Shades of Starlight (Hiatus)

Chapter One

"Hey, Cass. Cass. Cass! EARTH TO CASS!" Keefe practically screamed in my ear. I whipped my head around and smacked him in the arm, my train of thought evaporating.

"You don't have to yell! What do you want?" I snapped, annoyed. But this was pretty normal. I tend to get lost in thought a lot, so I wasn't fazed.

"Uh, yes I did have to yell, Miss Space-Face," Keefe said as he grinned at me. "And I was trying to tell you that I talked to the new girl today."

"Sophie, right? What's she like?" I asked, anger forgotten. Keefe's face lit up like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

"Cute. I was ditching my Universe session and she was lost. Trying to find the Healing Center." He looked as if he was trying not to laugh.

"And... why was she going to the Healing Center?" I asked on cue.

"She-uh-exploded her serum in her Alchemy session," Keefe replied, trying to keep a straight face. I rolled my eyes.

"Keefe, brother, this story is as boring as your hair," I said completely unnecessarily, ignoring his injured "Hey!" He carefully styled his hair every day and was very proud of it.

"What are you trying not to laugh about?" I demanded. This conversation was going uncharacteristically slowly, for Keefe. He was usually like a hyperactive hyena hopped up on junk food and a lot of sugar. Oftentimes, he actually was, having raided the Foxfire Mentor's private cafeteria for desserts.

"Well, Sophie thought W.H.A.P, Wash Hands And Present, was whip," Keefe continued, snorting, "and the serum went ka-boom and destroyed Lady Galvin's cape." I gaped at him, completely shocked. That was next-level, pure insanity.

"She destroyed Galvin's cape?!" I gasped, amazed. Lady Galvin's cape was her pride and joy. I was pretty sure she was actually in love with it. Keefe cracked up.

"I know, right? Sophie got some of the serum on her, that's why she was looking for the Healing Center. And I, ever the gentleman, happened to run into her and took her myself." I laughed.

"Gentleman, of course. Did you get detention for ditching? I asked. Keefe grinned.

"Guess who got a pass from Elwin for being gentlemanly and helping a fellow student? He wiggled his eyebrows and pointed both thumbs at his chest. "This gentleman!" He declared. I pushed him jokingly, and he pretended to fall. This is what most of our interactions are like. Lots of laughs and jokes. It's fun, much more fun than talking to Mom and Father. I wish that-

"Watch out!" Keefe yelled a moment before I would have walked into the enormous Everglen gate. Caught off guard, I tripped and hit my head on it anyway. Keefe burst out laughing, and I straightened so fast I fell over backward. My brother made no effort to help me up as I stumbled to my feet, rubbing my head where I had hit it.

"Wow," Keefe said when he had finally composed himself. "That was quite the show." I glared at him.

"You could have helped me," I huffed. My brother looked at me with a huge smirk.

"Not in a million years," he said with a perfectly level voice. I wrinkled my nose at him and unlocked the gate. We walked up to the Vacker's mansion and knocked on one of the gigantic front doors. Fitz opened it just a few seconds later.

"Hey, guys," Fitz said to us. "BIANA, SOPHIE! KEEFE AND CASSIA ARE HERE!" He shouted up at the ceiling. I looked at him curiously, still rubbing my forehead.

"The new girl's hanging out too?" I asked. Fitz smiled.

"Yeah, she and I are friends. I'm the one that found her, actually." He informed us smugly. Keefe and my jaws dropped to the gold-inlaid floor.

"Dude, you went to the Forbidden Cities? That's awesome," Keefe exclaimed. I nodded.

"So she really was living with humans, huh?" I said, walking in with Keefe.

"Yep. I'm sure you've heard about the brown eyes. Don't stare." All elves had blue eyes. I'd never heard of any elves having brown eyes, ever, so the fact that the new girl had them was very interesting indeed.

"I've already met her," Keefe proclaimed loudly. "She needed the help of the great Keefe Sencen." Fitz raised his eyebrows as Biana and the new girl walked down the stairs into the entrance hall. Sophie kept her head down, staring at the floor. So she was shy. I don't blame her at all. Biana waved at me. I waved back, but the new girl didn't see me.

"Hi!" I beamed at Sophie. "You're Sophie, right?" She nodded, and I plowed on.

"I'm Cassia Sencen, and I hear you've already met my dashing, hair-obsessed brother, Keefe." Sophie giggled.

"It's true," Keefe interjected, smoothing his perfectly styled hair back. I turned back to Sophie, determined to make her feel welcome.

"So, how old are you, Sophie?" I asked, still smiling beatifically at her. She looked a bit more comfortable, at least I thought so.

"I'm almost thirteen," Sophie said quietly. I already knew this, of course, and I knew what Foxfire level she was in.

"Cool! Biana and I are thirteen, so are you also in Level Two?" I inquired, moving closer to her while the others watched.

"Yeah, she's in Two with us," Biana chimed in. Sophie gave me a small smile. Success.

"Awesome! We should hang out during P.E." I pressed.

"I think maybe I saw you there with Biana..." Sophie muttered. I could barely hear her.

"Well that's great, you should have gone up to us!" I kept on. She nodded again, going back to studying the floor. I've got to get this girl to open up, I thought. Her unique brown eyes were lovely, and I noticed that they were speckled with flecks of bright gold.

"This is boring," Keefe declared, throwing his hands up in the air. "Let's play base quest." Sophie looked at us, confused.

"But we've got five players, not four like usual," Biana pointed out.

"Well, since Sophie doesn't know how to play, she can watch a couple of times, and then we can switch back and forth who has her on their team," Keefe said. "I figured everything out while you girls were talking about dumb stuff." Fitz grinned.

"What's base quest?" Sophie asked Fitz.

"It's our favorite game," He told her. "There are two teams, and each chooses a base. One team quests first and tries to reach the other team's base. If the second team tags them before they get there, the second team wins, and if the first team touches the enemy base, they win. Sometimes we're allowed to use our special abilities. It's pretty simple, but you can watch if you want to see my amazing strategies.." Fitz explained.

"Okay, what teams?" I asked. "Boys against girls?"

"That's okay," Biana answered tentatively. "But only if they quest first since they're the ones with abilities." Keefe, an Empath, and Fitz, a Telepath, agreed to the terms with little resistance, and we spent the rest of the afternoon running around the grounds.

We were all having the time of our lives. Sophie was surprisingly good at base quest. She always seemed to know exactly where the other team was, and the team she was on almost always won. I was starting to wonder whether she really didn't have an ability.

Sophie Foster was certainly a mystery.

Above: Everglen, the Vacker estate.