Children of the Stars

Chapter Twenty Six

Kai ended up being right. Chase's shadow was on a mission and it had found it's target—me. For two weeks after seeing him in the infirmary, I was plagued with horrific nightmares. Shapeless ones, the kind the dreamer can't remember when they wake up. Only one thing remained clear from the dream; a vision of Chase standing in a robe of roiling shadow while from behind him a pair of oily blue-black wings unfurled, blotting out the light and setting my mind on fire in pure terror. Every night, just as I woke up, that vision haunted me. Emma complained because I was screaming too much in my sleep, so I rarely saw her. If she wasn't in the dorm—which she rarely was after the nightmares got bad—she was in the infirmary with Kitch.

As for my unruly roommate, her fingers were slowly turning back to normal. For a whole week straight, she would have them stuck twice a day in a bowl of luke-warm water to expand the blood vessels in them, and twice a day she would either fight through the pain, or sleep through it depending on her doses of medicine. At the end of the second week, she was released. Her fingers were on the mend and the terrifying blackness had subsided to an off purple-red color. The blood was returning.

"Feeling better?" I asked as she returned to the dorm room on Friday evening, groaning as she plopped down on Emma's bed.

"Much! I won't have that damn nurse following me around." She smirked and flashed a glance up at me. "I'll just have to figure out how to deal with you and your incessant and annoying worrying all the time."

"Oh shush," I laughed, flicking her ear gently. "I can't help it! But seriously, how do you feel?"

Kitch huffed and glanced exasperatedly at me before she held up her hands. Her fingers were swollen but they were all there. "Ten fingers gradually healing. I can't really feel my pinky finger on my right hand, but other than that not too shabby."

"Good. Will you still be able to enjoy yourself at a dance?"

"That depends on the dance and what sort of idiocy that assholes normally try to pull at dances," her eyes took on a wary, confused shimmer. "Why?"

Oh this is a stupid idea, I told myself. She probably doesn't even remember.

***

It was one of the first days Kitch was back. Emma and Skylark were at their elective class after supper, and Isobel and Ember were down in Lux seeing it was a Saturday. It was only me with Kitch. I was frowning down at my Calculus homework—that stupid math course my mother wanted me to take—not understanding anything of the letters and numbers on the page, and the other Sagittarius had just had her round of painkillers for the upcoming revival of her fingers. So, in other words, she was as high as a kite and quite cheerful as she babbled on about something she saw in the woods when she was walking from Lux to here. She was very open in her adventures over the past month, most of which was spent in the woods, but only when she had had her morphine.

I was on the verge of falling asleep when Riley materialized through the wall with a screech. I was used to her frequent Ghosting visits, but it must have been Kitch's first time witnessing one. Her story broke off and a flash of the old Kitch burst through as the black haired girl jumped nearly six inches off the bed, spewing out a stream of curses that would have killed a nun. Riley glanced at her for a second, but the Gemini was very distracted.

"Why thank you." The Montana girl turned her head to me and practically squealed out her next words. "OHEMGEEIKEASKEDMETOTHEFORMAL!"

I stared at her blankly, my brain too fried from math to try to comprehend her incomprehensible squeal. "Come again?"

"Ike asked me to the formal!" It was less screechy this time, and was actually understandable.

"Oh! Congratulations! That's great!"