LITMIR.BIZ

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of a fine card stock. The highlighters, unfortunately, were a lost cause.

      A soft rap sounded at the door. “Come in,” Laurel called, worried that she would scatter bits of paper everywhere if she tried to actually get up and open it.

      The door swung open and a small, blond head poked in. “Laurel?”

      Having given up trying to recognise people, Laurel simply nodded and waited for the stranger to introduce herself.

      The short, pixie-style haircut was followed by a bright smile that Laurel found herself automatically returning. It was a relief to see a smile directed at her. Dinner the evening before had been a complete disaster. Laurel had been summoned around seven to come down for the evening meal. She had hurried downstairs behind a faerie who had showed her the way to the dining hall – Laurel should have gotten a clue when she heard dining hall instead of cafeteria – in her sundress and bare feet, her hair still pulled back in a ponytail. The moment she entered the room Laurel realised she’d made a mistake. Everyone was dressed in button-down shirts and silk trousers, or floor-length skirts and dresses. It was practically a white-tie formal affair. Worse, she’d been pulled to the front of the room by Aurora to be welcomed back and presented to the Fall faeries. Hundreds of Fall faeries with no one better to look at than her.

       Note to self: Dress for dinner.

      But that was last night, and now here was a genuine smile, aimed at her.

      “Come on in,” Laurel said. She didn’t particularly care who this faerie was or why she was here, just that she looked friendly.

      And that she represented a reason for Laurel to take a break.

      “I’m Katya,” the faerie said.

      “Laurel,” she said automatically.

      “Well, of course I know that,” Katya said with a little laugh. “Everyone knows who you are.”

      Laurel looked self-consciously down at her lap.

      “I hope you’ve found the Academy to your liking,” Katya continued, sounding like the perfect hostess. “I know I am always a bit unsettled when I have to travel. I don’t sleep well,” Katya said, coming to sit beside her on the bed.

      Laurel avoided her eyes and made a noise of agreement without actually saying anything, wondering how far Katya could really have travelled within Avalon.

      In truth, Laurel hadn’t slept well. She hoped it was the new environment, as Katya had suggested. But she’d been ripped awake several times by nightmares, and not just the usual ones of trolls, guns pointed at Tamani, pointing a gun at Barnes, or icy waves closing in over her head. Last night it wasn’t her running from Barnes, her feet in slow motion; it was her parents, David, Chelsea, Shar, and Tamani.

      Laurel had risen from her bed and walked to the window, pressed her forehead against the cool glass, and looked down at the twinkling lights scattered throughout the darkness that spread below her. It seemed so contradictory, coming to Avalon to learn how to protect herself and her loved ones, and in so doing, leaving them vulnerable. Though if the trolls were hunting her, maybe her family was safer when she wasn’t around. The whole situation was out of her control, out of her very knowledge. She hated feeling helpless – useless.

      “What are you doing?” Katya asked, pulling Laurel from her dreary thoughts.

      “Making note cards.”

      “Note cards?”

      “Um, studying tools I use back at ho—in the human world,” Laurel said.

      Katya picked up one of the homemade cards. “Are they just these small pieces of carding or is there something else I’m not seeing?”

      “No. Just that. Pretty simple.”

      “Then why are you doing it yourself?”

      “Uh?” Laurel shook her head, then shrugged. “I needed note cards?”

      Katya’s eyes were wide and innocently questioning. “Aren’t you supposed to study like mad while you’re here? That’s what Yeardley told me.”

      “Yes, but note cards will help me study better,” Laurel insisted. “It’s worth the time to make them.”

      “That’s not what I mean.” Katya laughed then walked over to the silver bell Aurora had pointed out yesterday and rang it. Its clear peal rolled around the room for a few seconds, leaving the air feeling almost alive.

      “Wow,” Laurel said, earning a puzzled look from Katya.

      A few seconds later a middle-aged faerie woman appeared in the doorway. Katya snatched the scissors out of Laurel’s hand and gathered up the pile of card stock. “We need these all to be cut into rectangles this size,” she said, handing over one of Laurel’s freshly cut cards. “And this is of utmost importance, so it needs to take priority over whatever else you were doing.”

      “Of course,” the woman said with a slight curtsy, as if she were speaking to a queen and not a young faerie half her age – maybe less. “Would you like me to do them here so you can have them as they are completed, or take them elsewhere and return them when the entire task is done?”

      Katya looked over at Laurel and shrugged. “It’s all right with me if she stays here; she has a point about getting them to us as soon as they’re cut.”

      “That’s fine,” Laurel muttered, uncomfortable asking a grown woman to perform such a menial task.

      “You can sit there,” Katya said, pointing to Laurel’s long window seat. “The light is good.”

      The woman simply nodded, took the card stock to the window, and immediately set about cutting them into crisp, straight rectangles.

      Katya settled herself on the bed beside Laurel. “Now show me what you do with these note cards and I’ll see how I can assist you.”

      “I can cut my own cards,” Laurel whispered.

      “Well, certainly, but there are far better uses of your time.”

      “I imagine there are far better uses of her time too,” Laurel retorted, flicking her chin in the woman’s direction.

      Katya looked up and stared candidly. “Her? I shouldn’t think so. She’s just a Spring faerie.”

      Indignation built up in Laurel’s chest. “What do you mean, just a Spring faerie? She’s still a person, she has feelings.”

      Katya looked very confused. “I never said she didn’t.

      

      But this is her job.”

      “To cut my note cards?”

      “To do whatever duties the Fall faeries have need of. Look at it this way,” Katya continued, still in that bright, casual voice, “we probably saved her from sitting around just waiting for one of the other Falls to need something. Now come on, or we’ll lose all the time she’s saving us. Let me see which book you’re on.”

      

      Laurel lay sprawled on her stomach, staring at her book. She was beyond reading; she’d been reading most of the morning and the words were starting to swim in front of her eyes, so staring was the best she could do. A light knock sounded from the doorway, where her intricately carved cherrywood door stood open. Laurel looked up at an elderly Spring faerie with kind, pink eyes and those perfectly symmetrical wrinkles she still wasn’t quite used to.

      “You have a visitor in the atrium,” the faerie said, scarcely above a whisper. The Spring staff had been instructed to be very quiet around Laurel and avoid bothering her at all times.

      The other students, too, apparently. Laurel never saw anyone but Katya, except at dinner, where she was mostly just stared at. But she was almost done with her last book – then it would be classroom time. She wasn’t entirely sure if that was

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