Duncan

By the time Dawn’s shift ended, not only was she starving, but she had hardly found any of the books. She managed to check on the titles of the ones she did remember in the library computer system, and found that four of them had been checked out (including The Practical Use of Magic, which was under her name, of course) and three were on the shelves. When she located the ones on the shelves, she realized she had no idea how to check them. Two were history books and one was an upper-level philosophy text.

Sunday, October 26

“But it doesn’t make sense!” Dawn complained, gesturing violently at her physics homework. She was sitting in Rico’s bed, curled up with her shoulders leaning against his chest. They were both looking at the textbook open on the mattress and the marked-up assignment she was doing her best not to wrinkle in her annoyance.

“Of course it does,” Rico said soothingly. He flipped a page in the textbook and pointed at a line of text. “See, the vector—”

Corrie spun around and looked up and down the stairs. Dawn, who had gotten a bit ahead of her, stopped as well. “Corrie? What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Edie?” Corrie said. She ran down the partial flight of stairs she’d just come up, looking for Edie on the lower floor. But why would she be there? “Edie?” she called anyway.

“What? What happened?” asked Naomi, confused.

“I don’t know,” Corrie heard Dawn reply from upstairs. “She’s not here anymore. Did any of you see her leave?”

Corrie did not pay much attention in her history class. She was distracted partly by the conversation she had had immediately before it, and partly by the professor himself. It wasn’t that he was interesting, or attractive, or any of those things. Not by himself, anyway. It was that they’d found a picture of him in an old yearbook, and he had looked exactly the same as he did now. That was almost as good as proof that he was a faerie.

“So what you’re saying,” Troy said slowly, “is that Edie’s not herself. Her reaction is based on faerie magic. So she probably won’t just come around to forgiving you.”

“Exactly,” said Dawn.

“In that case, shouldn’t you talk to one of the magic teachers about it? I mean, I only know Djanaea magic. I don’t think I can do anything to help you.”

“We already talked to Professor Lal,” Corrie explained. “She says she’ll keep an eye on Leila, but doesn’t think she’s much of a threat. Don’t you know anything about illusions that could help us?”

Dawn and her mom and aunt spent quite some time in Rico’s room, chatting with him and Duncan (until Duncan’s family arrived). To Dawn’s relief and pleasure, her mom seemed to like Rico well enough. She wished her dad was there too, but hopefully he would get a chance to meet Rico before the weekend was over. Her mom kept checking her phone to see if her dad had called, but whatever the business call had been, it was evidently long and important.

To Corrie's surprise, Duncan was the one who raised his hand. "Go ahead," she said to him.

He cleared his throat. "Do you really need me to be the treasurer?"

Corrie didn't see anything out of the window--it faced what was basically an open field until the walls and hedge bordering the campus stopped it, and in the dark, she couldn't even see any movement at all. So she was startled when, at one minute after eight, Darcy opened the door, bringing in a rush of sound with her. She was followed after a moment by Theresa and the end of the sound. Looking at the two of them, Corrie realized they were damp--there was clearly rain spattered on their coats and Darcy's hat, and Theresa's hair had drops shining in it.

When they returned to the dorm, Dawn smelled something familiar and tasty. It was coming from the kitchen in the common room. Someone was cooking popcorn. In fact, if that sound was right, they were shaking it out at that moment into a bowl, making the smell spread even faster. While the others walked toward the stairs, she stuck her head in the common room to see who was making the popcorn. It was Corrie. Just as Dawn was about to call to her, she looked up from the bowl. "Hi, Dawn!" she called, grinning. "Did you follow the smell?"

"I notice," Dawn said to Naomi, "that you do not actually have a fish dish in front of you."

Naomi wrinkled her nose. "The only option was that weird quiche. Even I can't handle that for the sake of grossing you out."

"I didn't notice it, but a fish quiche does sound pretty bizarre."

Rico nodded in agreement. "The only things that should be in quiche besides eggs and cheese are vegetables. I actually considered getting that quiche because I really love quiche, but I decided it wasn't worth the risk of horror."