Brighter Than the Stars

Annabelle - Over

People were supposed to be celebrating. M.C. was in the dungeons, awaiting trial, and so were most of those who had worked with him. The land they'd briefly occupied at Itari's shore was ours again, and Atala was working on placing Annalisa–nobody even considered attempting to place her mother on the throne,, at this point–or possibly someone else back on the throne. After all, Annalisa had given the country up in the first place. But it was over, mostly. Nobody seemed in the mood for celebration. Instead, there were just a lot of blank, empty gazes, staring off into space. Nicole had simply disappeared; Leo followed immediately after getting back from wrapping up Council work, with only a quick nod to me.

The numbness made me fidgety. I didn't like the sitting and waiting–it wasn't like we were waiting for anything. Hadn't this been what we'd been waiting for? Weren't we supposed to have cake–and maybe balloons? Instead, we all sat and looked blankly at one another, like someone else would provide an answer to whatever this was. Besides, it wasn't like any of us could really cook–except Leo, and he had disappeared after Nicole.

Madeline was deep in conversation with Owen–who frequented the palace now, supposedly to give information about what was going on in the cities, though I suspected it was more for Madeline herself. For one, neither of them paid us the slightest bit of attention–the same way Nicole and Leo acted together. James had told me to stop being so nosy and up in everyone's business, but that was the fun of it; what were you supposed to do, if you weren't in everyone else's business?

"I'm going to bed," James suddenly announced. This in itself was unlike James–especially since I was still up. We treated it more like a competition than anything. "See you in the morning, Belle. Start thinking about how to make Leo...a little less angry about it."

"Hard to do, considering Nicole's...I don't know actually. I haven't seen her."

I hadn't–not for nearly twenty-four hours. But I'd heard bits and pieces. "She's alright," James said. "She was crying, I think, but I don't know. I just sort of...walked away."

"You walked away?"

"Well, yeah. What was I supposed to do?"

"Boys. Or, really, just you. I know several who have more than the emotional intelligence and empathy of a grape, but that seems to exclude you–"

"I have more than the empathy of a grape–"

"Sure–"

"I do!" he protested. I raised an eyebrow, and he glared at me. "It's not like that line of boys you've dated are any better. Which one cheated on you again? Oh, that's right–Alex, yeah? Did he have more empathy than a grape?"

"Oh, shut up. We were over by that point, anyway. Not that excused it, but he was one boy. And maybe he's matured since then. You haven't." Alex was a bit of a sore point–and James knew it. Which was another reason he had the emotional maturity of a grape.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night. Just come up with something, and don't you dare tell Leo I walked away. You'll make it sound really awful, and it wasn't, she was with Mrs. Dayal, and then I'll be even worse off. I mean, tell the truth, but...sugarcoat it a bit. Otherwise, I don't know if he'll be exactly happy about the fact that they had to chase us across several towns, where we ended up kind of accidentally, by third-party association getting his girlfriend hurt and possibly scarred for life."

"Well, when you put it that way–"

"Don't. That's why you've got to do it–you'll be convincing. Also, try and convince Nicole. If you can convince Nicole, she can convince Leo." That, at least, was true–but Nicole was always less likely to forgive than Leo. "I won't do it well–I'll say something like that and he'll go on and on about how it was risky and unsafe and it's a miracle we're all still alive. The usual Leo stuff."