Chatoyant College

Edie hated early morning. She wasn’t a morning person to begin with, but when she had to wake up excessively early like this the world always seemed colder and more hostile. Plus, once she started moving quickly, she started feeling really hungry, even though she normally wouldn’t be eating for another few hours. She pushed on anyway, but she quickly fell behind to the back of the group.

Before they reached the woods, Roe slowed down to keep pace with her. “Are you okay?”

Edie nodded. “Just cold, and tired, I guess. What about you? Are you worried?”

Note: Due to the busy-ness of the holiday season, I haven't been able to give the next chapter the focus it needs. Instead, have a holiday bonus story! This is in response to Francisco's request: "Why does she [Leila/Yedara] hang around with the theatre crowd (as opposed to any other group of faeries or humans)?"

Tuesday, December 2

There was a banging noise somewhere. At first, it seemed obvious that it was a helicopter far above. Then it was a car door slamming again and again. Then it was something falling down the stairs.

Finally, Edie woke up the rest of the way and realized it was someone knocking on the door, just as the knocking stopped and the door opened. She sat up in confusion, pushing her blankets half off and squinting at the door. Who would be knocking at this hour? It wasn’t even light out. Or was it raining, and the clouds were what blocked the sun?

Edie zipped up her coat, grabbed her flashlight, and nodded to Corrie and Naomi. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Bundled up much?” Naomi teased as they left the dorm room.

“It’s cold out there!” Edie said. “I hate being cold. Doesn’t it bother you?”

Naomi shrugged. She was wearing a wool pea coat—it was probably warm, but not as much as Edie’s puffy down coat, and it didn’t have a hood. “I guess not.”

Dawn watched with mild interest as Roe flipped over a few of the cards and moved them around with the tip of one finger. One of them was the Eclipse card, but she didn’t immediately recognize any of the others—Minor Arcana, she decided, from what she could see of them upside-down. Then Roe abruptly gathered them up and pushed them back into the box. “I’d better not get any soup on them.”

Dawn, Rico, and Naomi had been sitting around in Dawn and Naomi’s room for nearly an hour, all working on different homework, when suddenly Naomi said loudly, “Damn, I’m starving.”

Dawn looked up, saw the clock, and groaned. “I didn’t even realize. But now I’m hungry too. We forgot to eat dinner.”

“How could you forget to eat dinner?” Rico asked.

Dawn poked him in the arm. “You didn’t eat either.”

He shrugged. “I’m always hungry. I didn’t realize.”

She shook her head. “The plan was to go get dinner after talking to Tom, but I guess we forgot.”

Dawn sighed and leaned into Rico as they headed back down toward campus. She didn’t know why talking to Tom stressed her out so much. She trusted him, at least up to a certain point, but he wasn’t like any other faeries that she talked to. Maybe it was because of his close connection to her family—it was like he’d known about her before she was even born, but he’d hidden himself from her. Maybe it was because he looked so human, and it made her nervous about her Sight.

Dawn scowled at Tom. She didn’t think he would lie to her, but then again, he had hidden things from her in the past, and he’d never made her any guarantee that he would tell her the truth. In fact, if he thought it would protect her, he probably would lie to her. But why would he think not knowing Ever would protect her? Was he just afraid of leading them to the court faeries again? He hadn’t been so nervous about it before. She tried to think of what Professor Lal had told them when asking them to contact Ever.

They went their separate ways after class, but managed to gather everyone else up to meet after they were done with their classes. When Corrie had returned to her room, Edie was awake, so she filled her in. When they met up in the hallway on the first floor of Gilkey, the group comprised not only Corrie, Edie, Dawn, and Roe, but Rico and also Dawn’s roommate Naomi.

“I told her everything and she wanted to come,” said Dawn. “I figured it would only be a good thing to have more people.”

Corrie swallowed. She wasn’t sure she liked where this was going at all. But they would be able to change it, right? Or at least be prepared for it. Roe had told them about visions before that had turned out to work differently when the actual event took place. So she bit her tongue and did not interrupt Roe with questions.

“We stopped before we got very close to the lights, though,” said Roe, and they all sighed with relief. “There was someone there I couldn’t see very well. Corrie, you spoke to her.”

“How do you know it was a her?” Corrie asked.