The Stars Said Hello [1]

C H A P T E R - 13

A highly embellished version Of the Great Cape Destruction spread through the school faster than the white fires in her old city, and Sophie knew Keefe had everything to do with it. Even her Mentors had heard about it.

Sir Conley joked that they'd have to work their way up to bottling fire in elementalism, so she wouldn't burn down the school. Lady Anwen told her in multispeciesial studies that she hadn't laughed so hard in 324 years. And Sir Faxon had to cancel his metaphysics lecture because he snorted lushberry juice all over his clothes.

Meredith had to give Sophie credit. She had guts. They had joked about it after weaselling the true story about it because Meredith knew what could happen to stories after they pass through Keefe.

Once again Sophie could feel everyone watching her as she wandered the halls—except this time they wanted to know her. Kids invited her to sit with them during lunch. They introduced themselves during orientation, between classes. They complimented her eyes. Dex told her the next week they were getting requests for brown-eye drops at Slurps and Burps. He was in the process of trying to create them.

Sophie couldn't believe it. Overnight she'd somehow become . . . popular.

Grady was relieved when she told him. The more she belonged at Foxfire, the harder it would be for Bronte to get her expelled. Meredith joked about the incident a lot and came after school to Havenfield to check on her, Grady,  Edaline and the animals. 

But she refused to take anything for granted. She still sat with Marella during lunch. Dex joined them when his detention was over, and Jensi slipped in a few days later—but he'd reached out to her on her first day, so he was allowed.

Plus, her sessions were incredibly challenging. Lady Galvin didn't fail her, but she made her work on the opposite side of the room, which turned out to be a wise decision. Fires and explosions were a regular occurrence. The problem was, Sophie didn't just have to learn, she had to unlearn a lifetime of human knowledge, where things like alkahest didn't exist. All the laws she'd learned in chemistry were wrong, and tripped her up.

She had the same problem with some of her other sessions. Levitating was supposed to be impossible. So was catching wind in jars and bottling rainbows. She constantly had to remind herself not to trust her instincts, because they were all wrong, and even when she tried her hardest, she still messed things up. 

Meredith came over to help her sometimes but it was still difficult to understand a lot of things.

Which was why her telepathy sessions became the highlight of her week. Every skill came effortlessly, and she was amazed at the things she could do with her mind. Tiergan taught her how to shield her brain from unwanted human thoughts—in case she was ever around humans again—and how to transmit her thoughts into someone else's mind. She even learned how to project mental images onto special paper—like a psychic photograph.

For the first time in her life, she didn't mind being a Telepath. With Meredith's help, she was able to excel in that.

Too bad she had to keep it secret. It would've been fun to shut Stina up whenever she teased Sophie about needing remedial studies. Stina still hadn't manifested a special ability, so it would kill her to know Sophie was a Telepath—being trained by the greatest telepathy Mentor ever. But she'd have to be patient. Stina would learn the truth eventually.

Plus, she had other problems. Biana avoided her like the plague, and Sophie had a strong suspicion she was keeping Fitz and trying to keep Meredith away from her.

 Two months had passed since she'd moved to Havenfield, and except for a couple waves across the hall, she hadn't seen or talked to him. She missed him—more than she wanted to admit.