Tangled Legacies: A KOTLC and PJO Crossover Story

The House: Chapter Seven: Sophie's POV

We got off the bus at a bus stop at a corner by Farm Road 3.141 and started to walk.

"I don't understand," Maruca said. "It would be so much easier to have a way to get to every house at the raise of a crystal than to have a clunky public machine take you to a station miles from where you need to go and make you walk the rest of the way!"

"Most humans have personal cars, so bus stops are evenly dispersed around the city near the most public places." I explained.

Forty-five minutes and two miles later, we reached our house. It was a small house compared to the elvin estates, but it was a mansion by human standards. It was painted white, with a large porch on the front. From the porch roof, glimmering crystal wind chimes swayed in the breeze, seeming to create light paths. Almost like leaping crystals...

"They are," Wylie said, interrupting my musings. "The Council arranged inconspicuous emergency paths to different places. One goes straight to Eternalia, if we need to report to the Council. One goes to the Stone House, if we need to contact the Black Swan. One goes to Foxfire, so we can get to Elwin quickly or pick up assignments. and the others go to Havenfield and Everglen."

"Wow," I said, feeling guilty for not checking in with Team Valiant. I'd been busy trying to get Keefe to wake up, mostly by pelting him with Prattles and asking Ro to scream in his face. Nothing worked. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. "Well, let's check it out!" I said, trying to hide my worries about Keefe with fake cheerfulness. I could tell Fitz didn't buy it, but he headed inside without a word. I thought about how easy it would be to slip into a beam of light and go back to Havenfield. I could fly with Silveny and sit under Calla's Panakes tree and snuggle with Wynn and Luna.

We clambered upstairs with a lot of shouting. Tam "accidentally" pushed Wylie down the stairs backwards. Luckily, he was okay. I looked at the hallway lines with identical wooden doors. There was one thing that seemed out of place: the glittery name signs on the doors. Linh had obviously made them with each person in mind: Gold for me, green for Dex, teal for Fitz, purple for Biana, silver for Wylie, orange for Marella, blue for Maruca, yellow for Stina, black for Tam, and pink for herself.

I went into my room, and it dazzled me. The walls were a soft blue, and the floor was a white carpet with a pattern of flowers on it. I looked up, and the ceiling was a breathtaking view of the night sky. Shimmering silver constellations seemed to glow, giving me the impression that maybe this house was just a little more elvin than I thought: the stars were glowing! They cast a soft light around the room, illuminating all of the beautiful features of the room. The bed was a queen-size iron frame with a soft mattress covered with a teal bedspread.

There was a closet right beside the door I'd come through, and the door was a soft lily white. I opened it and was that it was bigger than it looked: it contained a wall-mounted bookshelf and a teal-painted wooden wardrobe. I opened the dresser to find it fully stocked with both human and elvin clothes: plain tunics and pants and soft leather boots right up against human t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. A Goode High School uniform hung next to empty jewelry hooks. I stepped out of the closet. I went through a door to find a study area with a huge mahogany desk. On it rested a sleek silver desktop computer.

"Do you like it?" A nervous voice asked from the doorway.

"Dex!" I exclaimed. "You made this?"

"Yeah, I looked at some human technology and it was super slow and clunky, so I made some improvements. You can contact all of us through our Imparters with it, and it has apps that I designed myself that are way better than human apps..." he fell silent as I threw my arms around him.

"It's perfect, Dex. Thank you." when I pulled away, Dex was grinning ear to ear. There wasn't a trace of red on his face. Ever since our disastrous kiss, it has been kind of -okay, a lot- awkward. But we were finally back to our normal, easy friendship.

"I made you another one, but it's what the humans call... Is it a laptop? It's for school." He explained. "I got you your school stuff... We all played a part in getting this house ready."

"Except me?" I asked. "Yeah... We decided to let you and Fitz be with Keefe. You're both really close to him." That made sense, but it also made me wonder what else I'd missed while I was in the Healing Center with Keefe and Fitz.

"Linh made the signs," I guessed. "You did all the tech stuff-" I

"And went through an excruciating shopping trip with Fitz and Biana to get school supplies and clothes at a place called Wall-mart! And then I needed some things for the technological stuff and we had to go to somewhere called Hobby Lobby." He shivered. "Me and Fitz were the only thing stopping Biana from buying us all pink, glittery unicorn notebooks." Dex said.

"Wal-Mart is pretty bad," I agreed.