Morgaine Witt, Wolfshaw’s Charms teacher and Head of Findel house, had her 50th birthday a few months ago. One gift was a necklace – the four emeralds, however, are possessed with four fae – and not of the slap-happy Tinkerbell variety, either. The main stone belonged to Carman, a dark goddess. She was banished years ago, along with her three sons – Calma, Olmac and Dubh. Carman has been feeding off Morgaine’s power to unleash herself and her sons – and now she has, possessing Morgaine in the process.

Her sons possessed three of the teachers – James, the Headmaster, Trent, Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and Keith, the Herbology teacher. The other teachers were captured and placed inside books, forced to live out the stories inside their pages.

Because Carman is a very powerful goddess, the school immediately began to change – a defence mechanism the founders built into the school in case it was ever taken over by Dark wizards. It has become much more dangerous at Wolfshaw – the students are now being abducted in pairs and groups and pulled into walls. From there they have to find their way through the fae’s maze, where they’ve been transported to.

Magical hybrids (such as Veela and dwarf) are able to see these faeries. The fae will want to get them on their side, and seduce other students into becoming changelings. These are unseelie court faeries - they're tricky, with varying levels of evil, unpredictable, and they love to prey on human vices.

Darkness descends over the school – no one can leave the grounds and no one can enter them. The Australian government knows something bad is happening at Wolfshaw, but their spells and charms have no effect on the Darkness whatsoever. All the families of those at the school, and the government, just have to wait and hope everybody comes out alive and unharmed.

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Carman and her sons took over the school during one dinner. The students panicked as the Dark faes divided them up – some were sent to the maze while others were left in the manor. Many students were injured in this process and teachers disappeared, leaving the students leaderless.

Tuesday Fraser, the school’s Healer, rushed to the infirmary with a badly injured first-year, leaving some Healing knowledge to a Balker named Kate Harper. Once at the infirmary, however, Tuesday met Dubh, who toyed with her. Calma joined them and took Tuesday, leaving the small first-year bleeding on the ground. A bit later, some students found the girl and tried to save her. Unfortunately, they weren’t successful.

This was not the last tragedy to befall Wolfshaw. Katie Robinson, the Headmaster’s daughter, was attacked and kidnapped by the fae who possessed her father. He locked her in his office where he mentally abused her.

The fae wreaked havoc around the school. Dubh was looking for a plaything he could torment, Olc did not care for any cause except the taming and destruction of his host and host’s daughter and Cal … Cal did his mother’s bidding and amused himself by making Trent, his host, yell at him.

The students in the maze were getting sick and dehydrated. Ali Thompson was close to passing out when she suddenly heard Kate Harper’s voice, seeming to come from nowhere. Kate and Ali found they were able to communicate through all the anti-fae amulets Kate had on her. She sent the rest of the Resistance (what the students left called themselves) off to gather more amulets and things that hurt the fae, while she worked on breaking through the barrier between the maze and the manor.

Damien Groper, one third of the “leaders” of the Resistance, went to James Robinson’s office to gather iron. Olc crept up behind him and knocked him out, dragging him into the room with Katie and locking him in. Regina Randall, another “leader”, disappeared a few days before. Ciaran Ranier, who was at the scene a few seconds after she disappeared, claims she was sucked into a wall. A stone wall. While not many believed him, they knew he wouldn’t attack her.

Devon Macallister and Ailsa McCormack, two fifth-years worried about their friends, took matters into their own hands, breaking into Morgaine/Carman’s office to see what they could find. Carman, having overheard their plans being made, interrupted them and murdered them both.

Four students went to seek out Dubh after first-year Cat Douglas broke his nose and enraged him. The idea was to destroy him before he could cause them more harm. Mei Li, Sam Warner, Ciaran Ranier and Ellie Harding were in the gallery when Dubh found them. He taunted them with words and then, when he had them terrified, selected Ellie as a plaything. He seduced her and took her away, proceeding to psychologically terrify her.

There didn’t seem to be much hope for the students. Carman had one goal: to break the students down, make them part of her court and therefore expand her empire. They seemed powerless to stop her. Students were withdrawing in on themselves, turning on each other, but they would help when needed and were protecting their friends as best as they could.

Two weeks after the ordeal started, Kate Harper found a book which detailed Carman’s demise in mythology. Her sons were killed and she was wrapped in iron chains. Her death was slow and painful but the host was left virtually unharmed; the students knew this would be the only way to rid their school of the fae but they weren’t sure how to do so.

Meanwhile, Apollonia Atreides fought her way out of the book she’d been enchanted into, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Finding herself alone in the library and unsure of what happened she went to the front doors, only to find them locked. In the foyer, however, she met Olc and proceeded to play a cat-and-mouse mind games with him.

The students knew that time was running out for them, though. Having to put a freezing charm on their classmates’ bodies to keep them from decomposing propelled them into action and a week after that they finally put their plans in motion.

The older students were to rescue those still trapped in the maze. Many of them are good fliers and were willing to venture into the maze. Sam Warner, Ciaran Ranier, Aidan Doherty, Ali Thompson, Kate Harper and Mei Li are all capable fliers and in pairs they took to the maze.

Once they went through the portal they mounted their brooms and used Sonorus to alert those still in the maze of what they were doing. Heidi Kelett, an injured fifth-year, stood guard on the Wolfshaw side of the portal, ready to help those that needed it through the rift.

It took a few hours for the students to find everyone and take them back to the portal but they finally accomplished it. Many of the students were ill, and all were very weak; while many streams ran through the maze and students were able to drink from these, there weren’t many things they could eat. Luckily there were rodents and the vines actually proved quite edible.

Meanwhile, Damien Groper and Katie Robinson fought their way out of Olc’s prison. Katie hid behind the door and Damien cast an illusion of her body lying still on the ground. When Olc came in and saw Damien trying to rouse her he walked over to where Damien was; Katie bolted out from her hiding place and ran behind Olc and out of the room. He turned, distracted, and Damien hit him with a stunning spell before joining Katie and sealing the room. They went downstairs to the Headquarters and received healing for their minor physical wounds.

Once all the students had been brought out of the maze older students tended those who needed immediate attention then sent all but five to the gallery, where they knew portraits would open and accept the students into the hidden chambers behind them. The five students all had their reasons for attending the next stage of their plan: Ali Thompson wanted revenge for her two best friends; Damien Groper, the mother hen and protector of the younger ones felt it was his duty; Ciaran Ranier, while he’d never admit it, had grown fond of some of the students and wanted to protect them – and he didn’t want to be stuck behind some portrait while Damien got an adventure; Kate wanted revenge and was very apt at iron transfigurations; the two seventh-years that joined them, Crystal Wells and Zachary Roberts did so because they knew more jinxes, spells and hexes than the fifth-years and knew that this would probably come in handy.

They proceeded to the kitchens and the other students went to the gallery. Now knowing the fae’s weaknesses they poisoned their food with salt; the house-elves said nothing and pretended they didn’t see what was going on. The students had timed it well and only a few minutes after they’d added the large amount of salt the fae were ready to eat. Immediately Carman and her sons were weakened; weakened but not defeated. Their court could feel what was happening and made themselves visible, attacking the students on their way to the gallery. Charms, hexes and jinxes flew through the air, only occasionally hitting their targets, and the student body managed to safely secure themselves in the hidden chambers.

Moving quickly, Damien, Kate, Ciaran, Crystal and Zach went from the kitchens to the staff room where the fae had been eating. Kate – with Crystal’s help – transfigured the lengths of rope they’d brought into iron chains and Ciaran and Zach transfigured fluffy pink handcuffs (no one would admit to owning them or where they came from) into iron manacles. No one’s totally sure how they managed it but with the fae so weak they put the manacles on Carman’s wrists and tied her sons in chains.

From here it was just a matter of time, the fae growing weaker and weaker. They fought back but the magic was all but useless. Finally, three and a half weeks after the Darkness descended on the school the students won and it was lifted. The fae died slowly and painfully but no student felt sorry for them. Their magic was reversed; the teachers released from their literary prisons, the stone walls relaxed and freed those trapped within. The portal closed up and the maze unlinked from the school; the vines shrivelled and died, and James, Trent, Keith and Morgaine found themselves back in their own bodies and minds.

The ordeal ended in late October and some students went home; most of the fifth and seventh years stayed on at the school, however, in preparation for their exams. For many, especially those who had lost friends, it was almost impossible but the staff and their families helped as much as possible. A memorial service for those who were lost was held on the lawns after the exams were finished and afterwards the students went home for their Christmas holidays.

James Robinson resigned from the position of Headmaster and Alista Wyman was appointed as the newly-renamed principal. Many students have left the school because of what happened, flying overseas to attend a different school for magical education or, in the rare cases, giving up magic altogether and simply staying home.

Now the new school year is beginning and many students wonder if they’ll ever be able to put the Darkness behind them. No matter how involved they were, however, every single student has changed.