, Miss Wong. But the name Archibald Bluestone doesn't just crop up anywhere. I should have the only record of his existence. And I am missing a bronze tiger statue from the family storage."
"Then you know something, then," said Oliver. "About the existence of magic and the Schemer who's been plaguing the school with supernatural misdeeds."
"Indeed," the director admitted with a nod. He took a deep breath and sighed before sinking back down in his chair, hands over his face. After a short pause, he spoke up again. "The Bluestone family are descendants of magical sorcerers from another world. And unfortunately, they were not the nice sort. They were criminals who fled from the world of Emeron to avoid punishment from justice and never learned from their mistakes. Even after being banished from their home, they continued to do dangerous and evil research and magical experiments. It was a tradition that Archibald continued when he became head of the family.
"Truly, Archibald was like a mad scientist, obsessed with learning the deepest, darkest secrets of the universe no matter what he had to do, no matter who he had to hurt. He's cursed the land to be haunted by evil spirits, hexed the forests and mutated the woodland animals into horrible monsters, breathed poison into the air and even kidnapped innocent people from the surrounding villages for human experiments. And he was aided by his family. All of the Bluestone family followed his example and practiced magic in the most evil way possible. All of them, except one: his son, Julius Bluestone the First.
"Julius was not like the rest of his family. He was appalled by the way they treated people outside of their family like lab rats and did not agree with the way they studied and used the magic arts. The last straw came when his family tried to carry out a certain ritual to revive a legendary dragon. If successful, it would have brought a terrible monster back into the world, one that wouldn't think twice about burning an entire town to ashes. If a failure, miles and miles of land would have been hit by unfathomable destruction. Either way, many, many people would get hurt, and Julius could not allow that to happen.
"So, he started a rebellion and overthrew his father, stopping his family's evil experiments once and for all. After that, he worked with the villagers to undo the damage Archibald and the rest of the Bluestone family had caused before creating a school which we now know as Bluestone Academy."
"Wow," said Oliver. "That's some story, sir. But I still don't see what that has to do with the Schemer."
"The Schemer is a member of the Bluestone family," said Director Bluestone. "After Julius the First defeated them, the Bluestone family fled the land and disappeared. But he always knew that they would come back one day to take back what was once theirs and get revenge."
"I see," Oliver said, nodding his head up and down. "Makes sense. So that's the Schemer's true aim: to trouble everyone in the school in revenge and take back the land. But there are some things that still don't make sense. What does this all have to do with the Sapphire Princess? Where did she come from? And why was she captured by the Schemer?"
"The Sapphire Princess is a descendant of the Sapphire Lady, an ally of Julius the First," Director Bluestone explained. "And she is the only person who can stop the Schemer once and for all. There's a prophecy that goes like this: When shadows return to blanket the land in vengeance, a hero chosen by the Sapphire Bracelet will rise to liberate the Sapphire Princess who will end all evil."
"So if we want to defeat the Schemer for good, we need to save the Sapphire Princess?" asked Lily.
"Right you are, Miss Wong," said Director Bluestone. "But alas, only the hero chosen by the Sapphire Bracelet can actually do that."
And then his face turned dark and grim.
"Make no mistake, students," he said. "We face terrible disasters that will hurt everyone if the Schemer is not stopped. And the key lies with both the Sapphire Princess and the Hero of the Sapphire Bracelet. We can only hope that the hero has already appeared and will build enough strength for the final battle while keeping us safe from the Schemer's mischief."
"Yeah," Lily said softly while tightly holding the bracelet behind her back. "Me too."
Oliver gave Lily a glance and then spoke up. "Thank you, Director Bluestone. That's all we wanted to know for now. We'll come by again if we need anything else."
"It was my pleasure," Director Bluestone said. "Good day to you both."
**********
Director Bluestone waited until long after the pair closed the door behind them and left before finally breathing a sigh of relief. It was at that moment from the top of a bookshelf at the front corner of the room a big, blue parrot flew down and landed on the school director's table.
"Your acting skills are getting better," it said.
The director replied back, "Thanks. I've had a lot of time to practice. With this, I believe I've thrown them off the scent."
"For now," said the parrot. "But it won't be long before they see through your tricks."
Director Bluestone brushed off the bird's concern and said, "It'll be long enough. Nothing will ruin our plans. I won't let it. But enough about that. You have something to report?"
"Correct," said the parrot. "Someone has been spying on Viceroy Lin. They may have spotted him entering the Blue World."
"Well, that's rather careless of Mr. Lin," said the director. "We will need to do something about that. And I know just the thing to teach our little spy a lesson."
He picked up the phone and dialed a number. After a short pause, he spoke into the phone, "Hello, Viceroy? I have something I need you to do."
