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Ace and Deuce were arguing as they returned to the dorm. About what exactly, Ace had forgotten, partially because the arguments between him and Deuce were, almost always, just for the sake of arguing itself. But more than that, it was because his attention had been diverted as soon as they entered the lounge.
Trey pointed his magical pen at the first-year student kneeling on the ground, and Riddle stood a few steps behind him, arms sternly crossed.
"O-Off With Your Head!" Trey stammered.
Ace almost burst into laughter upon hearing it. Normally one would cower in fear whenever Riddle calls for the cruel spell, but Trey said it with so much uncertainty, Ace would be laughing even if he was the very student kneeling on the ground before him.
It looked like Housewarden Riddle was trying to teach Trey his signature spell for some reason. But, he must know that signature spells aren’t something you could teach to other people, right?
“Louder, Trey!” yelled Riddle. Oh well, Ace thought, who was he to judge what his housewarden wanted to do?
Trey cleared his throat, looking a little flustered, and re-aimed his pen at the first-year.
“ Off With Your Head!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Voice still lacking power and strength in comparison to Riddle’s, but it was a lot better than his last attempt.
With a clang, the heart-shaped collar locked around the student’s neck.
Wait, what .
Beside him, Deuce looked like his brain was about to overheat. “What in the world is going on?”
✧✦✧
“So after waking up, you found out that you couldn’t use Off With Your Head anymore, but somehow Trey could?” Ace pressed a hand to his forehead, trying to process all the information Riddle had thrown at him.
“Correct,” said Riddle. “Then Cater came and told us that he also couldn’t use his signature spell. It turned out that the three of us had our signature spell swapped. Currently, I have Split Card, Trey has Off With Your Head, and Cater has Paint the Roses.”
Ace looked at Trey, wearing an uncomfortable smile, then at Riddle, who looked like he was in a terrible mood. And then he laughed inwardly.
Riddle can’t use Off With Your Head. Isn’t this fantastic? Now he’ll get to relax, maybe slack off a little more during the unbirthday party preparations. Obviously there’s still Trey to watch out for, but he doubted Trey would off anyone’s head on his own volition, considering how uncomfortable he had looked back there.
“How did this happen, though?” he muttered aloud. “I never knew that signature spells are something that you could just switch like this.”
“Someone must have pulled a prank on us.” Riddle said furiously. “I haven’t told the teachers yet, as I’m giving whoever did this a chance to confess their wrongdoings, but if they don’t, I will personally seek them out and it will be off with their heads!”
Riddle took a deep breath in and cleared his throat. “Ahem. I must go check on the hedgehogs now.”
He turned and left, leaving them standing in complete silence. Ace sent his best wishes to whoever was stupid and brave enough to attempt this on their housewarden.
All of a sudden, Deuce, who Ace now realized had been quiet for an unnaturally long amount of time, spoke up.
“I think I might have been the one behind this.”
“What?!” Trey and Ace both yelled.
“I was in charge of making the strawberry tart yesterday,” he explained, “and I found a bottle of white liquid in the kitchen. I thought it was a new brand of milk, so I added it into the batter.”
Trey’s eyes widened. “That’s why the strawberry tarts yesterday tasted so weird.”
“Ugh, I’m so sorry. If only I had been more careful…!” Deuce buried his face in his hands.
Trey patted the freshman on the back. “It’s alright. I would say that the fault actually lies with whoever left the potion lying around.
“If I remember correctly, the sophomores were making some sort of potion that replenishes your magical energy for potionology this week, right? It must have been a poorly made version of that.”
“And we were all whining about how only you three got to eat the tart last night,” Ace shook his head. “Now I’m just glad we didn’t get a chance to eat it.”
Trey laughed. “Yeah, things would be a lot harder to keep under wraps if the whole dorm ended up switching signature spells.”
“By the way, do you happen to have any of that potion left over?” he asked Deuce.
Deuce hummed as he tried to recall his memories . “I think there’s still a little bit left,” he said finally. “I left the bottle in the fridge.”
Trey sighed in relief. “Okay, good. We should be able to make an antidote out of the remaining potion. I’ll take it to the science club and see what we can do.”
✧✦✧
Thinking that he’ll get to slack off during the preparations was a huge joke. Ace was very, very wrong in his assumptions.
Since most of the time Ace saw Cater use his signature spell was, say, when there’s not enough people to paint all the roses in the maze red, he had always thought that Split Card was something akin to a cheat spell: a spell used to take shortcuts when there’s too much work to be done, or something like that.
He learned the hard way that he was very mistaken.
Dipping his paintbrush in red paint, he colored another rose red, eyes not daring to leave the rose or meet the glare of Riddle standing behind him.
“Housewarden,” he pleaded, “I already painted an extra row of roses. Can I go now?”
“Absolutely not,” Riddle, or perhaps a copy of Riddle, replied. “You chose to slack off when everyone else was working, so you must compensate for that by doing more work.”
Teapot tyrant’s at it again! It didn’t even make any sense, like, it should be fine as long as he made up by doing the same amount of work as everyone else, right?
He didn’t dare say that out loud, though.
“But, don’t you think the decoration team needs more watching over?” he said with a tight smile. “That part seems a lot more complicated than painting some roses.”
“Worry not, I have already sent three clones of myself to supervise them.” Riddle smiled devilishly. “This signature spell of Cater’s is more useful than I had expected.”
Oh, so this was Riddle himself, not a clone. Not a very pleasant thing to know.
It has only been a day, but Ace desperately wished for the antidote to be finished.
By the time Riddle let him go, the sun was already high in the air, and Ace felt like he must have sweated buckets. He badly wanted something to drink. Something cold, perhaps… sweet. And he just so happens to know that there’s a jug of iced tea in the kitchen fridge.
Well, they were supposed to be for the party tomorrow, but surely no one would notice if a little bit of tea went missing, so long as no copies of Riddle suddenly pop up behind his back again.
Just as he was trying to slip into the kitchen unnoticed, he was spotted by Cater around the corner. “Yo, Acey!” he waved, and Ace noticed that he looked a little… off.
He squinted his eyes. “Is it just me, or is your hair sparkling?”
Cater chuckled. “Oh, you noticed! I used Paint the Roses to change the way my hair reflects light, and now they shine like diamonds. Pun intended!”
That wasn’t all, he realized. Wherever Cater walked, the area surrounding him brightens up, as if a ray of sunlight was now following him wherever he went. And there was glitter floating in the air.
Well okay. Cater had used Paint the Roses to turn himself into a walking Magicam filter.
“Anyways, let’s take a selfie together!” Cater pulled Ace in by the shoulder , and he saw on the screen of his senior’s phone that he was now looking all vibrant and glittery as well. Great.
Cater lifted his phone up at a higher angle and took a few quick shots, then waved goodbye to Ace as he sauntered off to his next target.
He waited until Cater couldn’t see him anymore, then entered the kitchen, smoothly swiping a glass cup off the counter and opening the refrigerator.
“Ace,” came a voice behind him. He almost dropped his glass in surprise.
Looming behind him was Trey, smiling just like the kind senior he is… or so Ace wished because Trey’s smile was all sorts of passive aggressive scary he couldn’t describe with words.
“We can’t have you taking the iced tea, now,” he said. “It’s for the unbirthday party tomorrow.”
Ace opened his mouth, thinking up an excuse to worm himself out of this situation, when a sudden knocking on the door interrupted them.
“ Chevalier des Roses, Monsieur Heart , got a minute?”
Rook stood by the door, lightly shaking the three vials of translucent red liquids in his hands with a smile.
“Are those the antidotes?” Ace asked.
“ Oui ,” he said, handing them over to Ace and Trey. “Since the potion was a incorrectly-made version of the second years’ assignment, we were able to pinpoint the ingredients rather easily, and devising an antidote after that was merely a piece of cake!”
“There is a catch, though,” he added. “All the people with their signature spells switched must drink the antidote for it to take effect.”
✧✦✧
“Hi, Ace and Trey! Why are you two standing here?” Cater walked over to greet them, stopping in his steps when he saw what they were holding.
“What are those?” he pointed at the vials.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Trey with a harmless grin. “Just some antidotes that Rook made for us to swap our magics back.”
“Antidote, you say…” Cater’s smile faltered a little, and he turned away from them.
“I just remembered that I had something to do. See you guys at lunch!”
As he finished saying that, Cater ran off in a speed faster than Ace had ever thought his senior could run.
“That was definitely an excuse,” said Ace, voice heightened. “He’s running away!”
“I’ll chase after him,” said Trey hastily. “Ace, go find Riddle.”
Ace widened his eyes. “Wait, Trey, are you telling me to deal with the Teapot Tyrant alone-” -and he’s gone.
He really did not like this turn of events.
But, at least it wasn’t hard to figure out where Riddle might be.
As expected, when Ace jogged to the tea garden, he found Riddle walking around the tables, tugging lightly at the corners of the tablecloths. He glanced up as Ace approached, frowning when he saw the vial of antidote.
“Ace, what in the Great Seven is that red liquid you’re holding?” he asked.
“The antidote to whatever potion that made your spells swap,” he said.
“The antidote, huh…” Riddle narrowed his eyes. “Sorry, can it wait until after the unbirthday party tomorrow?”
What.
“Cater’s signature spell is really useful for keeping everyone in order,” explained Riddle. “and the students in our dorm have been more restless than usual recently.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
He slipped pass Ace and headed for the entrance of the maze, leaving Ace standing where he was, stunned.
Cater ran off immediately when they told him about the antidote, and now their housewarden is doing the same. Was it really so alluring to have someone else’s signature spell? Ace didn’t understand. Not that he’d know, since he didn’t even have a signature spell of his own.
What he did know was that things would only get more out of hand if they didn't switch their spells back immediately. As much as Ace didn’t like playing by the rules, having the dorm thrown into chaos isn't something that he'd particularly like to see.
He turned around and chased after Riddle, grabbing him by his arm to keep him from leaving. Oddly enough, Riddle only let his arm drop and didn’t fight against him.
“Ace, what do you think you’re doing?” he asked, voice sounding strained.
“Housewarden,” he started, “using someone else's signature spell to have everyone under surveillance is a really terrible way to keep things in order.”
Riddle muttered something that Ace couldn't hear. Then, he slipped from his hold and fell to the ground.
“H-Housewarden Riddle?” Ace stammered, voice raising from uncertainty to panic. “This better not be your idea of a joke!”
Was it because of what he said? Ace didn't think he said anything wrong, though.
He squatted down and shook Riddle’s shoulders. “Hey, say something if you can hear me!”
Riddle frowned, and gradually, he opened his eyes, lifting his hand to press against his temples. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I felt quite exhausted all of a sudden. I must have overexerted myself today.”
Ace looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps, to see Trey hurrying over with Cater following behind him. “Ace!” he yelled. “Is everything alright? Why is Riddle on the ground?”
“I’m… guessing it’s probably Split Card,” said Riddle slowly. “It’s been taxing on my body more than I expected.”
“Geez, Riddle, you can’t overuse Split Card like that!” scolded Cater. “It may not be the most difficult signature spell in the world, but it does require a lot of stamina to upkeep.”
“Sorry.” Riddle said, eyes closing again. “Maybe we should switch back after all.”
“We should,” agreed Cater. “I’m beginning to miss my fellow Cay-Cays.”
“By the way, Cater,” asked Ace, “why are you collared, and why is Trey's hair red?”
“About that…”
Cater laughed helplessly, and Trey face-palmed.
“I'll fix everything when I get my spell back,” he grumbled.
They handed Riddle and Cater the antidote, and Ace can’t help but say a “thanks goodness” under his breath.
“Yeah,” said Trey, hearing what he said. “Everything’ll go back to normal now.”
No, I was actually talking about how I was seconds away from spewing some goody two-shoes talk before the housewarden fainted, thought Ace.
But he supposed that he, too, was glad that it all ended.
✧✦✧
“Ace,” said Riddle. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed that some of the iced tea in the fridge went missing.”
For the umpteenth time, Ace was brought to kneel in front of Riddle in the Heartslabyul court.
“But I didn’t drink anything!” he retorted, heart beating so quickly it was close to leaping out of his chest. “Trey should be able to prove it to you.”
“Oh, we weren’t talking about this morning,” said Trey. “We were talking about what happened an hour ago, just before dinner.”
Ace’s jaws dropped. “H-how did you know?” he stammered. “I thought you were at the showers then. And Cater was in his room. And Riddle was at the library. Unless…”
“One of my clones saw you,” said Trey with a smirk.
Ace stared at his senior. What did he mean, one of his clones?
“Face your punishment, Ace,” said Riddle. He nodded at Cater. “Do it.”
Cater grinned and pointed his magical pen at Ace, and Ace's mind went blank. Did the antidote not work somehow, or was this a nightmare of his?
“Off With Your Head!” shouted Cater. Ace shut his eyes tightly, waiting for icy metal to snap uncomfortably around his neck.
And…
Nothing happened.
Hesitantly he looked up, to find his three seniors laughing at him.
“We got you good, ahaha!” Cater laughed as he slapped his knees.
“What, did you actually think that was real?” Trey was laughing so hard he looked like he had difficulty catching his breath.
“We’ll let you off the hook for today, after everything that happened,” said Riddle with a smirk. “But that was quite entertaining, Ace. Thank you.”
Ace stared at them, eyes wide and still kneeling on the ground.
“No seriously, that’s not funny at all,” he shouted. “Housewarden, do you hear me? Hey, stop laughing!”