Nightwalker

Forty-Six

Soren

Riordan somehow managed to make it to the rest of her classes.

I was growing increasingly concerned she wouldn't graduate next month. She'd been skipping so much lately, and I knew her grades were starting to slip. Thankfully, the Principal had given her a pardon after everything that happened with Martie. Unfortunately for me though, I had to go with her.

 I'd used an invisibility rune to stay hidden as class attendance would've flushed me out. It worked in a way that made me invisible within the classroom, but not out of it.

Riordan's pen twirled in her hand, as she analyzed the articles intently. Though she wasn't the only one, all her attention was on anything but her Math teacher, a near caricature of a snail.

She hadn't been herself in class. Not like before.

Back when she didn't even know I existed, I used to watch her--quietly, from the shadows. She was the scholarly kid; the one every teacher could rely on. Eyes always on the board, answers always on the tip of her tongue.

But on several occasions this year, she'd been asked a question and it stumped her. She wasn't studying as much and I partly felt guilty for not being able to help her.

Ever since being thrown into the wonders of the clairvoyant world, school has been the last thing on that girls' mind and frankly, I don't blame her.

The stack of articles she grabbed from the library were open on her desk, covering her Math notes. Conveniently, she'd chosen to sit at the back as opposed to her usual front seat, flipping through them carefully.

One article was about Amalia's disappearance and how the search hasn't stopped, headlined,

Mayor puts missing children at the top of the city's priorities.

Damn.

Talk about insensitive.

It read: The search for six-year-old, Amalia Linklater, the Mayor's youngest, began a day after Halloween night, extending across Solaris and its surrounding cities. Mayor Linklater issues a statement: "We are doing everyone within our power to find our daughter and the search will not cease until she is home safely."

From the amount of articles Riordan grabbed from the shelf, I could tell she was going through some meaningless ones.

One article was about a football party hosted by the mayor's son, another covered the mayor's wife funding expensive refurbishments for Cyrus Dean. The last was a cheerful write-up about a cupcake drive Amalia had organized with her mother--shortly before she went missing.

It seemed incredibly fruitless to mention that we should return these; she clutched onto them like the cupcake drive article would give her a clue.

As the lesson progresses, Riordan reaches into her bag, with a deep-set wrinkle on her forehead. She starts searching each pocket, increasingly frustrated.

I text her phone, and she takes it out of her hoodie pocket.

Soren: 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚝?

She glances at her phone, the glow painting her face in soft blue as her thumb lingers over her screen. The way her eyes flicked toward the front of the classroom told me she was either nervous about texting me, or nervous about being caught.

Riordan: 𝙸 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚊 𝚏𝚒𝚟𝚎-𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚛-𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚐𝚢 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚗 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙸 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝙸 𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝'𝚟𝚎 𝚕𝚎𝚏𝚝 𝚒𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚛𝚞𝚐𝚋𝚢 𝚋𝚊𝚐.