Lal

The questioning was over quickly, and Officer Mustafa escorted Edie into the hallway while he went off somewhere else, apparently trusting Professor Lal to keep an eye on her, or them to keep an eye on each other. The two of them waited for a couple of minutes in silence before Corrie and the female cop came out of the room. Corrie caught Edie’s eye and smiled. Edie smiled back.

The police were quite easy-going about having Edie and Professor Lal come along; in fact, the one female cop said that she was glad Corrie had a friend and a responsible adult to go with her. Riding in the back of the police car was uncomfortable, and a longer ride than Edie had expected—they must have been going back to the city, or to some other centralized police department, rather than just the West Ashburn police—but nothing stopped or stalled them.

When the nurse came in, he didn’t seem all that surprised to see Corrie awake, alert, and with no apparent signs of trauma. He brought a doctor to check her out, and the doctor pronounced her well, but was still reluctant to let her out of the hospital until Edie, Dawn, and Roe all promised to keep watch over her and Edie explained that she was Corrie’s roommate and would definitely be in the same room with her for the rest of the night.

A noise at the door made Edie nearly jump out of her seat. She turned around quickly, not letting go of Corrie’s hand. Had the doctors or nurses figured something out? She was slightly embarrassed by her first reaction, that it was Paul coming back to attack them again… but it was better than any of her ideas. Dawn was in the front of the group, followed by Rico, Roe, Professor Lal, and a redheaded woman she didn’t recognize, but who had to be on their side.

“Of course,” said Dawn quickly. She pushed the hospital gown aside so Professor Agnew could see her wound more easily. “But I don’t know if the doctor is going to come back…”

“Do not worry about that,” said Professor Lal, standing back to give them room. “Professor Rook will have dealt with him, and we will not see him again unless we need him.”

“You guys didn’t mess with his memory or something, did you?” Roe asked nervously.

“No,” said Professor Lal as Professor Agnew bent close to look at Dawn’s wound. “Why would you ask that?”

“We are her friends and we’re helping to care for her,” said Professor Rook quickly, walking toward the doctor. “Do not worry—no one has touched her wound. May we speak privately?”

The doctor looked baffled, and his knuckles were white as he clutched the clipboard, but he didn’t argue as Professor Rook led him away. “Rico, I think we had better go and return as quickly as possible,” Professor Lal said. “The sooner we can get Professor Agnew here, the easier this will be.”

Before anyone else came in to see Dawn, she heard running feet in the hallway—two sets of feet and one that sounded like strange scratching on the floor. She was just considering getting up and looking out when they stopped outside her door and Roe burst in. She grinned widely. “Oh good, they gave us the right room. I thought they were giving us the runaround since they didn’t want to tell us where you were at first.”

Corrie glanced at Edie, wondering what Professor Lal meant. Edie sighed and nodded. “She’s kind of… well, I guess she’s just really tired lately,” Edie said. “I think it took a lot out of her to be social with you guys yesterday.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” said Corrie.

“It’s okay,” Edie said. “I mean, she wanted to do it. But she went right back to her tree.”

“She did leave kind of abruptly,” said Dawn. “But I guess it makes sense that she would be tired in the winter.”

Professor Lal nodded. “Exactly. As the trees slow down and sleep, so will a dryad, whose life is tied to them.”

“But—” Corrie started, then paused, not entirely sure what she was going to say. It wasn’t as though she didn’t want to help. But she was scared—not so much for herself as for Edie, of course, but for herself as well. She didn’t want her parents to be upset by having their daughter kidnapped by faeries, or killed by them, and that was their overwhelming experience when it came to dealing with faeries. Or was it? Professor Lal and Leila both treated them fairly well, and Ever was their friend. There were also plenty of faeries Dawn had noticed on campus who didn’t seem to want to hurt anyone.

Dinner that evening was quieter than usual—Annie, Rico, and Duncan had all already gone home, as had a large percentage of the campus, judging by how uncrowded the dining hall was. Corrie didn’t mind, though. She wanted to hurry through dinner so they could get to the meeting with Professor Lal quickly.

Roe pushed away her bowl of soup, looking queasy. “Are you sure she didn’t say anything about what we’re going to meet about?” she asked for the fiftieth time.

Corrie shook her head. “She just said she wanted to discuss something with us.”