Chatoyant College Book 9: Sundered

Chapter 118: Planning

Corrie gasped, staring at Ever, unable at first to think of anything to say. What was she doing here, being a prisoner of Feloc and Belara? Hadn't she been careful? The alarm hadn't even gone off.

"Ever!" cried Edie. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"How did they find out?" Corrie echoed her.

Ever pressed her lips together and stayed silent. Feloc laughed. "Stupid humans and human-loving faeries. Did you really think we had no idea what she was doing? No, we were just waiting to see what you would do."

His words echoed what he'd said just before Ever was brought out—he wanted to see what they would do. He was using them for entertainment, the way they'd once used the human musicians. Corrie bit her lip, not wanting to give him any more amusement. But when he got tired of them, would they all be killed? She would have to figure out some way to get out of this.

Professor Lal knew that they were trying to figure out what was going on with Siffyd or Sarah. But had they told her their plan to follow her back to wherever she went when she was done with work? Corrie couldn't remember. She was pretty sure they'd told the professor that Tom had said to find out who Siffyd's friends were, but they'd made the plan just that day. They couldn't have told her. When they didn't turn up, she would probably make the connection and come looking for them—but would she realize they were gone before Monday?

But Roe had been there when they were discussing the plan. She knew what they were doing. When they didn't come back to Gilkey, she would tell whatever magic professors she could what had happened. She would be coming. They just needed to stall for time.

Looking up at Feloc and Belara's laughing, gloating faces, she knew how she had to do that.

She gritted her teeth, then forced her features into a smile. "You are so smart," she said. "We completely underestimated you. We could never figure out whatever it was you were doing. Neither could Professor Lal."

Belara let out a shrieking laugh. Under cover of the noise, Naomi hissed to Corrie, "What are you doing?"

"Shh," Corrie whispered back, glaring at her. There was no time to explain. She turned back to the faerie rulers. "You outsmarted us so easily. How did you get Siffyd working at the library without putting her into the student system?"

"Oh, that was far too easy," said Belara with a negligent gesture. "You humans never think creatively. Siffyd just put in a name for herself before the schedules were made up. And she picked times when not too many humans would be there, so none of them would realize that they didn't know her from classes. Friday nights and Sunday mornings."

That explained how the books had appeared to be shelved during Dawn's shift. While Corrie was trying to formulate her next question, Dawn spoke up. "But what about during the week? I was on the phone with Emi once, and she said she had to go for a minute because Sarah interrupted her. But there's no other Sarah at the library, and she was definitely interrupting to keep me from asking questions about the book. Sarah wasn't there at that time, was she? Did you actually know I was going to ask that question?"

Corrie wasn't sure whether Dawn had picked up on her plan or was just asking because the faeries seemed to be answering their questions, but it was working. Belara looked even more superior. "Of course we knew you were going to ask that question. We planned for all contingencies, including ones you could never have thought of with your stupid human brain. Emi was the one in charge, so we put a geas on her to keep her from talking about those particular books—but a subtle one, so she wouldn't realize that she couldn't talk about them. She would just think she was being interrupted."

"That was really clever," said Corrie. She hoped there was more warmth in her voice now, because she was genuinely impressed. It was a subtle and clever geas—much more so than the one the faeries, presumably Mardalan, had put on Lorelei at the beginning of the year. "The book itself was clever, too. You gave us just enough information to get ourselves in trouble. How do you know so much about human magic?"

"Oh, you have your friend Derwen to thank for that," said Feloc, pointing at Ever. Her eyes widened and she shook her head—clearly she didn't know she'd been helpful. His grin only widened. "Don't you remember, Derwen dear, many years ago, we asked you about the magic the humans learned in their little classes? We knew they couldn't threaten us, but we wanted to know how they could be useful..."

Ever finally found her voice. "You've been planning this for that long?"

"Oh yes," Belara said.

"Longer," said Feloc.