Everyone's Out to Get Me

And If The Aquarium Breaks?

Something about a near death experience really reinvigorates your will to live! Take it from the girl who was apparently poisoned at nine years old.

Luckily for me, it turned me into a junior detective instead of a shut in.

And I'm in Alden's office again!

If you know me, you know I can't be here without accusing the man (...elf) of something. He's too innocent.

Maybe, not that innocent.

And if not serious accusations, it's for shits and giggles!

"How long until she finds out?"

"Until who finds out?" he asked, like a fool.

"Until Della-"

"I think," he cut me off abruptly—as suspicious enough as it is! "You have something to show me, right?"

Oh, the book. Darn, in my queer accusations I forgot about the silly, little, probably illegal book that was stuffed in my bag.

Average Tuesday.

I started rummaging in my bottomless backpack for the text. "What if the glass breaks? Not afraid of drowning?"

"The glass isn't going to break, there's-"

"-no reason to worry! Yeah, I know your lines but consider that—"

"Sophie," he cut me off. I'm getting use to the rudeness, it's okay. "I've been meaning to talk to you about-"

"I'll stop you right there." See! I told you I'm learning. Where better to be a rude bitch than to a rude bitch? "I'm trying very hard to avoid the implications of anything I accidentally heard in the last week, please help me out here. Alden I'm saying 'please'. You know shit is serious."

Alden looked at me like I was an escaped psych ward patient. "The human city fires," he said slowly, like the concept of being abandoned for a third time permanently fucked with my head.

I know there's a patch of information missing here but I haven't even told Dex the whole story there's no way I'm telling you weirdos first.

I mean, you sexy people!

"The situation will be under control soon," Alden was saying. The book in my lap said that was bullshit. "The human will put the fires out and everything will be back to normal."

TIME TO PULL OUT THE BIG GIRL WORDS! Alden won't know what fucking hit him.

"Not if it's Everblaze," I said, my ego inflating as we speak. "As stated in my glorious new source An Insider's Guide to Pyrokinetics, those fires—that I have proof of by the way so don't try to gaslight me—are literally Everblaze," I rattled off and a passed him the book.

The thing about Alden is he's determined to keep his dirty, political secrets. I need to get in this weird ass government, like, yesterday.

Or is it more of a monarchy?

"Hey, are the Councillors like your monarchs or what?" Alden stared at me like I just walked into prom all over again. "Oh, did you say something..?"

"I asked where you got this book," he said very seriously and intimidating-ly. "Sophie, these are banned. There's no possible way it was in the Foxfire library." As much as I love making Alden panic, that's a lot even for me.

More importantly—does this mean I have a criminal, secret admirer?

"I found it in my bag," I told him, "They marked off the page too—I thought it was the librarian..." Then my thoughts flashed back to the necklace I found with Keefe's gift.