The Forbidden Room

Vin Lucas stood ready for battle.
She held her trusted spray bottle in one hand, and in the other, a certain tempestuous fire sprite tucked safely inside a mason jar.
"Are you sure you're up for this?" she asked, her gaze fixed on the foe before them.
"Let me at 'em!" Brucifer cried, crackling with intensity.
Vin wavered.
She had promised her friend Gilly that she would water her plants while she was visiting home over the winter break.
It had seemed a simple request at the time, but Vin had forgotten who and what she was dealing with. Gilly was a delinquent-level water Conjurer, which in her case meant she could control water and water plants and animals. Her bedroom was filled with them, and unlike your common goldfish or potted fern, these underwater critters and creeping vines apparently had a vicious streak.
While feeding the fish had been easy enough-they couldn't leave their bowls, after all-the plants were far more difficult. Not only were some of them taller than Vin, but they were mobile, aggressively swaying their stalks and stems and shooting all manner of thorny tendrils at her.
"You'd think they didn't want to be watered," Vin panted, dodging the fronds of a particularly hostile monstera.
"Intruder," Brucifer said simply, and Vin could almost hear Araminta's encyclopedic knowledge of magic filling her head.
Magical flora are known to be territorial. Mages used to plant them outside their homes to ward off attack and alert the occupants of trespassers.
"I was invited!" Vin argued. She turned to the nearest plant, spritzing its leaves before they could throttle her. "I am a guest!"
Unsurprisingly, the water did not deter the plant's increasingly ferocious attacks.
"Is not listening," Brucifer observed.
"Okay, get ready," Vin said, unscrewing his jar.
Since water didn't work, it was time they tried something a little . . . hotter.
"Yes!" he said excitedly.
The instant the lid was off, Brucifer burst from the jar. He zoomed through the air, much like he had when they'd first met and he was trying to set Vin's bedroom on fire. But this time, everywhere he went, plants shriveled and vines recoiled. Vin swore even the flowers returned to their buds, the steadily encroaching plant life shrinking before his fiery threat.
It was dangerous but effective.
Expelling a great breath, Vin put down the spray bottle and lifted the watering can. The nearest plant trembled.
"Don't even think about it," she warned. Brucifer crackled nearby, and the quivering branches stilled.
Fifteen minutes later, Vin closed Gilly's door behind her, dirt smeared on her nose and leaves in her hair. She carried Brucifer in his jar once more as they made their way down the empty hall.
"I'm sure the others will be . . . easier," she said optimistically.
She was wrong.
Araminta Singh was a Caster who used her perfectionism and attention to detail to weave stunning illusions. While she was clean, organized, and always on top of things-you had to be, when you were a straight-A student who ran the underground homework trade and the school’s black market-her twin brother, Theo, was, well . . . not. He was funny and charismatic, and though his Conjurer magic was useful when it came to duplicating test answer keys, he wasn’t the best student.
And so, when the pair of them had left Vin their requests to handle over the break, the tasks had been just as different as they were.
In addition to her illicit extracurricular activities, Araminta also ran First Word Weekly, the Last Hope student newspaper. Vin had assumed there would be no issues over the break since there would be no students to read it, but apparently there were other concerns to attend to.
"I have to feed the typewriters?" Vin had asked skeptically the day her friends departed for home.
"You don't want them to starve, do you?" Gilly asked reasonably.
"They're enchanted," Araminta explained. "And if they don't have a story to break, they can get a little . . ."
"Hungry?" asked Gilly.
"Violent?" asked Theo, grinning.
Araminta considered. "Temperamental. But it's no big deal, you just need to give them something to chew on."
Vin did as instructed, slipping into the First Word Weekly offices on the second floor. The room was dark and deserted, but the instant she turned on the lights, the space filled with the sound of clacking typewriter keys.
Vin hastened forward, putting Brucifer on a table and taking up a roll of paper from a side cabinet. The sprite's attention fixed on the flammable fibers, and Vin was glad, suddenly, that she continued to carry him around the school inside his jar. Just in case.
She approached the nearest typewriter warily, and though it shot a spool of ribbon at her, typebars rattling menacingly, it eventually settled down when she placed the edge of the roll into the paper tray. When she reached for the knob to feed it through, the machine sprang to life once more, sucking the paper out of her hands and around the roller in the blink of an eye.
The keys started up again, and Vin leaned forward to read a rather melodramatic editorial about the typewriter's search for meaning-and paper-in this cruel, technology-obsessed world.
Shaking her head, Vin "fed" the rest of the typewriters and closed the door on the sound of typing keys and rustling paper.
Her third and final task for the day had come from Theo, and his request was as simple as it was ominous. Apparently, he'd lost one of Mrs. Allen's magically grown pomegranates somewhere inside his room and hadn't had a chance to properly search for it before the break. It had been missing for days, which was not unusual when it came to Theo. Because of his magic, he could replicate anything he'd seen, so his room was always overflowing with a random assortment of junk.
"Gross," Gilly had said as Theo hefted his suitcase and hurried after his sister.
"It'll be fine," he'd assured Vin, ignoring Gilly. "You just need to make sure you destroy all the seeds before the next full moon, or you'll need to hunt down what they become."
"I'll need to-hang on-" Vin had spluttered, but he was already gone.
Deciding she needed reinforcements, Vin headed out to the paddock behind the school. It took a bit of doing, but she managed to convince shy Charisma Delia's goat to follow her with a tug on its collar and pieces of granola bar.
Getting the animal inside was easier than expected. Last Hope was mostly deserted, save for a handful of older students who kept to themselves, plus a few teachers and staff members. The headmistress spent much of her time in her study with Winston, her butler and close confidant, while Mrs. Allen, the cook, was usually in the kitchen, which left the somewhat-erratic school nurse Marge and not-so-handyman Mr. Hart.
Luckily, there had been another huge snowfall the night before, which meant Mr. Hart was busy shoveling the walkway in front of the school, with Marge offering her brand of "help," which typically involved making things worse. Using her ability to accelerate time, she attempted to make the snow melt . . . but accidentally turned it into solid ice instead. Mr. Hart's magic allowed him to undo or reverse spells, so he was able to turn the ice back to snow-but not before he slipped and fell on it.
Vin watched from around the corner as Mr. Hart scrambled and Marge giggled, then hurried into the school when the coast was clear.
The goat fought her a bit on the stairs, but once they got inside Theo's room, its ears perked up. It sniffed out anything worth eating-and some things that should never be eaten-finding the brown and withered pomegranate and steadily chomping through the tough outer skin to the rotten seeds inside. The goat ate every last piece, leaving Theo's room far cleaner than it had been before Vin had arrived. Like a barnyard vacuum cleaner.
All in all, it had been a successful day. Feeling pleased, Vin went to bed knowing she could relax for the rest of the week.
Or so she thought.
She was eating breakfast alone a couple days later when Winston’s messenger, Hermes, the taxidermy toucan, arrived at her table with three letters clutched in his oversized beak.
Dear Vin,
I hope you're having a lovely holiday! I'm expecting a special package this week. It's nothing to be concerned about, but if the postman asks for a signature from Countess Tillybrook, I'm going to need you to put on your best Oxford accent and handle things for me. Do you have any tweed? If not, check my room.
Best wishes,
Araminta
To Vin,
How's it going? So, my bathtub needs stirring. Don't worry, the smell is totally normal, though you may want to cover your mouth. And eyes. But do not, under any circumstances, use a plastic spoon. It'll dissolve. Don't use metal either, the algae doesn't like it.
Thanks!
Gilly
Vin,
Look, I don't want to sugarcoat it-but if you don't help me out, our lives are at stake. Our social lives. I wagered Spencer that the foot-long icicle outside his dorm window would melt before we came back from break. You know how I feel about his "predictions." Anyway, I feel better about the ones on my weather app, and it's calling for nothing but frost and freezing temperatures into the new year, and let's just say the payout is more than I can afford. So, I'm gonna need you to either get your hands on a three-story-tall pole and whack it loose from the ground or chuck Brucifer out the window so he can make short work of it. Your call.
Cheers!
Theo
Vin looked around at the empty dining room and, beyond, the deserted halls and quiet parlor. Perhaps her friends truly were the most troublesome delinquents at a school specifically for delinquents . . .
Or maybe they just didn't want her to be lonely over the break.
Whatever it was, Vin was grateful. She smiled, finished off her breakfast, and went to fetch Brucifer.