Flora awoke to a bright light in her eyes. It took a few more moments for her mind to wake up along with the rest of her body.
What the…? Is it morning already? Wondered Flora groggily.
Oh no! Did I oversleep!? Riven! Flora yanked her eyelids open and sprung out of bed at the speed of light.
She shot a glance out the window, and found to her relief that it was still dark out. The source of the light was coming from a bronze reading lamp sitting on Blooms desk. On the desk sat an old, thick, dusty book; the title on the spine read 'Powerful Jinxes, Hexes, Spells, and Curses'. The book was being read by Bloom, who had circles under eyes and whose head was propped upon her arm.
"Hey Sweetie" Flora aimed at her friend "what are you doing up so early?"
"Hmmm?" Bloom mumbled "Oh, ummm…I'm just researching some spells that I need to test out. For a project, you know?"
Flora nodded, and proceeded to get dressed. She had overslept by only 10 minutes, which she found to her relief. However, she still would have to hurry to make it to Riven's spot by sunrise.
"Where are you headed off to?" Bloom questioned as Flora impatiently yanked on her sneakers.
"I'm just taking a hike and then gonna meet Riven to watch the sunrise." She replied.
Bloom looked slightly troubled, and she flipped through a few more pages of the book; she was concentrated on looking something up. Flora blamed this reaction on lack of sleep; after all, she had no idea how long Bloom had been up. Flora gave her friend one last glance as she headed out the door, and started heading into the forest.
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Riven had arrived before her this time, and Flora sat next to him on the log and plunged her feet into the quiet water. She spoke to him first.
"Hey, I'm sorry I kind of freaked out on you yesterday." She said, apologizing.
"What are you apologizing to me for? You didn't do anything wrong. That asshole Helia should be apologizing to you for what he did. Man I wish I could go at him, but he's always got Saladin trailing him around; I could never get him alone…." Riven trailed off, most likely cooking up a plan for luring Helia into a dark alley where Riven would be waiting with a baseball bat.
"Hey, I don't want him to get hurt." She warned. "I'm more hurt than angry at him right now, and I'll get over it soon enough. As long as I don't have to deal with his lies anymore, I'll be fine." She finished, looking up into the sky.
The orb had risen into the sky and rays of light zigzagged through the canopy of trees behind them. It reflected off the water's calm surface, shooting beams of light off into the woods. The sky was stained orange from the birth of the sunrise, while Flora and Riven stared at its beauty. A few moments passed as she admired nature's work.
She suddenly remembered Bloom's hushed conversation on her cell phone from the night before. She was supposed to meet someone at Red Fountain today at lunch.
Flora made a spur-of-the-moment decision: she was going to get to the bottom of all of this. It would mean going to Red Fountain and spying on Bloom, but Flora just couldn't take it anymore. This wasn't in her nature; but if Bloom was going to keep secrets from her (while breaking promises), then Flora was going to find them out the hard way. But how could she sneak into Red Fountain……..
She and Riven talked for another hour; all the while Flora calculated her plan for getting into Red Fountain. He was mainly lolling on about what a pain an upcoming assignment was going to be, so Flora wasn't missing much. When Riven stood up to signal the end of their meeting, Flora blurted out her cover story.
"Hey Riven? I…umm…Can you show me how to get into Red Fountain? You see, I was supposed to meet….ummm…Timmy today. He was going to show me how to work this new computer I got and he forgot to tell me how to get in. So I was wondering….would you mind showing me?" Flora prayed that he had bought her bluff.
Riven looked suspicious at first, but then shrugged and called back to her "follow me."
After traveling through a few miles of forest, they arrived at the base of the huge tower. Riven punched in a complex code into a little box near the intercom. What seemed like elevator doors opened up, and Riven gestured to Flora to step inside. Once the doors shut, they ascended into Red Fountain.
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It was a couple of hours until noon, so Flora had a few hours to kill. Riven had given her the directions to Timmy's dorm, and had left her standing there as he headed off down the hallway to their left.
Instead of going to Timmy's room, Flora went off to the library to waste a few hours until Bloom showed up. As she sat in one of the comfy velvet armchairs, she couldn't help but wonder:
What is Bloom hiding from me? Why is she breaking her promise? Is there something going on that I don't know about?