Wish Apon A Star

Nicole - Notes

I barely looked at James the next day. It made me feel horrible, but I couldn't. Every time we accidentally made eye contact, I broke it first. He had been right, last night, and that was the worst part. Instead, I avoided him, which only proved his point–I was a coward.

Annabelle walked with me later that night to the shop, seemingly blissfully unaware of anything. I knew she wasn't though; Annabelle always knew everything about everybody, and was clearly trying to distract me. It worked. I listened as she talked about absolutely nothing and everything at the same time, and I half forgot what had happened the night before.

Annabelle left me a street away from the building so we wouldn't be seen, and waved cheerfully as she headed back off towards the inn. I slipped into an alleyway to approach it from behind, and hopefully avoid security cameras. Of course, there would be some on the back of the building most likely, but if I could come from a different building, I could just drop onto the roof.

The building next to the shop was an office and was about a story taller. I checked for cameras–there was no way to know about any magical security measures without Annabelle, but it wasn't likely that there were any–and then started to climb. The building was brick, which was rough and scraped a bit at my hands, but I was used to it. The callouses over my hands protected me for the most part, even though some of them had been ripped off after the tower, and the gloves I was wearing helped.

Still, halfway up the building, I froze.

I clung to the side of the building, my breath coming in short gasps. Not now. I wasn't going to fall. I was fine. I forced myself to go higher. I'd been afraid before, sure, but never so often as this. Suddenly, I was scared to fall all the time, and the dreams didn't stop. They always involved falling, somehow, and I always woke up panicked. I never went to Leo. I didn't want to bother him, especially with everything else happening.

I started to climb again, slowly. I still had to get to the top, and then about a story down, so I could move over to the next building. It should have been easy, but my mind kept straying to last night, where I'd only been a story and a half up and fallen. Annabelle had done some sort of spell, but every so often my head spun and I felt nauseous again. I could have asked her to do something else, but I didn't want to bother her. I could deal with a little bit of nausea and a headache.

I finally pulled myself over the top, and lay on the roof for a moment, trying to compose myself. I felt like an idiot. This is what I was supposed to be good at, not the thing that caused me to end up hyperventilating on a roof. But I no longer felt good when I climbed–I just felt scared. And I didn't like it.

I started the descent climb, willing myself ot to freak out. I knew what I was doing, I was fine, everything was fine. If I could just make it to the roof, I'd be okay. At this point, it didn't even matter what I had to do inside. I just had to get there first, and that would be okay.

I made it–miraculously–to the roof. From there, I climbed down to the windowsill, where I perched as I picked the lock. It was an easy one, even for me, but most people didn't expect visitors through their third story windows. Especially in this part of Itari, which was mostly businesses and near a nicer home district. Thievery wasn't as big of a deal here.

I hopped over the windowsill and into the building. I was in a room filled with newspapers–an archive, I guessed, of all the papers they'd printed. Drawers were labeled with years, and a few editions were framed on the wall. I skimmed them, but it all seemed like regular news. There was no pattern, or anything linked to me or my family. Nothing I could see him taking interest in. For a lot of them, we would have still been back in Aeloni, and I probably wouldn't have even been thinking of being anywhere but there.