Prologue

           “Students, always remember and respect that everything around you is created by Gaia, the mother of all life, or Dyia, the Faerie of Magic,” Sir Ashik droned from the front of the class.

            When Acacia, Claris and Annice returned to Dyia’s School of Magic, they’d been expecting fearsome punishments for their long absence, but they’d only gotten a week of detention. And Sir Ashik, the teacher-in-charge had been very insistent on reminding everyone on the correct values to show Gaia and Dyia.

            It had been three days since Janessa, a Guardian, had sent them back to the school. Lifea and Bloome had sent them a letter yesterday, on the shadows outside Sunhilde. With their queen gone, the shadows were very easily vanquished, and Sunhilde was safe once more from any dark threat.

            But what had Acacia nervously looking back and forth around the class was this: If everyone and everything was created by Gaia and Dyia—the Goddess sisters who wouldn’t even harm a fly—who had created the Shadowness?