𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎 | 𝚊 𝙺𝚘𝚝𝙻𝙲 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 | 𝚋𝚢 𝙽𝚘𝚟𝚊

Chapter 7

"Marella," Sophie starts. "How does Cynthia know?"

Marella explains. "I went to Leto's office to talk to him about my sessions with Fintan. Aliza, CeCe, and Esmeray popped up in the conversation because we battle train together..." she groans and flops back on her chair. Linh pats her shoulder. "When we were done talking, I opened the door, and I found Cynthia behind it. Ae just, decomposed? I don't know. And then ran off." She mutters something under her breath. I hear little snake and a string of very colorful words.

"Decomposed?" Keefe's eyes widen.

"Cynthia's a Fluctuator. Ae can change aer density," Esmeray tells him.

"Oh, God. What do we do now?" I run my palms down my face and shift in my seat. Azure's handle digs into my shoulder under my white cape. Mr. Forkle decided that we should keep weapons on us at all times at Foxfire, "in case of emergency", so I have a very uncomfortable holster strapped to my upper back while CeCe has daggers and throwing stars hanging from a belt, carefully obscured by her long tunic. Esmeray also has a dagger on her, hidden in her chunky black boot.

CeCe twists one of her ringlets nervously. "Well, shit."

"There's really nothing we can do about it now except be careful of Cynthia," Maruca says. We nod. Forkle's words come back to me. Stay away from Cynthia Mothflower.

"I don't think we should worry about this too much, because what ca-" Fitz starts.

"We shouldn't worry about the Neverseen member currently across the cafeteria?" Stina says in a deadpan.

"For once, I agree with Stina," Dex admits. He doesn't look very happy about that.

"Me, too," Esmeray glares at Fitz. "Listen, pretty boy, the only thing keeping me from throwing something at you is my fear of detention and my desi parents."

"I don't think we should worry about this too much," Biana imitates Fitz perfectly. The accent is the icing on the cake. She shoves him... less than gently. "Honestly, Fitz, you sound like Dad."

"I can imagine Fitz saying 'no reason to worry,' to everything," Keefe jokes.

The poor guy didn't get to continue his thought, and these idiots just pounced on him. I laugh quietly to myself.

"GUYS!" Sophie and I shout. "He didn't finish, y'all, calm down," I say. Sophie rubs her temples.

"Does he really need to finish?" CeCe and Tam groan simultaneously.

"Yes," Sophie sounds exasperated.

"Fine, let him finish," Esmeray says reluctantly.

Fitz rolls his eyes. "I was saying that maybe we shouldn't worry about Cynthia because it's not like ae can do anything. There's too much security around Foxfire for that."

"See, he's got a point!" The idiots nod in defeat as Fitz grins at me.

Sophie glances at the clock. "Dammit, guys, we have fifteen minutes of lunch left. I wanted to talk about this before some people interrupted-"

"Come on, Foster," Keefe rests his head on her shoulder.

"Being cute does not give you my sympathy," she teases, smacking his head lightly.

"Hey! Not the hair!" 

"Anyway, we still don't know where Gisela went after what happened in Elysian, or why she needed Elysian the person to activate Keefe's abilities... only for Elysian the person to disappear too..."