Corrie

“Keep holding him, Edie,” Corrie said. Dawn couldn’t completely see what they were doing, since there was practically a wall of water between them, and it was taking all her strength just to keep enough water flowing to keep Paul down and confused. She just hoped that they were going to get the knife away from Paul soon.

“Oh my god!” Corrie screamed. She tried to run toward Dawn, but she was still in trance, and she fell. She tried to yank herself out of trance, pulling her consciousness up hard, but when she tried to stand she was dizzy, and she knew she’d done it wrong. “Dawn!” she cried. Edie was screaming, too.

When Corrie started to bring herself into trance, she realized that she was glad to have her friends there, even if she had argued that they didn’t need to come. Not that she expected an attack, but the faeries were obviously up to something weird, and if something happened while she was still in trance, she could be helpless. She couldn’t move while still in trance, not unless she wanted to fall down again, but Dawn and Edie could easily keep an eye out for her. It wasn’t likely that she’d need them, but it was better to have them there anyway.

Corrie had to admit, if only to herself, that she was getting anxious as she pulled on warm clothing to go out to meet Paul. (Thankfully, it wasn’t too cold, and she’d be able to move her hands without mittens on.) She wasn’t really sure why. She knew Paul wasn’t going to hurt her. He was a really nice guy deep down, or they wouldn’t have dated in the first place. The only problem was that he’d gotten fixated on her. By now he might even have found a new girlfriend. The thought cheered her up slightly.

“So if you’re already done your homework, what are your plans for the rest of the day?” Roe asked Corrie.

“Well, I should probably head to the library for research on my history term paper. But that’s boring, and it’s not due until the end of finals week, anyway.” Corrie shrugged. “Actually, I emailed Paul. We’re going to meet up later tonight—well, as close as we can get—and I’m going to try to take that stupid curse off him.”

“Paul?” Roe said. “Your stalker?”

There were a few people in the hallway, but no Roe, so Corrie slipped past them to get to the end where Roe’s door was. She knocked, and it was answered quickly. “Corrie!” said Roe. “You’re back too?”

“Actually, I’ve been back for a few hours now,” Corrie said. “But it looks like right now is the time for everybody to show up.”

Roe leaned through the doorway, looked down the hall, and laughed. “I guess Edie and I just beat the rush. We met in the parking lot and walked up together.”

Sunday, November 30

Corrie arrived, late Sunday morning, to a quiet campus. After a busy—and early—Friday and Saturday working at the clothing store for their post-Thanksgiving sales, she’d decided to have a nice long sleep on Saturday night and then get back to school. She had too many things to do to stay at home.

Corrie and Etta talked for the rest of the afternoon, and by the time her grandmother called everyone for dinner, Corrie had her cousin at least half convinced to go to Chatoyant College in a few years—which was especially impressive since Etta hadn’t even been sure she wanted to go to college when they started talking. She was still shy and quiet, but so were some of Corrie’s best friends, and she still felt that she’d done a lot of good by making Etta more comfortable.

Corrie’s grandmother’s apartment was so crowded that she and her mother could barely squeeze inside. It was hot from the electric heat and the press of bodies. Dozens of smells mingled in the air—sweat, soap, perfume, food. Overlaying it all was the scent of something that had burnt, and the smoke hung in a haze near the ceiling. The lights were bright and there was so much chattering that she couldn’t even tell where half of it was coming from.

Corrie loved it.

As the four of them left the meeting with Professor Lal, Dawn was worried about getting her things together in time to meet her parents, but she was more worried about what the professor had told them. She didn’t really like any of it—not the idea that the court faeries had some unusual way to get things to the library, nor the fact that Mardalan was not the one who had created the book after all, and definitely not the fact that she and her friends were the human students with the most knowledge of faeries on the entire campus. It felt like it was her fault, and she hated it.