Four
When she promised to do something, Lita liked to give it her all, whether it was turning the tide in a softball game or hand piping three dozen roses the night before a wedding while helping out at her foster mother's bakery. The problem was what to do when she was supposed to give two things everything she had. Schoolwork and the Quest were beginning to seem completely incompatible.
Recently, Ami had wondered out loud whether researching for the Quest was anything like developing a dissertation or at the very least, a senior thesis. Jayden had pulled his head out of a dusty book with a grunt and given her a very definitive – and grumpy – "no." She still wasn't sure whether he had been attempting to be reassuring or not.
With a sigh, Lita put her chin in her hands, gazing at her ivy plant in the windowsill. At this rate, she thought morosely, she would be on academic probation within the year. She missed the learning style in her unconventional high school, which was more individually-paced and where she had known, if not liked, all of her classmates.
Here, she had learned within the first month that one didn't ask questions in lecture – at least not when the lecture hall seated two hundred and not when your professor considered himself the nearest representative of a society with the motto "I am a Genius and Everyone Else is an Idiot (Except for Einstein, Who May Have Been Merely a Moron)." She was convinced that this society had two requirements: the first was to broadcast one's membership in it as often as possible, and the second was to act at all times as if a stick the length of the motto had been inserted up one's backside. On second thought, perhaps the two were one and the same.
Her roommate glanced over in concern as Lita flipped over on her back and heaved another sigh. "Is everything okay, Lita?"
"Yeah… I just didn't do so well on my economics midterm," she admitted.
"That's too bad. I heard a lot of people thought it was hard. But you have another midterm and a final, right?"
"I do, but the thing is… I spent a lot of time studying, but I still don't understand the material. I feel like even if I spent months studying, I wouldn't do well on the exams."
Lizzie nodded sympathetically. "Why don't you try going to office hours? Maybe they can go over your exam with you. My TA did, and he was really nice about it. Cute, too," she added with a wink.
Lita smiled back, feeling better already. She liked being proactive about things and having a plan of attack. "That's a good idea. Better than lying here sulking about it, anyway." She gathered up her things, headed over to the squat brick building, and rapped firmly on the closed door.
It was what she considered her second-to-last brave act of the afternoon – the last was managing to leave the building before she started crying. She turned off the campus's main artery as quickly as possible, trying to stem the flood of tears so people wouldn't stare. Overhead, the skies darkened and the ominous booms of thunder started accompanying her shaky footsteps, but she didn't notice. All she heard was the impatience in her TA's voice when he declared, "It's trivial," and refused to explain the problem to her.
When a forked branch of lightning reached down for her, ignoring the taller buildings, she couldn't see it with her tear-blurred eyes. All she saw was the derisive expression accompanying the words, "If you can't handle it, you should drop the class. You hotel school students shouldn't even be taking this course."
The harder she cried, the harder the raindrops fell, the louder the thunder roared, and the brighter the lightning flashed.
Mina shivered as another loud crash of thunder shook the house. 'Geez. I know we don't pay the university much rent, but you'd think they would at least try to keep us alive.'
Trying to counter the rapidly darkening sky, she pulled a sweatshirt on and moved the lamp closer. She managed to read two more lines before the lights flickered.
"Oh, no–" was as far as she got before she heard the warning beep and the house went dark. Surprisingly, it also became very noisy. She heard shrill complaints, doors slamming open, footsteps in the hallway, and exclamations of annoyance as people bumped into each other.
"What's going on?"
"A power outage. It must be the storm."
"Does anyone have a flashlight?"
"Ow! That was my foot!"
"How about the candles from the last speed dating event? Who has those?"
"Watch were you're going!"
"I can't help it; I can't see anything!"
Safely in her room, Mina pressed her face against the darkened window. It seemed like all the lights on their street and the next two blocks were out. She had grown up in a city and was used to living in urban environments. There was always enough ambient light that even if all the lights in her room were out, it was never completely dark. Being in a pitch-black area like this was unnerving to her.
Suddenly, a series of thuds, followed by a loud bang, silenced the commotion in the hallway – but only for a moment.
"What happened?"
"Did someone just fall down the stairs?"
"I don't know, I can't see anything!"
"Are you okay?"
Wild sobbing cut through the flurry of questions. Before she knew what was happening, Mina had her cell phone in one hand and a ball of golden light in the other. It felt pleasantly warm, but not hot. She blinked at it and closed her hand reflexively, which made it look as if her fist was being illuminated from within by a glowing ember.
'Okay, I have somehow become a human flashlight.' She allowed herself another two seconds of awe before following her usual course of "act now, ask questions later."
She kept her fist closed, since it looked less alarming that way, and opened the door. "All right everyone, calm down."
Mina wasn't sure if it was the light or her words that did it, but everyone in the hallway froze and stared at her. Even the crying paused.
"Did you find the flashlight?"
"Mina? Rachel fell on the stairs and hit her head on the way down. It's bleeding pretty badly; I think we should call for help," came a voice from downstairs.
She let out a breath. Thank goodness for Rita.
"How did you–?" a more perceptive person started asking.
"Never mind that. Call 911," she instructed, thrusting her cell phone at the questioner, and made her way to the stairs. "Everyone stay here; we don't want any more accidents."
When she got to the bottom, she saw Rita sitting on the floor and holding a kitchen towel against the girl's forehead.
As she sniffled, Mina sat on her other side and took her hand comfortingly. "It's going to be okay, Rach. The EMTs should be here soon."
"My ankle hurts, and my head – and why is it bleeding so much?"
She didn't really want to, but Mina made herself examine the wound more closely. Although it was bleeding profusely, it didn't look very deep.
"What is that?" Rita whispered to her, staring at the light.
"Ah, it's kind of like hand warmers, only with light instead of heat," she whispered back, tightening her fingers so they wouldn't notice she wasn't actually holding anything. In a louder voice, she said, "You'll be fine. Don't worry. It's just because there are a lot of small blood vessels under the skin right here." At least, she thought that was what Ami had been mumbling about last week. "Right, Rita?"
"I don't know – I study geology, not biology. That's rocks, not humans!" Rita hissed.
"Anyway, we need you stay awake until the ambulance gets here, all right? So keep talking to us." That was from watching television, so Mina felt more confident in saying it.
"I hate thunderstorms."
She sighed. Well, it was something.
Nevan was not having a good day – no, make that a good week. It was the time of year when his freshmen were fretting about midterm results or at the peak of their relationship crises or both. He was completely out of ideas for his term paper since the only myth he could keep his mind on was that of Selene and Endymion, and he was heartily sick of thinking about it. To top it all off, it looked like they were in for the worst storm of the season, which meant he couldn't escape to the rooftop lounge to do his work.
Their library sessions had settled into a predictable, if rather unfortunate, routine. Kenton came regularly but contributed about a fiftieth of the words he read to the conversation. Without a firm sense of what he should be looking for, Zane quickly became bored and went off on random tangents. He spent a lot of time in the medieval history section nursing his disappointed hopes of knights in shining armor and fighting dragons.
Nevan had the most to talk about with Jayden, but whenever anyone talked about the Quest as if it were serious business, he was Not Happy. And began ranting about how it should be impossible and they were on a wild goose chase. Darien unusually showed up when Rei did, with a pained expression and his med school applications.
For reasons he couldn't figure out, the girls insisted on sticking together, even when it was clear that they weren't working well together. Serena daydreamed, Lita worried about her homework, and Mina texted constantly. Rei spent a good amount of time reading relevant material, and almost as much time arguing with Jayden about the Meiji Restoration, dining hall food, cars, and well, everything, really. Although Nevan had to admit that he had enjoyed the cars conversation. So had Darien and Kent.
Ami spoke even less than Kent and appeared to be going through roughly twice the number of books as the rest of them, but without much success to show for it. He suspected, however, that by this point, she could recite the entire known life history of Luna and Artemis and all nine versions of the Selene and Endymion myth they had come across.
Squeaking footsteps in the hallway made him stick his head out the door. Before he could call out a greeting, Lita rushed by and disappeared into her room. He frowned – she looked more upset than getting caught in the rain warranted. Should he ask her if anything was wrong?
The sound of yet more footsteps caught his attention. He reached out just in time to stop Serena from tripping and falling flat on her face.
"Oops, thanks Nevan! Sorry, the floor's so slippery!" she exclaimed, smiling despite her near-accident.
He smiled wryly, having seen her face plant on dry, level ground more than once. "Yeah, you've got to be careful; people have been tracking in water all night from the storm."
They chatted for a few more minutes before Serena bid him a cheerful goodnight and walked over to knock on Lita and Lizzie's door.
'I hope Serena can cheer Lita up. Yeah, Serena can cheer anyone up. But I wonder what's wrong?' he thought to himself as he closed the door and sat down at his desk.
'She's upset because of her douche of a TA,' an unfamiliar female voice said.
Nevan jumped, nearly upsetting a mug of coffee all over his keyboard. He looked around quickly, but the room was empty. Cautiously, he opened his door, but found that the hallway was deserted. Same for the sidewalk below his window. Shrugging, he sat back down and turned up his music. Maybe it was someone from next door; the sentence, as well as being the answer to his question, could have been part of any normal, completely unrelated conversation taking place in the dorms.
'Ooh, I love this song,' said the voice again.
He muted the sound and listened closely for any movement coming from the rooms to his right and left. Nothing. He rubbed his ears vigorously.
'Stop freaking him out, Bellatrix.' This time the voice was male.
'"Bellatrix?"' he winced. Was he now imagining Harry Potter characters? Was he experiencing an episode of schizophrenia or psychosis? He really wished Mina hadn't made him take that abnormal psychology class with her last year.
'I can't help it, Rig. It's just been so long since we had anyone else to talk to.' The first speaker was back.
A new male spoke up. 'Hey, guess what, guys? The CEO of Sinclair Enterprises is resigning. I bet the company's stock will drop tomorrow!"
'Bee, shut up, no one else is interested in that crap,' the one he thought was called Rig said.
Nevan groaned and shut the lid of his laptop. It was overwork. That was it. He just needed a good night's sleep, and nothing like this would ever happen again. Inserting his earplugs, he turned out the lights, got into bed, and pulled the pillow tightly over his head for extra insurance. He wanted to solve the Quest – really, he did. But why did he have to go insane for it to happen?
The next morning, Nevan cautiously removed his earplugs. He had never been so relieved to hear nothing in his life – well, except that one time in high school that he'd invited Emma Nelson over and thought his parents had come home early.
Despite his inclination to write off last night's strange events as a result of too much caffeine combined with sleep deprivation, his mood was dark during class. He was jumpy and grouchy because he had spent half the night lying awake, expecting to hear more voices, and having to join the group at the library did not improve his mood.
"Do you know what happened at Mina's sorority house last night?"
He blinked at Rei. "No idea. Why? Is she all right?"
He wondered if he should tell Mina about last night. On the off chance that he wasn't imagining things, she was one of the most accepting people he knew. She could probably also recommend a good psychiatrist.
"She sent a text saying she wouldn't be able to make it today because there was an emergency last night," she explained.
Kenton lowered his newspaper briefly. "We thought you might know what happened since you seem close – and because you're part of Greek life, of course."
He shook his head. "I didn't hear anything, but I've been in class all day."
Kent nodded and redeployed his newspaper barrier.
"Hey, Kent, can I see that for a moment?" Nevan asked suddenly, noticing that Kenton was reading the Wall Street Journal.
Raising his eyebrows, Kent handed it over. In a rare effusive moment, he offered, "If you like, I also have the Financial Times. And The Economist."
"Oh, no – I'm good, thanks." Nevan's heart dropped into his stomach when he saw the headline: "SINCLAIR ENTERPRISE STOCK DROP AS CEO RESIGNS AMID EMBEZZLEMENT SCANDAL."
Maybe… maybe the rumors of the scandal had been going on for some time. He had probably seen the previous articles, never mind that he never read these sections of the newspaper, and they had worked their way into his subconscious somehow. Or maybe someone was playing a dirty trick on him and had hidden a tape recorder in his room. He wouldn't put it past his frat brothers, who loved pranks.
He glanced over at Zane, who was typing with one hand, texting with the other, and frowning down at an open book. "Z, you're good with electronics, aren't you?"
"Mm…I'm okay. My roommate Melvin is better though," he admitted. Then he narrowed his eyes. "RAM, processor, or hard drive, and have you tried restarting your computer?"
"Uh, it's not a computer problem…"
"Oh good. I really hate doing tech support."
Nevan asked, "So do you have time to take a look at something for me? Maybe right after we're done here?"
The blond considered. "Will there be food?"
Ami looked up from her notes. "You mean you won't go unless there's food?" she asked in a shocked voice.
Zane grinned. "Sure I would. I mean, I would go no matter what, but I like to know these things ahead of time. Do you want to come, too?"
"Oh – well, I wish I could, but I have a pre-med society meeting tonight. Uh, the real kind," she said, looking flustered.
"Shut down," Nevan mouthed when Ami looked away again. He was secretly relieved – not because he didn't like Ami, but because he didn't want to explain to two people that he was delusional.
Zane showed him the finger behind his laptop screen.
Darien stopped short when he entered the yard behind the orphanage. He knew that they had a shortage of young, male volunteers who liked playing sports with the boys, so he was surprised to see that the Saturday soccer game had started without him. He was even more surprised when he spotted the small figure with long, flying ponytails standing by the goal posts. The ball came flying towards her; when he saw her trip over a clump of dirt and land on the ball, preventing it from going through, he smiled.
"Nice save, Meatball Head," he called out.
"Darien? What are you doing here?"
When the kids swarmed him happily, he clapped a few shoulders here and there and slapped some hands. "I'm a volunteer; I've been coming for three years. But I've never seen you here before."
Serena smiled. "Oh, normally I come every first week of the month, but I went home for my mom's birthday last week."
"Serena's cool," Tom piped up, grinning. Darien could see the gap where the tooth he'd been trying to lose for the past week had finally fallen out. "She doesn't mind getting dirty like the other girls."
He could see the proof of that: there was mud streaked liberally on her oversized Apollo sweatshirt and grass stains on her jeans.
"Want to play?" she asked him.
"Yeah, Darien! You be striker on our team; Jamie got a stomachache and went inside to whine about it to Ms. Cassidy."
Later, on the long walk back to campus from Diana's House, they stopped for coffee. "I have to say, I was surprised to see you out there."
She tilted her head questioningly. "Four summers of soccer camp, buddy. I always played goalie."
"I mean… you're good with kids. Boys."
"I have a younger brother and a lot of baby cousins," Serena explained, sipping her hot chocolate.
"Some of the girls don't like to play with them because they find the kids scary. Especially the older boys."
"Here? Most of them are great. Well, I see why Scott has 'attitude problems,' but I might too if I experienced what he went through…"
"No, not just here. At some other orphanages, too." At her confused look, Darien elaborated, "I grew up in an orphanage. My parents died in a car accident when I was younger."
Her eyes grew wide, and she set down her cup. He was surprised to see how sad she looked for him. "I'm sorry, Darien. I didn't know that."
"I don't think any of the others do, except Rei." He smiled. "She's very discreet. But I don't mind."
"Maybe she thinks talking about it would make you sad," Serena pointed out quietly.
"Yes, I'm sure she thinks that too. In general, we don't talk about our childhoods very much." When they got up to leave, he asked, "So do you live close to school, then?"
"About a forty-minute drive. It's nice; I go home maybe once a month to see my family. My brother Sammy's still in high school, and if he doesn't have an away game, I get to spend some time with him."
"That's great. And you've lived here all your life?"
"I think my family's always been in this area."
On the walk home, she smiled so brightly that Darien didn't mind the bleak November sunshine and the chilly wind as much as he usually did.
In the empty auditorium where her orgo lecture would start in another fifteen minutes, Ami stared at the blank projector screen glumly. She wasn't sighing because it was 8 am on a Monday morning; she was sighing because she wasn't at the library. And why wasn't she at the library, where she had been spending every free minute for past few weeks?
Because they had been through all of the mythology books in the library – well, all the ones they could read. They had pooled their assorted knowledge of languages to cover the ones that weren't written in English. Rei could read Japanese, of course, and Darien and Zane were passably fluent in Spanish, the former more so than the latter. Due to his classical studies major, Nevan's Latin was excellent, and he had a fairly good grasp of Greek. Lately he had seemed a bit out of it, though.
Mina's French was a relic from high school, but she was fumbling her way through with a French-English dictionary and copious use of Google translate. Unfortunately, the state of Serena's Italian was not to be mentioned, and Lita's entire vocabulary seemed to consist of cooking-related nouns and verbs. Ami had also studied French in high school and was currently studying Spanish, which she had been told would be an asset in a medical career.
Kenton had taken German in high school and was currently studying Mandarin. The former came in handy when they made him read the original Kinder- und Hausmärchen – Grimm's fairy tales. The latter, he told them with a shrug, was useful in business. But many of the words used in the mythology were unfamiliar to him, not being part of standard business Mandarin.
Between the ten of them, Ami figured, they were really only missing the Nordic, Middle Eastern, and some of the Asian languages, which was disappointing but unavoidable. The problem was, they still hadn't been able to find the version of the tale of Selene and Endymion – Serenity and Endymion – that Trista had recounted.
So here she was, early as usual, with nothing better to do than brood in an empty lecture hall. She continued to do so, even when the clock hit the five minute mark and students began trickling in lethargically.
The sound of a backpack being dumped unceremoniously on the floor beside her jolted her out of her reverie. Ami looked up in surprise as Zane dropped into the seat beside her. She had never seen him there before, and the semester was more than half over.
"Good morning."
"If you say so," Zane grunted, looking as if he'd just rolled out of bed and put on the cleanest shirt he could find – which, of course, he had. He slouched in his seat and crossed his arms, giving the projector screen a baleful stare. "Why do you sit so close to the front, anyway?"
To her shock and horror, Ami opened her mouth and what came out was: "If you don't like it, you're welcome to move."
Zane swiveled to regard her with more interest than he'd ever shown in anything on the blackboard. "You know, I think this is the first time I've ever seen you grumpy. Usually you're so polite, even when you're on the verge of exploding."
"I have not been on the verge of exploding," she said indignantly. In hindsight, she would blame everything on their lack of progress, Jason's unending, skull-pounding bass, and Zane's refusal to follow proper morning etiquette. It was the only explanation for why she hadn't just turned red and buried her face in her notebook.
"Yes, you have. I can tell, and I don't blame you. Mina's my cousin, and I love her, but I would never want to work with her on a class project. She's never really gotten into the whole research thing, and she's rotten at languages. Did she tell you about the time she came into my Spanish class and accidentally told the teacher she was pregnant instead of embarrassed?"
As he snickered, Ami smiled shyly and said, "Well, it's an understandable mistake. And she's not that terrible, really."
"I know. Mina has her own special way of communicating with people, and she does it much better than any of the rest of us – just not in foreign languages. Her talent is waiting for people to do the research and come to her, and then she deploys them like MacArthur. You should have seen her planning diagrams for my parents' wedding anniversary. Anyway, what do you think of Professor Hardwell?" he asked, jerking his head in the general direction of the lectern.
"He's an excellent researcher–"
"Come on, he's a dead bore," Zane cut in.
"– but his teaching is rather uninspired," Ami admitted.
Looking more cheerful now that he knew she agreed with him, Zane eyed her notes and asked, "Do you come and take notes every lecture?"
"Of course. Don't you?" Belatedly, Ami realized her mistake. "Oh. That must be why I haven't seen you here before. Not even at the midterm."
"Oh, I showed up for the midterm. In fact, I sat right behind you so I could cheat off of you," he told her airily. He burst into laughter at her outraged look and said, "Just kidding. I sat in the back with Elena and Marie."
He turned around to point out a black-haired girl in a knit dress and tights and a blonde in a cashmere sweater who were sitting together near the back doors. "I sit with them when I come to class, but I usually don't bother since it's a total waste of time. I like to sleep in."
Before Ami had a chance to respond, the professor came puffing up to the front, and she turned to face the front properly. Zane spent the first half of class distracting her by scribbling comments on the edge of her paper speculating on what decade of music the professor preferred ("It has to be the sixties") and why the student two rows in front of them had the haircut he had ("Maybe his mother cut it in the dark with garden shears and her eyes closed"), and correcting one of the formulas on the screen a second before Ami herself realized the error. She attributed the delay to his distracting presence.
He appeared to fall asleep halfway through lecture. She tapped him tentatively on the shoulder with her pencil, and had to give up when even a firm shake couldn't rouse him. When the lights came on, Ami eyed him warily. "Zane? Wake up. Class is over," she said loudly.
He opened his eyes instantly, then stretched and yawned widely. "Oh, thanks."
"Why did you bother to come if you weren't going to listen?"
"I didn't come to listen," he said cheerfully, leading the way out of their aisle. "I came to find you." He pulled a battered slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.
Ami took it carefully. "This isn't normal paper," she remarked.
"Yeah, I noticed. It looks ancient. Do you think it's vellum?"
"Mm, maybe papyrus," she said absentmindedly, staring at the flourishing script that read: Mercury and Zoisite: University Archives.
"I figured this was the work pairing that Trista mentioned."
"How did you get this?"
For the first time, Ami saw an uneasy expression cross his face. He drew her away from the crowd of students flooding out of the lecture hall, into a more deserted hallway. Quietly, he said, "It got…delivered at the crack of dawn. By an owl."
"By a what?"
He shoved his hands into his pockets and glanced over his shoulder. "I don't really know what happened. We must have left the window open last night or something. One minute I was sound asleep, and the next minute Melvin – my roommate – has fallen out of bed and is freaking out about something flying in the room. It was a barn owl, I think. Melvin didn't find his glasses in time to take a look, since it just dropped this on my desk and flew out the window."
Ami bit her lip, glad that the message had come to him instead of her. She hoped all of these messages weren't going to be delivered via animals. Why couldn't plain old e-mail suffice? "We should tell the others about this. And I guess we should go to the archives?"
He nodded. "I'll let them know. I can't make it before the building closes today, but does three o'clock tomorrow work for you?"
It did, and they agreed to meet there. Before they parted ways, he said seriously, "Be careful, okay?"
She smiled at him. "You, too."
While he appeared to scoff at the notion that he needed any protection, Zane walked away, feeling pleased that he had finally gotten a smile out of her.
Kenton stopped in the hallway, glaring at the locked door. After ten minutes of turning out his pockets, he admitted defeat. It was three in the morning and the first time he had ever forgotten his keys. There was no one on-duty at the front desk between one and seven in the morning, and good luck finding a locksmith at this hour. He was tired, and while he was far from drunk, he had had more than his usual two beers that night.
Against his better judgment, he had gone with Darien and Jayden to a party being hosted by Mina's sorority, and they had run into Nevan and Zane there. Mina had brushed off his comment about Zane being underage by pointing out that he had a soda in his hand and that they knew what they were doing – her sorority had no intention of getting suspended for underage drinking, thank you very much. He had had no choice but to rejoin the others, feeling foolish, and watch her being hit on by a succession of guys throughout the night.
After Zane had gone back to his dorm for the night, the three of them had discovered exactly how bad Darien was at holding his alcohol. It wasn't that he got angry or was vomiting all over the place (which Kent observed happening to some of the other party attendees); he just seemed to completely lose the ability for sustaining independent movement.
None of them had wanted to retrieve Darien's keys from his pockets – by none, he meant himself and Jayden. It was a good thing that Nevan, who seemed completely unfazed at this turn of events – probably because he was used to dealing with such things – had been there to do it for them. After they had maneuvered Darien into his bed and left him snoring peacefully, Jayden and Nevan had called it a night and headed back to their respective dorms.
Kent sighed. Thanks to the Quest, he now had a number of people he could ask to take pity on him. But he didn't want to ask any of them. Darien was likely out cold for the night; he doubted even the ringing of his cell phone could wake him, and it looked like Darien's roommate Andrew would be spending the night with his girlfriend Rita. He could ask Nevan or Jayden if he could crash in their rooms for the night, but Charon and Miranda seemed so far away and he was someone who really liked creature comforts. Like sleeping in his own bed.
He glanced at his watch – it hadn't been that long since they had left. They probably hadn't gone too far. Nevan, being an RA, had a large single to himself and was probably the better bet. He was about to dial Nevan's number after one last, frustrated rattle of the doorknob when he noticed something odd: trickles of dull silvery liquid were running down the front of the door. Before his eyes, the entire doorknob – and with it, the locking mechanism – liquefied.
His jaw dropped as the door swung open. "I'm hallucinating. I must be. It must have been the spiked punch." They had spiked the punch, but he hadn't drunk any after that.
Dazedly, he walked into the apartment, spotting his keys on the kitchen counter. He turned to face the door again, opening and closing it a few times. Kent stood there, wondering if he dared to block it with a chair, collapse into his bed, and deal with it tomorrow. It wasn't like crime was a huge problem in this building, anyway.
He sighed. Of course he couldn't do that. But how was he going to explain to anyone why his doorknob was suddenly missing, and why there was a puddle of molten metal in his doorway?
Kent received his second shock of the night when, under his despairing gaze, the puddle twisted, leapt into the air, and reshaped itself into the doorknob and lock again. Without much conscious thought from him, his hand reached out to test the doorknob. It felt solid beneath his touch, and the door clicked shut properly.
He rested his head against the cool wood and closed his eyes. "Well, Darien, I think I've one-upped your roses. And now I'm going to bed."
AN: I don't own Harry Potter, The Wall Street Journal, Grimm's fairy tales, or any other similar items. I've gone back to make very minor revisions to the first three chapters to fix grammatical errors and for consistency, but no major changes were made. Thanks for reading!
