George had headed downstairs after Thea, but he had hesitated. He was less concerned with what everyone else wanted than he was with what Thea wanted. He had been about to tell her how he felt about her, and she had just cut him off. Normally, he would have just figured it was circumstances and that she had gotten distracted, but she was a legilimens-which meant that she knew what he was thinking. She had deliberately avoided the conversation, and he didn't know what to make of that.

And then, when he had headed back downstairs, she had passed him, clearly upset, on her way back upstairs. He turned toward everyone else still standing in the hallway. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I need to talk to Thea," said Jax, heading for the stairs.

George didn't move. He stood at the base of the stairs. "I'm not sure that's the best idea," he said softly.

Jax blinked at him. "Excuse me? Do mind telling me why it's a bad idea to go talk to my best friend?"

"Well, for one thing, she just ran out of here away from you," George pointed out. Of course, she had run away from him, too, so there was that. "Plus she just finished telling me how overprotective you are before you got here."

Jax narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

George sighed. "She has a plan to get those passes and break the curse, but she was afraid to say anything, because she didn't think that anyone would take her seriously. She named you in particular. She thinks that you'll try to protect her rather than listening to her and working with her to stop Liam and whoever is behind him."

Jax didn't have anything to say to that, and the other three were shifting uncomfortably hearing that she had said that.

"Maybe we should go in the kitchen," Hermione said softly. "Figure this out. Thea's obviously upset about the book, and someone needs to ask her about it. And then maybe she can tell us about her plan."

George was voted as the best person to talk to Thea since she had already confided in him earlier-although George privately disagreed. He was still bothered by her avoiding a conversation about their feelings for each other, but he wasn't going to bring it up right now-there were more important things to discuss.

When he got upstairs, the door to Thea's room was already open and she and Ginny were already talking. Maybe they should have just sent Ginny instead of him.

He knocked on the doorframe, and both Thea and Ginny looked over.

"I'll be downstairs," Ginny told them and headed out of the room.

Thea looked over at him from her place at the edge of the bed. "Why do I feel like you're the unlucky one who got stuck dealing with me?" She sighed. "I can't tell you anything about that book. Not here."

George set the book down on the dresser. "Then maybe you can tell me why you walked away when I was about to tell you how I felt about you. You read minds, so you had to have known-unless you're going to tell me that you didn't read it then." So much for not asking.

"I knew."

George shook his head. "Great, so you knew. Is there a particular reason why you didn't want me to tell you?"

"I don't know what you want me to tell you." Thea got to her feet. "I have spent the better part of my life alternatively preparing for and running from them." She nodded toward the book. "It's taking everything I have to face them again, and you want to tell me how you feel...talk to me about dating."

"I'm sorry." He felt like an idiot. Of course this was too much for her. How could it not be?

Thea shook her head. "It's okay. You just have really bad timing."

"Can we at least talk about this when this is all over?" George asked her. "We'll table the discussion for now and focus on all of this."

Thea nodded. "Sure."

George took a breath. "Great. Now we actually need to talk about this." He reached for the book.

"I still can't talk about it-not here."

"Okay," said George, "but we need to talk to everyone else about your plan."

"All right," Thea told him, and the two of them started for the steps. George wasn't in any hurry to talk to everyone, nor was he in a hurry to send her off to Elite. He did agree with her though-there might not be another option.