DR BANE’S OFFICE WAS TWICE AS EERIE AND OMINOUS when it was empty.

The gloomy stone walls seemed to climb higher, the cabinets glowed brighter, and the polished, bone-white animal skulls lining the walls seemed to follow Cas and Warrior with their black, empty sockets as they slunk across the room. They headed straight for Dr Bane’s desk. The gleaming mahogany surface was spotless, save for a blank piece of paper, a letter opener and an ink pen. All three sat flawlessly aligned as if ready and waiting for Bane to return.

“His sleeping quarters look locked,” commented Cas, glancing up the staircase leading to the loft room above.

Warrior rattled each of the desk drawers in turn. “These are all locked too.”

But Cas wasn’t prepared to admit defeat so easily.

He should’ve known that even if Bane had left his office unlocked, he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to leave anything valuable or informative lying around. Yet the drive to help Warrior and his own burning desire to find out where the Master of All was gave him a burst of inspiration. Grabbing the sharp, pointed letter opener off the desk, Cas started jamming and twisting it into each of the drawers’ keyholes, trying to wiggle one of the locks free.

It was a lot easier in theory than in practice.

“Forget it,” said Warrior frostily. “It’s useless. Let’s go.”

“Hang on,” heaved Cas, wrenching this way and that. “Keep an eye out – in case anyone comes by. I’m … I’m almost in…”

A satisfying click pierced the air.

“Forget what?” he teased, dragging a large, leatherbound bundle of artefacts out of Bane’s desk. The stack contained a bunch of portraits and letters that Cas held up to the light. “These?” He splayed the documents on the desk and divided them into two piles, one for each of them.

Eagle-eyed, they began to riffle through.

“Look at this,” said Cas, jimmying one of the coloured portraits out of his stack and pushing it towards her. “Who do you think this is?”

Warrior squinted at the picture.

Since it wasn’t possible to use cameras in the Balance Lands, people had drawings and portraits done of them instead – though these drawings were vastly different to any in the Normie world.

The picture was of a young Dr Bane. Amongst the other figures in the portrait, he was easily recognizable by his wiry beard and younger, silver-thread-free auburn hair pulled back in a bun. Not only that, but Cas could sense it was him, in the same way one could sometimes discern a powerful Other’s Order simply by the scent or sensation they gave off. As he studied Dr Bane, Cas could feel the familiar cold, creeping sense of Deathmaker magic – Bane’s Deathmaker magic, captured at that moment in time. He felt the air being momentarily snatched from his lungs and smelt the faint scent of something withering into decay. Dr Bane was standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris – but because on the face of it Normie Paris and Balance Lands Paris were identical, it was hard to pinpoint which world he was in. Bane had his arm wrapped around a pretty young woman standing next to him. She had dark hair that flowed down to her elbows in shimmering waves, and the most amazing, piercing amber eyes.

“Do you think that could be…” Cas trailed off, side-eyeing Warrior, unsure whether he dared say what he thought.

The feeling rolling off the woman was completely opposite to Bane’s. It reminded Cas of light and happiness. Of rebirth and fresh air. He could feel his lungs expanding again to the fullest they had ever been and his heart beat louder, more bravely, in his veins.

She was a Lifemaker.

Warrior bit her lip, brushing her fingers over the miniature canvas. “My mother?” She clucked her tongue and laughed. “Not likely, we barely look the same.”

She’s right, thought Cas. They both had the same snow-white skin and dark hair, but the similarities ended there. If anything, the woman looked more akin to someone like Madame Aster, all graceful lines and high cheekbones. But there was something unique about her too. Her eyes.

Cas was sure he’d seen them before.

“I do know who this is,” said Warrior, pointing to another figure in the picture – a lady with unruly sandy-blonde hair, sporting a tweed beret and singing into a baguette. Mrs Crane. “And this.” She jabbed at another person, who was unmistakable as a young Headmaster Higgles, about two-metres tall with long limbs and munching on a croissant.

So that’s how Dr Bane knew which buffoon to recommend for the headmaster’s job.

“Look here,” said Cas, inching something else out of his stack. He tossed a pile of crumpled letters knotted with frayed string onto the desk.

As he began to spread them out, he froze.

A single name was repeated numerous times, scrawled on letters dated from twelve to seventeen years ago:

Aeurdan Darkbloom.

“The Master of All went to Wayward School, like us,” Warrior reminded him, peering over. “These must be letters and notes he sent to Dr Bane while he was here.”

Cas plucked out one of the letters and began to read:

Dear Dr Bane,

I feel silly writing this, but I don’t know what else to do. I have nobody else to talk to. Ever since I came to live at Wayward School, I’ve felt lost, so very lost, and you are the only person I can turn to. I’m sorry, at first I was angry. Confused. Bewildered and just … I didn’t understand why I had to be here. But you tried to talk to me, to explain everything, and though I didn’t want to hear it then, I want to listen now. My only living relative, my grandmother, has stopped writing to me. Nobody has heard from her for months. It seems that she doesn’t just want nothing to do with me, but she’s moved away so that I can’t find her. I suppose this means Wayward School has to be my home now.

Please, Dr Bane, if you’re reading this – please come and talk to me again. I will listen this time. I want to stay here. I want to learn.

I want to be the most powerful Other I can be.

Yours,

Aeurdan Darkbloom

They both jumped as a bell chimed outside.

It was lunchtime.

Mrs Crane would be looking for them soon, but neither Cas nor Warrior were ready to abandon the new evidence yet. What if they were on the cusp of an answer, teetering on the precipice of everything they wanted to know?

Hurriedly, they skim-read the other letters as quickly as possible before they were caught.

Warrior picked up the next note, dated two years later:

Dear Dr Bane,

I know you’re avoiding me. You’re supposed to be my Deathmaker tutor, but you always seem to be away when I stop by your quarters after class… Mrs Crane says that you’re away on Grand Council business – but you’re not one of them…

The Grand Council are too restrictive, aren’t they? I know you think so too, because you and I are the same… Nature has always existed with a little chaos in it; disorder to balance out the order.…

I want to do more in our Special Studies lessons together – something to really push the boundaries of my powers, of everything.

Please, Dr Bane, I promise I won’t tell…

If Cas and Warrior thought the Master’s second letter sounded frantic, it was nothing compared to the third. This one had been written mere months before the Master of All left Wayward School at sixteen years old:

Bane,

So, this is how it’s going to be, is it?

This’ll probably be the last you’ll hear from me. I’ve outgrown this wretched school, the silly Grand Council, the rules of nature they’re stupid enough to protect. You know who I am, what I am, what I aim to achieve…

Don’t try to stop me.

If you involve the Grand Council, you’ll have to explain the part you played …

I will tell everyone your secret. The one you’re willing to do anything to protect.

Aeurdan

Stuffed behind this last letter were news articles and magazine clippings of the Master of All’s succeeding attacks:

MYSTERIOUS MURDER OF TOP-SECRET GRAND COUNCIL ARTEFACT CURATOR: 107-YEAR-OLD ALBERTICUS ENIGMA FOUND DEAD

THREE MORE SCHOLARS KIDNAPPED ON KAHO’OLAWE ISLAND

MADMAN OR MONSTER: THREADOLOGIST MONKS IN NEPAL DISAPPEAR IN VIOLENT CIRCUMSTANCES

As the foreboding final bell tolled, Cas roughly shoved the letter and clippings back into the stack. Warrior’s papers were more of the same. A timeline of the Master of All’s stint at Wayward, from a scared Wayone, to an overly enthusiastic, dewy-eyed Waythree, to a threatening Waysix who left the school to terrorise the Balance Lands. Crumpled in front of them were also notes from other teachers about Aeurdan; glowing progress reports about his incredible talents, with no idea of what he would one day become.

Sadly, there was no indication where Bane had gone this time.

Unsettled, Cas stuffed everything back into the drawer and resolutely slammed it shut. He had changed his mind. He didn’t want to think about the Master of All after all. Every time he did, his chest tightened and the walls closed in around him. He felt himself spiralling at the thought of everything the Master had done: murdering his own mother and robbing everyone in the fifth Order of their powers – and what the Master was still doing: wreaking havoc and kidnapping people who he thought could help him learn how to steal the remaining powers.

The only way this horror would end was if Cas could stop him.

But Cas didn’t know how. He didn’t know if he could.

“Let’s eat,” said Warrior, seemingly as equally spooked as he was. As they passed by the strange, glowing cabinets, Cas couldn’t help casting a final glance at the object he was still most drawn to: the small glowing orb with the spinning metal rings.

Down in the dining hall, any lingering thoughts of the Master of All melted away when Cas saw the splendid spectacle that awaited them.

Surprisingly, the table in the middle of the room wasn’t set for three. Instead, all of the tables in the room had been shoved together in a mismatched hotchpotch, and almost every teacher and several students and their families sat crowded around them.

“Happy Waywardmas!” Mrs Crane called, practically buoyant with excitement. “I invited a few friends!”

A pleasant feeling like hot honey flooded through Cas as he looked around the table. Fenix was spending Christmas in Balance Ireland, but Paws and her mothers sat grinning at them from one end of the table, whilst Professors Everglade and Breezy sat perched under the mistletoe at the other end, pecking each other like chickens. Madame Aster was there, swigging a large glass of whisky as sour as her demeanour and talking to the Earthshaper High Councillor. And next to them were Neerja and Akash Gill, chatting animatedly to Quinnberley Crestbourne, her younger siblings and her father, who was on a pair of crutches.

“Happy Waywardmas, Dewey!” Cas called as he passed the Earthshaper boy.

Dewey Cricket gave a massive bucktoothed grin. “And a happy Waytide to you too, Casander!”

As Warrior went to say hello to Bracken Moonstrike and Ellie Green, Cas settled himself down at the table, his eyes bulging in delight.

This, he decided, had to be his favourite Balance Lands tradition.

All the elements of a typical Christmas feast were laid before him, but not in the ordinary Normie fashion.

There was a centrepiece of a fat chocolate-orange turkey, surrounded by stuffing-filled satsumas and vanilla ice cream, roast chicken jelly and sprinkles. Steaming bowls of buttered toffee potatoes in glistening, gooey caramel sauce sat astride plates of peppermint broccoli, marzipan prawns, gingerbread peas and sugar cookie paté. There were savoury batter puddings stuffed like mince pies and mince pies stuffed with sprouts. Jars upon jars of whipped bread sauce, pourable eggnog and fudgy hot cocoa lined the perimeter. Nearest Cas, there were dishes holding chestnut-coated candy canes and gravy drizzle tart beside a rainbow-coloured cheeseboard. When he snaffled a few morsels, he discovered each wheel of cheddar and brie tasted like a different variety of sweets – sherbet lemons, strawberry laces, rhubarb and custards, liquorice and wine gums.

Within minutes, everyone had tucked in.

“Happy Waywardmas, Cas,” whispered Mrs Crane, sidling up to him after his fifth slice of gravy tart.

Cas wiped his gloop-stained mouth. “And a Happy Waytide to you too.”

He realized this was the proper reply.

Mrs Crane quirked an eyebrow. “Where did you and Warrior disappear to earlier?”

The lump of tart became lodged in Cas’s throat. “Oh, um … nowhere.” He choked. “Warrior was just giving me my present on a Waywardmas hunt.”

Cas felt awful for lying to Mrs Crane, but technically it was the truth. They had been looking for Cas’s Christmas present. He had simply omitted that they had gone poking around Dr Bane’s office, too.

“Well, this clue might lead you to a certain something hidden under your bed,” said Mrs Crane conspiratorially, slipping him a lumpy envelope under the table.

Cas glanced up at her. “But that’s not – I haven’t—”

“Oh, shush. Don’t for even a second think about refusing it because you haven’t got me a present. This Christmas with you is the happiest I’ve ever seen our Warrior. That’s gift enough for me. Don’t go and open it now. Later. Warrior can see, but I don’t want anyone else getting jealous.”

Later that evening, after the dinner plates had been scraped clean and everyone’s hearts (not to mention their stomachs) were full, Cas snuck upstairs to the Attic to open Mrs Crane’s gift.

Dear Cas, its label read.

Merry Waywardmas!

Well done for surviving your first term at Wayward School! I hope you like your gift. I made it from one of Dr Bane’s old Deathmaker cloaks and my old Lifemaker one. I used to wear it all the time as the school nurse – but you have more use for it than I do now.

Wear it proudly!

Your friend,

Mrs Crane

Cas delicately drew out the soft gift. A velvety half purple, half white cloak slid between his fingers. The symbol of the fifth Order – a snow-white bird and jet-black raven entangled mid-flight – was sewn onto the breast pocket.

Cas balked.

Purple-and-white cloaks were the signature look of the Master of All and his Heretics. He couldn’t wear this. But then he noticed a tiny tweed heart hand-stitched on the inside of the cloak. And, whereas the Heretics’ cloaks were mainly purple with white thread running across the fabric in swirling patterns, one half of Cas’s cloak was solid purple, while the other half was solid white.

Mrs Crane had fashioned him his own look. A way for Cas to reclaim the identity that the Master had stolen from all of the Lifemakers and Deathmakers.

A second realization hit then.

Mrs Crane used to be a Lifemaker.

How had he never thought about her Order before?

He supposed Mrs Crane being an ex-Lifemaker nurse made much more sense than her being a librarian who just happened to keep a stash of candy-flavoured cough syrup behind her desk during flu season.

Slipping it on, Cas buttoned up the new cloak beneath his old, tatty Deathmaker one and returned to the festivities below.

Christmas dinner at Wayward had turned into a full-on Waywardmas shindig now, with everyone jigging and jiving to Professor Everglade on the guitar and Professor Breezy bellowing out renditions of “O Come All Ye Wayful”.

Feeling lighter than if he had been borne aloft by an Airscaper’s wind, Cas joined in.