a/n: ello been a month sorry! haha but i'll try and update more! thanks for reading!

Chapter 12

"And for homework, I would like for everyone to each try bottling a short gust of wind, preferably a room temperature but I'll allow slightly above as long as it's not too warm. Return the bottles tomorrow at the next class. Dismissed," Sir Conley told everyone, dropping the quill on his paper and falling back down onto his chair, heaving out a sigh as he watched the students swarm out of the room like a pack of flies.

Meanwhile, I was leaning over my own spiral papers and squinting at the collection of doodles I'd rummaged around Keefe's desk, collecting while Sir Conley's back was turned. Looking for some kind of message. Knowing him, he might try to send us a subtle message through one of his sketches, and I'd have to search his room at the cottage at The Waves of Solace, where he and Lord Cassius were living before he left...

"Miss Foster? Class is over, aren't you going to leave like the rest of your classmates?" I heard Sir Conley's voice from beside me.

Lifting my head, I brush strands of my blonde hair out of my eyes and nod briefly, sliding my hand over the papers, hearing them shuffle and fall into my bag.

I quickly close my bag and pick it up, getting to my feet clumsily. "Yeah, sorry. I just had some last minute, uh, notes to make," I lie, pulling my bag over my shoulder and holding out my leg to push the chair back into the desk.

Sir Conley nodded, and stepped aside for me to pass. "It's admirable that you're putting so much effort into studying. Keep it going, Miss Foster."

A twinge of sadness creeps into my guts at the word 'Foster.' I remember the countless times Keefe called me that.

Tears stung the back of my eyes but I wiped at them with my elbow, nodding vaguely at Sir Conley and trudging out the door sorrowfully, marching myself to the cafeteria.

Immediately, when I arrived at the table, it was as if everyone absorbed my mood.

"Sophie? What's wrong?" Biana was the first to speak up, her eyes clouding over with concern. She stood up, grabbing my bag from me and wrapping an arm around my back.

I lean into the support, feeling Biana pull back her arm, although she was so hasty, her hand accidentally brushed past my neck. "Thanks," I whisper, lowering myself onto the bench between her and Dex.

"Is everything okay, Sophie? Did something happen in class?" Fitz asked, furrowing his brows.

"Yeah," Dex chimed in, looking up at me from the invention he was fiddling with in his lap.

"Nothing happened, I just miss Keefe," I honestly confess, letting out a short sigh and raking my hand through my hair anxiously.

"The table doesn't feel the same without him," Linh softly said from across us.

Tam didn't say anything but even he seemed like he missed Keefe, despite their sort of rivalry thing going on.

Biana turned her head to me, raising an eyebrow as if to communicate with me about the whole Keefe calling ordeal that happened yesterday.

Frankly I don't really want to think about it even though what he said was probably really important to, well everything.

I darted my eyes back and forth as if to ask her if we should communicate telepathically.

Biana gave a very short nod, so subtle nobody would see it unless they were looking for it.

I closed my eyes briefly to focus, and slowly opened Biana's thoughts, only to be met with a frenzy of them. I could sense a couple of them filing to the back so I couldn't see, and as curious as I was to what she was trying to hide, I was respectful of the thoughts she didn't want to share with me and forced myself not to reach out and focus on them.

Instead, I kept my concentration on the front of her mind, where the main controlled thoughts were kept.

Sophie? You here? she thought.

Yeah, I transmit. I'm here. What did you want to tell me?

I heard Biana let out a tiny exhale from afar. Sophie, I'm worried. We do need to tell the Black Swan you know. The only reason I didn't yet was because you were still processing all of this, and I felt like you should be the first to know since you know he's supposed to kill you and all.

I nod shortly. I know Biana, and this is important shit I guess but—

But what, Sophie? Biana thought, her thought a bit more amplified now.

I could sense a swarm of thoughts in the background, and I strained not to hear them, like radio static they tuned out slowly.

Can we talk about this later? she thought, and I could detect a note of— slight fear? in her mental voice.

Shrugging, I pull my thread of consciousness out of her mind and blink my eyes open, grabbing my fork and stabbing the piece of stringy eggplant looking like thing on my plate.

a/n: mostly a filler chapter ugh but i hope yall liked it 3 some serious stuff is upcoming in the next chapters ;)